Communalism

The Pink Revolution is Marching On

Forget about your right to eat what you want. The fight is now over your right to not be killed for what you eat.

Forget about your right to eat what you want. The fight is now over your right to not be killed for what you eat

Relatives mourn the death of farmer Mohammad Akhlaq at his home in Bisara village in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, about 45 kilometers from New Delhi on Wednesday. Villagers beat Akhlaq to death and severely injured his son upon hearing rumours that the family was eating beef. Credit: PTI

If Narendra Modi last year conjured up the spectre of a ‘pink revolution’ – cow killing on a mass scale – in the event of the BJP’s defeat in the 2014 election, what metaphor will he use to describe the murder of a Muslim father at Dadri on the outskirts of Delhi for the imaginary crime of keeping beef in his home? Were he to call the ugly incident by its proper name – a lynching – he would have to cross an ideological line that he and his party have helped place at the centre-stage of Indian politics over the past year and a half: That the slaughter of cows poses a more serious threat to the country than the slaughter of human beings in the name of cow protection.

The Prime Minister owes it to the people of this country to say it isn’t so. To declare loudly and clearly that even if that piece of meat which the Uttar Pradesh police have now mischievously taken away for ‘forensic’ analysis turns out to have come from a cow, the mob had no right to invade the home of Mohammed Akhlaq and murder him.

Modi has a responsibility to speak out this time because the violence that occurred on Monday night is a direct product of the hysteria which is being deliberately engineered in different parts of the country over the issue of cow slaughter – an issue he brought up repeatedly in stump speeches during the 2014 general election.

Modi’s 2014 rhetoric

In an attempt to better understand the politics behind the campaign, I went back and listened to some of those speeches. Both in western Uttar Pradesh – not far from Dadri – and again in Bihar, Modi spoke at length about the dangers of “pink revolution”.

The speeches are amazing for the ease with which Modi slides between fact and fiction, using the words ‘pashu’ and ‘gai’ and even ‘mutton’ interchangeably to paint a picture of Indian villages being emptied out of their cows as the Congress government in Delhi – in pursuit of ‘vote bank politics’ – is hell-bent on promoting a ‘pink revolution’ or ‘gulabi kranti’.

“The agenda of the Congress is Pink Revolution,” he said. “We have heard of the Green Revolution and White Revolution but never pink and this means the slaughter of animals (pashu). You see, the colour of mutton is pink, and they are committing the sin of exporting it and bringing revolution… Because of this, our animal wealth is being slaughtered, our cows are being slaughtered, or sent abroad to be slaughtered… And now the Congress is saying, ‘If you vote for us, we will give you permission to kill cows’.”

In his Bihar speech, Modi asks how the leaders of the ‘Yaduvansh’ – the Yadavs – like Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad can ally with the Congress. “I want to ask [them], how can you support such people who want to bring pink revolution? When a pashu is cut, the colour of its meat is called pink revolution… In village after village, animal wealth (pashu dhan) is being slaughtered, pashu are being stolen and taken to Bangladesh, big slaughter houses have been opened across the country… The Congress won’t give subsidies to a farmer or to a Yadav who wants to tend his cows. But if someone opens a slaughter house to kill cows, kill pashu, then the [Congress] government gives them a subsidy.”

Imposing food choices

Leaving aside the hypocrisy involved in the Modi government presiding over a huge increase in ‘carabeef’ (buffalo meat) exports, the BJP – since coming to power at the Centre, and in states like Mahararashtra and Haryana – has moved to impose its dietary preferences on people at large.

WATCH WHAT YOU EAT: The remains of the Akhlaq family’s fridge after a mob attacked the house. Credit: PTI

Where earlier, farmers were allowed to sell bulls and even cows above a certain age to slaughter houses, the law in these two states now compels them to bear the burden of maintaining these animals for the rest of their natural lives. Maharashtra has also made the possession of beef – regardless of whether it is from outside the state or from abroad – a criminal offence. The Devendra Fadnavis government, along with several other BJP-ruled states recently imposed a limited duration ban on the sale of mutton and chicken during the Jain festival of Paryushan. The Union Culture Minister, Mahesh Sharma, has publicly advocated a nine-day national meat ban during the navaratras. In Jammu and Kashmir, the RSS is pushing to ensure that a colonial-era ban on beef be strictly enforced across the state.

Staying alive

In response to the meat ban, the journalist Vir Sanghvi joked that if you vote for the Gujarat model, you get the Gujarat diet too. But the Dadri incident tells us the politics of food is no laughing matter anymore.

In any democratic society governed by the rule of law, there would still be space to have a debate on the citizen’s right to make her or his own dietary choices without interference from the state. After Dadri, it is clear that that argument is over.

Make no mistake – that is how far our political goalposts and moral compasses have moved in the past 16 months.We have gone past the stage where we can expect political parties and the courts to defend the right of a citizen to eat what she or he likes. The issue at stake now is a family’s right to not be attacked and killed because of the food they eat, or would like to eat – or are suspected of eating.

We are now at the next stage of the pink revolution. When we get to discover that the colour of human flesh is the same as the colour of what Modi innocently – or not so innocently – calls “mutton”.

Sanathan Sanstha, a Less Known But Potent Member of the Hindutva Family

Organisations like the Sanatan Sanstha, blamed in the murder of Govind Pansare, believe it is a religious duty to use violence to tackle the enemies of Hindutva

Govind Pansare, who was shot dead by a suspected Sanatan Sanstha member

The arrest of an activist having links with the Sanatan Samstha has somewhat deflected attention from the cause of the arrest — the possible involvement in the murder of Comrade Govind Pansare — and instead focused attention on the Samstha and its activists. For those who are close observers of Maharashtra’s Hindutva politics, the Samstha, though shrouded in mystery, was not entirely unknown. Earlier, after Narendra Dabholkar was gunned down by unidentified assailants and then following the assassination of Pansare, progressive circles in Maharashtra had raised doubts about the involvement of some organization or activists from the larger body of Hindutva organizations. Sections of the Congress now claim that they did indeed want a ban on the Sanatan Samstha but the Centre (then under the same party’s leadership) did not heed. What we do not know is what the Congress as a party did on the ground to counter the propaganda of the Samstha.

In our contemporary world of ‘progressive’ and ‘Hindutva’ forces, the many nuances of both these positions are easily lost. The Sanatan Samstha would thus easily be clubbed together with many other pro-Hindutva organizations. A better way to situate this rather less known organization would be to trace the evolution of Hindutva politics in the state during last few decades.

Both for the general public and for many of the critics of Hindutva, Hindutva is only the ideology of a monolith led by the RSS. This generalization is understandable in view of the overall coordination and control of the RSS over most ‘Hindutva’ organizations. Many are allegedly floated by the members of the RSS themselves. However, in some key respects small outfits like the Sanatan Samstha have a niche existence that may not sit well with the larger and more common politics of Hindutva.

Attraction for pseudo-science

The RSS, under Guruji Golwalkar in particular, was inclined to an orthodox understanding of society and religion and held the pursuit of spiritual prowess in high esteem. There has always been an attraction towards pseudo-science among orthodox circles who claim that Vedic knowledge was not devoid of science and thus seek to explain many traditional practices and rituals in terms of their scientific utility. This orthodox variant of Hindutva was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of Hindutva propounded by Savarkar. Savarkar did not have much patience with orthodoxy and traditional practices. This was in part due to his rationalist approach but in greater part because of his understanding of nationalism as requiring complete unity and uniformity—one nation, one language, one costume, etc. Savarkar argued that a lack of strength is the main impediment of the Hindu nation and to overcome that, it was necessary to bury meaningless practices and divisions within the Hindu society. The more orthodox minded RSS variety of Hindutva could not so easily do away with tradition and traditional ways of organizing society or regulating culture. Also, Savarkar did not have much use for caste. The RSS at that time held caste to be a central principle of social organization of Hindu society.

Only in the 1970s did the RSS begin to transform under Balasaheb Deoras. Two things happened during that period. One, the RSS began to shed off its more orthodox identity and adopt a somewhat catholic approach to caste. Two, its engagement with politics increased and became visible. The fig-leaf of ‘cultural’ activity was set aside. This transformation also meant expansion of Hindutva politics among sections beyond the Brahmins.

The emergence of Hindutva groups

It was in late 1970s and the ‘80s that new militant outfits claiming Hindutva ideology mushroomed in many parts of Maharashtra; they propagated militant nationalism and an anti-Muslim stance, the usual Hindutva ideas, however, they targeted youth from semi-urban centers and mainly belonging to non-Brahmin communities. Hindu Ekata (Hindu Unity) and Patit Pawan Sanghatana were more prominent among them. In the course of time, activists from these were quietly amalgamated into the larger universe of Hindutva organizations in the state. This helped politics of Hindutva in the state to expand its social base and acceptability. During the 1990s, a sizable section among the Maratha community turned to the Shiv Sena and the BJP. This shift could be seen only as a tactical political move but still underscores the acceptability of Hindutva ideas among the newer leadership of the Maratha community.

While these momentous developments were taking place, the more orthodox elements had to lie low. We do not know what exactly happened to the core orthodox element. Some of them may have adapted to the new version but many must have remained somewhat flummoxed and frustrated over this ‘dilution’ of Hindutva into a contingent political project. Their idea of Hindutva certainly shared the anxieties over secular democratic politics with the other Hindutva organizations; but they were also worried over the distractions of power and wanted to operate strictly within the more traditional Hindu cosmology of social order, good and evil.

It is reasonable therefore to surmise that the orthodox core that was deeply uncomfortable with the political turn and also with the non-religious formulation of Hindutva may have chosen to follow its own path of formulating, propagating and acting on the basis of ‘true’ and original –Sanatan—idea of Hindu faith. This organization began work in the 1990s mainly in the regions bordering Maharashtra and Goa and hence it has good network of followers in Konkan and Goa besides parts of South Maharashtra, in Sangli district in particular. Not much is known about their activities through the mainstream media and their website is not very forthcoming, but they run a daily, Sanatan Prabhat and ever since the arrest in the Pansare murder case has happened, the Daily has been full of venom for the ‘anti-Hindu’ progressives, media and police etc. It makes instructive reading in order to understand the ideology and politics of the Samstha.

Sanatan Samstha is a curious mixture. Believing in the ultimate truth in Hindu religious faith, the Samstha also believes in the Hindu nation—thus mixing traditional beliefs with modern ideas. As per its calendar, the current phase is part of the Kaliyug (the dark ages) when true religion would be constantly under attack, sin would be prominent and a new incarnation of the almighty would be awaited for emancipation of mankind. The Samstha specializes in training the devotees in spirituality but the sadhana – study — it undertakes includes teachings about the contemporary moment in the light of a certain understanding of the universe. In fact, only recently, a Marathi daily has published extracts from the booklet of teachings that the Samstha propagates among its followers. Titled ‘Kshatradharm’ (Religion of the Kshatirya) the booklet gives pretty fearsome — though occasionally comic insights — into the thinking of the Sanatan Samstha (http://epaper.loksatta.com/598945/loksatta-pune/27-09-2015#page/6/2).

A strong belief in violence

That it divides the people among followers and enemies (the evil ones) is only one part of it. More important are the solutions it offers to ensure the victory of the followers over the evil ones. The Samstha clearly believes in violence as required for religious purposes. We do not know how widespread the teachings of the Samstha are among the general public or what exactly is the extent of its core following. This is something the state police may know. But for unknown reasons, the police – during the Congress-NCP rule — chose to sit on the information. Now, the state government is run by the BJP and the Shiv Sena and the latter has already come out in defense of the Sanatan Samstha, arguing argued that it would be wrong to ban or restrict the Samstha on presumption of guilt. Statements in support of the Samstha by many BJP workers have also been publicized in the Sanatan Prabhat. So, in the current political context, it would be even more difficult for the police to effectively unearth the networks and ideological moorings of the Sanatan Samstha.

But is the Samstha a fringe organization among the Hindutva network of organizations? The daily newspaper and the many other publications brought out by the Samstha are by no means confined only to Maharashtra. Publications in Hindi, Gujarati and Kannada are in circulation. So, the Sanatan Samstha and the thinking it expounds surely cannot be confined to only Maharashtra. This issue of its geographic spread takes opens up larger questions.

Hindutva is contemporarily taking multiple expressions. RSS and BJP represent the more political expression of Hindutva. VHP, Bajrang Dal or Sri Ram Sene represent the more militant platforms that might or might not work within the diktats of the RSS-BJP. However, the case of the Sanatan Samstha presents us with a more complicated reality. That reality consists of a more deep rooted but diffuse public sentiment favorable to traditional understanding of good and evil in religious terms, a traditional understanding of the Kshatriya ethic and therefore a more militant, more intolerant element within Hindu society, an element prone to violence as a religious necessity for preserving the traditional social forms and mores of behaviour. These public sentiments mean that Hindutva is more of a ground reality than its opponents care to accept; that however Brahmanical the understanding may be, its following extends much beyond the Brahmanical upper castes; and that RSS-BJP variant of Hindutva will have to accommodate this ‘sanatan’ Hindutva.

To put it in a somewhat clichéd manner, contemporary Hindutva operates in the Sawarkar-Golwalkar paradigm and whatever the apparent inconsistencies this paradigm may throw up, critics would be making a msitake if they take satisfaction from those inconsistencies instead of realizing that a clumsy compromise on questions of rituals and traditional understanding of society are only secondary to the idea of Hindu nation and its imagined enemies; what comes uppermost are ideas of a Kshatriya ethic (to be followed by all Hindus) and recourse to violence as a religious duty in times of Kaliyug. The opponents of this variety of Hindutva do not seem to have the ideological wherewithal to counter this paradigm from becoming a center of public sentiment because these opponents revel in antagonizing Hindus more than countering Hindutva.

The writer teaches political science at the Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune.

And Quiet Flows the Kopili

Subasri Krishnan’s new film about the massacre of 2000 Muslims at Nellie, Assam in 1983 is a haunting tale that poses difficult questions about the denial of justice and meaningful citizenship in India.

Subasri Krishnan’s new film about the massacre of 2,000 Muslims at Nellie, Assam, in 1983 is a haunting tale that poses difficult questions about the denial of justice and meaningful citizenship in India

Sirajuddin and the lone boatman. Still from the film. Credit: Amit Mahanti

“To memorise the victims of history – the sufferers, the humiliated, the forgotten – should be a task for all”
– Paul Ricœur, Memory and forgetting

The human body is a place, and hence, an archive of memory. It records and tells the past, its own past, but with a difference – unlike record books, the body bears the real marks of memory. It becomes a site of recall, a source par excellence, where the recording of memory is indistinguishable from the intensity of feelings that lie within it. When the body speaks, it carries the effect of the voice, which contains the text of memory as it remembers the unforgettable. If forced to enter an unbearable landscape, the body often ends up a stuttering parrot of memory, falteringly repeating the event of loss.

Watching a documentary which speaks of an incident where more than two thousand Muslims were killed within six hours in Nellie, Assam in 1983, I noticed that the victims’ and survivors’ bodies are denied any relationship with either the sacred or the profane – they have been simply cut off from all civilised life. When people recollect events of mass mutilation, bodies become insignificant objects of violence and breakage. The individual names that belong to these bodies, their social and cultural registers, are of no importance to the state. Even the family remembers and relates to these (dead) bodies differently, as if they no longer belong to a world of shared meanings.

Abdul Khayer is less philosophical, angst-ridden, and equally bewildered. The younger son he was escaping with on his back was split into two by a weapon thrown at him from behind.

Somber calmness

Subasri Krishnan’s What the Fields Remember, about the Nellie massacre of 18 February, 1983, is a haunting tale calmly told. It is rare to find a film documenting political violence that stays so calm. This restraint doesn’t simply come from the passage of time – more than 30 years have passed since the day of mass mutilation – but out of a conscious effort by the filmmaker to preserve the somber calmness that confronts her in Nellie and adjoining villages. Subasri’s camera pauses on the landscape before focusing on the survivors. Before they speak, they are shown in a broody, contemplative mood, sitting by the river Kopili, which, survivor Sirajuddin Ahmed says, has remained the same since his childhood. What has changed over the years, he adds, is “manush”, man. There is bewilderment and resignation in his voice, but a remarkable lack of bitterness.

Sirajuddin is a reflective victim of the massacre. Another old man, Abdul Khayer, is less philosophical, angst-ridden, and equally bewildered. The younger son he was escaping with on his back was split into two by a weapon thrown at him from behind. His eyes are still horrorstruck by that memory, and sleep does not come easily to him. Then there is Mohammad Khalilur Rahman, who sings an elegy of the tragedy, accenting its cruelty with moments of sarcasm, as he describes the inconsequential visits of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. His voice sounds like a bird’s broken call, a slit throat that still tries to sing.

The landscape of Nellie and surrounding villages is lush: the crops are ripe, the banana and other trees heavily leaved. Khalilur sings in Bengali, “They cut us like banana tree trunks and ran away.” Tree, river, crop fields and surrounding hills become signifiers, each figure of nature a metaphor of the violence that passed by the survivor’s eyes that ominous day. Even the breeze that shakes the crop fields and trees shivers with that unshakeable moment of remembering.

The empty boat, the banana tree, and the crops swaying in the wind reverberate with a cruel reminder that their village was interrupted by unspeakable violence.

“Places seem to me” W.G Sebald wrote in Austerlitz, “to have some kind of memory, in that they activate memory in those who look at them.” In particularly striking (and fleeting) moments reminiscent of Ritwik Ghatak’s 1973 film, Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titas), the film pans empty boats moored on the riverside and ponds. They represent all that is missing: oarsmen, song, commerce and prosperity. To Subasri’s credit, she draws out these crucial relationships in the film: the empty boat, the banana tree, and the crops swaying in the wind reverberate with a cruel reminder that their village was interrupted by unspeakable violence. What adds aesthetic credence to a political documentary is the filmmaker’s ability to allow the mutest of connections associated with the (missing) subject to speak.

The fruitless quest for justice

Abdul Khayer. Credit: Amit Mahanti

In the memory of any massacre, perhaps what is most difficult for the survivor to grasp is the absurd miracle of survival itself.

To dodge death, having escaped the mass ritual of violence, comes as no respite for the survivor. It is rather his good fate that haunts him, to the point of becoming intolerable. Abdul cannot sleep, finding himself awake with the unanswerable question: How did such a nightmare happen, and why him? Sirajuddin asks: “Human beings! And they kill other human beings. Why does this happen?”

Looking for answers becomes a way to restore the mind’s sanity, and leads Sirajuddin and Abdul in different directions. “Why have arms and nuclear bombs been created? What is the motive?” Sirajuddin wonders. “To kill human beings. Who will kill? Human beings themselves…” The scientific world poised to self-destruct dismays Sirajuddin, who has turned to religion for answers. He believes, some day, that Allah will solve this meaningless impasse by rendering justice. Abdul, in contrast, wants to prove his legality and earn justice from the Indian state. He collects all his papers on his bed to prove his identity as a voter predating India’s independence by 12 years. He calls the bluff off the “Bangaldeshi” tag (thrust upon many like him by the Assam Movement), reiterating that he has been a citizen of an undivided country and lived his entire life in the state of Assam. When he thinks about how the government has denied him justice, Abdul says, “a fire rages in my mind.”

This xenophobia towards Bengali Hindus and Muslims has produced bizarre, oxymoronic accusations against people considered ‘legal refugees’ and ‘illegal citizens’.

Abdul’s limited status as a citizen grants him the right to vote, but does not empower him enough to claim justice for crimes committed against him and his family. Imagine how desperate and lost a real refugee would be, who lives outside the comforts of law and yet contradictorily hopes for kinder laws and treatment. Such has been the plight of religious and linguistic minorities in postcolonial Assam.

This xenophobia towards Bengali Hindus and Muslims has produced bizarre, oxymoronic accusations against people considered ‘legal refugees’ and ‘illegal citizens’. In Assam, there are refugees from erstwhile East Bengal and Bangladesh, but the “foreigner” tag afflicts both. Migrant laws and ethical responsibilities of the state suffer from an overriding passion for xenophobic nationalism. The film notes how in a clear connivance between state authorities and foot soldiers of the genocide, not only were the Muslim inhabitants of Nellie deprived of police protection, but later, the Assam government dropped even the few chargesheets made against perpetrators.

Sirajuddin and Abdul, who are not refugees but denied proactive citizenship nevertheless, still hope for justice. Until that impossible moment arrives, the communalisation of both citizens and refugees continues unabated in the post-partitioned state. Even though What the Fields Remember tells the audience about what Nellie cannot forget, it also poses larger questions: If justice from the state is as Kafkaesque as justice from god, then what is this edifice of the modern legal system about? How can a nation-state be harsh on legally challenged refugees and politically challenged citizens, while xenophobes have a field day, with no law to hold them accountable even for committing genocide?

Manash Bhattacharjee is a poet, writer, translator and political science scholar from JNU. His first collection of poetry, Ghalib’s Tomb and Other Poems (2013), was published by The London Magazine. He is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Culture and Creative Expressions at Ambedkar University, New Delhi

The Root of the Poisonous Tree

The moral universe we inhabited as children thanks to the Gita Press carried an unambiguous message: that what we as Hindus stood for was far superior to all else

File photo of Gorakhpur BJP MP and Hindutva agitator Yogi Adityanath. Credit: PTI

TOXIC FRUIT: File photo of BJP MP and Hindutva agitator Yogi Adityanath, elected from the same Uttar Pradesh town that is home to the Gita Press. Credit: PTI

Our childhood was suffused with the glow emanating from the world of Gita Press. We felt intimately acquainted with the gods and demons locked in eternal struggle with each other and portrayed so vividly by the press; we loved the drama of their existence. We took over but also invented stories about them when we impersonated them in play. The moral universe we inhabited carried an unambiguous message: what we as Hindus stood for was far superior to all else and with our conduct, our beliefs, our future actions, we could successfully ward off the evils that threatened all of us: Pakistan, the West, the Western woman.

We left this world behind when we sent to school, we were sent there later than most children. The gods and demons became hazy with the years. With time, our equations with the world changed. We sensed that our childhood world was not innocent, that it was part of an ideological edifice that needed engagement and articulation in all its complexity. What a pleasant surprise to find precisely this done so well in Akshaya Mukul’s Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (2015).

Prehistory of modern bias

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Akshaya Mukul
Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India
New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2015, Rs. 799

The book is an wide-ranging account not only of the press, and the two Marwari men who created it – the elder Jaydayal Goyandka (1885-1965), mentor and sage for the younger Hanuman Prasad Poddar (1892-1971) – but also of the 20th century Hindu world that they helped generate and hold together. A meticulously researched work, nuanced and non-polemical, it is based on extensive labour in the archive, chief among them the one in Gorakhpur, containing the personal papers of Poddar and of course the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library with the papers of Jamnalal Bajaj, G.D. Birla, Seth Govind Das, K.M. Munshi and Madan Mohan Malaviya, all closely associated with the press.

Goyandka and Poddar were not particularly successful in their careers as businessmen but both had a strong spiritual streak, both could hold oral discourse, both wrote well and both could rely on the vast, tightly knit web of Marwari enterprise to support their venture. The Gita Press started as a tiny unit in 1923, growing out of satsang, an assemblage of Marwaris, eager to hear the spiritual discourse of Goyandka on his favourite text, the Bhagavadgita. Poddar joined a little later. Together, the two men built the largest religious publishing house in India. The journal Kalyan, still on its feet and running, appeared first in August 1926, and has 200,000 subscribers; the English Kalyan-Kalpataru, started in 1934, has 100,000. Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, the Bhagavadgita, and the Mahabharata, in various formats, have sold in millions.

Offering clear, error-free type on good paper, the enterprise eventually gained the reputation of being the most reliable and accessible source for major Sanskrit and Hindi religious texts, not to speak of Hindi school texts. Their annual Kalyan issue, the compendious varshikank, between 500-900 pages, on a special theme chosen by the directors, was produced with much care and often came in time to make a major intervention in contemporary social and political debate. The bhakta annual came out in 1928, yoga in 1935, the Ramcharitmanas ank in 1938, the nari or women’s ank in 1948, the controversial Hindu Sanskriti or culture ank in 1950 and the balak, or male child ank in 1953. They are all still in print. Amongst its other activities, the press further instituted exams in the Bhagavadgita as much as in Tulsidas’s works. Clearly, it stood for something more than publishing. What was this something?

Chiefly, the proposition that Hindu dharma stood under multiple threats – from “colonial rule, the competing interests of Muslims, and the rising culture of materialism.” The contributors had to acquiesce in this belief; they could then be of any provenance. Though sadhus, mendicants, and Sanskrit scholars were favoured, such as Prabhudatt Brahmachari and Karpatri Maharaj, the writers, thinkers, teachers, and politicians who also wrote for Kalyan, could belong to the Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS, later the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, but also the Congress, excerpts from already published works of big names always being welcome.

Goyandka and Poddar were natural conservatives; they believed in the preservation of the caste system. They were against both Gandhi and Ambedkar in their efforts to ameliorate the lot of the dalits. When the Mahatma undertook his 1932 fast to counter the British effort to create a separate electorate for dalits, Poddar addressed Gandhi directly in a letter: “Even those in favour of dining with dalits agree (though I do not equate dining with them as a mark of equality) that they cannot be considered pure until they have a pure bath, wear fresh clothes, give up alcohol and meat, or at least stop feasting on dead cattle. Only then co-dining makes sense … Have you thought of the repercussions of this unbridled disrespect to our body and soul?”

No room for dalits, women

The question of dalit temple entry excited an equally vehement response: “It would destroy our temple system … If they want, why not build separate temples for them?” Poddar considered Gandhi “ a western sadhu in Indian dress.” Believed to be a Muslim partisan, his assassination found no mention in the Kalyan issues of February and March 1948. The years leading up to and then during the Partition had seen much hate speech in the publications of the press.

Just as dalits, women also occupied a lowly status in Goyandka and Poddar’s scheme of things. The Hindu Code Bill, on the table since 1944 in the Legislative Assembly, could not be regarded as other than an existential calamity for the Hindu social order. The Gita Press campaigned vociferously against it. As Goyandka wrote in 1946, “independence is not promised to women in the Hindu social structure. A woman has to live with her father till marriage, with her husband as a married woman and after his demise she has to live with her son or some other relative. She cannot be independent at any cost.”

When reintroduced in independent India, with Ambedkar as the Law Minister, the bill excited the same violent response. Once again Ambedkar faced the brunt of Poddar’s ire. When had equality brought happiness? Inter-caste marriage, the restriction placed on polygamy, the relatively liberal laws of inheritance, adoption, would all play havoc with the system. Hindu men could marry a low caste girl, or a Christian or a Muslim. Hindu women would be theoretically free to even marry Muslim men. “In one corner of the house Bhagwan would be worshipped and in the other end there would recitation of Quran and beef would be cooked. Which Hindu is going to tolerate such a law?” Congress’s landslide win in the first general elections left such arguments behind, as the Hindu Code Bill was finally passed in the form of four separate bills, much watered down, but none the less promising men and women much greater flexibility than before.

So where does this leave us in an era where so many issues that seemed burning then continue to issue forth flames? Cow protection is still a battle cry; women are still regarded as having only themselves to blame if they violate the patriarchal code, Dalits still suffer violence and the Hindu majority still continues to be depicted as aggrieved. Has so much changed? Akshaya Mukul’s sensitive and learned account is as topical as it is historical.

Vasudha Dalmia is a Professor Emerita of Hindi and Modern South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Shame on You, Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma

Mahesh Sharma’s utterances about Muslims, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and other matters are not casual off-the-cuff remarks; they have to be seen in the context of the guidance provided by the RSS to the government

“Despite being a Muslim”, APJ Abdul Kalam “was a great nationalist and humanist.”

With these shocking words – uttered casually at the end of an interview to India Today TV a few days ago – Union Minister of Culture Mahesh Sharma has not only insulted all Indian Muslims but also the former President of India.

The minister was asked about the controversy over the renaming of Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi. He defended the decision by noting that the Mughal ruler was not someone that people considered ideal and then added,

“Aurangzeb Road ka nam bhi badal kar ek aise mahapursh ke naam par kiya hai jo Musalman hotey hue bhi itna bada rashtravaadi aur manavtavadi insaan tha – APJ Abdul Kalam, unke naam par kiya gaya hai.”

(The name of Aurangzeb Road has been changed to the name of a great human being who, despite being a Muslim, was such a great nationalist and humanist – APJ Abdul Kalam, we have named it after him)

Just in case Sharma claims I am distorting his words or quoting them out of context, here is the video clip from the channel (watch from 16’16’’):

So now that we have established that the minister actually said what he said, and that the context in which those hateful words were uttered provides him no alibi or escape route, let us consider what they tell us – about Mahesh Sharma the individual; about the Narendra Modi government in which he serves as an important minister; and about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the organisation he swears allegiance to and which he describes as “nationalist”.

Bigotry plain and simple

The first thing we can say is that Sharma, for all his moralising, is a garden variety bigot who does not believe Indian Muslims are really Indian. If you are a BJP supporter and believe the minister said nothing offensive, substitute the words “Hindu” for “Muslim” and “Atal Bihari Vajpayee” for “APJ Abdul Kalam” and then see how awful that sentence sounds.

Let us be very clear. Even Kalam – whose popularity the BJP is trying to cash in on by getting a road named after him – must suffer the ignominy of having his patriotic credentials certified in this way by the small-minded men who are running the government. In the Culture Minister’s perverted worldview, being Muslim is a handicap that the former President had to overcome in order to serve the country.

Kalam was an extraordinary man – a scientist and administrator who was open to embracing the culture and philosophy of others in a way that fewer and fewer Indians of all faiths tend to be these days. There were many handicaps he had to overcome in a life he devoted to his country, such as the poverty he was born into, and the indifference of the Indian system towards providing quality education to its poorer citizens. If at all being Muslim was a handicap, it was because of the ignorance and prejudice he must have encountered along the way from people who questioned where his loyalties lay – and not because his religion made him have any doubts on this account.

Elsewhere in the same interview, Mahesh Sharma makes a pitch for the compulsory teaching of lessons from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Gita in school but demurs when asked whether the Quran and Bible will be given the same status. This can’t be done, he says, because only the Hindu texts reflect the “atma” or soul of India.

There are many naïve people in India who believe their religion, caste, language or region is superior to others. Some among them might even become MPs and ministers. It is hard to say whether the minister’s belief in the exclusive claims of his religion to the “soul of India” is the folly of a simpleton or the product of cynical majoritarian politics. Either way, how can a person who takes his oath of office on the Constitution of India defame an entire section of citizens in the way Sharma has?

That the Culture Minister has questioned the patriotism of Indian Muslims is bad enough. But there is something else that I find even more disturbing. The reflexive manner in which he uttered his throwaway line – ‘Musalman hotey hue bhi’ – tells us he is not ashamed of airing his bigotry in public, not even at a time when he and his government are already under fire for trying to pursue a communal agenda. It is this unapologetic, brazen assault on the honour of 14% of the population that worries me. I see it as a sign of bad days ahead for India.

Time to go

If at all there is a context to Sharma’s shocking words, it is that they were made soon after he and other ministers attended a conclave organised by the RSS to assess the performance of the Modi government. We know from Ram Madhav that the government’s primary stakeholders – what he coyly calls the “ideological family” – went back to Nagpur “content with the general direction of the country under the new government.”

What that cryptic sentence really means can be judged from the charged-up manner in which the Culture Minister has emerged from this remedial class.

I won’t go into the other ridiculous things Sharma has been saying since the RSS conclave, including his desire to fight against “cultural pollution.” That is a topic we can save for another day. But impugning the Indianness of Indian Muslims – a central part of the RSS’s political agenda since the days of Hedgewar and Golwalkar – is a despicable thing for a minister to do. If Sharma wants to indulge his bigotry, he should resign from the cabinet and do so on his own time.

If Indians Value Democracy, they Must Loosen their Purse Strings

If we agree that dissent is an invaluable part of democracy and if we do not want foreign donors to influence what happens in the country, then Indian philanthropists must fill the breach.

If we agree that dissent is an invaluable part of democracy and if we do not want foreign donors to influence what happens in the country, then Indian philanthropists must fill the breach

A villager at a public meeting of the Mahan Sangram Samiti in Madhya Pradesh, a campaign in which Greenpeace India is involved. Credit: Greenpeace.org

The government’s recent decision to suspend the FCRA registration of two activist NGOs – Teesta Setalvad’s Sabrang Trust and Greenpeace India – is an urgent reminder of the need for promoting Indian philanthropy as never before. If the suspension is truly because of the misuse of foreign funds as alleged, then no tears would need to be shed for one or two NGOs having to tighten their belts and do without foreign aid. In fact, it would be deemed a much needed signal to many NGOs to put their house in order – for the misutilisation or inefficient use of grants, from whatever source, is tainting the image of the sector. But the widespread perception is that the two NGOs are being targeted not so much for misuse of funds but for their protests against government policies. Before Teesta’s NGO and Greenpeace, the leaders of the India Against Corruption movement, the Narmada Bachao Andolan and several others were targeted for receiving foreign funds. This reinforces the belief among civil society and the thinking public that the space for dissent and free speech – which was never very robust – is shrinking further.

A well functioning democracy needs a strong civil society, one that is supported by active citizens’ groups as well as by philanthropic institutions. Eradication of corruption, protection of the environment, and promotion of communal harmony are all laudable constitutional goals, and agitating to secure them can hardly be considered a threat to national security. If it is accepted that acting as a watchdog to the excesses of government and market is a necessary role for civil society to play, then civil society organisations must be allowed to play that role without fear, and what is more, be allowed to access funds from whatever legitimate sources they can to enable them to play that role.

If a plurality of actors is necessary to act as a counterforce to state power and market excesses, so also is a plurality of funding sources necessary for independence of action. Many private organisations working for social change may be in opposition to the state, market, or extra-national forces, which makes it possible that any of these may withhold support in conflictual situations, thereby making it necessary for other sources to step in. A plurality of funders ensures that no one source can dictate terms.

When government funds are not forthcoming due to disagreement with government, for whatever reason, and foreign funds are considered, rightly or wrongly, as against national interest, then support for reform must come from private philanthropic funds.

What philanthropy can do

Philanthropy plays several roles but in the main, they are four. One, philanthropy supplements government provision for social needs, and assists in its efforts to bring development to society. Two, it plays a role in reducing inequalities of wealth and opportunity in society. Three, it plays the role of a catalyst, triggering positive transformative change in society. Finally, it acts as a countervailing force, helping to build a strong civil society to rein in a too powerful government or an exploitative market to safeguard the rights of citizens.

As a supplement to government efforts in health, education etc., philanthropy can play only a small role, since its resources are far more limited than government’s. Though the budget of the Bill Gates Foundation, currently the largest philanthropic organisation in the world, is bigger than the GDP of some countries, it still cannot compensate for internal government spending because it is focused on only one or two issues.

Philanthropy’s role in reducing inequality is indirect, direct transfer of resources from the rich to the poor by private effort being simply not practical. Philanthropy can help, however, by increasing opportunities for upward mobility and by supporting reforms which may lead to a more equitable distribution.

Philanthropy’s third role as a catalyst is extremely important – by providing independent private resources as seed funds, philanthropy acts as an incubator for innovation. Experiments are best made by private institutions on a smaller scale before public funds are committed in large amount on schemes which are as yet unproven.

But it is philanthropy’s role in building a strong civil society to act as a countervailing force against the excesses or dominance of government and in keeping dissent open which can add the most value in India today.

Timid corporates

Many citizens’ associations, self-help groups and civil society organisations are active in every district and town of India, helping citizens to claim their rights. However, such efforts at social mobilization and demanding accountability from government are on the verge of being squeezed out of existence for want of flexible and durable funding. Philanthropy that supports a few hundred schools or clinics is not as important as that which makes government at all levels accountable for poor governance. But few Indian donors of note have supported anything that sounds even faintly radical. Even if he meant it in a different context, Prime Minister Modi rightly said that the Indian corporate sector has shown risk aversion and timidity rather than daring.

After Independence, catalytic funds for experimentation and innovation as well as advocacy for policy change have largely been provided by foreign aid. By supporting civil rights groups protesting an inequitable trading system, or climate change negotiations which favoured the rich rather than the poor, foreign international organisations have helped to shape a minimally just global order. They have also influenced policy advocacy for citizens’ rights to minimum levels of health and work safety, transparency in government, education, food free from contamination, minimum levels of clean air and water, and justice for victims of caste or communal tensions. However, now both the funders and those who take their funds are coming under attack by the government.

If foreign aid is considered unacceptable for such causes, then Indian money must step in. In any case foreign aid is on the decline, not only because of slowing global growth but also because of India’s success on the economic front, so that foreign donors do not see the need to give aid to India. There is thus an even greater need for indigenous philanthropy to fill the gap in support of civil society.

If we agree that legitimate dissent is an invaluable part of a democratic society, and if foreign aid dries up or if we do not want foreign donors to influence or affect what happens in the country, then the only recourse is to make our own foundations and philanthropists proactive in supporting civil society activism and advocacy, which so few do at present. Will they rise to the challenge?

Pushpa Sundar is a noted expert on philanthropy and the author of Foreign Aid for Indian NGOs: Problem or Solution? (Routledge 2010) and Business and Community: The story of corporate social responsibility in India (Sage 2013).

Engineers of the Hindu Soul

What is the RSS’s idea of “Indian culture” and when did Hinduism and its diverse and fluid iterations fructify into “Hindutva”? Akshaya Mukul’s book on the Gita Press provides some important answers.

Akshaya Mukul
Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India
New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2015, Rs. 799

It’s never a good sign when the Minister for Culture starts talking about purity and cultural pollution, particularly when the minister in question, Mahesh Sharma, describes himself as a lifelong and dedicated follower of that well-known cultural organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

At an RSS meet earlier this week, Sharma, according to a report in the Telegraph, assured his fellow swayamsevaks that his ministry would “will cleanse every area of public discourse that has been westernised and where Indian culture and civilisation need to be restored – be it the history we read or our cultural heritage or our institutes that have been polluted over years.”

So what is the RSS’s idea of “Indian culture” and when did Hinduism and its diverse and fluid iterations fructify into “Hindutva”, a caricature of its most regressive impulses?

The answers may be found in Gita Press and The Making of Hindu India, an extraordinary new book by journalist Akshaya Mukul, on a printing press in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, that has sold almost 200 million copies of the Bhagvat Gita, Tulsidas’s works, and scriptures like the Puranas and the Upanishads till date, and has played a pivotal role in defining the Hindu Right’s ideas of a national culture over its 92-year history.

Kalyan, the press’s monthly journal, is still active, and claims a circulation of over 200,000, while the English counterpart, Kalyana-Kalpatru, has a circulation of about 100,000 copies.

“Through the power of print,” Mukul writes, “Gita Press sought to influence the policies and politics of free India, supporting various movements, ideologies and organisations that promoted Hindu identity and culture, and opposing those seen as a threat to sanatan dharma.”

The press was set up in 1923 by Jaydayal Goyandka, a wealthy Marwari businessman, with the intention of producing high quality religious literature at lower prices, but soon became a forum for the stalwarts of Hindu nationalism to strategise, build networks, and disseminate their ideas across North India’s Hindi heartland.

The values espoused by the magazine are easily summarised and immediately recognisable to those who have followed the utterances of the Hindu Right over the years: Muslims in India must live like guests in another’s home, widows who haven’t committed sati should render themselves invisible, women in general need to shut up and look after their husbands, and dalits should know their place and serve the upper castes rather than pushing for political agency and entry into temples.

In 1926, Kalyan published a 46 page Q&A on Stri Dharma: “At a young age, the girl should be in the command of her father, in her youth under the control of her husband and after the death of her husband under the care of her sons.” Stri Dharma Prashnottari, Mukul writes, has sold over a million copies to date, and is currently priced at Rs 5.

Akshaya Mukul. Credit: Harper Collins

By focusing on the history and money behind the press, Mukul eschews a boring narration of prejudice in favour of a gripping history of Hindu nationalism and the coming of age of India’s Marwari, Aggarwal, and Baniya communities complete with politics, holy visitations, and sex scandals. Hindutva is as much a product of the RSS and the made-to-order saffron-robed Swamis and Shankaracharyas as it is of whims, fancies, and prejudices of pre-independence traders who have since entrenched themselves as “India Inc”. G.D. Birla, Jamnalal Bajaj, and R.K. Dalmia, all find mention in Mukul’s magisterial work. It is also the story of Hanuman Prasad Poddar, the founding editor of Kalyan, and a man unerringly present at seminal moments in the nation history.

Here is Poddar, aged 24, on July 21, 1916, arrested in Calcutta for his role in the Rodda Arms Robbery Case. The local Marwaris hastily distance themselves from the conspirators, assuring the British that the “Marwari community is deeply attached to the government.” Ten years later, Poddar seeks MK Gandhi’s blessings before starting Kalyan. The Mahatma – who writes to Poddar with deep affection – offers pithy advice that is taken to heart: Don’t take advertisements, don’t publish book reviews.

The 1930s finds Poddar writing to Gandhi, arguing against allowing dalits into ‘savarna’ temples; post independence, he is accused of participating in the conspiracy to kill Gandhi.

In July 1949, Poddar attends a public meeting with Atal Bihari Vajpayee (at the time the editor of the RSS’s Panchjanya) and castigates the government for banning the RSS; while in December that month he is allegedly at the heart of the plan to place a idol of the Hindu god Ram in the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya – the repercussions of which are still felt today.

In the midst of all this, Poddar finds the time to correspond with a galaxy of allies: conservative Congressmen like Madan Mohan Malaviya; one-time revolutionaries like Aurobindo Ghosh, “socially conscious” writers like Munshi Premchand, and Chhaayavad poets like Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’.

Treasure trove

Much of Mukul’s book is based on his discovery of the “Poddar papers”, which I can best describe as the mid 20^th century equivalent of the Niira Radia tapes. Almost everyone with even a smidgeon of power and influence shows up in Poddar’s letters – always cordial and intimate, occasionally in disagreement, but unerring in their support for Gita Press’s mission of spreading the good word of the Sanatan Dharma. And as with much of the Radia tapes, there is nothing illegal about the likes of Annie Besant, C. Rajagopalachari, S. Radhakrishnan, Jamnalal Bajaj, Jugal Kishore Birla (G.D. Birla’s elder brother), Tata Sons director Purshottamdas Thakurdas, Gandhian Vinobha Bhave, writing platitudes for an openly casteist, misogynist, and communal magazine.

But there is something revealing about a sitting President in Rajendra Prasad, Prime Minister in Lal Bahadur Shastri, Chief Minister in Sampurnanand, and Home Minister in G.B. Pant, writing for the magazine, at a time when women were struggling to be heard, caste oppression was clear and present, and the wounds of partition were still festering.

Three big names who didn’t and wouldn’t write for Kalyan: Nehru the secularist, Mahadevi Verma the feminist, and Ambedkar, the towering jurist and scourge of Brahmanical mumbo-jumbo.

One way of reading Mukul’s book is to see how our current political moment – and its corresponding Hindutva fantasies – is a product of the steady drip-drip of upper-caste and Marwari conservatism that has seeped into every aspect of social life. The writings in Kalyan – over decades – echo a version of the same paranoia; in this case that modern education has steadily corroded ancient values.

Social life on the sub-continent appears to be a centuries long game of making do. Every so often, social mobilisations change the rules of the game, prompting a violent reordering of alliances. Dalit political mobilisation in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for instance, has fundamentally transformed public discourse on caste. Electoral politics is often a lagging indicator of these transformations; by the time these societal changes are visible enough to organise a successful political campaign, the moment has passed, the rules have changed, and a new game is afoot.

I was briefly in Gorakhpur last month when I heard that the workers at Gita Press were on strike. Ravinder Singh, a worker representative with 20 years of experience on the press, later told me that permanent workers were being paid less than minimum wage, and over 300 “temporary” workers were being paid 150 rupees a day despite working for the press for over 20 years. “They are all thieves,” Singh told me, referring to the management, “and what’s worse, they are making money thieving on God’s work.”

The management has threatened the workers, claiming their connections go all the way to Home Ministry in New Delhi, but for now, the strike continues. This September, for the first time in decades, Kalyan’s September issue may be delayed, and the October issue may not come out at all. For a brief interregnum, pious subscribers may just have to look elsewhere for religious guidance; who knows what they might find.

Justice Continues to Elude Victims of Kandhamal Violence

New Delhi: Nearly eight years have passed since communal violence in Kandhamal claimed the lives of 82 people, mostly Christian adivasis and dalits, damaged 6,000 houses and displaced 56,000 people in 2008. The government, however, officially recorded only 39 deaths. In addition, 395 churches were destroyed and two cases of sexual assaults against women were reported. Close to a 100,000 children in the area also dropped out from school in the area due to displacement and insecurity. Victims of the violence say that several cases have been closed without adequate justice being served and compensation provided has been much lower than is required.

The Kandhamal Nyaya, Shanti O Sadhabana Samaj, an organisation of victims, met with the President on September 7 and presented a memorandum urging immediate action. The association has also received cross party support from CPI (M)’s Brinda Karat, former Congress Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer and Kavita Krishnan of the All India Progressive Women’s Association. Addressing a press conference in Delhi on September 8, Father Ajay Singh brought to light several facts that media reports at the time of the violence did not cover.

Cases closed

Of the 3232 complaints lodged, only 825 FIRs were filed by the police and only 605 led to chargesheets. 302 cases were closed arbitrarily citing lack of evidence as the cause. Of the 35 murder cases that were taken into account, 33 cases were closed. 11,000 rioters named in the complaints were granted anticipatory bail, while 3,254 persons were acquitted due to the arbitrary closing of cases. Only 10 people have been convicted in two murder cases and all are currently on bail. Fr. Ajay Singh noted that not only was the violence extremely sectarian in nature, but the failure of the justice system continues to reflect the power of the communal forces in the state. Attacks by right wing groups have also been carried out on 13 NGOs that attempted to provide relief packages to the victims.

The Samaj’s memorandum has also stated that the despite the Maoists admitting that they were responsible for the August 23, 2008 killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati – used by the Hindutva groups as a pretext to attack Christian villagers in the district – seven innocent dalits and adivasis were arrested for his murder. They were all denied bail and convicted to life. At the press conference, Karat noted that she had met the seven who are currently in Phulbani district central jail. “If one goes through the judgment, the ridiculous testimonies of the witnesses come across clearly.”

Inadequate compensation

The compensation received for the damage of property has been extremely inadequate – a mere Rs 20,000 for a partially damaged house and Rs 50,000 for a fully damaged house. Many of these areas are in remote places and therefore the compensation does not adequately account for cost of materials and their transportation to rebuild houses. According to Karat, “deteriorating standards of living have become a norm in Kandhamal.” Attacking the absence of witness protection in the state, she said, “While the BJP and RSS have been wiped out of Orissa electorally, the power the sangh parivar wields on the ground has allowed them to intimidate many witnesses that want to testify.” One of the victims, Kanaka Rekha said, “I witnessed the murder of my husband, but I haven’t been able to testify. A BJP MLA was involved in the murder and that is why there has been a lot of witness intimidation.” The Biju Janata Dal state government has avoided meeting the delegation of the victims repeatedly.

The delegation has demanded Rs 7 lakh as compensation to each family, Rs 15 lakh to rebuild damaged village churches, Rs 30 lakh for the parish churches and the reopening of cases that have been closed, as well as a special package to enable children to finish their studies.

Good Hindu, Bad Hindu

To speak against the Hindu religion is now an affront to the larger nationalist cause. Even if the ‘bad’ Hindu’s criticism has ethical intentions – such as the fight against superstition – he is an unwanted threat to the cause of religious nationalism.

To speak against the Hindu religion is now an affront to the larger nationalist cause. Even if the ‘bad’ Hindu’s criticism has ethical intentions – such as the fight against superstition – he is an unwanted threat to the cause of religious nationalism

Atul Dodiya, Bapu Series. No. 3

In the aftermath of 9/11, Mahmood Mamdani has noted how the western world created a discourse that tended to distinguish between “good Muslims” and “bad Muslims” – with an added inference that Islam needed to be quarantined from the influence of the latter. I find a certain resonance of this debate in the Indian context, where competing notions of a ‘good’ Hindu and a ‘bad’ Hindu have existed since the time of the nationalist struggle. It reached a high point – or low, depending on one’s perspective – during Partition, but was forced to be low key during the ‘secular’ Nehruvian era. Since the later part of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st, however, as the Congress regime toyed with religious sentiments and the Hindu right began to make successful bids for political power, the debate around the ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ Hindu has taken a decisive and dangerous political turn.

It was Gandhi who had clarified to Millie Graham Polak, “to be a good Hindu meant I would also be a good Christian”. Elsewhere he also said, “I am a good Hindu so I am a good Muslim”. For Gandhi, the question of being Hindu is clearly defined in ethical terms and is not exclusive of values that a good Hindu shares with a good Muslim or a good Christian. However, in his reply to Gandhi’s critical response to The Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar challenged Gandhi’s idea of the “good Hindu” with scathing rhetoric, “… there can be a better or a worse Hindu. But a good Hindu there cannot be.” In the context of the caste system, Ambedkar reduced the political and ethical status of the Hindu to one who practices slavery against the untouchables. He clarified, “To a slave, his master may be better or worse. But there cannot be a good master.” This challenge to Gandhi’s idea opens another serious dimension to the debate, but it does not foreclose the possibilities of ethically defining a “good Hindu” in contexts where Hindus share a historical and political relationship with others.

For Veer Savarkar, on the other hand, the issue was “what is a Hindu”. Here the question is tackled in terms of a genealogy going back to the concept of the “Aryans”, a sacred sense of territoriality, and a historical sense of identity where the Hindu is one who is not the “others” he confronts – namely outsiders, Muslims, Christians, and the like. In complete departure from Gandhi’s interest in defining the ethical Hindu, Savarkar is interested in defining the authentic Hindu. This definition of the Hindu, particularly after Partition, managed to sideline Gandhi’s ethical dimension and survived as the key contender and rival to the Nehruvian distinction between the ‘secular’ and the ‘religious’ Hindu.

Limits of Nehruvian secularism

Nehru, and with him, all liberal and left ideologues, upheld the distinction between a secular and a religious Hindu or Muslim – where ‘secular’ replaced good and ‘religious’ certainly stood for bad. The former was understood as someone who made no distinction between one’s own and other religions, but more crucially, believed in a secular state that would be impartial towards any religion in its imparting of justice. The latter was understood as someone who is biased towards his own religion and whose political credentials were suspect and dangerous for the secular state. The religious Hindu or Muslim was seen as an anathema by the secularists and a legitimate reason for not allowing religious communities to gain political attention. But the ‘good’ Hindu or Muslim believer fell outside the Nehruvian, secular ideal. This has been a major source of criticism by scholars like Ashis Nandy, who give primacy to the Gandhian ethical subject.

However, a further complication arose between the two. The Nehruvian secularists were upholders of the minority-majority framework, where the secular state’s role was seen not only as a neutral one, but also as a protector of minority interests and aspirations. In this, the Nehruvian, secular state made a tacit demand on both majority and minority communities: Both had to relinquish their political roles, since the state does not favour demands based on religion, and hence religious communities can make political demands only on the basis of economic and social issues. The state is not interested in religious issues unless there is a legal dispute. Ironically, it is precisely when such disputes arose that the contradictions of the secular Indian state got exposed.

Screen grab of Hindutva activists demolishing the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992

Much after Nehru, during the regimes of Rajiv Gandhi and Narsimha Rao, the deliberate mishandling of the Shah Bano case and the improper management of the Babri Masjid dispute found the secular state terribly wanting in imparting justice based on its stated principles. These examples did not serve the secular cause well and raised serious questions regarding its limitations. It gave rise to accusations from the Hindu right of the Nehruvian state being “pseudo-secular” and suffering from “minority-ism”. At the other end, the minorities – Muslims and Sikhs (post-1984) – increasingly saw the state as an institution which was unwilling to protect them from violence. Clearly, the principle of secular neutrality did not work (rather, it got compromised) on crucial matters when religious issues involved political stakes. And yet, Asghar Ali Engineer raised the question, “If Golwalkar wanted people to be good Muslim and good Hindu, why was the Babri Masjid was demolished? Was it being a good Hindu?” Engineer invokes a similar distinction as Gandhi’s to demand an ethical notion of being Hindu and Muslim.

The other pending debate between the secularists and the Hindu right in India is regarding the “uniform civil code”, where the Indian state has so far been clearer in its directive that a uniform code cannot be forced upon different communities unless they are ready for it. The secular Hindu or Muslim and the religious Hindu or Muslim felt differently about all these issues. Though it must be added, most secular Hindus were not happy about the Indian state’s handling of the Shah Bano case and find themselves terribly unsure of the fate regarding the Babri masjid dispute.

(Hindu) Nationalism over ethics

Nathuram Godse and his co-accused in the dock for murder of Mahatma Gandhi.

India has now entered a post-Nehruvian phase in the political sense (the economic having been ushered in by Manmohan Singh’s liberalisation). With the BJP coming to power with a clear majority, the ideological shifts in the political landscape are having a quick bearing on India’s cultural landscape as well. The ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ distinction between the Hindu and the Muslim still exists, but the powers are reversed: Today the resurgent spirits of the ‘religious’ Hindu dominate the political space against secularists – with writers, social activists and others who dare to criticise Hindu religious beliefs or its political strands often on the receiving end of threats, bans and sometimes even violence.

It appears something rather bizarre is taking place. The Hindu right’s investment in the ‘authentic’ Hindu seems to have now co-opted Gandhi’s ethical idea of the “good” Hindu by creating a devious political understanding of who is a good Hindu (or Muslim), and who – by extension of the logic – is a bad Hindu or Muslim.

M M Kalburgi

The good Hindu, in the Hindu right’s view today, whether secular or religious, is one who serves the larger cause of nationalism, while the bad Hindu, again whether secular or religious, works against national interests. The Nehruvian distinction between the ‘secular’ and the ‘religious’ holds no water in this neo-Hindu right scheme of things anymore. It doesn’t matter to the Hindu right whether M.M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar were secular or religious, rationalist or irrationalist. Their internal belief system is not an issue till it poses a threat to the Hindu right’s own belief system. The Hindu right can be equally secular or religious, rational or irrational. But what is sacrosanct in its case is religious and nationalist sentiment rolled into one. It is a more radical departure from the Gandhian subject of the ethical believer – the ‘good’ Hindu and Muslim – than the Nehruvian distinction between the ‘secular’ and the ‘religious’ or even the ‘rationalist’ from the ‘irrationalist’. These modernist – left or liberal – distinctions don’t explain the shallow complexity of communal nationalism.

To go back in history, Gandhi, by all means a religious Hindu was seen as more harmful to the Hindu political cause than a secular Nehru. In Gandhi’s case, it was more his reconciliatory gestures towards Muslims that earned the ire of the Hindu right. But interestingly, Nathuram Godse, who killed him, claimed his intentions were secular and provided strictly rational reasons in his defence for killing Gandhi. The deeper problem is not whether Godse’s claim to be secular is convincing, but how the secular and the religious can be fused together in the interests of the larger value called nationalism. It must be noted in this regard, Godse in his famous speech in court accused Nehru of helping the formation of Pakistan, yet he didn’t criticise Nehru for being secular. In fact, Godse felt Nehru displayed double standards by believing in secularism and yet allowing a theocratic state like Pakistan come into being. Yet – and this is a crucial yet – for Godse the real enemy was still Gandhi and not Nehru.

So the modernist, Nehruvian distinction between secular and religious clearly failed to address or negotiate the problem that existed in real historical and political terms between an ethical and a communal identity among religious communities. Today, the usurpation of the secular-religious distinction has brought us back to the Gandhian question, though with a bizarre twist.

U R Ananthamurthy

The Hindu right today doesn’t seem to straightforwardly divide Hindus and Muslims, but rather distinguishes good Hindus and Muslims from bad Hindus and Muslims. A (good) Muslim like the late President APJ Abdul Kalam is a desirable national icon, in contrast to the writer, U.R. Ananthamurthy, who exemplifies a (bad) Hindu and is hence an undesirable literary icon. The return of the distinction between the good and the bad Hindu or Muslim, is in disregard of all ethical criteria, religious or secular. Nationalism demands commitment and submission, not ethics. To speak against the Hindu religion is not just an affront to the religion but also to the larger nationalist cause. Even if the bad Hindu has ethical intentions in his criticisms and objections – such as the fight against superstition, prejudice and blind belief – he is an unwanted threat to the cause of religious nationalism. The bad Hindu, ironically, has to abandon his ethical principles in the service of his nation, to gain the status of a good Hindu under the new political definition. The remarkable, tacit assumption being that there is nothing particularly secular or religious about it. But the demand is, nevertheless, absolutely political: The good Hindu is one who upholds nationalism over ethics and the bad Hindu, one who upholds ethics over nationalism.

This post-Nehruvian moment is aimed towards overcoming the failures of neutrality by upholding majoritarian religious sentiments. It is easier to play the game between majority and minority by relinquishing those terms and reconfiguring them into the discourse of good and bad. Gandhi tried to address the problem of good and bad by privileging criticism and fraternal feelings as ethical principles over blind faith and animosity. Gandhian politics was involved in finding means to minimalise fear and mistrust between Hindus and Muslims through the sharing of power with the Muslim League. Nehru’s approach sidelined Gandhian politics by accepting Partition because it refused to share power in the name of secular politics with those it considered “communal”, even though that politics ended up favouring one community over another. The avowed neutrality of Nehru’s secular state could not overcome its contradictions. Its failure has exposed us to the original problem it sidelined. The good Hindu, be it of the Gandhian or Nehruvian variety, is today the bad Hindu who is under threat. That is history returning as tragic farce.

Manash Bhattacharjee is a poet, writer, translator and political science scholar from JNU. His first collection of poetry, Ghalib’s Tomb and Other Poems (2013), was published by The London Magazine. He is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Culture and Creative Expressions at Ambedkar University, New Delhi

In Mangaluru, Communal Violence is Par for the Course

A high level of education hasn’t prevented this coastal town from becoming a hotbed of rabid and violent majoritarianism

A view of Mangalore city (Source: Wikipedia commons)

When he was asked for a loan by a colleague he had known for a couple of months, 28-year-old Shakir decided to take his car to the ATM. His colleague Nandini (name changed) accompanied him. Two hours later, Shakir was accosted by a mob of 20-25, assaulted, stripped naked, tied to an electric pole and beaten. The perpetrators were from the radical Hindutva group Bajrang Dal. Around 50 to 60 people, according to conservative estimates, stood as silent spectators. Some captured the cruelty at display using latest mobile phones equipped with cameras that provide high-resolution images. No one came forward to help. The local police rescued him an hour later.

The incident happened on Monday evening in a busy, crowded area called Kulur in Mangaluru. By evening, Shakir had become a Whatsapp forward – some warning Muslims of the same consequences if did what he had done. In Mangaluru, even to be seen with a woman colleague who is not from one’s religious community is to live dangerously.

A day later, the woman who was beaten up along with Shakir called a press conference — where Bajrang Dal cadre distributed the press releases — to accuse her colleague of having “outraged her modesty”.

Sharan Pumpwell, the district president of the Bajrang Dal speaking to The Wire shot back with an often-heard defence; “Do not talk in terms of right and wrong. As a society, we must ask why this happened. Why are Hindus taking the extreme step? What is happening to Hindu girls in the hands of Muslim men?” he asked. He denied that the Bajrang Dal and its activists had anything to do with the violence—he called it a spontaneous outburst of anger by Hindus.

Owing to added pressure from media, the Mangaluru police was quick to arrest 13 men who are seen in a couple of videos that have emerged from the incident.

Disturbing public reaction

Whereas images of a stripped, petrified looking Shakir that occupied major news-sites all over the country was received with shock and dismay, the reaction in Mangaluru and Udupi has been disturbing to say the least. Local Whatsapp groups are filled with warnings, platitudes and even jokes about what was meted out to Shakir.

To those who know the region’s history, this public violence against a Muslim man is not surprising. There is indeed a long, bloody history to communal polarisation in the two districts going back to Ramjanmabhoomi movement and perhaps even further back. The shock value of such incidents is steadily diminishing. This lack of shock is visible on not only social media but also how mainstream news services treat such news. Consider for instance, that Udayavani, one of the largest newspapers in Karnataka, carried the report prominently. The paper which reports majority of such incidents with a pronounced slant (Non-Hindus are addressed by this paper as Anya Komu or ‘the other religion’ or ‘doosre kaum’) did not consider even blurring Shakir’s face in the photographs.

Over the last decade, attacks on young couples in ice cream parlours and partying youth in pubs by Hindutva groups have brought Mangaluru international infamy. Conservative Muslim groups too have got into the act. The sheer number of these incidents has baffled social scientists, political commentators and journalists as to how a region with one of the highest literacy rates in the country and a burgeoning middle-class society has come to legitimize such hooliganism.

As per a report compiled by Suresh Bhat Bakrabail, an activist with Komu Sauharda Vedike (Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony), there have been 42 minor skirmishes, three major clashes between Hindu and Muslim youth, 31 cases of moral policing (six of which were carried out by Muslim groups) and eight serious attacks on cattle traders by Hindutva groups between January to August this year. The report is a compilation of news reports that have appeared in six major newspapers that are read in the region: Udayavani, Vijaya Karnataka, Vartha Bharathi, Karavali Ale, The Hindu and The Deccan Herald. According to Bakrabail, last year, over 39 cases of vigilantism, 22 of assault on alleged cattle-traffickers, eight of inflammatory speeches, nine assaults on the pretext of religious conversion and 81 minor skirmishes had been registered in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. Mangaluru and other smaller towns in Dakshina Kannada district contributed to a majority of these cases. The general trend is of over aggression by young men from Hindutva groups who play vigilante whenever they see “transgressions” which could range from mixed religion friends or even colleagues together.

A particularly egregious incident that occurred in March this year is a good example: A bus with 38 students, in the company of a female and three male lecturers, was prevented from going on an excursion to Mysuru and Bengaluru. They were from the government first-grade college in Mudipu, in Bantwal taluk. It was a programme officially organized by the college, to enable the students to watch the legislative proceedings in Vidhan Soudha. As they were leaving, a group of activists, allegedly belonging to Sangh Parivar, objected to the female students belonging to the majority community going in a bus with boys from a minority community. There was a mild lathi charge by the police. Sensing trouble, the college authorities informed the parents and immediately cancelled the trip.

Analysts say some patterns are emerging: a siege mentality with deep insecurity about women of one’s community, over-religiosity, general intolerance towards the other, majoritarianism and an utter disregard for rule of law. That a Congress government in Bengaluru has been unable to put a stop to these affronts to decency says as much about the Congress party as it does about Mangalorean society.