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In multi-religious, multi-cultural democracies problem of identity and social exclusion-inclusion become extremely important. Under authoritarian societies due to suppression problem of exclusion remains hidden and does not surface until it is gravely aggravated. But a democratic society, being open and based on rights, question of identity and social exclusion and inclusion becomes very important and even determines its very dynamics. A vibrant democratic society always remains sensitive to the question of exclusion of any section of society.
For social exclusion several factors play their role. A caste hierarchy can account for neglect of those at the bottom; a class society may ignore those who belong to lower classes. A multi-religious society may work against those belonging to religious minorities and multi-ethnic or multi-cultural societies may marginalize ethnicities which do not constitute core culture or ethnicity.
In economically backward and under-developed countries the problem of exclusion becomes much more acute in view of scarce resources. Even in advanced economies like those of Western countries exclusion both on the basis of race and class is a well-known phenomenon. The African Americans in America are victims of racial prejudice even today and incidence of poverty among them continues to be very high. America is not only a highly developed country but also economically most advanced. It has highly developed democratic institutions. And yet it cannot claim total inclusion of all sections of society. White majority monopolizes major chunk of all resources.
The western countries were mono-religious and mono-cultural for centuries. The very concept of pluralism and multi-culturalism was unknown among them. The term multi-culturalism was coined by western social scientist only in post-colonial era when large number of workers from ex-colonies began to migrate to metropolitan countries. The western countries like U.K., France, Germany, Sweden, Holland etc. became multi-cultural as migrants were from African and Asian countries.
Another term coined was pluralism, which signified multi-religious and multi-cultural nature of these post-colonial western countries. Post-Second World War there was great demand for workers in these European countries to meet requirement for human resources as due to war large number of Europeans were killed resulting in shortage of human power and reconstruction of economies needed more and more human power. However, later on children of these migrant workers were borne and educated in these metropolitan countries and became their natural citizens with awareness of their rights and privileges.
They began to demand equal rights and equal job opportunities, though not equal share in power as they were mostly tiny minorities. This resulted in racial tension, particularly in U.K., France and Germany. These countries continue to experience these racial and cultural conflicts and the question of exclusion and inclusion has become very important. In France there was revolt by some youth last year and the violence, including burning cars and stoning police went on for several weeks and police found it very challenging to control it.
The sociologists pointed out that the reason for this violence by the youth was their marginalization, high rates of unemployment among them or generally getting low paid jobs which other French people refuse to take up. These young African Muslims were mostly borne in France though their parents had migrated from Algeria, Morocco etc. The Government had to announce series of measures to contain this conflict. Though these measures were far from satisfactory yet these measures gave them some sense of inclusion and the violence abated.
The bombings on 7/7 on London underground was also explained by many scholars in the light of marginalization of these young Pakistanis in U.K., though that was not the only reason. Brainwashing such marginalized youth becomes much easier. They are made to see the White majority as the ‘enemy’ and unacceptable other. They also become enemy in faith and killing them is justified. Thus there are very complex factors involved in terrorism and terrorist acts.
Whenever such acts of terrorism take place the western leaders (Bush and Blair included) give statements ‘our vales, our freedom, our democracy’ is at stake and President Bush said, after 9/11 why they (the terrorists) ‘hate us, hate our freedom and democracy’. After 7/7 Blair also spoke similar language. The obvious assumption is we westerners have universal values like freedom and democracies and these Afro-Asians hold authoritarianism dear to themselves and reject concepts of freedom and democracy.
Thus though western social scientists did coin terms like multi-culturalism and religious pluralism, the westerners as a whole, have hardly imbibed these concepts or even while accepting them mentally, these concepts have not touched their hearts and souls. Thus in western societies the problem of exclusion of primordial-identity based minorities is very deep rooted and will not go away easily.
Many Indians have richly contributed to economies and services in U.K., USA and Canada, yet they are victims of social prejudices. They are still far away from being fully integrated in social, cultural and economic sense. They are full citizens of these western countries yet they experience social and cultural exclusion. Racial prejudices still continue to be powerful barriers to full integration in western societies.
Thus it will be seen that social exclusion is playing important role universally. In most of the countries religious and cultural minorities are experiencing social exclusion. One can say social exclusion is to some extent natural (though it should not be) as cultural and religious minorities are migrants from outside and these migrations are just half a century old. These migrations had begun just after 2nd World War. It will take long time for these minorities to become completely naturalized.
In case of India and other Asian countries it is not so. The Asian countries in general and India in particular has always been multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic. India has been bewilderingly diverse in this sense for thousands of years. Be they Buddhists, Jains, Christians or Muslims, they have existed in this country and have not, unlike western countries, migrated from outside.
Some Muslims who came as invaders from outside centuries ago, or accompanies these invaders from Central or Western Asia have long become integral part of this country and totally forgotten their foreign identity. No Muslim in India has any awareness of his foreign origin nor he tries to trace his ancestry to outsiders, be they Syeds, Sheikhs or Pathans. And those who came from outside centuries ago are a small minority and an overwhelming majority is of Muslims who converted from Indian stock and belong to lower castes.
The Christians too are not of foreign origin and they are also mostly converts either from low caste Hindus or tribals. The Christians of foreign origin never settled down in India. They kept their distance from Christians of local origin. The Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs are, of course, all Indian origin. Yet the question of exclusion remains important for all minorities but much more so for Christians and Muslims. Christians are a small minority whereas Muslims are a very large minority and hence their exclusion from social, cultural, economic and political processes poses much greater problems.
Democratic processes create greater awareness among people and greater the awareness, greater will become nature of the problem. Also after independence modern secular education has spread much faster than before and though percentage of education among Muslims is lower than average, yet it has increased considerably. Education certainly increases awareness and increased awareness about social, economic or political exclusion creates greater challenges for political management.
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Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
E-mail: csss@mtnl.net.in
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