Ayodhya verdict & our secular conscience: Part Two

The three members Bench of Justice D.V. Sharma, Justice S.U. Khan and Justice S. Agarwal has ruled by a 2-1 majority that all the parties in the title suit, i.e. Bhagwan Shree Ram Lalla represented by his sakha (close friend) Triloki Nath Pandey, the Nirmohi Akhara and the Sunni Waqf Board will have one third equal share each of the disputed property and declared the litigants joint title-holders. Justice Sharma has disagreed with the decision of the majority that one-third of the disputed land should be given to Muslims for construction of a mosque. Dismissing the suit filed by the Sunni Waqf Board for a declaration and possession of the site so that Muslims can rebuild the demolished mosque on the same spot, the Bench has allotted the portion right below the central dome of the demolished Babri Masjid to Bhagwan Shree Ram Lalla Virajman with a caution that the defendants should not obstruct or interfere the area in any manner. The areas covered by the structures of Ram Chabutra, Sita Rasoi and Bhandar in the outer courtyard were allotted to the Nirmohi Akhara. The two Hindu litigants will share the remaining unbuilt area within the outer courtyard “since it has been generally used by the Hindu people for worship at both places.” The Bench has allotted the rest of the area where the Babri Masjid stood, including part of the inner courtyard and if necessary also some part of the outer courtyard to the Waqf Board stating that “the share of Muslim parties shall not be less than one third (1/3) of the total area of the premises”. To alleviate the progress of such a three-way division, the Bench has advised to use some parts around the disputed land presently under acquisition of the Government of India. The judges also ordered that the prevailing status quo which is currently under state control shall be maintained for a period of three months.

Ayodhya verdict & our secular conscience: Part One

In a large and diverse country like India, there is never a dearth of issues that stimulate the citizens to talk, argue and fight. But the credulous public mind, overexposed and debilitated by artificial trends and a plethora of confusing information are often been hypnotized by the shining pendant of a forged present and a delusional future. Moreover, a vague vision of history compels them to acquire comfort by mirroring a general trend of forgetfulness. In this spurious atmosphere, even a detrimental agenda can easily capture public imagination and receive popular support. Incapable to ponder much of its gravity, people tend to offer themselves as cannon fodder in socio-political conflicts waged against their own interests. The six-decade-old Ayodhya dispute over the ownership of 2.77 acres of “holy” land is such a thorny issue that has sharply polarized a devout Indian society along quasi-religious lines. Flaring up from time to time, the dispute has instilled a stream of dangerous ideas deep inside the country’s psyche. Acknowledged as one of India’s most divisive and contentious issues, the dispute with its high hegemonic potential has shaken the very foundation of the country’s collective identity as a nation and gradually grown into a symbol of subjectivity. Looking into the chronology of events including the wide network of relations and sectoral interests in and by which the dispute is situated and sustained for such a long time will provide us a necessary linkage to the Ayodhya verdict which was recently delivered by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court.

The desolation of Kashmir

Seventeen year old Tufail Ahmad Mattoo, a class XII student, was preparing for the medical entrance exam. On 11 June, while coming home from his tuition class, he was caught in a street fight between a stone-pelting crowd and the police in Srinagar’s Rajouri Kadal area. Tufail took shelter in the Gani Memorial Stadium but a tear-gas shell fired by the police from close range landed on his head. He died on spot. The administration first tried to pass the blame on the protesters claiming that the boy was killed “to keep the pot boiling’’ but later retreated when eyewitness evidence and the autopsy report confirmed that the murder was caused by police firing. Since then, large-scale street violence has erupted across the Kashmir valley. The police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were seen engaged in frequent clashes with incendiary crowds armed with nothing but stones and chunks of rocks. Reacting to the young stone-pelters, the security men, apparently ignorant about non-lethal ways of crowd control greeted the youngsters by firing bullets straight at them. The indiscriminate firing caused several civilians to die on the streets. Most of the casualties, shockingly, are teenagers and school going children, aged between nine and nineteen. Normal life is suspended in the Valley for months by strict and indefinite curfews imposed almost every day.

The failure of “My Name is Khan”

Karan Johar’s over-hyped film My Name is Khan (MNIK) has dealt with a challenging subject – a subject that is extremely serious, pensive and political. The film has attempted to focus on a number of crucial socio-political issues and tried to make a humane statement concerning racial-religious discrimination and stereotyping. But the wide scope offered by the subject was purposely diminished by the director-producers of the film. The story of Rizwan Khan ended up being another feel-good film depicting Bollywood style heroism, romance and eye-wetting brash emotion – all embedded into a fairy tale arrangement. Based on a political subject, the film deliberately moves out of the political arena to engender flimsy humanism and fails terribly to emerge as a politically conscious film. A pseudo-real, fantasy like milieu and an escapist approach to life are the weakest aspects of the film. The self-styled “sensitive” performance by Shah Rukh Khan in the role of Rizwan, burdened with make believe mannerisms, have not only failed to cover-up these shortcomings but has actually become an integral part of it. By exaggerating on the “just a good man in love” side of the character, Shah Rukh’s celebrity presence has diluted the sternness of the subject as well as the film. A hoopla manufactured by the infamous idiots of the Thackeray clan surrounding MNIK’s release, the grand presence of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol – super-hit duo of Indian mainstream cinema, the arty efforts of a bubbly director or the genuine technical excellence could not lift MNIK from its mediocre rank.

Good people, bad people

There is little doubt that the September 11 attacks were a huge turning point for millions of Muslims living in America. Impact of this catastrophic event had generated a significant amount of hostility towards the Muslims in general and had sharply polarized the American society down to street level. Islam and the Muslims turned into a subject of grave concern for the American state and became an important political issue. Though anti-Muslim bias and prejudices had existed before September 11, the attitude to connect the Muslim community to terrorism and perceiving the entire community as a threat, as a grave security risk, has intensified drastically following the incident. Post September 11, it became more difficult to be a Muslim in America. Non Muslim Americans became haunted by Islamophobia – a common parlance diversely applied today to define the discrimination faced by Muslims or to convey anti-Muslim sentiments. The response of common non-Muslim Americans towards Muslim minorities and their anti-Islamic hostile attitudes against them were also fuelled by certain sections of the mainstream media and political establishment, which had frequently used the term and popularised it among the scared masses. Muslims living in America including the women faced religiously motivated harassment; the Arabs were particularly singled out as objects of suspicion and became victims of official and societal discrimination, especially the younger Muslims who are more exposed to anti-Muslim bias than their parents. They were told to become “good citizens”, instructed to integrate into the multi-religious, multi-cultured American society, reprimanded for exhibiting hate and violence and were strictly warned to keep away from radical activities and extremist influences. The first targets of the American government’s anti-terrorism overdrive were obviously the softest ones – the immigrant Muslims who has arrived in the “land of freedom” virtually from all over the world.

The ambitious screenplay of MNIK had tried hard to depict this turbulent time and the condition of American Muslims. The film opens with the awful airport frisking scene where villain-like security men hounded the hero Rizwan Khan as a terror suspect because he was found to mutter verses from the Holy Koran while standing in a queue. Khan is portrayed in the film as a devoted and duty bound believer. In the backdrop of riot ridden Bombay he has learned from his mother that there are only two kinds of people in the world – good people and bad people. One holds a stick and the other holds a lollipop. In the entire film, Rizwan Khan actually tries to establish himself as the one who belongs to the lollipop holding “good people” class. In the film he is depicted as an extremely devoted Muslim, a loving husband, a caring papa, an innate humanist and ultimately a “good citizen” of America. The film has overstuffed a lot of issues and mishandling them badly. But at the end, it remained principally focused on establishing the “good citizen” aspect of the hero. The director was abetted by an oversimplifying attitude, twisting and fantasising the grim subject into a droopy romantic tale.

American Muslim, Bollywood Muslim

By law, the Census Bureau of America does not count adherents of a particular religious identification. Hence, the account of how many Muslims live in America differs widely in various estimates – from 1.3 to 7 million. This population with its vastly different ethnicity, culture, race and sectarian diversity have constituted a microcosm of the Muslim world. Immigration wave in America has increased rapidly after the American immigration law was reformed in 1965. Between 1989 and 2004, 15.5 million legal immigrants have entered the country. The number of Muslim immigrants is little less than one percent of America’s national population but constitutes the majority of the total Muslim population. Two-third of them is foreign-born, coming from South Asia, Iran, and the Arabic-speaking countries. The single largest group of Muslim immigrants among them are from the three South Asian countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Destitution, ethnic- religious discrimination, class repression, Islamism or anti-Islamism and war are some of the major reasons why Muslim immigrants seek refuge from their respective countries to “smell freedom” in the paradise of America.

All immigrants are not necessarily from the socio-economically marginalized class. A large number of them belong to the wealthy and middle class elite group. They are enticed by the candour of American life, the span of opportunities for a better livelihood, superior professional facilities, socio-political freedom and economic rewards. Immigrants in general are aggressive job seekers and hard-working due to their economical motivations. Likewise, immigrant Muslims are also inclined to resolutely focus on their professional and entrepreneurial careers and many of them possess good educational standards. As a result of these qualities they have achieved considerable economic success over time. Muslims in America today appears to be more educated and affluent than the country’s national average. This affluent economic situation could also be a vital reason behind the post September 11 anti-Muslim bias rather than their religious believe. After September 11, the employment-population ratio among Muslims had declined considerably. The arrogant anti-terrorism policy of the government under President Bush has caused enough humiliation and suffering to Muslim communities living across America. Race and ethnicity became deciding factors for opening an investigation against the Muslims. Mosques were raided to find out suspected terrorists. Surveillance and detention without warrant became a commonplace affair that had created an aura of endless fear within the community.

Where does Rizwan Khan fit here? He arrives in San Francisco after his mother’s death to live with his younger brother and his compassionate wife. Though Rizwan has a super ability to repair any broken machines from his early days, the jealous brother forced him to accept the job of an herbal cosmetics salesman. Rizwan is not economically motivated and dislikes his job. Instead, he gets more involved and occupied in winning the love of a Hindu hairstylist named Mandira. In fact, the director is not interested to focuses on the privations and struggles an immigrant usually comes across in a foreign country, particularly if the immigrant is a mentally challenged person. But privation does not sell! The film is thus packaged with lollipop emotion of love and longing, a utopia of its own kind, far away from the hard reality an immigrant might face in a foreign land. Rizwan Khan belongs to the moderate section of Muslims but at the same time he is also a dutiful practitioner of the laws of Islam – carrying a handful of pebbles to throw upon the devil, muttering scriptures and offering namaz wearing his prayer cap. If read in a different way, one might discover that Rizwan Khan’s religious behaviours are fairly deliberate, and at the same time exceedingly provocative.

One must not forget that Rizwan Khan is actually a Bollywood Muslim in America. Bollywood has its own unique way of characterising Muslims, even in the changed times. Syed Ali Mujtaba has observed in an article that, “Bollywood might be coming good in reaching out to the world but when it comes to creating Muslims on screen it’s closed to a dangerous time warp. Cinematic subtleties, community's sensitivity and societal realism are all thrown overboard. What quickly lapped up is, dirty stereotypes and reckless cliche while sketching Muslim characters.” In the same article he has further noted that, “no one likes to disturb the apple cart of set formulas that Bollywood mindlessly follow while making movies.” (Source)

Bush, Obama and Rizwan Khan

At least on one occasion George W Bush was absolutely sincere when he stated that, “the world has changed after September the 11th”. The twin tower attacks had significantly changed America’s relation and dealing with the world, particularly with the antagonistic Islamic nations. Just four weeks after the attacks, the “war president” and war hawks within his “war administration” had unleashed their infamous “war on terror” and successively destroyed the two sovereign countries Afghanistan and Iraq in cold blood. Although for eighteen long years, from 1980 to 1998, successive American governments were romancing the Taliban in Afghanistan. The attack on Iraq in particular, had nothing to do with the attack on the twin towers except oil interests of America’s business mafia. According to the book Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward, the CIA had already concluded that the hard-nut Saddam Hussein could not be removed from power except through a war. This CIA finding along with “pressure from advocates of war inside the administration” led to the secret planning for military action against Iraq. The September 11 incidence made it politically feasible for the coterie to stupefy public opinion and launch a “pre-emptive attacks against countries believed to be a serious threat to the United States”.

America’s war against Afghanistan has helped the film’s storyline to advance further. Rizwan and Mandira Khan’s American neighbour Mark, a journalist by profession, gets killed in Afghanistan while covering the war. The death of Mark changes the attitude of his grieving son Reese who develops racial hatred against his once dear friend Sam – Rizwan Khan’s sweet step-son. Sam gets involved in a brawl with him and dies of his injuries. A devastated Mandira holds Rizwan culpable for her son’s death. She indicts her husband that Sam was dead only because “his name was Khan”. The distressed and irate wife then tells her husband to depart from her life till he is able to ensure the people and the President of America that he is not a terrorist. Dumped by Mandira, Rizwan starts tracking after President Bush across the country to notify him: “My name is Khan, and I’m not a terrorist”.

Although the Afghanistan war is a vital resource to unfold MNIK's storyline, it is surprising that the name of Iraq was never mentioned in the film. When Rizwan Khan was travelling around the country to “fight against the disability that exists in the world”, American military was invading Iraq on phoney grounds “to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger”, bombarding the country and its people into pieces. No “weapons of mass destruction” was ever unearthed from Iraq; no al-Qaeda–Saddam Hussein nexus could ever be proved. America’s Iraq misadventure is completely ignored in the film. Instead, the filmmakers were keen to concentrate on Rizwan Khan’s ultimate goal of fixing the broken relation with his beloved wife. They were less concerned about America’s corporate and military greed. The Iraq war was too insignificant an issue for them to be bothered about.

During his long journey across America, Rizwan Khan lands in a poor African-American neighbourhood in Georgia and finds refuge and console from an affectionate woman, Mama Jenny, who has lost her solider son in Afghanistan. Thus, in one stroke an African-American and an Indian immigrant’s grief becomes one and the same. Sharing the common grief, Rizwan joins the chorus in Mama Jenny’s community church to sing the civil rights anthem We Shall Overcome. From here the story rolls faster to its desired end. Rizwan Khan gets arrested while trying to meet Bush and is tortured in jail as a terror suspect, gets noticed by Indian-American journalists who put him on national news which Senator Obama watches with deep interest. In a mosque he confronts a jihadi doctor, vehemently opposes his devilish views by throwing pebbles at him and immediately informs the FBI. The film has to confirm that in spite of everything Rizwan is essentially a “good citizen” of America! He even performs a superman act to dramatically appear as a saviour at Mama Jenny’s hurricane devastated village to repair the lives of the devastated dwellers. The media follows and make a hero out of him. All of a sudden a disciple of the jihadi doctor stabs him in front of his repentant wife, accusing him for betrayal. But typically, he survives in style.

Rizwan Khan finally succeeds to deliver his message to the President of America. Not to Bush but to the newly elected Barak Hussein Obama who promptly assures him that “he is not a terrorist”. Here the director has clearly made a statement by projecting Obama as a responsive President against Bush. This is a loose statement and one should not read too much from it. The Obama effect or the colour of his skin might have also inspired the director and screenwriter to give prominence to the African-Americans and favorably linking Rizwan with them in the film.

This focal point seems to be essential for a film which is marketed and distributed by Fox STAR Entertainment, a joint venture between Twentieth Century Fox and STAR. Trade news has suggested that MNIK is selling extremely well across the globe through its lollipop message to “repair the world with love”. In America it has “turned out to be the largest weekend grosser Bollywood film ever”. (Source) The film has earned Rs 150 crore from its first week of release in India and abroad.

Everyone looks good against the pathological liar and hypocrite George W Bush. But what are those steps the populist Obama is taking that are significantly different from Bush policies? This is the pertinent question which doesn’t have an easy answer. And the problem with MNIK is that, it has not even attempted to raise any pertinent question. The world has gradually started to taste Barak Obama’s “audacity of hope”. “I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric,” observed eminent historian Howard Zinn who has passed away recently, “and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president – which means, in our time, a dangerous president – unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.” (Source)

Rain Man syndrome

The makers of MNIK were definitely aware of the huge success of Barry Levinson’s 1988 Hollywood film Rain Man where Dustin Hoffman gave a fabulous performance as an autistic savant. To authentically portray the autistic-like traits of his character, Shah Rukh Khan spoke with an emotionless intoning voice, walked in mincing steps, always has his head tilting sideways and never makes eye contact with his addressee – not even in romantic scenes. All these mannerisms can’t help but remind us about Hoffman’s performance as Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man. A critic has objected about comparing Hoffman and Shah Rukh’s performance. The comparison, according to the critic, is “childish and naïve” because “Hoffman plays a highly gifted autistic savant while Khan is just a good man, in love, who happens to have Asperger’s Syndrome”. (Source) This point of view is certainly not of a film critic. It can only be a humble opinion by an ardent fan of Bollywood's “de facto super-star”.

Depicting the hero Rizwan Khan with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism spectrum disorder, did not really help to carry any lofty message except for raising high-pitch sympathy and emotion for the character in the audience’s mind. The idea to portray the hero as an autistic is basically a discreet commercial formula applied by the makers of MNIK. People with Asperger’s have significant difficulties in social interaction and communication which includes “a failure to develop friendships or to seek shared enjoyments or achievements with others”. Throughout the film, Rizwan Khan acted quite the opposite. Just like a regular Bollywood hero, he had absolutely no problem to stalk and woo the single-mother heroine, to become close and friendly with her son and develop a deep affectionate relationship with an African-American family in up-country Georgia. Here, the director Karan Johar and his screenwriter Shibani Bhatija’s typical Bollywood mindset have prevailed. They have deliberately twisted the basic aspects of the disorder to fit them into a popular Bollywood schema. Asperger’s syndrome became a marketing tool to sell the film. Carried away by this fantasizing feint of MNIK, a mainstream critic has claimed that the film “uses familiar devices to create new meaning”. (Source)

The film has indeed created a “new meaning” of king-size profiteering by effectively exploiting many disabilities of the post-modern world to achieve record-breaking box office success.

NYT image courtesy: brothersjuddblog.com

MNIK poster courtesy: filmicafe.com

The BJP and the ‘Hindu Terrorist’

It is not surprising to see the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in dispute with the term ‘Hindu Terrorist’. The term has been introduced by the Indian media after the recent arrest of five activists of the Hindu Jagaran Manch (HJM), an Indore-based Hindu extremist group and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a former national executive member of BJP’s students wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The arrested persons were allegedly part of the September 29 bomb blasts in the Muslim localities of Malegaon in Maharashtra and Modasa in Gujarat. In an obvious attempt to mislead the investigation, the perpetrators in Malegaon had placed bombs in a motorcycle and parked it below the now-defunct first floor office of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) while the motorcycle used in Modasa had Islamic stickers on its seat. The terror attack is still under investigation by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).

The arrest of the Sadhvi has particularly embarrassed the parent body Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political wing BJP. Photos and video clips of the Sadhvi, seen with prominent BJP leaders including party president Rajnath Singh are widely circulated in the media. As a damage control measure, the RSS and BJP have started to blame the arrests as an ‘ultra-secularists’ ploy, voraciously defending the ‘malicious’ attempt to ‘assail the majority community’ with the terrorist tag. At the same time they have neatly washed off there hands by denying any link with the Sadhvi. However, expelled BJP heavyweight leader Uma Bharati has sprung to the Sadhvi’s defense saying she was shocked to see the BJP disown the Sadhvi and quipped: “they had no problems in using her when they wanted to”.

*****

One of the most virulent forms of terrorism in our times seeks the cover of Islam. It calls its murderous campaign ‘jihad’, thereby trying to justify itself in the eyes of pious God-fearing Muslims. – L. K. Advani, My Country, My Life

The biggest threat the country is facing today is ‘jihadi terrorism’ – Rajnath Singh

It is our adversaries, and not us, who are misrepresenting that the fight against terrorism is fight against Islam and the Muslim community. – L. K. Advani

I want to assure the people that if they vote the BJP led NDA to power at the centre then we will bring a strong law against terrorism to crush the morale of the terrorists who seek to operate in India. – Rajnath Singh

*****

Relating to the choice of words, the BJP has started blaming the media for ‘double standard’. However, along with ‘Hindu Terrorist’ the media is also frequently using the term ‘Islamic Terrorist’ and ‘Islamic Terrorism’. The internet space is flooded with this term, prominently in the pro-Hindutva websites and blogs, even in the ‘reader’s forum’ pages of RSS mouthpiece Organiser. The conscience of the BJP leaders never felt the obligation to openly register a protest against it and was more than happy to relish this media service as it was creating a negative public opinion concerning the Muslim community. How come the media is blamed now for ‘double standard’? Is it not in fact the BJP’s ‘double standard’ tactic to remain mute about ‘Islamic Terrorist’ and proactively oppose the term ‘Hindu Terrorist’?

Why are the BJP so upset by the development?

The first reason is purely ideological. As per their core RSS teaching, the BJP believes that the word ‘Hindu’ is synonymous with the nation. Therefore, the use of the term ‘Hindu Terrorist’ is a direct ‘insult and abuse’ to the Indian Nation and therefore anti-national. This view is best reflected when the BJP spokespersons say that no Hindu can ever be an extremist.

Secondly, the BJP predicts that the development might hinder their meticulously crafted grassroot propaganda (with the muscle of RSS machinery) that all Muslims are potential terrorists – the party blueprint to incite Hindu sentiments on the eve of the next Lok Sabha polls. They are worried that their political opponents now have got a potent weapon against them. Also, in the minds of a vast majority of India’s plural society, the development has reconfirmed their assertion that one of the major cause of terror attacks which has sprung up in different parts of the country is the reaction to a malicious brand of politics practiced in India in the name of ‘nationalism’– the politics of hate.

BJP leaders are therefore proactive to voice their pristine view on terrorism and terrorists. According to them, irrespective of his/her religion or cast, a terrorist is simply a terrorist. Then why link terror with a particular religion? As always, the BJP is emulating their characteristic rhetoric of a calculated ambiguity. They are intensely opposing the ‘Hindu’ tag but not explicitly opposing the words ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ tagged with terrorism. Not a single statement issued by the party has specifically said that they are also against the term ‘Muslim Terrorist’.

BJP’s five point defense strategy is simple:

1. Not to use the term ‘Muslim Terrorism’ directly from public platforms. Instead, use ‘Jihadi Terrorism’ or ‘Islamic Jihadi’.

2. To proclaim with determination that no Hindu can ever be an extremist.

3. To intensely counter the term ‘Hindu Terrorist’ from all forums with the pretext that BJP have always believed that terror has no religion.

4. To be clamorous about homegrown jihadi cells; ‘terrorist factories’ of Azamgarh and SIMI. Link all terror attacks with Pakistan (which the Parivar considers to be a terrorist state) and Bangladesh, and constantly harp on about Bangladeshi infiltration. Talk about bringing a robust law (even stronger than POTA) against terrorism to crush the morale of the terrorists if BJP led NDA is voted back in power.

5. Diminish all secular voices by calling them ‘pseudo secular’ or ‘ultra-secular’. In response to all political adversaries, constantly go on saying that they are all ‘appeasing’ the minority community just to gain the minority votes.

The BJP leadership has strategized that persisting on these five points will facilitate a duel purpose. In one way it will help the party to craft a pan-Indian image, comfortable to various political partners and the section of the Hindu public who are not yet prepared to sanction a militant Hindu programme. Simultaneously it will also keep its cadres assured that the core Hindutva schema – building the Hindu Rashtra, is preserved as a hidden agenda which will be exposed in proper time.

This moderation to channelize its core Hindu nationalist and anti-Muslim position through a more agreeable ‘patriotic’ and ‘anti-foreign enemy’ (Pakistan, Bangladesh and jihadi terrorism) approach is largely due to the BJP’s coalition building compulsion. In his detailed study 'The BJP at the Centre', the French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot has noted that, “The moderation of BJP does not follow a linear trend but represents merely a phase reflecting its capacity to alternate moderation and extremism”. (Emphasis added) Party strategists think it to be a more pragmatic approach by which the party will build an acceptable mask in front of the public at the eve of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. As famously disclosed by the former BJP theoretician K.N. Govindacharya that Atal Bihari Vajpayee was presented as a mukota (mask), today, the whole party is in the finishing stage of a process to conceal behind a mask covering its Hindutva face.

One thing is for sure – this strategy is not to persuade the Muslims of India. It is actually intended for a different audience – the millions of (pseudo!) secular minded Hindus of India who still condemn the hateful ideology and agenda of the BJP. To bring them into their fold through its coalition allies, the BJP with the approval of RSS had already dropped contentious issues like Ram temple construction, abolition of Article 370 and imposition of a uniform civil code from its ‘national agenda’. This is why the 1999 election manifesto of BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) promised a ‘moratorium on contentious issues’. While justifying this new discourse and change of their political line, the top leaders of BJP had brought into play big words like ‘commitment to good governance’, ‘responsible party, alive to the interests of all section or society’ and ‘no place for an ideological party in India today’. A steady supply of skillfully practiced ambiguous words and more words has become a definite characteristic of the party.

The BJP leaders and spokespersons have mastered the art of twisting political jargon according to the demand of the situation and blending them in an ambiguous manner into their rhetoric. The one word ‘pseudo’ is a most endearing word in the Sangh lexicon and the users have almost turned the word into a cliché. It is been freely used against any person who disagrees to the ideology or opinion. The hydra-headed Parivar affiliates are even using the word within the brotherhood to tweak each other. The great Atal Bihari Vajpayee was also not spared and called a ‘pseudo Hindu’ by Acharya Giriraj Kishor, the senior vice-president of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) the religious and proselytization wing of RSS, when the Vajpayee led NDA government did not give priority to facilitate building the Ram temple in Ayodhya. BJP’s cerebral makeup has been perfectly exposed by the lawyer and constitutional expert A.G. Noorani: “Deceit and deception are integral to the RSS-BJP strategy”.

The leadership of BJP considers the Indian public as fools.

This blogger in a previous post has argued that terrorism primarily emerges from socio-economic reasons that create a feeling of frustration and grievances within a section of the society. This frustration and grievances lead towards aggression and is modified into a political tactic when the section starts believing that no other means will affect the kind of change they desire. Its method and strategy generally follows a similar line of committing acts of violence but with variable causes and targets that depends on whose point of view is being represented.

Terrorism is a deeply complex subject and cannot be connected with religion alone. The BJP is deceitful while propagating the same thing today. It remains as a fact that equating Muslims with terrorism is totally a RSS-BJP making – an integral part of their wider Hindutva agenda.

Indian Muslims and terrorism: a short discourse

The majority section of Indian society, the ‘concerned’ Hindu citizens are demanding that the Indian Muslims must immediately start to speak out and take counteractive steps against the terrorist attacks instigated by fundamentalist and anti-national Muslim groups. They are outright critical about the attitude of common Muslims and Muslim organizations of the country for not doing enough to voice their protest and instead preferring to remain mere spectators of the spiteful events. They have raised a ‘valid’ question: is this not the ideal time for Indian Muslims to prove their loyalty to the Indian state? If they are honestly against these felonious acts of homegrown terrorists, if they genuinely feel that terrorists are demeaning the entire Muslim population and in the name of Islam destabilizing the Indian society, then why are they not coming out in flocks to express their concern? A lot of voices have been built up in favor of the above view. Therefore, it is worth probing the elements of this complicated topic in detail.

During the Partition of India in 1947, a substantial number of Muslim families decided to live in secular India instead of migrating to Islamic Pakistan. It was a difficult but cognizant decision, based largely on the official stand of the new Indian Government which wanted to be recognized as a secular state. The important part played by a significant section of their Hindu neighbors and friends must also be mentioned, those Hindus who did provide the required confidence and solace to their Muslim brothers and sisters to reside beside them. At that time it was not an easy decision for the compassionate Hindus either in front of large-scale killing and violence. Communal elements were present in both communities, feeding each other on an agenda of hatred and intolerance. The Partition dusts settled down in time but left a deep scar on the face of the newborn nation. Today’s younger generation of Muslims were born and brought up in a secular-democratic India and has little or no mental connection with the Partition period’s assault of communal violence on their ancestors. They live and share the democratic milieu of this country equally with their Hindu counterparts.

Is it then beyond question that by having an equal stake in the system with their Hindu counterparts, the present day Indian Muslims should have no basis to be apathetic to the country’s democratic values? To find an answer to that we should look into the actual conditions wherein majority of the Indian Muslims live.

As per 2001 census estimates, India has roughly 150 million Muslims, constituting 13.43 per cent of the Indian population. They represent the second largest Muslim population in the world, behind Indonesia (190 million) and just ahead of Pakistan (about 140 million). The Indian Muslim community is larger than the entire population of Arab Muslims (about 140 million). Despite such a huge presence, Indian Muslims by and large are living in appalling socio-economic conditions. All post-independence commissions set up by the Indian government in an effort to find out the social, economic and educational status of Muslims – from the 1983 Dr Gopal Singh Commission to the 2006 Rajinder Sachar Commission have shown a dismaying portrayal of the community. The latest report by Rajinder Sachar Commission has established the following disturbing statistics:

1. 48 per cent of Muslims older than 46 years age can't read or write. In the age group of 6 to 14 years, 25 per cent of Muslim children are either dropouts or have never attended school. As far as enrolment ratio in schools are concerned, the share of Muslim children is lower compared to the schedule caste and schedule tribes.

2. Primary, secondary and higher secondary – at every level the dropout ratio is the highest among Muslims. Only 3 per cent of Muslim children attend the madrasa. Out of the total Muslim population of around 14 crore, only about 4 crore Muslims have received some education — 192 lakh are educated till primary level, 105 lakh till secondary, 73 lakh till higher secondary and 24 lakh till graduate level. A large section among the Muslims is Urdu speaking, but the infrastructure to teach Urdu is miserable.

3. 52 per cent of Muslim men and 91 per cent Muslim women are unemployed. Representation of Muslims in government jobs is far below their proportion in total population. They hold only 7.2 per cent of government jobs and only 3.2 per cent of the jobs in the country's security agencies (namely, CRPF, CISF, BSF, SSB etc). In some states like Delhi, Tamilnadu, Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, the percentage is even lower.

4. In towns that range in population between 50 thousand and 2 lakhs, Muslim per capita expenditure is less than that of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

5. Although they make up only 13.43 per cent of the total population, 40 per cent of the prison populations in India are Muslim.

Except if one utterly believes the Hindutva apologist’s propaganda that the Sachar Commission report is ‘full of prejudices’ and ‘politically motivated’, there should be little doubt from the above data, that the condition of common Muslims in India is not at all promising and needs a drastic change. Muslims in India have fallen behind the rest of the population, especially in employment opportunities and education. Large section of this Muslim populace is living under extreme poverty. In urban areas most of them are raised in ghettos near to posh neighborhoods, lacking the basic infrastructural facilities like clean water supply, sewage or sanitation system, banks and schools. In almost every three Muslim dominated villages, one does not have a school. Nearly 40 per cent of the Muslim dominated villages do not have proper roads, drinking water and health facility. A large section of ordinary Muslims are low status or downtrodden. A sizable section among them is former dalits, converted to Islam. Their conversion over the centuries has not helped them to realize any noticeable socio-economic uplift.

The Hindutva apologists obviously have very strong disagreement to this report as it has bluntly shatter their circulated myth about Muslim ‘appeasement’ by the ‘pseudo secular’ political class of this country. On the other hand, the report has also exposed that since independence, the main political parties have mostly ignored elevating the community in socio-economic terms. Time and again these political parties and leaders shed crocodile tears and in the excuse of ‘helping’ Muslims, compromise with the most reactionary elements among them. Time and again it was observed that these leaders and political parties erase out the community from their mind without actually carrying out any enduring benefit to them once their political goals are achieved.

From the education perspective, the situation of Muslims in India is rather depressing. From a very young age, Muslims who attend the madrasas (although only 3 per cent as per the Sachar report) receive orthodox religious teachings and throughout their lives earnestly follow it. The normal teaching trend in the madrasas is to minimize the intellectual and rational sciences and stress on purely religious orthodox disciplines, the dos and don’ts of Shariati laws and so on. The conditions of the dropouts or those who have never attended school (25 per cent as per the Sachar report) are even pathetic. They are the most wretched and deprived in the community, their outlook and values of life develop straight from their downcast and conventional social upbringing. The psyche of a larger section of young Muslims are shaped by these conventional and orthodox lessons of Islam, most of the time interpreted by the ulemas in such a way that learners are bound to incline towards a dogmatic approach in life, always suspicious to modern liberal values. The religious beliefs and practices form a blind faith on religion and thus it becomes easy for conservative minded religious Muslim leadership to draw the community's agenda in strictly religious terms, neglecting the importance of socio-economic empowerment of the community. Modern rationalistic approach towards life is absent in this rigid religious atmosphere. As a result, it becomes obligatory for the inhabitants to learn Urdu, the women to adopt veil, children to receive Islamic orthodox teachings and to grow up with all sorts of conservative values.

The role of Islamic organizations in India is also not beyond criticism. These organizations are less concerned about social and educational reforms but instead spend most of their energy and resources to organize the community in religious lines. By stressing on an identity related threat, they try to segregate the minds of common Muslims from secular lenience to religious fanaticism.

The increasing communal polarization of the Muslims has aggravated after the speedy growth of Hindutva ideology in Indian society following the Babri Masjid demolition on 6 December, 1992. This event and the subsequent communal propaganda set off by the hydra headed Sangh Parivar was responsible for strengthening the anti minority bias in all sections of Indian society and was successful to manage a parliamentary victory in the national elections for its political wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Upbeat after the electoral victory, the Parivar and its offshoots started to systemically unleash sporadic attacks on the minorities in many parts of the country and forced them to gradually segregate from the mainstream. While under direct or indirect communal attacks, the socially alienated ordinary Muslims cling more towards religion for comfort and support. Communal elements among the Muslim community have also added fuel to the fire. These elements equally contributed the increasing communal polarization and have stirred up a widely shared perception among the community that their identity is being undermined by the systemic propaganda and actions of Hindu communal forces. The degraded conditions of the ordinary Muslims were bit by bit gathering all the right ingredients for extremist Islamic ideology to spread its root among them.

Just when the Gujarat riots happened.

Immediately after the terrible incidence of Godhra train burning on 27 February 2002, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi called it “a one-sided collective terrorist attack by one community”. The following day, his speech was broadcasted on Ahmedabad Doordarshan where he remarked, “…we will set an example that nobody, not even in his dreams, thinks of committing a heinous crime like this.” From 28 February onwards, in the pretext of the ‘terrorist’ label, Hindutva communal fanatics with the active support of the state police unleashed an unprecedented collective violence upon the entire Muslims in the state. The pogrom was like a moral compulsion to the perpetrators that their robust action was the right reaction to Godhra train burning and was essential to cleanse the Indian society from the evils of radical Islam – to ‘defend the Hindu religion’. Numerous Muslim houses, shops along with people were gutted; mosques and shrines were damaged or destroyed and in the place makeshift Hindu temples were built. The largescale violence did not spare women and children; wealth and status could not shield the victims. The chief minister, instead of controlling the situation justified the pogrom by saying “it was a spontaneous reaction of the people against the terrible events of Godhra”. According to official estimate, 1044 people were killed in the violence – 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus (including 58 victims of the Godhra train fire). 1,50,000 were left homeless.

Who were beside the victimized Muslims when Gujarat was burning? It was some Muslim voluntary groups and few social activists. On ground, not a single political party dared to confront the killers or has protected the traumatized Muslims. Literary critic and activist Ganesh Devy at that time had bitterly remarked, “There is no political or ideological divide in Gujarat on the Muslim question; even the Congress hates Muslims.” The government looked the other way when its healing touch was required the most. Under brutal attack perpetrated by the religious majority, the hapless Muslims cocooned into grungy relief camps for years and were fixed more ardently to their faith. This is a perfect time for fanatic ideas to creep in. There is always an immense possibility that extremist radical thought could infiltrate and influence the victims and their kith and kin, mostly youths, when they find their whole surroundings including the civil society, government agencies and the hate factories of vernacular media are totally against them only because they belong to a particular religion. A compassionate social attitude and a concerned government could have arrested this risk but it was an absurd expectation from a society completely polarized on religious line, where a mere 9.1 per cent are Muslims. Gujarat riots of 2002 were a slap in the face of a country which proclaims to be the biggest secular-democratic state of the world.

Gujarati Hindus are arrogantly proud for what they have done in the post Godhra days. ‘Gujarati Asmita' (Gujarati pride) was finally been legalized when the first part of justice G T Nanavati Commission report was made public recently. The report supported the chief minister’s claim that Godhra was a ‘terrorist conspiracy’. It also hinted to give a clean chit to the Gujarat government when it says that there was no evidence of any lapse on the state government’s part, “in providing protection, relief and rehabilitation to the victims of communal riots or in complying with the directions given by the National Human Rights Commission.” The Nanavati Commission exclusively adopted the version of the Gujarat government’s investigating officer Noel Parmar’s report in the Godhra train burning case. Interestingly, Parmar’s same report was earlier not accepted by the Supreme Court which on March, 2008 has ordered a fresh investigation of the post-Godhra violence. Earlier, two riot cases were transferred outside Gujarat to Maharashtra by the Supreme Court because the court understood that it is impossible for Muslim riot victims to get justice from the judiciary of Narendra Modi’s Gujarat.

No one in Gujarat now talks about or recalls the 2002 riots as if nothing of that sort has ever happened there. The events are supposed to be too ‘sensitive’ to talk about. The collective Gujarati mind has been shaped so perfectly by the Sangh Parivar’s systemic propaganda that even a mention about the riots is confronted with stiff resistance from the common people of Gujarat today. Even the most effected Muslims have adjusted with the situation and try hard to ‘forget’ about the carnage they faced. Instead, their keen effort now is to motivate themselves by the vibrant Gujarat dream.

Apart from the Muslims, India also comprises other minority groups like Christians, Sikhs and Zoroastrians (Parsis). In 1999, a missionary Graham Steins were burnt to death by Bajrang Dal goons along with his two minor sons in Orissa. The Christians were also targeted in Gujarat where similar incidents of church burning and brutal killing took place precisely like what is happening today in Orissa, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. And why not? Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Guru M. S. Golwalkar had marked out Muslims and Christians as ‘internal enemy No. 1 and 2’. Are they not ‘foreign invaders’ aimed to annihilate Hindus? The charge against Christians is for forcibly converting people. In the contrary, the census figures show that the number of Christians in India has dropped from 2.5 to 2.3 per cent. Guru Golwalkar had put in plain words that:

"The foreign races in Hindusthan must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or [they] may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizen's rights." (M. S. Golwalkar: We, Our Nationhood Defined, 1939)

Today Guru Golwalkar’s loyal disciples, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal are just complying with this treatise. Minorities can live in India but only at the mercy of the Hindus. If they speak out about their grievances, their concerns and aspirations, they will be dubbed as ‘anti-national’ or humiliated as being ‘appeased’ too much. When Professor Mushirul Hasan, the Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia University offers legal aid on behalf of the University to the students accused for terror acts, he is harshly blamed for ‘supporting’ terrorists. At that point the accusers completely close their eyes to the fact that it is a constitutional right of the accused students as citizens of India to be entitled for legal help until their crime is proved in a court. When the same Professor Hasan was targeted by Muslim fundamentalists when he took a stand against banning Salman Rushdie's controversial book Satanic Verses – the same people has hailed him for taking a courageous position.

Who is a terrorist? Those who meticulously plan and blast bombs in crowded public places, attack temples with automatic weapons and brutally kill innocent lives in the name of Islamic jihad or those who butcher innocent lives, violently evict the victims from their homes and turn them into refugees, rape the women, destroy mosques and burn churches in the name of Hindu nationalism? Both are dangerous, both are malicious. Both are foreign funded, both have their own versions to justify their acts. Both are terrorists.

The utter hypocrisy with a section of our so called ‘concerned’ and ‘patriotic’ middle class is that they consider all secular voices as pseudo secular and thinks that condemning both Islamic and Hindutva fanatics is like ‘falling in a trap’. They are severely critical against jihadi homegrown Muslims but covertly supportive to the fanaticism of the vicious Hindutva forces. After independence almost seven decades has passed but still they never miss a chance of Muslim bashing by relating them with the 61 years old Partition day mayhem of 1947. However, these very same people carefully ignore the 16 year old Babri Masjid demolition of 1992 and purposely forget the only 6 year old Gujarat pogrom days of 2002. It has also become their obligation to glorify the headship of Narendra Modi as the potential savior of India. Their perception of democracy is selective. Muslim terror in the name of Allah is loathsome, Hindu terror in the name of Ram is explicable.

Ordinary Muslims should realize that only a fresh liberal outlook acquired from modern education can elevate them from their misery and disorientation. The reasons behind their socio-economic backwardness in large parts of this country are primarily due to this social stagnation and educational marginalization. The Muslim youths today who have been motivated as jihadi and opts the terrorist path are truly misguided. The solution to homegrown terrorism mostly depends on how the state and society as a whole, efforts to do something about the grievances of common Muslims and thus prevent their youths to be misguided by lethal influences. The state and society should also realize that until provocation is barred and the rule of law is evenly established, the problem will persist and keep India susceptible to more serious damages in future.

Jammu and Kashmir: The Country Without a Post Office*

Since the dawn of independence, Kashmir is the main cause of disagreement between India and Pakistan. The only difference today from what it was in 1947 is, that the state seems to be more divided and communalized. Regular attempts by both countries took place to resolve the dispute through various means: from bilateral talks, wars and state sponsored militancy but the crisis sustained as the major source of tension and dispute between them. Today the divide among the Hindu and Muslim communities has enormously widened up in the region, credit goes to the intensified promotion of religious politics by major political parties from both sides. When one side desires to justify the ‘Two Nations theory’ that emphasizes that Muslims and non-Muslims cannot live together, the other side promotes jingoistic nationalism and demands Muslims to be treated as second-class citizens. Religious sentiments are repetitively injected to both communities, as it is a well-known fact that religion is the only topic that can easily rouse the ordinary people to fight against each other. History confirms again and again the famous Karl Marx maxim “Religion is the opium of the masses”. An elderly Muslim shopkeeper in Udarana, a mixed Hindu-Muslim village near the town of Bhaderwah, expresses this enormous divide “Now we hardly visit each other’s homes or patronize each other’s shops. ...We really don’t have love in our hearts for each other.” From the early nineties, Hindu-Muslim relations have rapidly been diminished in the state.

Jammu and Kashmir's first political party, the 'Muslim Conference' was founded in 1932 with Shaikh Abdullah as its President. While a student at Aligarh Muslim University, Shaikh Abdullah was influenced by liberal and progressive ideas. He became convinced that the feudal system existing in the land was to blame for the miseries of Kashmir, which was ruled in an oppressive and autocratic manner by a Hindu monarchy. 'Muslim Conference' changed its name to 'National Conference' in 1938 on the objective to create a broader platform and allow people from all communities to join the struggle against the monarchy of Maharaja Hari Singh. At the time of partition, when the Maharaja was hesitating over the choice of acceding either to India or to Pakistan, Shaikh Abdullah supported India. He was appointed Prime Minister of Kashmir on March 17, 1948. Until the monarchy existed, most Muslims in the region were landless laborers. Along with the Dalits, they were also treated as untouchables by the 'upper' caste Hindus. Under Shaikh Abdullah, radical land reforms were introduced in the state, through which sharecroppers, mainly Muslims and Dalits, got land previously owned by Rajput and Brahmin landlords. His effort made him a hugely popular mass leader. In 1953, the Indian government betrayed Shaikh Abdullah by sacking him from the Prime Minister’s post. He was accused for conspiring against the State and jailed from 1953 to 1975. Meanwhile, the Indian Constitution, vide Article 370 had granted a special status to the state guaranteeing it autonomy except for defense, foreign affairs and communications. After his release, he had sworn in as the Chief Minister in 1977 with a massive mandate. For the next five years, until the death of Shaikh Abdullah in 1982, Jammu and Kashmir was politically calm and stable. The separatist movement in the Kashmir Valley restarted from April 1988. The movement gathered momentum through a close nexus between Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and Pakistan, which reached its peak in the mid nineties. The present controversy on the Amarnath Shrine Board land transfer and the subsequent incidents must be read based on this history.

Amarnath Shrine Board land transfer fiasco

The Amarnath Caves are one of the most famous Hindu shrines located in the Himalayas at the altitude of 12,760 feet. The caves are about 88 miles away from Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir (Jammu is the winter capital). It is one of the most significant pilgrimage destinations for the Hindus and attracts about 400,000 pilgrims (Yatri) every year. In the year 2000, the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board was set up to take care of the pilgrims passage (Yatra) to the caves that was previously conducted jointly by tourism department of the state government and Dharamarth Trust. The Yatra and Yatris were largely assisted by the local people of the region, who are Muslims. Apart from the obvious gesture of religious harmony, the Amarnath Yatra is also economically important for the local people.

On 26 May 2008, the Congress-led coalition government of Jammu and Kashmir decided to transfer 100 acres of forestland to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to set up temporary shelters and facilities for the pilgrims. The government decision snowballed into a huge public outcry in the Kashmir valley. During protests, six people were killed and 100 injured in police firing at Srinagar. The coalition partner PDP pulled out its support and the government was reduced to a minority. Keeping in mind the coming state election and under pressure from different quarters, the government revoked the order on 1 July. Immediately, violent counter protests sparked off in the Jammu region spearheaded by Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti, a conglomeration of several Hindu chauvinist groups but with a large mass support. Here also at least three people were killed by police firing. Questions are raised by the Samiti, which was formed around the Hindu sentiment, that if the decision to transfer the land was revoked after the protests in the Kashmir region, why not it is further restored after the more aggressive Jammu counter protests? On 7 July, Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned after loosing the trust vote in the state assembly and Governor's rule was imposed in the state.

In this political chaos, the role of the PDP (Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party) was the most to condemn. The decision to transfer the forestland to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board was a unanimous cabinet decision cleared by the state forest ministry and the deputy chief minister, both top notches from the PDP leadership. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti’s remark that she came to know about the decision only from newspaper reports were a full-size lie. The fact is that the PDP leadership could not foresee the huge public protests following the order and when the situation turned worst did a volte-face to safeguard its political ambitions in the coming election. After the government revoked the land transform order, PDP started demanding a credit for it. This is a clear example of the politics of opportunism being played by political parties jeopardizing the life of the ordinary people of Jammu and Kashmir.

The aftermath

The present turmoil has clearly shattered the myth of Jammu and Kashmir as a single entity. The deep-rooted religious and social divide prevailing in the region is entirely exposed now as a 'Jammu versus Kashmir' dispute. In the Jammu region, the Muslims are a minority compared to Kashmir where the Muslims are the majority. Therefore, while protesters in Jammu enforced an economic blockade of the Kashmir Valley by stopping traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, on 11 August separatist leaders of the Kashmir region instigated a march to Muzaffarabad (the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir referred as PoK) bypassing Jammu. The intention was to explore new trading options by crossing the Line of Control, the temporary border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The march violated the imposed curfew, clashed with the security forces leading to ten more deaths including All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz. The polarization in the state became absolute and there is no space of suppleness visible from either side now.

My memory is again in the way of your history.
Army convoys all night like desert caravans:
In the smoking oil of dimmed headlights, time dissolved— all
winter— its crushed fennel.

We can't ask them: Are you done with the world?

In the lake the arms of temples and mosques are locked
in each other's reflections.

Have you soaked saffron to pour on them when they are
found like this centuries later in this country
I have stitched to your shadow?

In this country we step out with doors in our arms.

Children run out with windows in their arms.
You drag it behind you in lit corridors.
if the switch is pulled you will be torn from everything.

- Farewell: Agha Shahid Ali

Political gambits have caused a colossal damage to the economy, education system and social fabric of Jammu and Kashmir. The once tranquil and gorgeous land has turned into a ‘valley of fear’. It has turned into a land of orphans and widows, a land of graveyards. After frequently witnessing violent deaths and funerals of near and dear ones, the people here has lost their normal human feelings. Violence has affected all sections of life. It has in fact become a way of ‘communication’. Human lives are so devalued that a few killings hardly shock anybody. Students have lost their inquisitiveness to learn. Teachers lost their enthusiasm to teach. To visit homes of friends and relatives people has to prove their innocence before security personals. Everyone has to carry an identity card, which is regarded almost as oxygen. The situation is best described by Agha Shahid Ali in his poem, “everyone carries his address so that at least his body will reach home”. Anxiety and tension has become a part of the daily life here. A very disturbing psychology of suspicion and fear has permanently etched in the minds of local people.

Though located within free and democratic India, Jammu and Kashmir no more signifies to be a free place. The presence of army and security forces in every nook and corner has developed a feeling of confinement and repression. To the ordinary Muslim minds in particular, the most humiliating feeling must be to live under regular scrutiny about their ‘patriotism’ and allegiance to the Indian state. Armed conflict and disputes has halted the economic development of the state. In the last one and a half month following the Amarnath Shrine Board land dispute, the local economy suffered a loss of nearly Rs. 200-250 crores.

We shall meet again, in Srinagar,
by the gates of the Villa of Peace,
our hands blossoming into fists
till the soldiers return the keys
and disappear. Again we’ll enter
our last world, the first that vanished

in our absence from the broken city.
We’ll tear our shirts for tourniquets
and bind the open thorns, warm the ivy
into roses. Quick, by the pomegranate—
the bird will say—Humankind can bear
everything. No need to stop the ear

- A Pastoral: Agha Shahid Ali

There is very little hope left over for the ordinary people of Jammu and Kashmir today, the hope for an exuberant future. In the present circumstances, it is almost impossible even to dream about a brotherhood involving the two communities, as the poet Agha Shahid Ali did in his deeply emotional poem A Pastoral dedicated to his Kashmiri Hindu friend Suvir Kaul. To hope, one should regain trust and rely on truth. Who will bring back trust and truth among the people of Jammu and Kashmir? Time after time, people's trustworthiness has been used by fraudulent leaders for their own wicked causes. Who will tell them that division is greater a problem, not a solution? We really do not know. Truth is the most politicized commodity in today’s Jammu and Kashmir. Truth is perilous because it badly damages the vicious interests of the various players in this unfortunate state: governments, mainstream political parties, the separatists and the nationalists.

Notes:

* Derived from the title of Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali’s book The Country Without a Post Office published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1998. The book was originally published as Kashmir without a Post Office in the Graham House Review.
Agha Shahid Ali was born in New Delhi on February 4, 1949. He grew up in a distinguished Muslim family in Srinagar, Kashmir and was later educated at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and the University of Delhi. He earned a Ph.D. in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1984, and an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona in 1985. He died peacefully, in his sleep, of brain cancer in December, 2001.

* Painting by Nilima Sheikh from the series ‘Reading Agha Shahid Ali’: Each night put Kashmir in your dreams

Internet resources:
Sarai Reader 04: Crisis / Media (See the section - Caution: Reporters at work)
countercurrents.org : Kashmir Section
Wikipedia articles related to Kashmir dispute

The terror attack in Ahmedabad

It is a matter of extreme worry and grief about what happened on Saturday in Ahmedabad. The terror attack was another deliberate and brutal attempt against the innocent populace of this ill-fated country. The nation was glum to observed the empty and feeble stares from the swollen eyes of a gravely wounded little child Yash Vyas, his lips quivering in unbearable pain. The blood tainted hospital floors and patient trolleys, scattered human bodies and body parts, lamenting fathers-mothers-sisters of the poor victims are some of the several images of deep agony flashed live from Ahmedabad. The most alarming part is, for the first time public hospitals were under the attack where hapless victims were rushed for emergency treatments.

As pointed out by a Times of India report, there was a clear design behind the blasts that indicates that the Muslim extremist group planned the malevolent act as revenge to the Gujarat riots of 2002. The bombs were planted in selectively chosen areas those are notably related with Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Gujarat assembly Speaker Ashok Bhatt and VHP leader Pravin Togadia, the three main faces alleged for stimulating the post-Godhra genocide. Gujarat and its Hindu leaders were always on top of the list of probable extremist targets. The attack was also another terrible failure of the country’s security agencies and the concerning central and state governments. Particularly when a similar attack took place the previous day in Bangalore and the whole country was supposed to be under high alert.

A surprisingly stupid and baseless confidence was prevailing among the government authorities, the ruling party, and the general public in Gujarat that the extremists will not dare to strike a major assault to this state. What was the basis of this confidence? It was the result of a perception widely propagated by the Hindutva forces that in Mr. Modi’s Gujarat, Muslim ‘menaces’ are dealt with an iron hand, whoever may try to break the rules of the Hindu order is appropriately ‘paid back’ here. Gujarat under Mr. Modi is therefore the safest haven for Hindus in India where minorities can survive only when they agree to obey the superior Hindu diktats. This fascistic believe of might was shattered by the weekend blasts which confirmed again that jingoistic method and ideas could never prevent the long reach of terrorism. In the contrary, it subsequently fuels the possibility in a greater extent. This fact has being proven again and again all through the world and now in Ahmedabad, the vibrant Gujarat city.

Who did mastermind the serial blasts in Ahmedabad? A local front for the international Jihadi groups called ‘Indian Mujahideen’, arrogantly describing themselves as "radicals of Islam” has claimed the responsibility through an e-mail send just before the blasts to some television channels under different ID’s. In this e-mail, they have challenged the security agencies to try to foil their future terrorist plans. Earlier this group had similarly claimed responsibility for the serial bomb attacks in Bangalore, Jaipur and Uttar Pradesh and in all the cases their modus operandi was alike. Their rages are particularly aimed against a multi headed socio-cultural nationalist organization of this country. No matter what may be their raison d'être, this group must be immediately nabbed and sternly punished for their horrendous crime against humanity.

Whatever advance security measures are essential to tackle this terrorist surge in India, should be demarcated and immediately acted upon. This is a specialized job and therefore must be handed over to the experts from the respected fields to deal with. Our politicians must ensure to constrain themselves from unnecessarily interfering them. Instead, they should focus more on the social aspects of terrorism. A discriminated society is the perfect breeding ground for terrorism. Would it be possible to resist terrorism by keeping a large number of religious minority people segregated from the mainstream and by treating them as second-class citizens? Certainly not. Our politicians therefore should be more on the go to abolish the dividing wall and work on building social harmony. To ensure peace, unity among the masses is essential.

If the present political bosses of Gujarat and their socio-cultural associates realize this truth, it will be the only positive outcome of the Saturday blasts.

Image courtesy: NDTV.com