[sacw] SACW #2 | 16 Mar. 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - Dispatch #2 | 16 March 2002

* For daily news updates & citizens initiatives in post riots 
Gujarat Check: http://www.sabrang.com
** Also see new information & analysis section on the recent Communal 
Riots in Gujarat on the SACW web site: http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/

__________________________

#1. Destroying the house that Gandhi built (Uwe Parpart)
#2. Gujarat's runaway tragedy (Khushwant Singh)
#3. Frayed at the edges (Harsh Sethi)
#4. Lies, damned lies (Ram Puniyani)
#5. Book Review: The Ideal of India: Secular Democracy with 
Development by Ranjit Sau; K P Bagchi and Company, Kolkata (Harsh 
Sethi)
#6. Blood, Kitsch and Little Hope (Sunanda K. Datta-Ray)

__________________________

# 1.

Asia Times
March 15, 2002

Destroying the house that Gandhi built
By Uwe Parpart, Asia Times Online Editor
The train that on February 27 carried 58 Hindu activists to their 
death at the hands of a Muslim mob at Godhra, Gujarat state, on their 
return from the holy city of Ayodhya was called the Sabarmati 
Express. The community and complex of simple dwellings in Ahmedabad, 
commercial capital of Gujarat, that Mohandas K Gandhi built in 1917 
soon after his return to India from South Africa is called the 
Sabarmati Ashram (though it's now commonly referred to by the 
Mahatma's name). The historical irony couldn't be sharper.
>From the banks of the Sabarmati river flowing through his home state, 
Gandhi launched his non-violent freedom struggle for India's 
independence, which finally occurred in 1947. Fearless adherence to 
religious tolerance was an abiding and indispensable principle of his 
fight. But now 700 or more are dead - mostly in Gandhi's home state - 
in the worst religion-inspired violence to hit India in nearly a 
decade.
The last time Hindu-Muslim clashes on the present scale occurred was 
in 1992/93 in the aftermath of the razing of the Babri mosque in 
Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh, UP for short) when over 2,800 people were 
killed nationwide. The issue now and then is the same: Hindu 
fundamentalists claim the site once occupied by the mosque was 
previously - some 500 years back - the site of a temple to Indian 
deity Ram; they are determined to rebuild that temple.
At the forefront of the movement for (re)construction of the Ram 
temple (mandir) is the fundamentalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or 
World Hindu Forum, which is closely associated with the ruling 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 
The VHP has vowed that it will hold a prayer ceremony puja in support 
of the construction project at the Ayodhya site on Friday and called 
on Hindus across the country to join similar ceremonies. VHP leader 
Praveen Togadia told a news conference - and appears undeterred by a 
Wednesday supreme court ruling banning the puja - that "The entire 
country will become Ayodhya."
He may well be proved right. There is every chance that the type of 
chaotic communal violence that emanated from Ayodhya in December 1992 
and was just replayed on a smaller scale in Gujarat could engulf 
large sections of the country if Vajpayee and his government fail to 
rein in the BJP's extremist followers and shock troops and reassure 
India's 120-million strong Muslim minority (12 percent of the total 
population). Even with the best of intentions, that won't be easy - 
not for a prime minister who in a recent election campaign in UP 
arrogantly claimed that the BJP didn't need the Muslim vote and lost; 
not for a Home Minister (Gujarat Member of Parliament Lal Krishna 
Advani) in charge of security who in 1992 acted as leader of the 
Hindu activists that destroyed the Babri mosque.
In 1992/93, the central government in New Delhi was led by the 
secularist Congress party engaged in an ambitious economic 
liberalization program overseen by finance minister Manmohan Singh. 
It got the communal violence instigated by Hindu extremists under 
control. Rapid economic growth spurred by the Singh reforms helped to 
further re-stabilize a volatile political situation. But that was 
then. Center-oriented, secular India is no more. The Hindu 
nationalist BJP rules in Delhi with an unwieldy coalition of two 
dozen (literally!) regional and caste-based parties.
After February state elections it controls just four states 
(including riot-torn Gujarat) and suffered heavy losses in the key 
state of UP, home to eight of 12 prime ministers since independence 
and, with 166 million, more populous than Pakistan. Unhappily, 
though, it's not the only other party of national significance, the 
opposition Congress, that defeated the BJP in UP, but regional-level, 
caste-oriented political entities. Regional, ethnic, linguistic, 
religious and caste differences are forcefully reasserting themselves 
half a century after independence to the detriment of national unity 
and purpose.
The BJP is not alone to blame. After an initial reform push 
precipitated by near national insolvency in 1991, Congress, bending 
to powerful anti-liberalization constituencies in its own ranks, all 
but abandoned economic restructuring after 1993. Scandals and 
factional infighting destroyed its appeal to voters. A crushing 
electoral defeat in 1996 was the consequence, opening the doors to 
rapid BJP ascendancy at the national level (it had only four seats in 
parliament in 1988) and ever more pronounced centrifugal tendencies 
in major states. Still, rather than responsibly exercising its 
growing national political power and transforming itself into a 
unifying force in accordance with the Indian constitution's secular 
mandate, the BJP counted and continues to count on polarization as 
the most effective means for consolidating and growing its political 
clout.
Given its history, its ideological orientation, and the nature of the 
social movements it relies on for core support, this is not 
surprising. The BJP is the successor organization of the Janasangh, a 
party founded in 1950 by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh 
(RSS) or Association of National Volunteers, a proto-fascist Hindu 
nationalist, paramilitary-type (khaki shorts/white shirts) 
organization founded in 1925 and modeled after 
Mussolini/Hitler/Franco black/brown/blue-shirt outfits. (RSS 
co-founder B S Moonje met Mussolini in Rome in 1931 and subsequently 
structured the RSS on the lines of the Fascist Academy of Physical 
Education.)
The RSS exists till this day and is some 4.5 million strong. Not only 
firebrand Advani (who joined the RSS in 1942 at age 14), but also 
soft-spoken, professorial prime minister Vajpayee and numerous other 
present BJP leaders (75 percent by some counts) came up through its 
ranks. RSS chief ideologue KN Govindacharya, who has been edged out 
of the office of BJP secretary-general, says that Vajpayee's softer 
image is only a mukut (mask). If and when the chips are down, he will 
be on the RSS side.
The man who killed Mahatma Gandhi in January 1948 for seeking 
conciliation with Pakistan, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, at one time 
belonged to the RSS. That's part of the Sangh's legacy. And it has 
not only spawned the VHP, but numerous other radical organizations 
backing the BJP, notably the Shiv Sena (Shiva's Army) party of Bal 
Thackeray, a self-declared Hitler fan. Shiv Sena, in coalition with 
the BJP, ruled the state of Maharashtra from its capital Mumbai 
(Bombay) from 1995 to 1999 and remains a powerful force there.
When Pradeep Dalvi's Mi Nathuram Godse Boltoy (I, Nathuram Godse, 
Speak) theater production based on Godse's court speech in defense of 
the murder of Gandhi, was put on stage in Mumbai during that time 
(1998), it played to overflow crowds and violent protests until it 
was outlawed at a worried central government's insistence.
"Hindutva" (Hindu-ness) and "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu nation) are the 
cultural supremacist and political nationalist RSS dogmas and policy 
guides of the BJP. Their principal appeal is to the upper castes in 
India's socially debilitating and inhumane caste system, the worst 
excess of which, untouchability, Gandhi valiantly fought to 
eradicate. (And let it be noted that historically large numbers of 
India's Muslims are of lower-caste lineage and converted to Islam to 
escape that stigma).
Such are the ideological precepts for the new India the BJP is 
building - and for the deconstruction of the secular, tolerant India 
the republic's founding fathers envisaged. Gandhi would be horrified, 
Jawaharlal Nehru more so.
But the likely (and tragic) outcome will be different than the Sangh 
parivar (cohorts adhering to the RSS creed) envisages. It will be an 
India torn apart, an India bent on self-destruction. Gandhi's and 
Nehru's Indian National Congress is not likely to make an early 
political comeback to effect a turnaround.
But perhaps it will get help from a most unlikely source: Pakistani 
President General Pervez Musharraf. He has embarked on an ambitious 
program of turning back the tide of fundamentalism and creating a 
progressive, secular Pakistan. His quest has just begun. Success is 
uncertain. But if and when his project moves closer to realization, 
India may rationally want to respond to that external nation-building 
challenge.

______

#2.

The Hindustan Times
Saturday, March 16, 2002

Gujarat's runaway tragedy
Khushwant Singh

There are days when speeches made by our netas and so-called sants 
distress me so much that a voice within me screams, "Let all of them 
go to jehennum (hell). I'll get on with my life as best as I can." 
When I get over the depression, a wave of anger surges within me and 
I say to myself: "This is my homeland, my motherland, I will not let 
these medieval-minded fuddy-duddies get away with wasting precious 
years squabbling over trivia like where exactly a temple should have 
its foundation stone laid. I will shout my protest from the 
roof-tops."

Then comes the ghastly carnage in Gujarat. It's clear that the attack 
on the train at Godhra was pre-planned. Far from putting the 
perpetrators down with an iron hand, the government colluded with the 
mischief-makers as its police and its chief minister were imbued with 
the spirit of badla - revenge.

I have seen it before with my own eyes in 1947 and 1984. The police 
stood by like tamashbeens (spectators) watching the carnage. They had 
been tipped off not to interfere but let looters and killers teach 
hapless men, women and children a lesson they would never forget.

In Gujarat not only did the police remain inert, when the army 
arrived on the scene it was not deployed. Flag marches are spectacles 
which don't frighten evil-doers. What does frighten are orders to 
shoot-at-sight which were issued only after many lives had been lost.

There can be no doubt there was serious dereliction of duty on the 
part of the chief minister, his cabinet colleagues and the IG of 
police. The only word that fits Narendra Modi and his government is 
nikammi.

I quote lines of Delhi's poet Gauhar Raza on the Ram temple freely 
translated by me from the Urdu:

A temple built with mortar soaked in human blood,
Its bricks fired and baked in kilns made of burnt down huts,
Its bells pealing with screams, sights and sobs.
A temple whose foundations are laid
by uprooting from the earth its glorious past,
Whose walls are plastered with savagely-torn-of stones
And coloured with sindoor taken from heads of married women;
Its stones are carved out of flesh of innocent people
Let an aged man whose hopes are dead
Like the last gasp of a young man who has been bled
To name a temple raised thus
Will be an unpardonable sin.
You have made this into a habit
But we will not let you Shri Rama defame
By giving such an edifice bear his sacred name.
[...].

_______

#3.

The Hindu
Saturday, Mar 16, 2002
Opinion -

Frayed at the edges
By Harsh Sethi

Unless we can ensure an accommodative society, both economically and 
politically, Gujarat may well burn again.

THERE IS something distinctly ugly, if not frightening, about the 
manner in which key members of the leadership in both Gujarat and at 
the Centre have sought to portray the recent communal carnage in 
Gujarat. There is little doubt that the attack on the kar sevaks, 
returning from the ongoing VHP programme in Ayodhya on February 27, 
is utterly condemnable. It was also unprecedented, reminding many of 
the dark days of Partition. But to explain away, if anything 
implicitly justify, what followed - a systemic pogrom against the 
Muslim community across the length and breadth of the state - as a 
natural response to Godhra is even more shocking.

The statement of the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, expectedly 
suitably modified subsequently, referring to Newton's Laws of Motion, 
is reminiscent of the late Rajiv Gandhi's infamous remark, "when a 
big tree falls, the ground shakes", in 1984. In an eerie replay of 
those days, as also Mumbai in 1992-93, we saw an inexcusable delay in 
the deployment of police forces, or in the calling out of the Army, 
even when it was evident to all that the situation was fast slipping 
out of control. Worse, like in those earlier times, the police either 
stood by or sometimes actively collaborated with the rioters as they 
went about their business of looting, arson and murder.

What, after all, is one to say when a police officer feels little 
compunction in admitting on camera that the police forces too are 
part of society and cannot be expected to act in a manner contrary to 
social expectations. Clearly, as far as this notable is concerned, 
Muslims in Gujarat are not part of society and thus should not expect 
the normal protection that citizens are entitled to in such times.

It is not difficult to add to such examples. Mr. Modi is, in addition 
to being the Chief Minister, also a RSS pracharak. Maybe he, like 
sundry other spokespersons of the VHP and the RSS, found it difficult 
to hide his bias. That, despite the flurry of criticism, he is 
unrepentant about his behaviour is evident from the fact that the 
compensation amounts announced for those killed on the train at 
Godhra and others are different. It has now been made clear that, at 
least in Gujarat, some lives, in death, are worth more than others.

Equally disturbing, in these troubling days, is the behaviour of the 
Central leadership. The Prime Minister took over two days to announce 
his anguish to the nation. And while he was justifiably concerned 
about the sullying of the country's fair name abroad, there was no 
tough message to the trouble mongers. The Home Minister, despite 
being an MP from the State, took three days to reach Gujarat, and 
even then did not find time to visit his constituency. Only the 
Defence Minister, George Fernandes, displayed some of his old 
qualities. He was the first to reach Ahmedabad, reportedly goaded the 
local police into action, oversaw the deployment of the armed forces, 
and even, at considerable risk, waded into the crowds to appeal for 
peace and reason. Many say, but for his intervention, the toll in the 
early days may have been higher.

In a State with a long history of communal violence, the 
lackadaisical and often biased way in which the State forces behaved 
is close to being criminal. And while the Chief Minister has finally 
ordered a judicial inquiry, and we are expected to wait for its 
report before coming to firm conclusions, it is not easy to disregard 
the brutal killing of the former MP, Ehsan Jaffri, whose many pleas 
for police help went unresponded. In the court of public opinion, 
formed in no small measure by the extensive coverage of the riots by 
private TV channels, there is little doubt. The State administration 
has been pronounced guilty. Are we surprised that news channels were 
pulled off the air until public protest ensured their resumption?

Nevertheless, questions remain. While few buy the explanation that 
these riots were in the main spontaneous, a reaction to the Godhra 
killings, and enough is known about the targeted nature of much of 
the arson, looting and killing, the scale and the intensity have 
taken many observers by surprise. Even those who point to the 
alarming growth of Hindu communal forces, particularly in the last 
decade, the steady escalation of hate speech, the regular references 
to jehadi terrorists, SIMI, the ISI and what have you, are a little 
intrigued as to why all this should happen in a BJP-controlled State. 
Does not such behaviour bring the State Government into disrepute? 
And is it not known that once the atmosphere is vitiated in the way 
it has, there are no victors?

There is little doubt that the long history of communal violence, not 
just from the major conflagration of 1969 but even earlier has 
created a deeply divided and polarised society. It is also admitted 
that the long process of developing Gujarati nationalism, in which 
the Somnath temple played a major symbolic role, had a significant 
strain of anti-minorityism. It is less known that long before 
Ramjanmabhoomi and Babri Masjid came to occupy a crucial space in our 
consciousness, Gujarat witnessed the destruction of the mosque at 
Sidhpur, itself built at the site of the 7th century Shiva temple of 
Rudramal. The subsequent anti-Dalit, anti-reservation and 
anti-Christian riots too have contributed to building up a forward 
caste-class Hindu consolidation, and one with a political culture 
that is singularly unaccommodating. It might be worthwhile to more 
closely study the social role of other Hindu sects, as also the role 
of the overseas Gujarati communities and their enthusiastic espousal 
of a Hindu revivalist cause.

Less attention has been given to the growing unemployment, inequality 
and pauperisation in Gujarat, particularly the veritable collapse of 
the old textile industry. The phenomenal growth of the informal 
sector and an urban underclass too has contributed to the growing 
social anomie and criminality. Alongside has been the impact of 
natural disasters - first the long years of drought, then the cyclone 
and finally the earthquake of 2001. In more ways than one, Gujarati 
society is fraying at the edges. Possibly this is why when events 
take the turn they did a few days earlier, it is as if a genie has 
been let loose from a bottle. `Normal' communal riots do not have 
middle class citizens, some quite well off, looting shops and 
carrying away expensive goods.

While the immediate task is to reimpose law and order, provide 
security and reinstate confidence among all sections of society, both 
the political class and civil society will need to address the deeper 
problems of the State. Placing curbs on fringe Hindu organisations 
(after all, why ban only SIMI) will definitely help, as will taking 
firm and speedy disciplinary action against officials guilty of 
wilful misconduct. Maybe dismissing Mr. Modi might help. He has 
clearly been shown up as unequal to the task. But these by themselves 
are likely to prove insufficient. Unless we can ensure an 
accommodative society, both economically and politically, Gujarat may 
well burn again.

_______

#4.

The Hindustan Times
Saturday, March 16, 2002

Lies, damned lies
Ram Puniyani

MV Kamath's pontification, Secularists be warned (March 15), is based 
on a 'history' which is both mythical and communal. Kamath mauls 
history to present an apologia for the politics of hate which has 
been triggered to halt the march of social transformation and 
development.

His interpretations of the destruction of temples are by now as 
popular as they are false. His description of the Somnath temple's 
destruction by Ghazni is crass and populist. Most VHP/Bajrang Dal 
goons speak in this language. If it was a 'religious invasion', why 
were so many Hindu soldiers part of this attack on Somnath? Why did 
Ghazni have five officers of the rank of sipahasalar (general) in his 
army, which had 12 generals in all? (Didn't Muslim rulers in India 
command huge Hindu armies?) If Ghazni had religious motives then why 
didn't he destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas or hundreds of temples on his 
way to Somnath?

Kamath should know that in the attack on Somnath Ghazni plundered 
gold, silver and ornaments worth millions. He did not hesitate to 
damage the mosque in his battle against Nawab of Multan Mohammad Fath 
Daood, on his way to Somnath. There can be many interpretations of 
the attacks on places of worship in medieval and pre-medieval times.

Both Hindu and Muslim kings destroyed temples. A major motive behind 
this was to plunder the wealth in the temples. We know of King 
Harshdev of Kashmir who had appointed a special officer, Devottapatan 
Nayak, who uprooted the idols of kings, in his regime. Retreating 
Maratha armies destroyed the temple of Shrirangpatnam to humiliate 
Tipu Sultan. While Parmar kings destroyed Jain temples, King Shashank 
got the Bodhi tree cut. In the pre-Mughal period, kings belonging to 
one Hindu sect destroyed the temples of those belonging to other sect 
or other kingdoms. There are innumerable examples to substantiate 
these 'historical' facts, in contrast to the propaganda manufactured 
by the likes of Kamath to spread hatred in the civil society.

Elliot and Dawson first introduced this type of historiography to 
project Muslim rulers in bad light, as if the British had conquered 
India to 'save' the Hindus from the tyranny of Mughal rule. The 
communalists on both sides of the divide adopt this method; Muslim 
communal historians tilt it for their own benefit, projecting Muslim 
kings as most benevolent.

The Kamath and Hindutva/Islamist school of thought want us to believe 
that kings ruled in accordance to religious values. Interestingly, 
this version of history has double standards, which keep changing. 
Hence, plunder by the kings belonging to 'our' religion is an act of 
bravery while a similar act by the kings of 'their' religion is an 
atrocity.

In Pakistan, 'history' begins with Harappa and jumps to the 'arrival' 
of Muhammad bin Qasim, skipping the Hindu kings in between. On 
similar lines, 'our own' Murli Manohar Joshi is working overtime to 
implement the agenda of the likes of Kamath and the knickerwallas. 
They are blissfully unaware that temple desecrations were common even 
in the so-called Hindu period of Indian history.

Granted that some parties have compromised with religious 
fundamentalists in the name of secularism. But does it make 
secularism itself suspect?

Secularism respects religion as the private matter of individuals. 
Kamath's flawed understanding serves a 'valuable' purpose for those 
who are opposed to democracy, liberty, equality and fraternity. The 
condemnation of these values is the prerequisite for side-tracking 
social development and the quest for social, gender and economic 
justice.

The writer teaches at IIT, Mumbai

______

#5.

Economic and Political Weekly
March 9, 2002
Book Review

Towards a Secular Democracy

The Ideal of India: Secular Democracy with Development by Ranjit Sau; 
K P Bagchi and Company, Kolkata, 2001; pp 176, Rs 380

Harsh Sethi

For those of us who first became familiar with Ranjit Sau's work in 
the early 1970s, his latest offering will come as somewhat of a 
surprise. Not because the ideals that he espouses for India - a 
secular democracy which aims at providing full employment - have 
changed, but because his framework of analysis has undergone 
significant shifts.

Like many 'radicals' of his generation, Ranjit Sau, as indeed many of 
his erstwhile colleagues at the Institute of Management, Kolkata, 
favoured a Marxist analysis of the Indian predicament, one that 
leaned more on the Chinese rather than the Russian path. They saw 
India as a semi-feudal, semi-colonial economy and society and 
advocated radical land reforms (a people's democratic revolution?) as 
the precondition to freedom and progress. Equally and predictably, 
they set little store in the potentials of a free market based 
strategy. Not surprisingly, such views today enjoy lower currency. 
The developments in the erstwhile Soviet bloc as also the dramatic 
shifts post the collapse of the Berlin Wall in the socialist 
economies of China and Vietnam have forced even die-hard proponents 
of Marxist persuasion to rethink their fundamentals. What, however, 
comes as a surprise, albeit a pleasant one, is the shift towards a 
more open, less economically-dependant framework, which gives due 
place to the importance of ideas, religion and culture when outlining 
the possibility frontiers of a society.

Sau's objective is to identify the major issues in the Indian polity, 
economy and society, and to find a way to realise the goal of secular 
democracy with development. And to do this, he begins at the 
beginning, with the Harappan civilisation and traces the time line 
all the way to the present, since as he says, initial conditions do 
matter. 'The past is present in the future.'

Any treatise that attempts to incorporate a 5,000-year process is 
necessarily treading on tenuous grounds. After all, there is so much 
that we do not know, or that 'experts' do not agree upon. For 
instance, no one is sure how the recent discoveries in the Gulf of 
Cambay which indicate a sophisticated civilisation going back 10,000 
(7500 BC) years would change the way we look at our past.

Sau's framework builds upon four basic premises. To start, 'is 
geography the destiny', i e, how far are human beings constrained by 
the given physical environment. Second, what determines the 
relationship among members of a society, especially when several 
communities form themselves within society and operate as 
self-sustained discrete entities in splendid isolation of each other 
with their own momentum. Third, is there a principle, that shapes the 
relative proportions of the society, polity and economy. And, 
finally, is there a critical factor which bears upon their course 
over time.

More than these premises, it is their concrete conceptualisation 
which might cause discomfort. Few would question that local 
ecological conditions shape cosmology and lifestyles. But would we 
accept that "the ultimate product of Europe's geography and climate 
has been western democracy itself" (p 3), because 'control of flood 
and drought in India and China led to forced labour and denial of 
individual liberties". While postulating a Vedantic view of nature, 
even arguing that it is helpful to think of nature and the world 
order as if they were the achievements of an infinitely intelligent 
being, Sau places due premium on reason and rationality and argues 
against falling prey to superstitions. He further argues that while 
human relationships vary in different societies, in their essence 
there is an equality of all sorts of human labour. Finally we need to 
ensure compatibility between society, polity and economy to avoid 
instability. Nevertheless, what shapes the final trajectory is the 
initial condition.

Possibly this is why, given his ideal of a secular democratic polity 
based on human dignity and human rights, Sau makes much of the claim 
that at some fundamental level there is no incompatibility between 
different religions. And equally that the current social form of 
castes was not pre-ordained. What he does argue, basing himself on 
what is called the Arkoun-Kuran effect (two scholors whose work first 
drew his attention to this syndrome), is that a belief treated as 
unthinking under a given situation eventually disappears from human 
consciousness. What is treated as 'unthinkable' eventually becomes 
'unthought'. It is this that lies at the heart of obscurantist 
conservation, fatalism, and rigidity. Equally that to break out of 
such a syndrome requires external stimulus.

Like many other analysts, Ranjit Sau too thinks that it is the 
perceived incompatibility between 'religious' communities and caste 
groupings which work against India becoming a proper secular 
democracy. While arguing that "Muslims with their continental 
ambitions of conquest unbounded by any narrow national perimeter" and 
the "Hindus with little awareness of belonging to one community over 
their respective caste stations and hardly any perceptions about the 
external world" are distinct communities, he contends that this is 
less to do with the essential nature of Islam or Hinduism than 
socio-political cumpulsions.

The English, during the colonial period, hardened the 'communal' 
boundaries through both law and census. Nevertheless, Gandhian 
nationalism, with the premium it places, not on the past, the present 
or even the future, but 'truth', does provide a metaphysical escape 
route from this incompatibility. Note that unlike aggressive 
secularists, Sau is neither negating the role of religion, nor 
seeking to confine it to a purely private domain. Both the existence 
of a vibrant Sufi-Bhakti traditions, lived rather than textual 
religions, and processes such as inter-faith marriage help dissolve 
the boundaries. Similarly while being critical of 
caste-consciousness, and of Ambedkar's emphasis on a social 
revolution without which political democracy remains hollow, he does 
not support movements at valorising dalit identity, viz temples to 
Valmiki. As he remarks, 'Dalits cannot fight against a prison while 
voluntarily chaining themselves to it'.

In discussing the economy, Sau places the greatest premium on 
realising the full productive power of labour. At one level this 
involves fighting against caste taboos which restrict labour mobility 
across occupations. Regional and global market opportunities, he 
feels, would strengthen this process. Simultaneously there is a need 
to build and invest in social and economic infrastructure such as 
schools and hospitals.

If we accept, a la Rawls, that citizens are reasonable and rational, 
then operating on justice, liberty, equality, fraternity, human 
dignity and national unity - all words enshrined in the Constitution 
- is not an impossibility. Sau argues, after his analysis of the 
religious and caste tensions, that there is nothing in the initial 
conditions that comes in the way of securing the ideals.

Whatever the many difficulties readers may have on the specifics of 
the book - in particular Sau's reading of the history of religions 
and religious communities, in particular Islam which after a glorious 
start gave up the path of 'itjihad' and by the 12th century became 
rigid and ossified, or castes and caste-consciousness, what does come 
across is his undimmed faith in reason and rationality. Unlike Samuel 
Huntington who foregrounds a clash of civilisations and that too 
based on religion, while being critical of Islamic theology and its 
pan-national, all-inclusive tendencies, Sau is more metaphysically 
inclined in seeing universal and eternal values in all faiths. While 
noting the ossification in religious thought - both Islam and 
Hinduism - he argues that democracy and politics can help dissolve 
earlier antagonisms. His fear, if any, is about the laziness in 
society. But this he believes can be overcome if only our various 
political formations assume a degree of social responsibility and 
take up constructive social projects. That, in the final instance, 
would determine if we are able to actualise our ideals.

______

#6.

The Telegraph
16 March 2002

BLOOD, KITSCH AND LITTLE HOPE
BY SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY

Like the Dutch boy of the fable who put his finger in the dyke to 
hold back the flood, the Supreme Court has succeeded in gaining a 
breathing space without necessarily averting the cultural 
polarization towards which we seem inexorably to be headed.

The government, too, is only playing for time. The response to a 
symbolic puja that it produced in court with every appearance of 
spontaneity was obviously meticulously prepared in the full knowledge 
that it would be turned down. It served the political purpose of 
appeasing the Bharatiya Janata Party's most lusty constituency. Its 
predictable rejection threw a lifeline to the opportunists and 
time-servers of the National Democratic Alliance who are so 
desperately frightened of being deprived of the loaves and fishes of 
office. The puja justification also reflected the BJP's true 
inclinations, though concern about what their new friends in 
Washington would think might force Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Bihari 
Vajpayee to dissemble their intentions.

The most damning indictment of their otherwise plausible demand for a 
greater role for the majority faith is that the India of their dreams 
seems to reflect Hindu life at its most primitive. Hinduism for them 
is no more meaningful than section 2(1) of the 1955 Hindu Marriage 
Act which defines as Hindu anyone who is not a Muslim, Christian, 
Parsee or a Jew. A politician who trundles through the countryside in 
a tawdry chariot is qualitatively no better than a godman who suffers 
from hallucinations about Ramlalla.

If majority culture means such degrading tamashas, Winston Churchill 
was quite right to warn that independent ("Brahmin-ruled" was his 
term) India would "fall back quite rapidly through the centuries into 
the barbarism and privations of the Middle Ages". Left to the sangh 
parivar, we will be saddled with an awesome Hindu rashtra draped in 
saffron, smeared in ash, hung with rudraksha beads, chanting 
incantations and brandishing a lethal trident to strip the credulous 
of their scanty possessions.

Mercifully, the government has to keep up appearances, if only not to 
outrage George W. Bush. There is a strong safety-valve in sections of 
the civil service, while the judiciary remains the ultimate guardian 
of the liberal vision of the founding fathers. But even without a 
tectonic shift, the Ayodhya drama seems to indicate that secularism 
is destined to go the way of non-alignment, Jawaharlal Nehru's other 
dream.

If secularism was ever a driving force in national life, it ceased to 
be so when the exigencies of parliamentary democracy substituted 
pandering to vote banks for rule by an educated elite. Whatever 
Nehru's enlightened thinking on nationalism and the scientific 
temperament sweeping away religious obscurantism, political reality 
sanctified by the Constitution is a recipe for both communal 
separatism and communal friction.

Whether Hindu revivalism preceded or provoked Muslim fundamentalism 
is the age-old chicken and egg question. The tenacity with which 
poorer Muslims - and that means the majority - cling to the madrasah 
system which clearly generates an exclusive consciousness is one 
concern. The possibility of foreign involvement in Muslim affairs is 
even more worrying, for security might be at stake.

Through the din rings Nehru's warning against majority communalism as 
the greatest danger of all. Arguably, the minority's militancy can be 
contained. Not so, however, when the majority suffers from a minority 
complex and sees itself as denied its basic rights in the land of its 
birth. There is no denying that many otherwise reasonable Hindus do 
feel that Muslims are pampered, which means they think that Hindus 
are victimized. The process started long ago with Rajendra Prasad 
articulating a point of view that many Hindus endorsed, but which 
found insufficient expression in the republic's Constitution and in 
official life.

Gujarat has been reduced to a state of siege. When I visited Godhra 
35 years ago on the eve of a parliamentary election, every other 
front door seemed to shine with an illuminated five-pointed star. I 
could not believe that Piloo Mody, the Swatantra Party candidate, 
whose symbol was the star, could be the recipient of such 
ostentatious support.Quite right, explained Piloo's American wife, 
they were not Swatantra stars at all but stars of Bethlehem. Local 
Christians, of whom there were obviously a goodly ma- ny, had just 
celebrated Burra din or Cho- ta din - I forget the time of year - and 
had not yet taken down the decorations.

Today Godhra is a blood-drenched battlefield in a scarred state that 
has been described as the laboratory of Hinduism's revival, and where 
inflammatory leaflets, apparently circulated by the Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad, demand that Muslims and their businesses should be strictly 
ostracized.

It will be claimed that these are the views of only a lunatic fringe, 
and that most Hindus (like many Muslims) in the south and in West 
Bengal remain untouched by communal madness. Perhaps, but it is 
always the extremist tail that wags the moderate dog. If a silent 
secular majority does lurk somewhere, it has shown little sign of 
life during these weeks of crisis. On the contrary, almost every 
other television channel nowadays beams mythological costume- drama 
that blends stirring entertainment with kitsch history to bestow 
credibility in the simple mind on fancies such as a mythic Rama 
haunting dreams and issuing precise instructions regarding an edifice 
in his honour. No wonder the priest at the Hanuman temple atop 
Simla's Jakhu hill can rake in a little treasure trove of offerings 
by passing off an outsize footprint in a slab of modern grey cement 
as Rama's.

Illiteracy and poverty are grist to the mill of superstition. They 
are compounded by the logic of numbers. Even in 1936, when he wrote 
his autobiography, Nehru acknowledged the challenge of "a few" Hindu 
leaders who"hope that being in a majority their brand of 'culture' 
will ultimately prevail". The "few" have burgeoned into many and hold 
the reins of power. They are jealous of the Islamic ummah's global 
reach, they complain of "minorityism" and, arguing that 
subcontinental Muslims have already carved two exclusive homelands 
out of what used to be India, they demand that the residual territory 
should resonate to the beliefs of the majority.

The problem arises over what that should mean in practice. Is the 
sanatan dharma only legend, ritual and muscle-flexing? Are louts who 
are paid to carry ornamental bricks the most effective guardians of 
the sublimity of the philosophy of the abstract that underlies the 
Katha Upanishad? "Since not by speech and not by thought,/ Not by the 
eye can it be reached,/ How else may it be understood,/ But only when 
one says, 'It is'?" If Hinduism is an amorphous concept, so is the 
Greek version of the Persian variant of the Sindhu river that is 
"India that is Bharat". The reality of each depends on what we make 
of it.

Whatever the achievements of militants like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar 
and Keshavrao Baliram Hedgewar, their Hindu nationalism was not the 
Vedic religion of humanism. The rampaging mobs of Gujarat and Ayodhya 
do not represent even Hindu nationalism of the Savarkar-Hedgewar 
mould.Theirs is the frenzy of the lumpen out for blood, loot and 
excitement, and all the more dangerous for that since it can have 
severe repercussions on relations with Muslims, who are aggrieved, 
apprehensive and ready to give battle.

Twenty years ago, Nirad Chaudhuri outlined three ways of ending what 
he called "the toxic Hindu-Muslim discord." First, by eliminating 
Muslims, which he thought possible but inconceivable. Second, by 
reducing them to subordinate status like minority communities in 
Muslim countries, which, he admitted, "would be morally repugnant" to 
most Indians. And third, by accepting the Muslim demand "to retain 
their group identity in a parallel society."

There was once hope of a fourth choice - that the Hindu and Muslim 
identities would be subsumed in an all-embracing Indian label. But 
that hope is fading in the raucousness of the Ayodhya controversy.

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