Two protesters join hands to form a human chain with others, during a rally in Tai Po, Hong Kong, last September. The Cantonese-centred localism that has fuelled Hong Kong’s anti-government protests since the 2014 “umbrella movement” targets mainland Chinese and does not address other minorities. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Opinion
Opinion
by Charmaine Carvalho
Opinion
by Charmaine Carvalho
As India finds, and Hong Kong’s protesters should learn, the good fight is fought over an inclusive moral vision
While Indians are standing up to their democratically elected government’s corruption of their nation’s founding vision, Hongkongers, too, should spell out their moral principles beyond a pursuit of the vote, especially in light of the chauvinism evident in the movement
When I flew from Hong Kong to India over Christmas, I found myself in another society experiencing large-scale protests. The similarities between the anti-government movements in both places are striking.
The unrest in both was sparked by a controversial law related to the movement of people across borders: in Hong Kong, the extradition bill, which would allow the transfer of prisoners to mainland China; in India, the Citizenship Amendment Act that offers citizenship to Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists – but not Muslims – fleeing religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
In both cases, police treatment of protesters fuelled public outrage. In Hong Kong, the police dispersed protesters trying to stop the second reading of the extradition bill in the Legislative Council by deploying tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds, and making mass arrests.
In India, the police storming of Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, where they fired tear gas and beat students, including in the library and a mosque, sparked a national outcry and mobilised the usually apathetic upper middle class.
In both places, some protesters had thrown objects at the police, which the police say justified their use of force. In response, protesters in Hong Kong and India have demanded an inquiry into police conduct.
There is, however, one crucial difference between the Hong Kong and India protests. One of the Hong Kong protesters’ demands is that the city's leader be elected by universal suffrage. The argument is that a leader answerable to the electorate would not have tried to push through the extradition bill in the face of clear public opposition.
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party was the architect of the citizenship law, was democratically elected by a huge margin. The bill, and the government's Hindu nationalist agenda, was part of its election manifesto.
The lesson to Hong Kong here is that while democracy enhances government accountability, it has an inherent tendency towards majoritarianism. The much-vaunted will of the people is not always the most moral course of action. India’s leaders recognised this from the start and wrote into the constitution explicit protections of the country's minorities and most marginalised citizens.
What is striking about the protests in India is that people unaffected by the new law are standing up for a community that has, for the past decade, become the country’s obvious “other”. The protests show that while Modi seemed to have captured the zeitgeist in championing India as a Hindu nation, many Indians still hark back to the founding vision of unity in diversity.
People take part in a “Burka and Bindi” protest against India’s new citizenship law in Bangalore on January 5. What is striking about the protests in India is that people unaffected by the new law are standing up for a community that has for the past decade become the country’s “other”. Photo: AFP
What vision do Hong Kong protesters have for their city? Is it one that will carry along the city’s ethnic minorities? South Asians reported being harassed after rumours spread that members of the community had been involved in the attack on commuters in Yuen Long on July 21. But it was encouraging to see protesters clean up the blue dye that had been sprayed at the entrance to a mosque by a police water cannon.
When Civil Human Rights Front convenor Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit was attacked, again word spread that South Asians were behind it. Although Sham quickly appealed for calm and hundreds of protesters showed up at a solidarity event at Chungking Mansions, which houses South Asian and African businesses, these incidents highlight how vulnerable Hong Kong’s minorities are to violent reprisals if they are seen to be anything less than model citizens.
As Hong Kong develops a proto-nationalism, it must take its minorities into account. The Cantonese-centred localism that has emerged since the “umbrella movement” explicitly targets people from the mainland and does not address other minorities.
Except perhaps on Hong Kong Island, pro-democracy candidates standing for election rarely produce campaign material in English, let alone Urdu and Nepalese, the languages of South Asian communities that can trace their roots to the beginnings of Hong Kong.
Finally, while Mahatma Gandhi is often invoked to chastise Hong Kong protesters for their violence, these critiques efface the violent groups in India’s anti-colonial movement which contributed from the outside to its success, as did Britain’s post-war weakness.
Hong Kong protesters learnt that violence works after the government withdrew the extradition bill only after protests turned violent while ignoring massive peaceful marches and more recently the district council election results.
What Hong Kong protesters can learn from Gandhi is an unwavering commitment to a set of moral principles. Gandhi not only called off his movement after a mob set a police station on fire, but soon after India’s independence undertook a fast unto death to curb Hindu-Muslim strife.
Protesters could learn from Gandhi that public self-reflection will not weaken the movement but strengthen its moral backbone
What is the Hong Kong protesters’ bottom line? They have moved from clashing with the police to attacks on infrastructure and businesses, to confronting and doxxing those who disagree with them to physical assault. It may only be a minority that engages in the latter, but the failure of the majority to publicly address this raises questions about how far they are willing to go.
It is not enough to discuss the setting of a man on fire on forums like LIHKG; protesters – and pro-democracy politicians – should have made their stand clear in the mainstream media. They could learn from Gandhi that public self-reflection will not weaken the movement but strengthen its moral backbone.
The protesters’ five demands are clear. It’s time, for their own sake, that they spell out their strategic principles and larger vision for Hong Kong.
Charmaine Carvalho is a production editor at the Post. She has a PhD in creative writing, with a focus on gender studies, and over 15 years’ experience as a journalist in Hong Kong and India
