ULLEKH N P
Martha C Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. She has written extensively about religious minorities and their predicament across the world. While her latest book, The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age, focuses on the treatment of religious minorities, especially Muslims, in the western world, she has written about the meticulous targeting of women in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Nussbaum, 65, who has collaborated with Amartya Sen in the 1980s and promoted the concept of “capability approach” in welfare economics, says that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's third straight win in the assembly elections is a major negative for the state.
“I think that the victory of Modi, particularly after the recent court verdicts, is a huge black mark for Gujarat,” says the feminist-professor who shot to fame a few decades ago with her stellar work, The Fragility of Goodness. “Modi has long been denied a visa to enter the US because of his complicity in the 2002 pogrom, as ascertained by the US State Department. But now, the Naroda Patiya verdicts make official the fact that responsibility for heinous crimes goes very high up in his government,” she notes.
She feels that by re-electing him, Gujarat has re-elected an outlaw and a person whose world reputation is synonymous with hatred for Muslims and fomenting violence against them. “And, of course, a lot of the violence was directed at the bodies of Muslim woman,” says Nussbaum, who is currently working on a book on the role of emotions in politics. Her next project is on forgiveness and reconciliation.
Nussbaum is of the view that Modi's development achievements are quite questionable. “Economic growth is not the best measure of development, and when we factor in such matters as equal distribution of opportunity and achievements in health and education, his (Modi's) record is very poor, as the comparative field studies of the Indian states by Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen have shown,” she says, adding that “no woman, whether Hindu or Muslim, could plausibly think of him as working for the interests of women, who are all too often unable to enjoy the fruits of a region's general prosperity”.
The professor, who had earlier taught at Harvard, Brown and Oxford universities, maintains that it is a great thing that the Naroda Patiya trials achieved the convictions of influential people in the Bajrang Dal and in Modi's own administration. “It would have been better still had he faced personal charges, but the evidence was stronger about the role of subordinates, and prosecutors are well advised to try the strongest cases,” Nussbaum says, emphasising that nothing about his success gives a black mark to the Indian government, to the legal system or to the Constitution. “The black mark is only to Gujarat,” she says, referring to Modi's re-election last Thursday as chief minister of Gujarat for the third straight time.
She has no doubts whatsoever about Modi being an energetic and charismatic person. “He has a lot of money from rich Gujaratis abroad… he has also campaigned tirelessly on his alleged development achievements, weak though these are in reality,” explains Nussbaum, who had in her writings suggested that too much bias in favour of non-art subjects and rote learning could lead to religious intolerance. One of the examples she had given was Gujarat.
She also says she found it strange that the BJP may name Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. “The BJP is aware that Modi's appeal to religious division does not play well outside of Gujarat, and the recent verdicts in the Naroda Patiya killings case attach huge discredit to his name,” says she.
She is, however, glad that the threat of religious extremism in India has already diminished considerably “given the failure of that sort of politics to take hold outside of Gujarat”. Adds she, “The BJP is now moving toward a more eclectic politics, and though they are certainly capable of speaking out of both sides of their mouths, there is reason to think that, particularly in the light of the Naroda Patiya case verdicts, it will have to downplay sectarian animosity in any national campaign.”
Therefore, Nussbaum expects that the central issues in the coming national elections in 2014 will be corruption, governance and the state of the economy. “As for women, it is not correct to see the BJP as especially antiwomen. They are quite supportive of Hindu women, within the restrictions imposed by their overall growth-oriented economic policy, and it is really their stance toward Muslims that is problematic.”
Nussbaum, 65, who has collaborated with Amartya Sen in the 1980s and promoted the concept of “capability approach” in welfare economics, says that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's third straight win in the assembly elections is a major negative for the state.
“I think that the victory of Modi, particularly after the recent court verdicts, is a huge black mark for Gujarat,” says the feminist-professor who shot to fame a few decades ago with her stellar work, The Fragility of Goodness. “Modi has long been denied a visa to enter the US because of his complicity in the 2002 pogrom, as ascertained by the US State Department. But now, the Naroda Patiya verdicts make official the fact that responsibility for heinous crimes goes very high up in his government,” she notes.
She feels that by re-electing him, Gujarat has re-elected an outlaw and a person whose world reputation is synonymous with hatred for Muslims and fomenting violence against them. “And, of course, a lot of the violence was directed at the bodies of Muslim woman,” says Nussbaum, who is currently working on a book on the role of emotions in politics. Her next project is on forgiveness and reconciliation.
Nussbaum is of the view that Modi's development achievements are quite questionable. “Economic growth is not the best measure of development, and when we factor in such matters as equal distribution of opportunity and achievements in health and education, his (Modi's) record is very poor, as the comparative field studies of the Indian states by Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen have shown,” she says, adding that “no woman, whether Hindu or Muslim, could plausibly think of him as working for the interests of women, who are all too often unable to enjoy the fruits of a region's general prosperity”.
The professor, who had earlier taught at Harvard, Brown and Oxford universities, maintains that it is a great thing that the Naroda Patiya trials achieved the convictions of influential people in the Bajrang Dal and in Modi's own administration. “It would have been better still had he faced personal charges, but the evidence was stronger about the role of subordinates, and prosecutors are well advised to try the strongest cases,” Nussbaum says, emphasising that nothing about his success gives a black mark to the Indian government, to the legal system or to the Constitution. “The black mark is only to Gujarat,” she says, referring to Modi's re-election last Thursday as chief minister of Gujarat for the third straight time.
She has no doubts whatsoever about Modi being an energetic and charismatic person. “He has a lot of money from rich Gujaratis abroad… he has also campaigned tirelessly on his alleged development achievements, weak though these are in reality,” explains Nussbaum, who had in her writings suggested that too much bias in favour of non-art subjects and rote learning could lead to religious intolerance. One of the examples she had given was Gujarat.
She also says she found it strange that the BJP may name Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. “The BJP is aware that Modi's appeal to religious division does not play well outside of Gujarat, and the recent verdicts in the Naroda Patiya killings case attach huge discredit to his name,” says she.
She is, however, glad that the threat of religious extremism in India has already diminished considerably “given the failure of that sort of politics to take hold outside of Gujarat”. Adds she, “The BJP is now moving toward a more eclectic politics, and though they are certainly capable of speaking out of both sides of their mouths, there is reason to think that, particularly in the light of the Naroda Patiya case verdicts, it will have to downplay sectarian animosity in any national campaign.”
Therefore, Nussbaum expects that the central issues in the coming national elections in 2014 will be corruption, governance and the state of the economy. “As for women, it is not correct to see the BJP as especially antiwomen. They are quite supportive of Hindu women, within the restrictions imposed by their overall growth-oriented economic policy, and it is really their stance toward Muslims that is problematic.”
