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Readers' OpinionsIshtiaq AhmedPublished online: 27 May 2010.

To cite this article: Ishtiaq Ahmed (2001) Readers' Opinions, Asian Ethnicity, 2:1,133-135, DOI: 10.1080/14631360150217055

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Book Reviews 133

of the President and other executives. The key positions in the economy and administration aredistributed on the basis of personal loyalty to President Shaimiev. Many top of� cials come from theoil-rich eastern and southern provinces, and from the president’s native region of Aktanyshskii. Therehas been a persistent ruralisation of the Tatarstan ruling elite. The results of elections in the republicswere falsi� ed in order to suit the President. The opposition is curtailed and marginalised. Incontravention of the Constitution no Constitutional Court has been set up for the Republic of Tatarstanand the Constitution itself is regularly amended in accordance with the speci� c political needs ofPresident Shaimiev. The level of corruption and nepotism of Shaimiev’s government and hisimmediate family is comparable to the Russian Government and President Yeltsin’s family.

Moreover, one of the book’s main arguments about Tatarstan’s special economic and politicalstance does not stand up to criticism since, in reality, Tatarstan experiences the same negativetendencies as the rest of Russia, although, perhaps, on a lower, provincial scale. Similarly, Tatarstan’shas remained very much within Moscow’s power; this has been re-con� rmed by the policy of the newRussian President Vladimir Putin towards the dismantling of the ‘Tatarstan model’ and the restorationof the strong vertical relations between the centre and the periphery. Again, the author’s point aboutPresident Shaimiev’s successful policy in the � eld of inter-ethnic relations is hardly plausible either.Tatarstan under President Shaimiev has witnessed persistent, although indirect Tatarisation, as a resultof which Russians have been pushed out of the power structures and the key economic, administrativeand teaching positions. The author does not deal with the religious situation in Tatarstan, and, inparticular, with the advance of fundamentalist Islam, or Wahhabism among the Tatar half of thepopulation.

The � nal chapter of the book contains nostalgic images of Tatarstan’s beautiful scenery, idyllicpictures of Tatar villages, as well as a poetic depiction of its folk customs and cuisine. Such featuresof village life as the moral degradation of its population and widespread drunkenness are of coursenot mentioned. Overall, the book could be described as a professional and poetic advertisement of theof� cial policies of Tatarstan under President Shaimiev.

Galina M. YemelianovaCentre for Russian and East European Studies

The University of BirminghamBirmingham, UK

Readers’ Opinions

A Poor Review

The following is the author’s response to Marika Vicziany’s review of his book State, Nation andEthnicity in Contemporary South Asia, Pinter, London, New York, 1998, which appeared in AsianEthnicity, vol. 1, no. 2 (September 2000).

An acceptable review of a book requires, at the minimum, that the reviewer read it completely andcarefully. A more quali� ed and sophisticated review necessitates investing time and effort at graspingthe reasoning and logic underlying the analysis. It is indeed the prerogative of the reviewer to acceptor reject the arguments put forth, as long as this is not done in an arbitrary or biased manner. If thatis not done, and the reviewer instead makes assertions and casts aspersions based on selective orcasual reading, then the norms and standards of academic integrity are no doubt � outed. Unfortu-nately, such a tendency is not uncommon. I will seek to demonstrate below that the review of mybook is an instance of such freewheeling scholarship.

The review is singularly chaotic and unsystematic. It opens on a fairly charitable note: ‘This isan ambitious book—it tackles a subject of great sensitivity.’ However, it then skips the moredemanding sections of the book to go to the concluding chapter where a set of recommendations isdiscussed to manage ethnic tension and strife within a democratic and egalitarian framework. Sheobserves: ‘I must confess to having been surprised by this section and it is not at all clear to whomthese recommendations are addressed.’ It is quite amazing that any room for surprise remains for

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134 Book Reviews

someone who reads the preceding text. I state clearly at the beginning of that chapter on p. 270, ‘Theaim is to stimulate the efforts of all those who might have an interest in peace and humanedevelopment in South Asia and elsewhere in the world.’ I back up the general recommendations witha concrete agenda for the promotion of human rights. This section is called ‘A South Asian Charterof Human Rights’. Here, also, she considers it debatable whether such a Charter should be includedwithin the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation framework. What is debatable andwhy, is never stated.

But I will now go directly to prove that Marika Vicziany has not read the book with scholarlyintegrity and interest. Among the ‘oddities’ discovered by her is the very short section in which Iplace women along with the religious and ethnic minorities and comment on their exposed andvulnerable situation in relation to the Pakistani state. Her objection is that, in the chapters on India,Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the situation of women has not been examined, and that I only reproducea stereotyped cultural image of Pakistani women. She takes to task the publishers of the book for nothaving taken a tougher approach and deleted the discussion on women

This reaction de� es any rational understanding. To begin with, the book primarily concentratesupon a very different problematic. Already on p. 1 I write, ‘This book explains why and hownation-building by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is resisted by some cultural groups,which instead claim a separate national identity and demand special rights over a territory they claimto be theirs by historical and cultural rights, but which allegedly has been pre-empted by the state.’The bulk of the book is devoted to � nding a plausible explanation of such a phenomenon. However,in order just to orient the reader to the speci� c social and cultural background and context of eachof these four states, I have in very brief sections reviewed the overall situation of the other exposedand weak ethnic or social groups in them. Thus, for example, in the corresponding brief section onIndia, I have taken up the situation of the so-called untouchables. This I do not do for Pakistan,Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, not because the caste system does not exist there, but the caste oppressionderiving from Hinduism is quite different from that existing in societies where caste is theoreticallyrejected. On the other hand, in Pakistan the cultural prejudices deriving from fundamentalist Islamhave been conferred constitutional and legal respectability. Pakistan is the only state in the region thathas explicitly adopted legal provisions inimical and hostile to the equality of women. The recentso-called ‘honour killings’ have no doubt increased in number after outmoded, medieval legalinjunctions were incorporated into the Pakistani legal system. However, this is not to deny that womenin the other three states face considerable cultural oppression, but nowhere have those states translatedsocial prejudices into legal ones. It is a shame that a woman reviewer should be demanding deletionof information about the sordid situation of Pakistani women on pretensions of alleged academicinconsistency, which I have in any case shown is wrong, even from a methodological point of view.The in-depth comparison in the book is about the large-scale separatist movements, and that is donewith a view to maintaining the logic and structure of the historical-sociological comparative method.

Marika Vicziany writes the following about the concluding chapter: ‘The problem with thischapter is that it introduces a whole range of new ideas and new explanations for the escalating ethnicviolence in South Asia—the rise of fundamentalist Islam, the great speed of international travel andcommunications, the political and economic roles of the overseas diasporas, the cold war and now UShegemony. Few of these factors � gured in the previous chapters.’

To express herself in such categorical and explicit words shows that she has not read the bookproperly. Chapter 3 of my book, comprising some 35 pages, seeks to spell out the theoreticalframework for the analysis of ethnic con� ict and separatism in post-colonial societies, and myempirical context is surely South Asia. Between pp. 60 and 66, but speci� cally pp. 62–4, I bring inexactly those factors. In the sub-heading ‘The religious dimension’ (p. 62), the rise of fundamentalistIslam in Iran and its Saudi Arabian counterpart are discussed and their impact on South Asia noted.Another sub-heading is ‘The Cold War dimension’ (p. 63). The diaspora factor is discussed under‘The diaspora dimension’ (pp. 63–4). As regards US hegemony, this could not have appeared earlier,because the historical context in which the separatist movements emerged was one dominated by theCold War. Obviously, US hegemony is commented upon in the conclusion, when I re� ect upon itsimplications for the present and future politics of South Asia. I could not have brought it in at a pointin time when it did not exist.

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The reviewer has described my book as uneven and merely a textbook for undergraduates. Tosuch observations I need not respond as long as she cannot demonstrate that she can write a fair andcoherent review, and show that she reads books carefully before reviewing them.

Ishtiaq AhmedDepartment of Political Science

Stockholm UniversityStockholm, Sweden

7 July 2000

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