Saturday, June 27, 2009

Restoring Green in Valley

Restoring Green in the Valley

Ram Puniyani
On 29th May night (2009) in Shopian in Kashmir, two girls Nilofer and Asiya were raped and murdered. The administration tried to prove that it was a case of death due to drowning. The valley erupted into severe protests. The favorite slogan of the protesters from last several years has been, Hamen Kya Chahiye-Azadi (what do we want-Freedom). Every act of trampling on the interests of the people of valley leads to the same. Last time it took place when the Amarnath agitation sparked by the faulty move of Pro BJP governor of Kashmir, to acquire vast stretch of land for the shrine.
The present incident is very disturbing. It shows the role of the army and para-military forces, the attitude of administration in toeing lines which are very much insulting to the people of Kashmir, which cover up the crimes of the forces. Also one should note the tragic plight of the Kashmiri’s and more so the Kashmiri women at the hands of the people with the gun, the militants and the army both. The rising militancy in Kashmir has led to the deployment of more and more forces in Kashmir. Last two decades in particular have seen the life drying out there, and the suffering of people caught in the cross fire between the militant-terrorist outfits and the Indian armed personnel.
The popular perception has been that the Kashmir issue is due to the separatism of Muslims, and that Islam and Jihad is the major culprit. Kashmir has been mired right from the beginning by the ultra nationalism of Hindu right pressuring the Indian government to abolish article 370 and fully merge Kashmir with India. After the tragic partition of India, Kashmir’s Raja Harisingh decided to remain independent. The Hindutva forces in valley said that a Hindu Kingdom Kashmir (since the king was a Hindu) should not merge with secular India. When Pakistan’s army, disguised as tribals, attacked Kashmir, the People of Kashmir as represented by the National Conference with its leader Sheikh Abdullah, did not want to merge with Pakistan.
In the face of aggression Maharaja Harising appealed to Indian government to send its army to protect Kashmir from the attack by Pakistan army. On the insistence of Sheikh Abdullah in particular, the army was sent after the treaty of accession was signed. With Indian army intervention, Kashmir’s 2/3 became part of India with all the clauses of autonomy, article 370. With general elections Sheikh Abdullah swept the polls and became the Prime Minister of Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah must be credited as being one of the most progressive leaders of the time as he was determined to undertake land reforms, which he did once he came to power.
Immediately after the treaty was signed Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the leader of Hindu Mahasabha, started campaigning for abolishing the clauses of autonomy and to forcibly merge it with India. This pressure had its effect and the attitude of Indian Government, over a period of time, hardened towards the autonomy clauses. With such attitude developing, Sheikh felt regret for his decision for accession, started loud rethinking and started talking to other countries, including the US and China. With this the Indian Govt. declared him as anti National and he was imprisoned for long years. This in turn led to the alienation of Kashmir people. As such on one hand Kashmir has been the victim of global imperialist policy on one hand and the attempts to go back from the promise of autonomy, on the other. US was clear that in the geographically crucial area, Kashmir, which has its border with many countries, cannot be left alone and so its stooge Pakistan did all possible to help the disgruntled elements in Kashmir. The later events showed the attitude of India and Pakistan as powers trying to take hold of the real Estate called Kashmir. Kashmir was seen not as constituted by people with their own aspirations but as a piece of property.
In all fairness it must be said till Nehru was alive he cautioned restraint and believed in winning over the hearts and minds of the people of Kashmir. Even at his time the pressure of Ultra Nationalists inside and outside the Government kept going up and gradually army was projected as the answer to the ‘problem of Kashmir.’ Ironically Pakistan which so far has been in the chains of the rule of Army, Mullahs and America, named the part of Kashmir, under its control as Azad Kashmir (Independent Kashmir)! And freedom for Kashmir has been the favorite theme of most of the dictators ruling the roost, of course with due support from Uncle Sam. What an irony; Dictators talking of Freedom! The trajectory of events is long, how after Sheikh Abdullah’s concern of autonomy changed over to Independence in the decades of 1970s, and in 1980-1990 to armed struggle for Azad Kashmir.
Interestingly after the defeat of Al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan, many of them turned their attention to Kashmir and partly communalized the issue. Mostly the theme of the Kashmir struggle has been Kashmiriyat, a concept which incorporates the values of Vedanta, Buddha and Sufis.
India kept sending more and more armed personnel to ‘solve’ the problem. There has been one Indian soldier for every 6-7 Kashmiris. What can be the life under such circumstances? Army is meant to fight the enemies, and not for any prolonged stay in any area. The army stay, domination in an area creates different type of vested interests. Army is no holy cow! From times immemorial army has been plundering and raping apart form other things. While it will be wrong to tar all the armed personnel with single brush, it is also true that section of army’s attitude to women has not been any thing good to write about. Be it the case of Manorama in the North East or the present case of Nilofer and Asiya, the tale is tragic.
The good news from Kashmir has been that last tow lections have been conducted fairly democratically, and even the separatists like Sajjad Lone are now opting for the democratic system with changed equation in Pakistan, with democracy struggling to come in there, the portents are healthy. It is time that army is withdrawn at a rapid pace, democratic process is deepened, guilty of violence against women and their protectors are punished and army rests in barracks rather than dictating terms in Kashmir. Hope Mr. Chidambaram promise in this direction does not remain merely on paper.

Faith; Instilling Unity

Faith: Instilling Unity


Ram Puniyani



One has heard that faith can move mountains, but currently one looks forward to see that it restores peace and justice in society. We have been hearing about various Inter Faith Dialogues from quite some time. One such high level dialogue took place in Mumbai in second week of June 2009. This was attended by top clergy from Hindu and Christian religions. It came to the understanding that there should be no violence against minorities, there should be no conversions and that religious organizations will pool together their resources for charity.

The need for interfaith dialogue has been felt very acutely in the light of violence in the name of religion, which has intensified during last couple of decades. Faith has been misused during this time to launch violence by vested interests. The aim of this use, nay abuse, of faith for political goals was a very well calculated move by vested interests to come to power. Surely interfaith dialogue is the best contribution the clergy can make for the peace of society. It is also true that it is not the clergy which is instrumental in misuse of faith.

In last three decades faith has been misused for political goals by US when it resorted to cultivating terror groups and then launched War on Terror, unleashed ‘crusade’ and attacked Afghanistan. Then the Al Qaeda, Taliban types liberally misused the word Jihad, Kafir in an insane manner to launch their ‘revenge’ offensive, apparently for the glory of their faith. In India the adverse effect of Al Qaeda violence added on to the misuse of faith here. At another level with Ram Rath Yatra, as it was riding on the chariot of faith and leaving behind the trail of blood, the misuse of faith for divisive politics tormented the society. Those blinded by lust for power saw the resurgence of faith around the chariot and ignored the spilling of blood in the back. It did achieve the purpose of sectarian forces occupying the seats of power for six long years.

The other misuse of faith was around defense of Hindu faith by organizations in Adivasi areas. A group of swamis descended in these Adivasi areas and dubbed the charity work done by section of missionaries as being a danger to Hindu faith and so burnt a Pastor from Australia working amongst Leprosy patients and backed it up by further misuse of faith in unleashing violence in the Adivasi belt from Dangs to Orissa.

The clergy’s effort in the direction of restoring peace is laudable. Though the problem is not of their making they do realize a large section of society looks up to them for guidance. The organizations of religion have a very different role to play in today’s World. True, in feudal times, clergy was associated with the kings and legitimized the system of economic exploitation, social subjugation of landed labor and women. Today when democracy is struggling to be the norm, clergy has to play a different role. It should not associate with powers that be to perpetuate the unjust social, economic system. They have to act as the soothing balm to the suffering humanity. It is in this direction that the meeting of Archbishops and Shankarachayas is a welcome move. With such dialogues the perpetuators of violence in the name of religion will loose their legitimacy after such pronouncements by the men of religion, and that will be a big step in curbing the violence, emasculating the politics deriving its legitimacy in the name of religion.

One point which strikes in the discourse of these holy people is their emphasis on spirituality. While Cardinal Gracias said ours is a spiritual country, Sri Sarswati went in to call that India should be declared as a spiritual state. There is some problem here. Being spiritual is a personal Endeavour, effort to discover oneself, to connect one self with the divine powers etc., is a personal matter, not the matter for state apparatus to deal with. The state cannot be and should not be declared spiritual. In modern times even religion which has visible aspects in the form of identity markers cannot be a state matter. Spirituality is an abstract concept, persons’ own path to be at peace in the universe. Many a mystics, saints adopted the path of spirituality as a way of life for themselves. Spirituality can be expressed, but not transferred. In democratic society as religion is a personal matter, spirituality is much more so. Individual path of spirituality of people cannot make the state as spiritual. State has to have its own norms of laws, schemes for welfare of material betterment of its citizens.

As such the formulation that India is a spiritual nation is not a new one. It began with British coming to India. They propounded that India is essentially a religious country and spiritualism is its core. This myth was started by British rulers who were consolidating their hegemony over India. The sole aim of such a fabrication was to dominate the political, social machinery, the 'material realm' of socie¬ty, while leaving the 'spiritual arena' for the Indians. The idea was to flatter the Indians away from the matters of civil and political society, where they wanted to establish unhindered hegemony.

The fact is, India was the cradle for multiple rich materi¬al pursuits: trade and commerce, which was well developed, Indian traders going far and wide for their business pursuits, crafts¬manship had reached its glorious heights in different professions. Art and architecture had a rich spectrum to offer from the paintings of Kangada Kalam, to temples of Khajuraho, to the majestic palaces of Kings to Taj Mahal. It was a comprehensive develop¬ment of all the faculties of society, spiritual and material. This civilization and culture had rich inputs from different cultures, which came and interacted with the local cultures. Starting from Aryans down to British, all those who came contributed to the culture of this land. Indian cul¬ture is a rich outcome of interaction of multiple cultures and syncretic traditions which not only left their deep mark on the ‘way of life' of the people but also a pleasant imprint on the social and cultural lie of society.

So while welcoming the move to understand each other, to shun from looking at the ‘other’ in a humiliating way, to having a pro-active affinity for each others’ positive values, one also hopes clergy tunes itself to the values of democratic society and democratic ethos rather than stick to formulations which are either borrowed from the practitioners of divisive politics or from the past, which have no relevance today.
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Friday, June 12, 2009

Election Results 2009-Whither BJP?

Election Verdict 2009- Whither BJP?

Ram Puniyani

The resounding defeat of BJP in the 2009 elections, decline in number of seats and decline in voting percentage prompted various BJP insiders and sympathizers to do some introspection. Where did the party go wrong? In his piece in Times of India 4th June 2009, Swapan Dasgupta feels that BJP has got too much identified with Hindutva, which is no more appealing to large section of Hindus so it needs to come out of this image for a makeover. Sudheendra Kulkarni (Tehelka 13th June 2009), looks at the defeat as close Advani aide and also as an insider and points out that Advani was not sufficiently backed up by RSS and BJP. He also says that BJP’s implementation of Hindutva looked to be anti minorities and that its links with RSS need to be given a second look.

Kulkarni projects as if Hindutva is all inclusive, Hindu identity is core of Indian Nationalism, and Cultural nationalism is not meant for Hindus alone. One can infer that Kulkarni basically stands by the core RSS concepts of Hindutva, Cultural Nationalism and Integral humanism and finds BJP practices faulty in this direction. One can point out that since Kulkarni is an insider, associated with BJP from the times of Advani’s Rath nay, blood yatra, and is close to the top echelons of BJP and that he had all the time to point out to BJP leadership as to how their practice is deviating from the genuine Hindutva. One is not sure whether this has been done inside the party forums, any way lets keep that aside.

Concepts and ideologies are not made in the thin air. They reflect the needs of social groups. These terms couched in the language of religion were devised by ideologues of declining sections of Hindu society, the landlords and Brahmins from early nineteen twenties onwards. The term Hindutva in particular came into being as the politics of Hindu Mahasabha and RSS. It stood for politics of Hindus, for the building of Hindu Rashtra. This word was coined by Savarkar in 1920s and was meant to be an alternate notion of politics to the one being articulated by national movement led by Gandhi. Similar concept of nationalism, based on the values of liberty, equality and fraternity were also articulated by Ambedkar, while the third major stream during freedom movement, Bhagat Singh and Communists, dreamt of a Socialist society, based on the notions of substantive equality and state regulating the social relations to ensure this equality.

It must be pointed out that the concept of Hindutva aims at Hindu nation, in parallel to the concept of Muslim nation being propounded by Muslim League, and in opposition to the concept of democratic secular nation, the concept for which national movement was working. This Indian nationalism is all inclusive, inclusive of all religions, castes and both genders. The concepts of Hindu and Muslim nations are exclusive concepts. The second point is that the Gandhi-Ambedkar Nationalism was based on the equality of caste and gender while HIndutva and the ideology of Muslim nationalism were continuum of the feudal values, the harping on caste and gender hierarchy. In the same direction later Deen Dayal Upadhyay the ideologue of RSS-BJP very cleverly put up the concept of Integral Humanism. This concept argues that as any organism is well balanced due to the division of work between different parts of the body, similarly different social groups perform different well defined tasks to provide the equilibrium for the proper social functioning. This in a way talks of status quo in the caste and gender relation prevalent in society.

Similarly Cultural nationalism as propounded by RSS and adopted by BJP stands for the elite Brahminical culture as the synonym for Indian ness. All in all this is precisely what RSS defines and BJP practiced so far. There cannot be equal place of dalits, women and non Hindus in this scheme of things. Swapan Dasgupta feels BJP has to drop Hindutva, to provide an alternative based on good governance, non dynasty politics etc. Kulkarni’s reading of Hindutva and integral humanism is from the world of make-believe, totally off the mark. The simple question is why were these practitioners of Hindutva, cultural nationalism aloof from National movement? It is this National movement which laid the basis of India and achieved India’s independence. These streams which take the cover of glorious traditions focus only on those traditions are elitist. In Indian context the concepts Hindu nationalism and Muslim Nationalism derive their legitimacy from Brahminical and Ashrafs (Muslim elite) stream respectively. Why can’t RSS-BJP talk that primarily they are loyal to the values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and dump all those concepts built around religious identity? It is because these religion based concepts are the best cover for oppression of women, dalits and non Hindus. And in turn these concepts also demonize, intimidate and commit violence against minorities, trying to reduce them to second class citizens.

BJP could come to power only because of harping on identity of Lord Ram. BJP does hold Ram is the symbol of India’s identity. This is one of the expressions of their cultural nationalism. The question arises why only Lord Ram is the symbol of India, why not Shambuk, or Bali or Sita. In nutshell their cultural nationalism picks up those characters which suit the interests, agenda of Hindu elite. Surely had Ram temple agitation not taken up, Babri mosque not demolished and Mumbai and Gujarat violence not instigated, BJP would have been on the margin of Indian society. Its very raison detre is due to the fact that it is progeny of RSS, to the fact that it is related to VHP, Bajrang Dal etc., whose vagaries it keeps defending most of the time. It is thoroughly exclusionist and that’s why it justifies Gujarat violence, Kandhamal, rejects Sachar committee etc. It is not a mere coincidence; it is the core of BJP politics. It is not that the concept of Hindutva is inclusionary and practice is faulty, the very concept of Hindutva is exclusionary, in theory and practices both.

Can BJP throw away Hindutva, aim of building Hindu Nation around glorious Hindu traditions of Manu Smriti etc? The question is misplaced as BJP is nobody to decide that. BJP is merely a political arm of RSS; it is RSS which has to decide that. Can RSS cut its own legitimacy off by renouncing Hindutva? The question does not arise. RSS essentially is aimed around these goals. Kulkarni’s confusions and his welcome concern about poor, minorities and dalits are misplaced as those are not the concerns of RSS, they have never been and can never be the concerns of BJP and company at any point of time. Hindutva or integral humanism is cleverly worded disguise to undermine the concept of democracy. Last two decades had been a nightmare where the values opposed to Indian nationhood asserted themselves aggressively, bringing immense miseries. One hopes with the trend of decline of BJP, those striving for democratic struggles, struggles for equality and rights of dalits, women, adivasis, workers and minorities will come to occupy the main social space and protect the nation form the damages done by the politics in the garb of religious identity.

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