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The political salience of language and religion: patterns of ethnic mobilization among Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Sikhs in Punjab

2008; Routledge; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01419870701722463

1466-4356

Marie‐Eve Reny,

Philippine History and Culture

Abstract Abstract This article examines the reasons why the politicization of language has not been translated into disruptive forms of ethnic mobilization as opposed to the political salience of religion among the Uyghurs in Xinjiang throughout the 1990s and the Sikhs before and after the creation of Punjab in 1966. The article argues, from a structural-rationalist perspective, that language-based claims in Xinjiang and in Punjab have been accommodated by the respective central governments to a larger extent than religious claims have. Accommodation has taken the form of particular policies as well as greater incorporation of minority elites on the basis of language, which have in turn significantly reduced the possibilities of anti-regime sentiments and the incentives for disruptive forms of pressure on the basis of linguistic claims among the minority group. Religious claims have, however, not been accommodated in a similar way. Keywords: Ethnic mobilizationlanguagereligionaccommodationSikhsUyghurs Acknowledgements I would like to thank Narendra Subramanian, Hudson Meadwell, Jacques Bertrand, Samuel J. Noumoff and Sohini Guha for their useful feedback on earlier drafts of the article. I am also grateful to the two ERS referees for their insightful comments. I bear sole responsibility for the arguments advanced in the article. An earlier version was presented at the Association for the Study of Nationalities [ASN] Convention, Columbia University, New York, 25 March 2006. Notes 1. Given the overlap between religion and language among the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, religious Uyghurs have benefited from preferential policies applied to the Uyghur language. However, the absence of such similar forms of accommodation for Islam meant for some that a central part of their identity was not accommodated the way they expected it to be. In some cases, the gap in accommodation was interpreted as a form of ‘repression’. 2. Another basis upon which Sikh support for the Akali Dal and the Congress Party splits is worth noting. While the Jat Sikhs are primarily based in rural areas and have supported the Akali Dal, the non-Jats (Sikhs and Hindus) are for the most part urban, and have widely supported the Congress Party (Brass 1974 Brass, Paul. 1974. Language, Religion, and Politics in North India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 384–5). 3. This is a predominant view in Southeastern Xinjiang, an area of Islamic traditionalism where the Han population remains limited. 4. In the context of the analysis, the central and regional governments as well as the CCP are all considered the targets of mobilization. However, the three remain structurally very distinct in the composition and the way they function. To a certain extent, the regional and central governments’ reactions to ethnic mobilization have varied. The analysis, however, does not take those variations into consideration. 5. As opposed to being another ethnic group, the objects of claimants in the context of the analysis are the state authorities in both context. However, the reality in China is somehow more complex as the authorities, whether they be regional or central, tend to be in the eyes of a number of ethnic minorities, including the Uyghurs, associated with the ethnic majority, that is the Han Chinese. 6. Political processes in the eyes of McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (1997 Mcadam , Douglas , Tarrow , Sidney and Tilly , Charles 1997 ‘Toward an integrated perspective on social movements and revolution’ , in Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman , Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure , New York : Cambridge University Press , pp. 142 – 73 [Google Scholar]) mainly refer to the evolution in political opportunities in a particular context, whether these opportunities be associated with political regimes, rules, or institutions. 7. These groups are known as the East Turkistan Liberation Organization [ETLO] whose leader is Mehmet Emin Hazret, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement [ETIM] whose leader is Hasan Mahsum, the East Turkistan Party of Allah, and the United Revolutionary Front of East Turkistan whose leader is Yusupbek Mukhlisi (Millward 2005 Millward , James 2005 Violent Separatism in Xinjiang , Policy Studies no. 6 , Washington, DC : East–West Center [Google Scholar], pp. 22–5). ETIM has been accused by the United States of being linked to al Qaeda, and in 2002, has been added onto the United Nations’ list of terrorist organizations (Millward 2005 Millward , James 2005 Violent Separatism in Xinjiang , Policy Studies no. 6 , Washington, DC : East–West Center [Google Scholar], pp. 23–4). 8. Perceptions of accommodation and actual accommodation are different. The Chinese government would most likely argue that the ways in which it has accommodated officially recognized religious groups on its territory is not very different from the ways in which it has responded to the broader needs of its ethnic communities. The degree of religious accommodation has been interpreted in different ways by the Uyghur community. 9. Here, the identity referred to is language. However, the hypothesis is not specific to language. It may in other contexts, refer to another identity or an aggregation of various identities. 10. Patronage in the absence of official accommodation of minority linguistic claims may take the form of providing certain resources, services, or opportunities to members of the linguistic group without officially recognizing the language or elevating its status to that of a regional or national language. The example of Quebec is worth mentioning. Since the implementation of preferential policies for French-speaking Quebecois in the 1960s and 1970s, and the implementation of Bill 101 in 1976, English in Quebec has come to be officially marginalized from the public and private sectors of the economy (Esman 1987 Esman, Milton J. 1987. ‘Ethnic politics and economic power’. Comparative Politics, 19(4): 395–418. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 400–1). While francization enabled the reallocation of provincial resources to expand the economic role of the ethnic majority through a set of preferential policies, it did not dismantle ‘the economic position or incentives of the economically dominant ethnic minority’, the English-speaking population (Esman 1987 Esman, Milton J. 1987. ‘Ethnic politics and economic power’. Comparative Politics, 19(4): 395–418. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 415). Moreover, while English is not considered an official language in Quebec, Anglophones have the possibility of accessing some social services in their mother tongue (i.e. health-care services). 11. It is important to note that greater efforts at incorporating ethnic minorities within the Chinese bureaucracy were done on the basis of ethnicity and language, rather than religion. To be more specific, ethnic minorities have access to government employment to the extent that they live a secular life. The same principle applies to ethnic minorities who would be interested in becoming a member of the CCP. In this sense, while the participation of secular Uyghurs within the bureaucracy has increased, religious Uyghurs have remained excluded from the political and bureaucratic spheres. Some scholars have portrayed the increase in Uyghur participation or privileges (notably through the implementation of preferential policies) as a temporary tactic on the part of the Chinese state to appease the ethnic group, while the state promotes ‘acculturation’ and the Han Chinese slowly become the majority in Xinjiang, as in Tibet (Mackerras 2001 Mackerras, Colin. 2001. ‘Xinjiang at the turn of the century: the causes of separatism’. Central Asian Survey, 20(3): 289–303. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], p. 298; Rudelson and Jankowiak 2004 Rudelson , Justin Jon and Jankowiak , William 2004 ‘Acculturation and resistance: Xinjiang identities in flux’ , in S. Frederick Starr , Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland , Armonk, NY : M.E. Sharpe , pp. 299 – 319 [Google Scholar], pp. 310–11). While the question remains of relevance, it is not in the objective of the article to further explore it. 12. Interestingly, despite the implementation of the educational bilingualism policy that allows the existence of Uyghur schools, an increasing proportion of Uyghur families decide to send their children to Chinese-language schools. The motives that influence the educational choices of these families have been more strategic and practical than ideological or cultural. That is, Uyghur families increasingly send their children to schools where the curriculum is taught in Mandarin as Chinese schools tend to be associated with better career prospects. This phenomenon, however, is more common in urban areas than in rural and pastoral ones (Benson 2004 Benson , Linda 2004 ‘Education and social mobility among minority populations in Xinjiang’ , in S. Frederick Starr , Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland , Armonk, NY : M.E. Sharpe , pp. 190 – 215 [Google Scholar]). This argument goes along the lines of what Laitin referred to as the ‘expected economic returns’ that motivate the language choices of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, Kazakstan, Estonia and Latvia (Laitin 1998 Laitin, David D. 1998. Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar], p. 56). One should however not interpret the rise of bilingualism among the Uyghurs as a sign of decreasing resistance or linguistic nationalism. 13. The next section elaborates further on the religious groups in Xinjiang unhappy with the nature of the existing political accommodation. 14. Some Uyghur student and intellectual groups in Xinjiang have for instance fought throughout the 1980s and 1990s for greater linguistic rights like that of having access to higher education in their mother tongue. The implementation of a bilingual education policy in the early 1980s empowered some language groups, and in turn, encouraged them to push further some of their claims, hoping that they be addressed. These groups have for the most part remained informal, and mainly composed of students and scholars. In 2002, the Xinjiang authorities decided to abolish a number of courses taught in Uyghur in Xinjiang University. The rationale behind such a decision was that in order to meet the increasing socio-economic needs of students, major subjects needed to be taught in Chinese. While Xinjiang University stopped using Uyghur in teaching major fields, the Chinese authorities ensured that Uyghur would remain used in courses on minority languages, culture and literature, and perhaps even ‘other subjects, if necessary’ (Xinhua News Agency 2002 Xinhua News Agency 2002 ‘Xinjiang University to teach major subjects in Chinese’ , 7 June. The article is part of Xinhua's archives and those are not available online. Only hard copy [Google Scholar]). 15. The shift in leadership was also associated with a more concrete shift from a religious demand for the creation of Punjab, to a language-based one. 16. That was particularly the case of the Car Jhujharu Jathebande, or CJJ (Pettigrew 1995 Pettigrew, Joyce. 1995. The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence, London: Zed Books. [Google Scholar], p. 70). 17. Here, the identity referred to is religion. However, the hypothesis is not specific to religion. It may, in other contexts, refer to another identity. 18. Resentment may be even strengthened by the fact that in some cases, the state chooses to be more accommodative of some religious groups at the expense of others. This is particularly the case for Uyghurs who think that the central government is establishing a sharp distinction between ‘its promotion of the Hui [another Muslim group] at the national level and the Uighur’ (Gladney 1992 Gladney , Dru C. 1992 ‘Constructing a contemporary Uighur national identity: transnationalism, islamicization, and state representation’ , Cahier d’études sur la Méditerranée Orientale et le Monde Turco-Iranien , no. 13 , pp. 165 – 84 [Google Scholar], p. 170). Some Uyghurs feel that the state has been treating other Muslim minorities better. The fact that Uyghurs were prosecuted in Xinjiang for their participation in the Tiananmen protests in 1989 and that Hui participants in Gansu and Qinghai were released confirmed these impressions, in the eyes of Uyghur nationalists. Gladney (1992) suggests that the Hui may have had greater official government support given their ‘cultural proximity to the Han, dispersement throughout all of China, and status as the most populous Muslim minority’ (p. 171). 19. While the hypothesis claims that costs of ethnic mobilization tend to decrease under conditions of state non-accommodation and in the absence of state repression, it does not deny the fact that violent mobilization may occur under the absence of state repression, or under strong state repression and control of nationalist activities. This was particularly the case of punctual events such as terrorist attacks which were organised by Uyghur religious groups in China during the years after the government launched its Strike Hard Campaign in 1996 (i.e. serious outbreaks of violence in Yining, Urumqi and Beijing in early 1997). However, state repression may often constitute a good excuse on the part of militants for organizing disruptive mobilization. Perceptions of state repression may reflect the reality as it is (when the state responds with high sanctions), but may often be constructed, and used in mobilizing discourses by nationalists who sometimes exaggerate the extent to which the state is not accommodative. 20. This principle is true for other Islamic groups and other religious groups in China. However, some Uyghur nationalists feel that the state is less strict towards other Muslim groups, such as the Hui. 21. In the 1950s, the question regarding the treatment of women in Muslim communities was of concern to the CCP. Gender inequality was viewed as part of common practices among Muslim communities in China (Fei 1981 Fei, Hsiao-Tung. 1981. Toward a People's Anthropology, Beijing: New World Press. [Google Scholar], p. 30). The CCP attempted to reform gender discrimination within several communities. 22. This is also true in India, where the central government has at times associated religious mobilization to secessionism has, and in some cases, used repressive measures against innocent Sikhs it considered a threat to political stability (Brass 1991 Brass, Paul. 1991. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison, New Delhi: Sage Publications. [Google Scholar]; Pettigrew 1995 Pettigrew, Joyce. 1995. The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence, London: Zed Books. [Google Scholar]). 23. According to Major, the Akali Dal did not adopt narrow demands such as the recognition of the Sikhs as a distinct nation and Amritsar as a holy city until the emergence of the Khalistan slogan by non-Akali Sikhs in 1981, and the sudden increase in Hindu-Sikh tensions resulting from the murder of Lala Jagat Narain, the owner of the largest number of pro-Hindu newspapers, including the Punjabi Hindu press (Major 1987 Major, Andrew. 1987. ‘From moderates to secessionists: a who's who in the Punjab crisis’. Pacific Affairs, 60(1): 42–58. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 46).