Pride and warmth

Today, for the first time since I arrived in Swansea and began exploring the town on foot, I saw the lights switched on at the Church of St Mary behind my apartment building.

I walked in to find the service being offered, but with only around 5-6 elderly folks in attendance. I sat down on one of the chairs and watched and listened. Some choir singing, some sermons, and some chat happening in my own mind.

 

The aural effect in general was soothing and I slowly settled on my own mind's voice. It kept shifting rapidly from one matter to another: my dear Bijoy, my Pullara, Gayathri and Rudra, what if I fail in my venture, will it affect my family, or merely my pride...

I sensed someone's presence. I opened my eyes to find an elderly lady, ambling up to me using a walker and carrying some church literature. "Just in case you need them..." she smiled. I accepted the copy of the New Testament, a book of choir songs, and something else in Welsh. I thanked her.

She returned to her seat some five rows ahead and I to my thoughts.

...it would only be my pride, I concluded. That was the mild pain wrenching my heart. More than Bijoy, more than family, more than Pullara. There was no escaping my self-centeredness...

The service ended presently. The church organ fell silent and the choir group dispersed. I woke up from my reverie, and traced my steps out of the church when I heard an "Excuse me!"

I turned around to see the priest walking up to me.

"We haven't met before, have we?"

"No father (I'm not even sure if that's the term used in the Anglican Church.) I am new to the country."

"Well, welcome then! I am John. Please visit us whenever you can."

"I will do that. Although I am afraid I am not a Christian."

"That's alright. Are you a Muslim?"

"No, Hindu."

"Oh, a Hindu...from India...I know great Hindus. Gandhi, Nehru..."

I smile. "I'm glad. Have you been to India?"

"No, unfortunately. Not yet. Hope to hear about your country from you sometime whenever you have the time. So do visit us."

"I shall surely do that. I will get my daughters, too, to meet you."

"Oh that will be great. Good luck..."

I stepped out. It was drizzling. It was cold. I was, somehow, warm. Despite that edgy pride.

Gayathri's Revenge -- and Compassion

(July 11, 2015)

PTA meeting with Gayathri's teachers.

After the basic academics, we moved on to discuss her general behaviour. They  had no complaints, except for one occasion a few days ago when she picked up another kid's lunchbox and threw it outside the window for no apparent reason. The boy's parents had spoken to the teachers about the missing item.

So, after the meeting, Ramya and I asked Gayathri why she did what she did. Our daughter revealed that this was the guy who had been throwing her pencil and rubber outside the window frequently. She stayed patient for a few days. When his pranks didn't stop, she acted.

So I chided her, saying she should have told the teachers or us about the boy. I sought to strike a mild emotional chord by reminding her that the poor boy must have gone hungry that day.

Ramya and I were amused and mildly stunned by her reply:

"I shared my food with him that day."

Karuppar Koottam and Brahminisation of gods and arts

The Karuppar Koottam row in Tamizh Nadu may well have been manufactured by Hindutva to split Tamizh society, but it doesn't take away from the fact that the group's video was right on dot (even if juvenile).

Those who won't be fooled by random allegations will easily see that the presenter's short video was not ridiculing the deity Murugan himself. He was ridiculing the Brahminical takeover of an ancient tribal god and the local culture he spawned. Such usurpation is also on with other grassroot icons, including Ayyappa, in southern India (The north, of course, succumbed centuries ago).  

By attacking the partly Sanskritised Kanda Shasti Kavasam, a modern (19th century) yet lilting creation by one Devaraja Swamikal, the presenter was aiming at the heart of Brahminism, which has, for centuries, used music and art to hijack and reimagine local icons and legends. 

High-brow classical music and artforms themselves are often the "refined" (sanskrit) versions of folk arts (prakrit). They were usurped and then ringfenced against the original proponents themselves through ritualism, strategic systematising, and brazen mythification. 

Check out how Tyagaraja has nearly turned into "god" for many Carnatic musicians. Remember how MS Subbulakshmi, daughter of a Devadasi, became the MS Subbulakshmi that we know of today only after the Brahminical establishment desperately usurped her in form and spirit (she herself gave in, too, says rebel musician TM Krishna).  

These very arts were then used as the primary vehicle of spreading Brahminism—something like taking over PoW's arms, bringing in the Rowlatt Act, and then attacking the other unarmed enemy soldiers.

Today, they know they have the resources and muscle power of Hindutva. So beware, non-Brahminical Tamizh Nadu and Kerala. They are preparing for their next siege. They are coming for you.

Ego, Ambition And The Genesis Of Partition

(Thursday, September 2, 2010)

They ask, ‘What are the sacrifices of Mr Jinnah and the Muslim League?’ It is true I have not been to jail. Never mind. I am a bad person. But I ask you, ‘Who made sacrifices in 1921? Mr Gandhi ascends the gaddi (throne) of leadership on our skulls’.

--Mohammed Ali Jinnah at a Muslim League meet in Peshawar on November 24, 1945. 

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I guess it has got something to do with being an Indian. The logic behind the subcontinent’s partition in 1947 has always flummoxed me. For anyone who has a reasonable understanding of Pakistan’s founding, the main argument that fuelled it comes across as merely an exercise in rabble rousing. What is more, by now even respected sections of the Pakistani media and civil society have completely trashed the bogus ‘two-nation theory’, and instead are looking for a wholly new basis of nationhood.

So, it has been my endeavour for a while now to identify that one point in time that marked the fertilisation of the idea of Pakistan. And here it is.

Simply put, there would have been no Pakistan without Jinnah. But my search for that one vital event that led Pakistan’s founder astray from mainstream India, led me to a slightly different conclusion: Without Pakistan, there would have been no Jinnah.

Though this was known in an abstract way, a comment that Jinnah made, perhaps in an unguarded moment, condensed the whole issue into that one all-important point.

Addressing a charged Muslim League crowd, he said: “They ask, ‘What are the sacrifices of Mr Jinnah and the Muslim League?’ It is true I have not been to jail. Never mind. I am a bad person. But I ask you, ‘Who made sacrifices in 1921? Mr. Gandhi ascends the gaddi (throne) of leadership on our skulls’.

In a nut shell, Jinnah had spelt out his primary grouse.

The story goes back a long time though, to the 1910s and 20s -- an era when the Congress’s most popular leaders, the Bombay triumvirate of Pherozeshah Mehta, Dadabhai Naoroji and Gopalkrishna Gokhle, were fading. The Congress itself was still a party of the elite and with membership largely confined to the urban centres of Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune.

Gandhi was, of course, reasonably well-known world over by then. Besides he had also maintained working relations with the Congress. But he was not really in the Indian picture, let alone dominating it, till his return from South Africa in 1915.

Being a trusted lieutenant of Gokhale and heir to the Mehta-Naoroji-Gokhale line of thought, it seemed only a matter of time before the dashing Mohammed Ali Jinnah took over the reins of the Congress’s national leadership. With a thriving legal practice, stunning looks, a sophisticated mind and an inescapable elitist aura, Jinnah was popular among the who’s who of the Congress. Also, he was an ardent believer in his predecessor’s constitutional methods of negotiations and litigation to seek an increased role for Indians in governance.

In short, he was the next national leader. Or at least Jinnah believed so and was preparing for the formal ascent. Then, December 28, 1920 hit him. And hit him hard.

On that day, at the Congress’s Nagpur plenary session, Gandhi moved the historic non-cooperation resolution -- a new and revolutionary brand of protest. Jinnah, an out and out believer in maintaining the British connection, was loath to do anything unconstitutional or mass-based.

But he didn’t realise the extent to which Gandhi, in the five years since his arrival, had touched India’s grassroots. His unconventional message, put in simple language, had stirred the masses.

At Nagpur, when Jinnah arose to speak against the resolution, he began his address with “Mr. Gandhi…” Instantly, the conferences erupted into catcalls, hoots and angry “No. Mahatma Gandhi”! While he stood his ground and continued with “Mr. Gandhi”, an utterly humiliated Jinnah painfully realised that Gandhi had stolen a march over him – ‘stepping on his skull’.

Unwanted, his dream of national leadership in ruins, Jinnah left Nagpur by the very next train. Soon, the hopeless barrister quit Congress forever. In early 1921 he withdrew completely from the political stage, which till the other day he thought naturally belonged to him, to concentrate on his flourishing legal practice.

However, he had his pound of flesh 27 years later – in Pakistan.

It is tragic that despite being an ardent believer in Hindu-Muslim unity, a secular patriot and a brilliant tactician, his ego and ambition led Jinnah, in his desire for revenge and power, to trick an entire people.

It shows why, till his very end, Jinnah was not sure what exactly Pakistan meant or stood for. He just needed his turf. There is evidence that till as late as April 1947 he was ready to compromise on Pakistan and agree to a united India -- as long he was given that turf and acknowledged as a leader of consequence.

Jinnah was first blinded by his inability to gauge the national mood in 1920 and then, most importantly, by his ambition. For the latter, Pakistan was the sole balm, and posterity’s bane.

History's little drops of poison

(The Global Chanakya-Pullaratimes

Friday, May 15, 2009)

Communalism has been alive and kicking in India ever since the arrival of the Europeans... India has been invaded by several armies through millennia... but these invasions were rarely viewed through the religious lens... Invasions by Muslim chieftains like Chengiz Khan, Mahmoud of Ghazni and others were just part of life during those ages...

Because, within India too Hindu kings invaded each other regularly, and plundered and looted each others' wealth. So those rampages by Muslim armies were not given the communal hue by natives... They were just another set of looters and invaders.

But things changed with the arrival of the Europeans, and if I may add, the accompanying Christian missionaries. The reason why I think so is simple. The Europeans arrived with the idea trade and then graduated to creating captive markets and raw material sources. This later acquired hues of racism, brought about by the brutal use of gun powder to subjugate the natives.

The moment the Indo-European relationship inculcated identity issues, there arose the need to in racial comparison and subsequently the need to show the White as superior... Thus began a systematic and diabolical programme of reinforcing identities along with generous doses of inferiority complexes and insecurities (Kipling's "White Man's Burden" et al.).

In the Indian context, this process was accompanied by the need to split the society into smaller parts so that each could be handled sperately. Religion was the easiest available social unit that could be seprated into meaningful entities. "Divide and Rule" was born.

This is not to say that Muslims did not carry the sense of superiority or Hindus were devoid of it. The imposition of Jaziya by most Muslim kings proves otherwise. But almost always they were minimal measures to split the society. And almost always the goal was to bring about a harmony in -- be it by the Mughals or Tipu Sultan or various artistes (Ghalib, Faiz, Khusrau, Kabir et al)... they all sought to evolve a syncretic culture...

Like almost everything in this country, the Indian polity has inherited divide and rule in unhealthy measures too.

After the British policies led to the country's dismemberment in 1947, India took a more courageous, long-sighted and sane path as compared to Pakistan. Yet, despite Nehru's unflenching, dedicated and visionary approach towards democracy, secularism and liberalism, the one misake he committed was not breeding leadership in the Congress--perhaps the one and only bastion of the ideals of India's founding fathers.

Lack of leadership--the Nehruvian variety--led the way to his daughter Indira getting into his saddle. Though cast in the same secular, patriotic dye as her father, Indira lacked his democratic vlaues. She shunned criticism, destroyed opposition, sought ultimate control.

It is not surpising that the deterioration of the Congress into a bootlicking party, decaying of the process of appointment of Congress chief mininsters in the states, seeping of corruption into the Indian judiciary etc coincide in their timing with Indira's rise.

While this was happening to the Congress and its spirit, it was the communal forces that were gaining. 1975 could be considered the watershed year for Indian secularism when Indira, with the Congress's deterioration into an autocratic entity, succumbed to the temptaions of emergency and within two years the rightwing, cobbling up a rag tag coalition with the Congress rebels, for the first time made their presence felt in Indian politics.

Ever since it has been a cat and mouse game of who outmaneuvres the other in religious pandering, often nuanced, often not. The rise of Bhindrenwale in Punjab, the devastating effects of the Shah Bano case, the attempted counterbalancing move of opening up the Babri Masjid for the rabid Hindus etc have acted like individual drops of poison.

The populist version of the Hindu righwing's ideals--The Ramayana and the Mahabharata--were "benevolently", and inadvertantly if you please, transmitted via airwaves by the Congress on Doordarshan! But what has exacerbated the communal atmosphere of India are the global changes.

With the unleashing of LPG forces, Indians, as any other nationals, got sucked into the churning of identities that accompanied LPG in 1991 (actually mid 1980s). With an already heavy plate of various communal "starters", the "maincourse" of globalisation simply overawed India.

And, as in the case of almost all other nationals, many Indians began to find refuge in their traditional identities. Hindus being the overwheming majority in India did the biggest damage by getting on to this bandwagon of hardening identities.

Today every aspect of history is looked at by many Indians as a religious issue.

J N Dixit once rightly said, "India is secular because of its Hindus."

If majority Hindus cease to be genuinely secular in future, we can say goodbye to India as we know it.

I may have omitted several issues and for that reason whatever I have written may sometimes feel disjointed or illogical and even biased... Its purely my understand, which itself is, I hope, still evolving...

The WhatsApp Killings

My take on the WhatsApp lynching epidemic:

At its roots, this is just controlled communal violence gone wrong or out of control.

For years now, WhatsApp and other social media platforms have been used by the IT cells of political parties to whip up general insecurity in the society, heighten paranoia, and, as a corollary, create latent rage towards specific communities. Their fake messages would occasionally be fortified by some genuine cases reported in the media, giving way to an easy mix of a little fact and tonnes of fiction.

In Kerala, for instance, "the kidnapper are coming" messages mostly named Muslims as the culprits. Coming from untraceable sources, nobody would give this angle much thought. Often the voice in the message would itself claim to be that of a Muslim, using the typical Malabar accent. To deflect potential allegations of community profiling, these messages often described the said criminals as "outsiders". So it was always "Bengalis" or "Biharis", without explicitly calling them Muslims. For an average Malayali, though, the Muslim identity of the said kidnappers registered subliminally.

In short, the ideal tinderbox situation was being created.

Once such a state is reached, it is easy to spark super-specific and controlled violence against targets. Imagine, a young father bombarded with "kidnapper" messages for months on end. Leave alone strangers, he would begin to doubt even his own father. That's the nature of insecurity.

Fortunately enough, this strategy didn't bear fruit in Kerala as much as it did in other states.

But now, it has begun to unravel. Wound up Indians are extending the lynching sport to their own community members, like in the Assam artist's case.

Nobody knows how to put the genie back into the IT cell's bottle.

So Happy Bloodsport India!

PS: When someone says these killings are different from beef lynchings, beware. Such sophistry is meant to camouflage the intent of the "kidnapper" message. Make no mistake, "Kidnapper" lynchings ARE beef lynchings by another, subtler name. And denying that is another, subtler form of the famous "isolated incident" trope.

Instant justice: How an argument crumbled

(April 19, 2015)

The heat was oppressive. And it’s just April. Identity politics and its attendant vulgarities -- jingoism, mob justice, religious bigotry -- are in full display. And its just the dawn of muscular nationalism in Indian democracy.

I’d be vain if I claim to paint a holistic picture of the scourge. Perhaps some day;  not this weekend. Frustrating episodes tenaciously dog us hacks. This weekend is for deconstructing one such instalment.

10.15 pm, Friday. An hour ahead of crescendo, the temperature had begun to rise at the newsdesk. Nothing unusual. At this leading daily, its always taut nerves in the two hours approaching 11.15pm. Yet, nothing prepared me for the next 15 minutes of stomach churning. 

It began with a news report of what appeared to be another gruesome case of rape and torture. After Jyoti Singh’s forced martyrdom, any story remotely resembling it was “must carry”. 

This instance involved the violation of a three-year-old by the lover of her mother. Reading the headline, copy editor P, desk head R and I let out a collective sigh of horror. It read: “3-year-old raped by mom lover, assaulted with iron rod”.

That hellish image of Jyoti Singh’s innards being pulled out with bare hands by one of her rapists hammered its way back into my mind -- I presume other minds too. God, not again, I thought. Three-year-old. Iron rod inserted into her privates (like in Jyoti Singh’s case). The story was promptly slotted for the opening page of our section. Downhill from thereon.

It would have been an innocuous remark if made by a neighbourhood uncle or aunty. Coming from R, a man who had given 20 years of his life to the profession, it was shattering: “Such people ought to be shot dead. No questions asked.”

Copy editor P agreed with the by now freely used expression. I demurred, but remained unnoticed.

“Now some bloody human rights activists will hold forth on the rapist’s rights,” R continued. “It should be done in Che Guevara style. ‘Did you do it?’ ‘Yes’. Bam!. Instead we will now have a trial that will go on and on.”

I disagreed again, this time assertively.

P let loose. “Why shouldn’t it be? This is so gruesome. There should be no mercy.” R agreed: “There shouldn’t be any shilly-shallying.”

I reminded P of the many cases our own  newspaper had reported where convicted persons were found to be innocent years after he/she had served the sentence.

“But this is a clear cut case,” P protested. Nothing can be “clear cut” until it goes through judicial scrutiny, I said, not bothering to add “sometimes even after judicial scrutiny". P shook her head in disgust.

I continued, “The process of law cannot be circumvented because you and I are emotionally charged.”

P had more though: “There are so many cases where the case has been going on for years.” Notice that she has nothing to say about the investigation and the prosecution here. The blame is implicitly on the court.

I asked, “Show me one such so-called ‘clear-cut case’ where the trial has extended for long.”

At this instance, R chipped in to take the discussion to a whole new level, “How about Kasab? Can there be a more clear cut case?” (20 years in the profession. don’t you see the qualitative leap from petty theft to rape & murder to arson to terror attack to war?)

I remind him, Kasab trial was completed in record time. I added that the 9/11 attack trial was yet to begin in the US. Pat came R’s unbelievable answer: “But look at how they responded. They destroyed a country in retaliation. They destroyed the al-Qaeda. And what are we doing about Hafiz Saeed?”

Incredulous, I said, “R, that is war! Here we are referring to a local petty crime.” Using the word “petty” didn’t do any good. Not at all.

P retorted: “You think this rape was petty?” I said, “Compared to a war it is.”

P switched the self-righteousness button on: “You know what? You are so inured to rapes after reading about them day in and day out.”

I said, “That may be, but the comparison itself is superfluous.” At this point, R walked away in disgust, “You are arguing for the sake of argument.”

I held back, returned to my page. The edition, and Friday, were put to sleep. Soon we headed home. Usually I read in the cab on my way back. Early Saturday, I wasn’t reading. I didn’t realise it till I reached my drop point.

I tiptoed in home around 3pm, changed, washed up and lied down to read and eventually sleep. Didn’t seem to work. Something had rattled me. I tried to figure out what and traced it to R’s, “You are arguing for the sake of argument.”

Was I? I retraced the points I had made. R was wrong. Nevertheless, I was still tossing and turning; didn’t know if I was hungry, but the tummy burned. Gulping down water didn’t help. Reading didn’t. Not even my prayer beads. 4.30am

An old spiritual companion restored sanity. 30ml of Old Monk eased my nerves. And I was thinking more clearly. Retracing the sequence of events, everything fell into place this time. The key lay not in the argument itself, but in what happened after I pulled back. 

Flashback:

The rape story was slotted finally and P began working on it. Shortly, she said, “Boss, this is turning out to be something else. The mother knew her three-year-old daughter was often raped by her lover. He used to beat the child up with the rod when she protested. Nothing extra-ordinary.”

R comes in, “Oh, I thought it was like Nirbhaya. Then it doesn’t carry much.”       
Eventually, the rape story was demoted -- from the top half of the opening page in the first edition to the bottom corner of the last page in the second. Why? It was not gruesome enough to warrant an opening page slot. In other words, it was a petty rape. Not a big one.

Nevertheless, I wonder if P thought about this: If, after being subjected to the simplest of filters applied by a mere copy editor, this rape case turned out to be completely different from what was expected, why should the far more elaborate and consequential judicial process be grudged?

The headline conjured up images of something vastly different from what it eventually turned out to be. The first impression evoked cries of “shoot him on the spot”. Ultimately it was “no big deal” -- at least compared to other important stories of the day.  

There are umpteen cases rubbished by various levels of judiciary, besides the ones that reach the point of conviction, of course. So why shouldn’t a case -- however  gut-wrenching and “open & shut” it may seem -- be subject to judicial scrutiny? Can we really afford quick fix justice, if you can call that justice in the first place?

Most importantly, can journalists afford to be inclined to mob justice?