How I Got Over That Dark Geographic Shadow Called Pakistan

Qudsiya Ahmed in The Wire


“Musalman ke do hi sthaan, qabristan ya Pakistan” (A Muslim has only two choices of abode – graveyard or Pakistan) is not a rhyme that a nine-year-old forgets with time. Its memory becomes stronger with age, as does the intensity of this choice. What hits her first is the option available; followed by the realisation of what is at stake — her life, and her loyalty to the country.

I have nothing to do with Pakistan. We do have family members who migrated during Partition, but I haven’t ever seen them — I have grown up abhorring all distant connections that I may have with a country which is neighbourhood for India, but for Muslims in India, is a dark geographic shadow that has chased them in the last seven decades; any allegiance to it makes them fail the litmus test of nationalism, and even today is thrown at them as their ‘natural place’.

I grew up as a very ‘conscious’ Muslim; not for my faith, but what this faith was associated with. In the mid-80s and early 90s, when my friends and classmates were fascinated with Pakistan’s fast bowlers, I couldn’t afford to ‘like’ them. I have vivid memories of 1992 when the Imran Khan-led Pakistan cricket team won the World Cup. It must have been a joyous and historic moment for their nation, but I hated that celebration — the visuals of the team bowing to the field in jubilation — because I was subjected to suspicious questioning by my Hindu Punjabi neighbours about my parents’ response to this victory, wondering if we also quietly celebrated this in our house.

An advertising poster for a film outside a movie theatre in Karachi, Pakistan. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro/Files

Pakistan became an enemy that came between my friends and me occasionally, and between my country and me often. My yearning for acceptance of my loyalty as an Indian was strong, even though it came at the cost of irrationally bashing ‘Pakistan’ for its cricket and its politics, and anything that kept me on ‘the side of my people’ was acceptable to me.

So, Pakistan, with which I had maintained a safe distance growing up, came close, uncomfortably close, when my husband had to travel to Pakistan for his journalistic pursuits. It was almost an irritation when my father had to go to the Pakistan High Commission to fetch my husband’s visa in his absence.

My work got me in touch with Pakistani academics and researchers, and that is when I began to know Pakistan as its people. I found a window into their research, courses, and universities, daily email exchange and communication grew, and very soon my Facebook profile could list at least a hundred ‘friends’ in Pakistan. In early 2017, as my son recovered from a major heart surgery at Jaypee Hospital, I learnt of a family who had traveled from Pakistan for their son’s surgery. Our children were in the same ICU, fighting bravely for life, and outside, their Indian and Pakistani mothers shared their grief and bonded over the pain that they were going through. After three months of tough fight, the Pakistani boy passed away, and I remember his inconsolable mother as she cried in disbelief at her misfortune and the futility of her struggle. The little hope and courage that I would gather every day to see my son for two minutes every morning in the ICU seemed ruptured, and I could feel her pain. I hugged her, as this was the only solace that I could offer to another mother, who happened to be a Pakistani.

A few days ago, I was at the Chaophraya Emerging Leaders’ Dialogue in Bangkok. A first of its kind in a nine-year-old Track Two dialogue between India and Pakistan, the dialogue brought together mid-career professionals who represented the next generation of leadership across industry and scholarship from both countries.

I suppose that this is the closest that I have come to Pakistan, a country that makes my position in my home country extremely vulnerable. And here I was representing India in an exchange of ideas for peaceful and productive bilateral talk between the two countries, on how they could coincide their actions to face shared challenges of climate change, extremism, and terrorism, and utilise the new media for mutual benefit. One of the most vibrant panels in the programme was on the role that women can play in foreign policy. All of us had something to contribute, and the room resonated with experiences and daily struggles that felt familiar and emphasised the similarity of everyday lives on both sides.

I can claim to know the ‘people’ side of Pakistan now, which is as humble, passionate, and desirous of amity as are the people in India. They are also progressive, articulate, and ambitious, as are my people.

I can appreciate them for what they are without the fear of being abused and demonised for this. I have come of age. But not all Indian Muslims who are subjected to verbal abuse and violent attacks and are repeatedly asked to ‘go to Pakistan’ will have the opportunity of mental healing. School-going Muslim children, who are derogatorily called ‘Pakistani’ by their classmates, will grow up as vulnerable and marginalised adults. No cricket enthusiast will ever be able to appreciate cricket for the spirit of the game, and no one will offer a hand of friendship.

So next time, when some Vinay Katiyar (founder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s youth wing, Bajrang Dal) asks Indian Muslims to go to Pakistan, we should be able to tell him: I belong to India, it is my homeland, and Pakistanis are friends.

Shashi Tharoor "Why I am a Hindu"

A travesty of divorce: Triple talaq has nothing to do with religion

Tabish Khair in The Hindu



It is easy to blame political parties for the mess around the triple talaq issue. But before doing so, one has to put the matter in perspective: it is not political ‘manipulation’ that came first; triple talaq already existed. Can you really blame others for tossing stones into your house when you have a gaping hole in the roof?

True, only a minuscule percentage of Muslim men practised triple talaq, but still the number of afflicted women ran in the tens of thousands. There was no justification for it — legal, political or social. There wasn’t even a convincing theological argument in favour of it, as the Shias wisely accepted.

Rashly rejecting a constructive say in the matter (and, once again, failing to position itself on the progressive side of history), a section of the so-called Sunni leadership in India is now resorting to various other objections — some of which are justified and many of which are not — against the law that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government seeks to pass to stop triple talaq.

This unholy mix of objections has even confused Muslims who were against triple talaq, partly because of the general suspicion that Muslims bear towards the BJP. This suspicion is misplaced at times, but it is not groundless: if many Muslim leaders have failed to build bridges, many BJP politicians and (more often) their acolytes have also trumpeted their dislike for Muslims and everything Muslim. It has been a mutual failure of the sort that no nation can afford.


Need for a law

Despite the reasons for suspicion among Muslims, there is a pressing need to legislate on this issue. Triple talaq is not going to go away without a law against it. Perhaps this could have been a possibility if Sunni leaders had collaborated in delegitimising it publicly. But having chosen to miss that chance, they have left the government — BJP or not — with no option but to pass a law against triple talaq.

Legislation against triple talaq is not a law against divorce, as has been made out in some Muslim quarters. It is simply a law that ensures equal rights to the wife. Its purpose is to ensure that a husband does not abandon his wife outside a proper legal set-up, which may obtain some rights for the woman after years in a marriage. Of these rights, financial maintenance is central in a place like India, where often wives ‘do not work’ (read: wives work at home but without remuneration) or their earnings are appropriated by their husbands.

The greatest failure on the part of so-called Sunni leaders has been their inability to see triple talaq as part of a major social problem that has nothing to do with religion: wife abandonment. But viewing the matter through their own set of saffron-tinted glasses (as against the green-tinted ones of the Sunni leadership), the BJP too has failed to see triple talaq as a type of wife abandonment, which exists in other forms and other communities too. It is common knowledge that far more (Hindu) wives are abandoned by their Hindu husbands without a divorce than (Muslim) wives are ‘divorced’ with a summary triple talaq by their Muslim husbands.


Abandonment by the husband

Please note that wife abandonment is not the same as the decision by a married couple — Hindu, Muslim, or whatever — to live separately without suing for divorce, if this decision is mutual, legally negotiable by both parties, and without any undue pressure on either party. Wife abandonment involves a one-sided decision by the husband to live separately from the wife, without providing her with legal and mutually negotiated maintenance, and either refusing to divorce her, if she should so desires, or divorcing her arbitrarily and without equal legal recourse. Triple talaq is a form of such an arbitrary divorce, a travesty of divorce. But it is by no means the only form of wife abandonment — within or without Muslim communities.

If triple talaq is seen as a type of wife abandonment, the government could come up with a better law than the current proposal. The proposed law seems to actually recognise triple talaq as effecting a divorce, while penalising the husband with criminal sanctions. This is illogical and provides the wife with no real protection. Instead, triple talaq should be considered a type of wife abandonment, along with other versions in all communities. It should not be accepted as an effective divorce, but as abandonment by the husband and grounds for the wife to obtain a divorce in her favour. Its ‘use’ should be automatically converted into a case of legal divorce through the law courts, which can then implement the conditions of divorce in favour of the wife, with added penalties on the husband.

As men resort to triple talaq and other forms of wife abandonment only to shirk their financial responsibility, this would be a far more effective course than needless criminalisation.

No law is foolproof. Even laws against murder can be misused, and they do not eradicate the incidence of murder. One cannot demand a foolproof law or a non-punitive ‘law’ (as that would be no law in effect!), but one has every right to expect a comprehensive and fair law. Countries are built with such laws. And they can be written, if we take off our variously tinted glasses.

On Being a Hindu

Makarand Paranjpe 1

Makarand Paranjape 2

Hindol Sengupta

Words that are emptied of meaning - 'Hinduism is a tolerant religion and 'Islam is a religion of peace'.

Tabish Khair in The Hindu



“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action,” says Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s play. Hamlet’s advice is given to actors rehearsing a play within the play, but it is advice all of us can take. Words not suited to action are considered empty or hollow. We do not trust people whose words have little or nothing to do with their actions.

And yet, as communities, we tend to fall into this trap. We repeat some words, almost as if they were mantras, blithely ignoring the fact that our actions often do not vindicate such words.

The two most common sets of words that I hear these days come from Hindus and Muslims, all of them well meaning. Hindus in India keep telling me that “Hinduism is an inclusive, tolerant religion” and Muslims all over the world keep telling me that “Islam is a religion of peace.” Now, no doubt, they are largely right. There is much in history to suggest that Hinduism is an inclusive and tolerant religion, and that Islam puts a lot of stress on peace: the basic greeting of Islam, salaam-alai-kum, means ‘peace be on you.’

And yet, if we stop with these words, we are either being wilfully blind or displaying a remarkable lack of awareness and self-criticism. Because, very often, these words are not redeemed by action. Anyone who reads the newspapers today can see that not all Hindus are inclusive and not all Muslims are peace-loving.


The religion of Rahul Gandhi

One cannot help noticing that if Hinduism was always inclusive and tolerant, then the recent controversy over Rahul Gandhi’s religious beliefs would not have occurred. One also cannot help noticing that if Islam was equated solely with peace, groups of Muslims would not be shooting at each other in almost every third Muslim country in the world.

Let’s face it: why should the fact of Rahul Gandhi’s religious beliefs — or, for that matter, Jawaharlal Nehru’s agnosticism — become a matter of discussion in an India full of inclusive and tolerant Hindus? Let alone the fact that the oldest community of Christians in India can be dated back to 2,000 years, a truly inclusive and tolerant Hindu would not expect other Indians to obtain a ‘Hindu’ religious certificate in order to run for office. Similarly, surely, such a Hindu would be able to accept not just Indian Muslims, who have contributed to India for about 1,500 years, but also monuments, such as the Taj Mahal, associated with the so-called Muslim period of India. I must say that I was surrounded by really tolerant and inclusive Hindus in the India in which I grew up, and I must add that their numbers seem to be greatly reduced today.


Violence instead of protest

Similarly, the Muslim claim that Islam is a religion of peace seems hollow not just when one looks at what some Muslims are doing to other Muslims, but also when one hears religious discourses about the supposed ‘moral victory’ of Islam over other faiths. I will not even talk of Islamist terrorism, mostly because it is often discussed in excess to its reality, but surely some other people would bring it up, and who can say that their fears are totally unjustified? Islam might be a religion of peace, but too many Muslims seem to take recourse to violence instead of peaceful and democratic modes of protest and action.

Once again, this is a tendency that has increased in Muslim communities — where there is increasing impatience with those Muslims who do not kowtow to fundamentalist prescriptions.

In such a context, when Hindus say that Hinduism is an inclusive and tolerant religion, and Muslims say that Islam is a religion of peace, there can be only two explanations. First, and positively, what they mean is that the essence of Hinduism is inclusive and the essence of Islam is peaceful, and hence intolerant Hindus or violent Muslims are going against the essence of their own religions. If this is the intention, the statements are at least partly justified.

But, often, this is not the intention. The intention is not to critique wrong tendencies within Hinduism or Islam but to dismiss criticisms — from within or outside. Often, Hindus who beat the drum of the inclusiveness of Hinduism do so in order to dismiss contrary evidence, and so do Muslims who beat the drum of the peacefulness of Islam. In such cases, what they utter are empty words. Or worse: inclusiveness becomes a weapon to exclude, peace becomes a justification of violence.

The statements “Hinduism is an inclusive, tolerant religion” and “Islam is a religion of peace” contain much truth — but this truth has to be regularly vindicated by action. There seems to be an increasing failure to do so on the part of many Hindus and Muslims. Each one of us has to face up to this failure. Every time we use such words, we need to ask ourselves: do we really mean it, and does the evidence around us sustain such claims? We have to ask ourselves: are we using these words as ideals or as excuses?

Because, finally, words only mean what we put into them — by our daily acts. And when we use words that are being emptied of meaning, we simultaneously hollow out the rich and wonderful realities of our world.

The Hadiya case: Is it Human Rights v Conservative Hindu Parents?

By Girish Menon

The Hadiya case, currently pending in the Indian Supreme Court, has attracted a lot of debate between the conflicting ideas of an adult’s right to choose and the unreasonable expectations of conservative Hindu parents.

I have gathered from various media reports that Hadiya previously known as Akhila converted to Islam and then sought a husband via a matrimonial advertisement. Through this medium she met and subsequently married Shafin. Hadiya continues to love Shafin and wishes to live with him but is currently not permitted to do so by an interim Supreme Court order arising out of a campaign by her parents.

The Context

India has been an area of frenetic conversion activity by Islamist and Christian denominations.

The Islamists aided and funded by Saudi and Pakistani resources have been active in India subterraneously and have indulged in proselytisation as illustrated by this latest India Today video. India to them is a ‘dar-ul –harb’ (territory of war) and Ghazwa-e-Hind (conquest of India) is their religious duty.

Various Christian churches have also been actively saving heathen souls. Funded by American and European resources a state like Nagaland has become 100 % Christian post 1947.

The Hindus have responded, rather feebly, with their own organisations and programmes like ‘ghar wapasi’ (return home to your roots). Since 2014, under the current supportive government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi they have tried to check the growth and power of the Islamic and Christian organisations.

 Hadiya's embrace of Islam will not be complete without considering this bigger picture issue.

Don’t parents have any say after their child becomes an 18 year old adult?

In the absence of any welfare state provisions in India it is the bank of mum and dad that funds an adult till such time s/he is able to become independent.

In some cases when the 18 year old adult makes wrong decisions it is again the same parents who come to the rescue of such individuals.

Under these circumstances, don’t Hadiya's parents have any say in her life especially in her decision to convert to Islam and to marry a person of her choice?

In my view there is a deliberate attempt to convert the highly complex Hadiya case into a false dichotomy of an individual’s human rights versus her conservative Hindu parents. The case should also consider the data on proselytisation by various groups, how did Hadiya decide to convert to Islam and who will pick up the pieces for Hadiya if she ends up with the Islamic state?

(Inputs received from Gopa Joseph, Suhail Rizwy and Deniz Cris)

Let Hadiya take charge of her life

Brinda Karat in The Hindu

The Supreme Court did not allow itself to be converted into a khap panchayat, although it came close to it on Tuesday as it heard the Hadiya case. The counsel for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) supported by the legal counsel of the Central government made out a case of indoctrination and brainwashing in a conspiracy of ‘love jehad’ which they claimed rendered Hadiya incapacitated and invalidated her consent. The NIA wanted the court to study the documents it claimed it had as evidence before they heard Hadiya. For one and a half hours, this young woman stood in open court hearing arguments about herself, against herself and her chosen partner. It was shameful, humiliating and set an unfortunate precedent. If the court was not clear that it wanted to hear her, why did they call her at all? She should never have been subjected to that kind of indignity. She is not a criminal but she was treated like one for that period of time.


The right to speak

The court remained undecided even in the face of the compelling argument by lawyers Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising representing Hadiya’s husband Shafin Jahan that the most critical issue was that of the right of an adult woman to make her own choice. The court almost adjourned for the day when the Kerala State Women’s Commission lawyer, P. V. Dinesh, raised a voice of outrage that after all the accusations against Hadiya in the open court if the court did not hear her, it would be a grave miscarriage of justice. In khap panchayats, the woman accused of breaking the so-called honour code is never allowed to speak. Her sentence begins with her enforced silence and ends with whatever dreadful punishment is meted out to her by the khap. Fortunately the Supreme Court pulled itself back from the brink and agreed to give Hadiya an opportunity to speak.

There was no ambiguity about what she said. It was the courage of her conviction that stood out. She wanted to be treated as a human being. She wanted her faith to be respected. She wanted to study. She wanted to be with her husband. And most importantly, she wanted her freedom.

The court listened, but did it hear?

Both sides claim they are happy with the order. Hadiya and her husband feel vindicated because the court has ended her enforced custody by her father. She has got an opportunity to resume her studies. Lawyers representing the couple’s interests have explained that the first and main legal strategy was to ensure her liberty from custody which has been achieved. They say that the order places no restrictions on Hadiya meeting anyone she chooses to, including her husband. It is a state of interim relief.

Her father claims victory because the court did not accept Hadiya’s request to leave the court with her husband. Instead the court directed that she go straight to a hostel in Salem to continue her studies. He asserted this will ensure that she is not with her husband who he has termed a terrorist.

The next court hearing is in January and the way the court order is implemented will be clear by then.

The case reveals how deeply the current climate created by sectarian ideologies based on a narrow reading of religious identity has pushed back women’s rights to autonomy as equal citizens. From the government to the courts, to the strengthening of conservative and regressive thinking and practice, it’s all out there in Hadiya’s case.

One of the most disturbing fallouts is that the term ‘love jehad’ used by Hindutva zealots to target inter-faith marriages has been given legal recognition and respectability by the highest courts. An agency whose proclaimed mandate is to investigate offences related to terrorism has now expanded its mandate by order of the Supreme Court to unearth so-called conspiracies of Muslim men luring Hindu women into marriage and forcibly converting them with the aim of joining the Islamic State. The underlying assumption is that Hindu women who marry Muslims have no minds of their own. If they convert to Islam, that itself is proof enough of a conspiracy.

This was clearly reflected in the regressive order of the Kerala High Court in May this year which annulled Hadiya’s marriage. Among other most objectionable comments it held that a woman of 24 is “weak and vulnerable”, that as per Indian tradition, the custody of an unmarried daughter is with the parents, until she is properly married.” Equally shocking, it ordered that nobody could meet her except her parents in whose custody she was placed.

Not a good precedent

Courts in this country are expected to uphold the right of an adult woman to her choice of a partner. Women’s autonomy and equal citizenship rights flow from the constitutional framework, not from religious authority or tradition. The Kerala High Court judgement should be struck down by the apex court. We cannot afford to have such a judgment as legal precedent.

The case also bring into focus the right to practice and propagate the religion of one’s choice under the Constitution. In Hadiya’s case she has made it clear time and again that she converted because of her belief in Islam. It is not a forcible conversion. Moreover she converted at least a year before her marriage. So the issue of ‘love jehad’ in any case is irrelevant and the court cannot interfere with her right to convert.

As far as the NIA investigation is concerned, the Supreme Court has ordered that it should continue. The Kerala government gave an additional affidavit in October stating that “the investigation conducted so far by the Kerala police has not revealed any incident relating to commission of any scheduled offences to make a report to the Central government under Section 6 of the National Investigation Agency Act of 2008.” The State government said the police investigation was on when the Supreme Court directed the NIA to conduct an investigation into the case. It thus opposed the handing over of the case to the NIA. In the light of this clear stand of the Kerala government, it is inexplicable why its counsel in the Supreme Court should take a contrary stand in the hearing — this should be rectified at the earliest.

Vigilantism by another name

The NIA is on a fishing expedition having already interrogated 89 such couples in Kerala. Instead of inter-caste and inter-community marriages being celebrated as symbols of India’s open and liberal approach, they are being treated as suspect.

Now, every inter-faith couple will be vulnerable to attacks by gangs equivalent to the notorious gau rakshaks. This is not just applicable to cases where a Hindu woman marries a Muslim. There are bigots and fanatics in all communities. When a Muslim woman marries a Hindu, Muslim fundamentalist organisations like the Popular Front of India use violent means to prevent such marriages. Sworn enemies, such as those who belong to fundamentalist organisations in the name of this or that religion, have more in common with each other than they would care to admit.

Hopefully the Supreme Court will act in a way which strengthens women’s rights unencumbered by subjective interpretations of tradition and communal readings of what constitutes national interest.

Ambedkar on Islam: Ramachandra Guha, Arundhati Roy you have ignored these views.

Anand Ranganathan in News Laundry




From the Aryans to Aurangzeb, from St Xavier to Shivaji, our historians have chosen what to hide, what to invent, and what to disclose. The singular reason for this is the craving for patronage – of an ideology, a government, an ecosystem, or a clique. And once our historians are done with their contortions, we the readers sit back and enjoy the inevitable fallout – the outing of Hypocrisy.

The Left outs the hypocrisy of the Right and the Right outs the hypocrisy of the Left and great column-yards are churned out as a result of such skirmishes. But we forget – outing of hypocrisy is a virtue so long as it doesn’t turn one into a hypocrite. Well, it does; every single time. Villains are made into heroes and heroes into villains. We like it this way. Gandhi, Nehru, Savarkar, Patel – they are to be worshipped; they are to be made into Gods, into Atlases who carry the weight of our ideologies and our biases on the nape of their necks.

History as myth; myth as History. It conforms to what we really are – unsure of our present, fearful of our future. The Right wing doesn’t want to hear anything about Savarkar or Golwalkar that might put them in bad light; the Left-wing doesn’t want to hear anything about Nehru or Namboodiripad that might put them in bad light; and the Velcro Historians don’t want to write anything about anyone that might put them in solitary confinement, away from all light.

Fear and trembling, that is what this is, and the whole nation chugs along on this dead yet simmering coal. A journey to nowhere; slow, halting, tiring; until you realise what the grand plan always is – to appropriate. And of all the great men and women we have had the honour to call our own, no one has been more appropriated than Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.

Ambedkar. A hero for all, the Left and the Right – out of genuine admiration, out of genuine fear. This is to be expected, for here was a man like no other in modern world history, one who shone like a star with his intellect and understanding. The most un-Indian Indian. Wisdom so frightening and yet so rooted, that it appealed to all. Where he was allowed to, he never put a foot wrong. His writings have that rare quality of timelessness, and his quotes, if quoted anonymously, can be mistaken as comments on contemporary India. Ambedkar has aged well. In this, he stands alone, afar, above. But there is a side to Ambedkar that is not known, spoken, or written, out of fear by those who have appropriated him.

Ambedkar's criticism of Hinduism, as a religion, as a way of life – call it what you will, everyone is aware of. From his umpteen speeches and numerous scholarly works, we know Ambedkar as someone who fought and exposed the terrible ills of Hinduism, and we applaud him for it. That Ambedkar left Hinduism and converted to Buddhism is in itself a stinging appraisal of the former. Knowing him, nothing more needs to be said as a critique of Hinduism. Such is the trust one can put in the man.

What we don’t know, however, is what he thought of the other great religion of the world – Islam. Because this facet of Ambedkar has been hidden from our general discourse and textbooks, it may come as a surprise to most that Ambedkar thought frequently of Islam and spoke frequently on it. The cold and cruel India of the young Ambedkar, that shaped his views on Hinduism and Hindus – and of which this author has writtenpreviously – soon became the cold and cruel India of the old Ambedkar, allowing him, through a study of Islam and Muslims, to make sense of a nation hurtling towards a painful and bloody partition.

A distillate of Ambedkar's thoughts on Islam and Muslims can be found in Pakistan Or The Partition Of India, a collection of his writings and speeches, first published in 1940, with subsequent editions in 1945 and 1946. It is an astonishing book in its scope and acuity, and reading it one realises why no one talks of it, possessing as it does the potential to turn Ambedkar into an Islamophobic bigot for his worshippers on the Left.

Here, then, is Ambedkar on Islam:

"Hinduism is said to divide people and in contrast Islam is said to bind people together. This is only a half-truth. For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity, but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity. The second defect of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government, because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs. To the Muslim ibi bene ibi patria [Where it is well with me, there is my country] is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin."

This scathing indictment by Ambedkar of Islam never finds a mention in our history books. (Indeed, even in Ambedkar.org, a primary resource site for Ambedkar, the chapter that contains this explosive passage is hyperlinked and, unlike other preceding chapters, not easily visible as a continuation under the sub-heading Part IV. The idea is to skip it, not click it.

But then this is India – a Hero must not be perceived as a Villain even though the misperception is entirely of our making. Well, we know better; he didn’t mean to say those things about Islam; perhaps he was misguided; let us look at the context; damn, no, that's not of any help here; tell you what, let us gag him; for the greater good; for communal harmony; for the sake of IPC Section 295A and our peaceful future.

Selective reading of Ambedkar, by which it is meant reading only his damning (and entirely justified) criticism of Hinduism, has led to a prevalent view that only Hinduism is laden with cultural and religious ills. One can see this even today, when the Left and its ideologues point selectively to the social and religious evils pertaining to Hinduism. As a result, someone who isn’t well-versed with India may get the impression that it is only Hinduism and Hindus who are to blame for every ill and intolerance that plagues us. The reality, of course, is that social and religious intolerance runs in our veins, it always has and it always will, for none other than the holy scriptures of all religions have mainstreamed it. It is Ambedkar himself who, presciently and fiercely, points to this hypocrisy.

"The social evils which characterize the Hindu Society, have been well known. The publication of 'Mother India' by Miss Mayo gave these evils the widest publicity. But while 'Mother India' served the purpose of exposing the evils and calling their authors at the bar of the world to answer for their sins, it created the unfortunate impression throughout the world that while the Hindus were grovelling in the mud of these social evils and were conservative, the Muslims in India were free from them, and as compared to the Hindus, were a progressive people. That, such an impression should prevail, is surprising to those who know the Muslim Society in India at close quarters."

Ambedkar then proceeds to talk in scathing terms of child-marriage, intolerance, fanatical adherence to faith, the position of women, polygamy, and other such practices prevalent among believers of Islam. On the subject of caste, Ambedkar goes into great detail, and no punches are pulled.

"Take the caste system. Islam speaks of brotherhood. Everybody infers that Islam must be free from slavery and caste. Regarding slavery nothing needs to be said. It stands abolished now by law. But while it existed much of its support was derived from Islam and Islamic countries. But if slavery has gone, caste among Musalmans has remained. There can thus be no manner of doubt that the Muslim Society in India is afflicted by the same social evils as afflict the Hindu Society. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more. That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women."

Those who rightly commend Ambedkar for leaving the fold of Hinduism, never ask why he converted to Buddhism and not Islam. It is because he viewed Islam as no better than Hinduism. And keeping the political and cultural aspects in mind, he had this to say:

"Conversion to Islam or Christianity will denationalise the Depressed Classes. If they go to Islam the number of Muslims will be doubled and the danger of Muslim domination also becomes real."

On Muslim politics, Ambedkar is caustic, even scornful.

"There is thus a stagnation not only in the social life but also in the political life of the Muslim community of India. The Muslims have no interest in politics as such. Their predominant interest is religion. This can be easily seen by the terms and conditions that a Muslim constituency makes for its support to a candidate fighting for a seat. The Muslim constituency does not care to examine the programme of the candidate. All that the constituency wants from the candidate is that he should agree to replace the old lamps of the masjid by supplying new ones at his cost, to provide a new carpet for the masjid because the old one is torn, or to repair the masjid because it has become dilapidated. In some places a Muslim constituency is quite satisfied if the candidate agrees to give a sumptuous feast and in other if he agrees to buy votes for so much a piece. With the Muslims, election is a mere matter of money and is very seldom a matter of social programme of general improvement. Muslim politics takes no note of purely secular categories of life, namely, the differences between rich and poor, capital and labour, landlord and tenant, priest and layman, reason and superstition. Muslim politics is essentially clerical and recognizes only one difference, namely, that existing between Hindus and Muslims. None of the secular categories of life have any place in the politics of the Muslim community and if they do find a place—and they must because they are irrepressible—they are subordinated to one and the only governing principle of the Muslim political universe, namely, religion."

The psychoanalysis of the Indian Muslim by Ambedkar is unquestionably deeply hurtful to those on the Left who have appropriated him. How they wish he had never written such things. They try their best to dismiss his writings on Islam and Muslims by taking refuge in the time-tested excuse of "context". That's right. Whenever text troubles you, rake up its context.

Except that in the case of Ambedkar, this excuse falls flat. Ambedkar's views on Islam – in a book with fourteen chapters that deal almost entirely with Muslims, the Muslim psyche, and the Muslim Condition – are stand-alone statements robustly supported with quotes and teachings of scholars, Muslim leaders, and academics. To him these are maxims. He isn’t writing fiction. The context is superfluous; in fact, it is non-existent. Read the following statements:

The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only.

There is a fraternity, but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.

The second defect of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government, because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs.

Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.

If you are hunting for a context to the above statements, you have just outed yourself as a hopeless apologist. Well, you are not alone. Some of India’s most celebrated hagiographers, commentators, writers, and columnists, that include Ramachandra Guha and Arundhati Roy – both of whom have written copiously on Ambedkar, through stand-alone chapters or books (The Doctor and the Saint; India after Gandhi; Democrats and Dissenters; Makers of Modern India) – are conspicuously silent on Ambedkar’s views on Islam and the Muslim psyche. Clearly, this is a story the apologists do not want to tell.

The one thing Ambedkar was not, was an apologist. He spares no one, not even Mahatma Gandhi, who he blasts for giving into the selective bias, of the type one finds ubiquitous today.

"He [Gandhi] has never called the Muslims to account even when they have been guilty of gross crimes against Hindus."

Ambedkar then goes on to list a few Hindu leaders who were killed by Muslims, one among them being Rajpal, the publisher of Rangeela Rasool, the ‘Satanic Verses’ equivalent of pre-Independence India. We all know what happened to Rushdie. As for Rajpal, he met a fate worse than the celebrated Indian author. Rajpal was brutally stabbed in broad daylight. Again, not many know the assassination of Rajpal by Ilm-ud-din was celebrated by all prominent Muslims leaders of the day.

Ilm-ud-din was defended in the court by none other than Jinnah, and the man who rendered a eulogy at his funeral (that was attended by tens of thousands of mourners) was none other than the famous poet Allama Iqbal, who cried as the assassin's coffin was lowered: "We sat idle while this carpenter's son took the lead." Iqbal is revered in India; Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, recently conferred on him the title of Tarana-E-Hind. “Nation will never forget Iqbal,” she said.

Ambedkar writes: "Mr. Gandhi has been very punctilious in the matter of condemning any and every act of violence and has forced the Congress, much against its will to condemn it. But Mr Gandhi has never protested against such murders [of Hindus]. Not only have the Musalmans not condemned these outrages, but even Mr Gandhi has never called upon the leading Muslims to condemn them. He has kept silent over them. Such an attitude can be explained only on the ground that Mr Gandhi was anxious to preserve Hindu-Moslem unity and did not mind the murders of a few Hindus, if it could be achieved by sacrificing their lives...This attitude to excuse the Muslims any wrong, lest it should injure the cause of unity, is well illustrated by what Mr Gandhi had to say in the matter of the Mopla riots. The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of "congratulations to the Moplas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion". Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Moslem unity. But Mr Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Moslem unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Moplas and the Khilafats who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Moplas as the "brave God-fearing Moplas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious ".

As usual, Mr Gandhi failed to produce any satisfactory response to Ambedkar's serious charge. Mahatmas never do. The conduct of Gandhi during the Mopla riots, and his views on them once the carnage had subsided, remain a blot on the Mahatma. Again, they never form part of our history books.

On the allegiance of a Muslim to his motherland [India], Ambedkar writes:

"Among the tenets one that calls for notice is the tenet of Islam which says that in a country which is not under Muslim rule, wherever there is a conflict between Muslim law and the law of the land, the former must prevail over the latter, and a Muslim will be justified in obeying the Muslim law and defying the law of the land."

Quoting the following: "The only allegiance a Musalman, whether civilian or soldier, whether living under a Muslim or under a non-Muslim administration, is commanded by the Koran to acknowledge is his allegiance to God, to his Prophet and to those in authority from among the Musalmans…" Ambedkar adds: "This must make anyone wishing for a stable government very apprehensive. But this is nothing to the Muslim tenets which prescribe when a country is a motherland to the Muslim and when it is not…According to Muslim Canon Law the world is divided into two camps, Dar-ul-lslam (abode of Islam), and Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war). A country is Dar-ul-lslam when it is ruled by Muslims. A country is Dar-ul-Harb when Muslims only reside in it but are not rulers of it. That being the Canon Law of the Muslims, India cannot be the common motherland of the Hindus and the Musalmans. It can be the land of the Musalmans—but it cannot be the land of the 'Hindus and the Musalmans living as equals.' Further, it can be the land of the Musalmans only when it is governed by the Muslims. The moment the land becomes subject to the authority of a non-Muslim power, it ceases to be the land of the Muslims. Instead of being Dar-ul-lslam it becomes Dar-ul-Harb.

"It must not be supposed that this view is only of academic interest. For it is capable of becoming an active force capable of influencing the conduct of the Muslims…It might also be mentioned that Hijrat [emigration] is not the only way of escape to Muslims who find themselves in a Dar-ul-Harb. There is another injunction of Muslim Canon Law called Jihad (crusade) by which it becomes "incumbent on a Muslim ruler to extend the rule of Islam until the whole world shall have been brought under its sway. The world, being divided into two camps, Dar-ul-lslam (abode of Islam), Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war), all countries come under one category or the other. Technically, it is the duty of the Muslim ruler, who is capable of doing so, to transform Dar-ul-Harb into Dar-ul-lslam." And just as there are instances of the Muslims in India resorting to Hijrat, there are instances showing that they have not hesitated to proclaim Jihad.”

On a Muslim respecting authority of an elected government, Ambedkar writes:

"Willingness to render obedience to the authority of the government is as essential for the stability of government as the unity of political parties on the fundamentals of the state. It is impossible for any sane person to question the importance of obedience in the maintenance of the state. To believe in civil disobedience is to believe in anarchy…How far will Muslims obey the authority of a government manned and controlled by the Hindus? The answer to this question need not call for much inquiry."

This view isn't much different from the views of Jinnah and the Muslim League. Indeed, in the then prevailing climate, engineered or otherwise, these views could be seen as legitimate from the point of view of an anxious minority. However, the reason that Ambedkar gives for this predilection is not at all political but, rather startlingly, religious. He writes:

"To the Muslims a Hindu is a Kaffir. A Kaffir is not worthy of respect. He is low-born and without status. That is why a country which is ruled by a Kaffir is Dar-ul-Harb to a Musalman. Given this, no further evidence seems to be necessary to prove that the Muslims will not obey a Hindu government. The basic feelings of deference and sympathy, which predispose persons to obey the authority of government, do not simply exist. But if proof is wanted, there is no dearth of it. It is so abundant that the problem is what to tender and what to omit…In the midst of the Khilafat agitation, when the Hindus were doing so much to help the Musalmans, the Muslims did not forget that as compared with them the Hindus were a low and an inferior race.”

Ambedkar isn’t done yet. On the lack of reforms in the Muslim community, he writes:

"What can that special reason be? It seems to me that the reason for the absence of the spirit of change in the Indian Musalman is to be sought in the peculiar position he occupies in India. He is placed in a social environment which is predominantly Hindu. That Hindu environment is always silently but surely encroaching upon him. He feels that it is de-musalmanazing him. As a protection against this gradual weaning away he is led to insist on preserving everything that is Islamic without caring to examine whether it is helpful or harmful to his society. Secondly, the Muslims in India are placed in a political environment which is also predominantly Hindu. He feels that he will be suppressed and that political suppression will make the Muslims a depressed class. It is this consciousness that he has to save himself from being submerged by the Hindus socially and-politically, which to my mind is the primary cause why the Indian Muslims as compared with their fellows outside are backward in the matter of social reform.

"Their energies are directed to maintaining a constant struggle against the Hindus for seats and posts in which there is no time, no thought and no room for questions relating to social reform. And if there is any, it is all overweighed and suppressed by the desire, generated by pressure of communal tension, to close the ranks and offer a united front to the menace of the Hindus and Hinduism by maintaining their socio-religious unity at any cost. The same is the explanation of the political stagnation in the Muslim community of India.

"Muslim politicians do not recognize secular categories of life as the basis of their politics because to them it means the weakening of the community in its fight against the Hindus. The poor Muslims will not join the poor Hindus to get justice from the rich. Muslim tenants will not join Hindu tenants to prevent the tyranny of the landlord. Muslim labourers will not join Hindu labourers in the fight of labour against capital. Why? The answer is simple. The poor Muslim sees that if he joins in the fight of the poor against the rich, he may be fighting against a rich Muslim. The Muslim tenant feels that if he joins in the campaign against the landlord, he may have to fight against a Muslim landlord. A Muslim labourer feels that if he joins in the onslaught of labour against capital, he will be injuring a Muslim mill-owner. He is conscious that any injury to a rich Muslim, to a Muslim landlord or to a Muslim mill-owner, is a disservice to the Muslim community, for it is thereby weakened in its struggle against the Hindu community."

Then, Ambedkar writes something that would surely confirm him as a certified Islamophobe and a bigot in the jaundiced eyes of those who have appropriated him.

"How Muslim politics has become perverted is shown by the attitude of the Muslim leaders to the political reforms in the Indian States. The Muslims and their leaders carried on a great agitation for the introduction of representative government in the Hindu State of Kashmir. The same Muslims and their leaders are deadly opposed to the introduction of representative governments in other Muslim States. The reason for this strange attitude is quite simple. In all matters, the determining question with the Muslims is how it will affect the Muslims vis-a-vis the Hindus. If representative government can help the Muslims, they will demand it, and fight for it. In the State of Kashmir the ruler is a Hindu, but the majority of the subjects are Muslims. The Muslims fought for representative government in Kashmir, because representative government in Kashmir meant the transfer of power from a Hindu king to the Muslim masses. In other Muslim States, the ruler is a Muslim but the majority of his subjects are Hindus. In such States representative government means the transfer of power from a Muslim ruler to the Hindu masses, and that is why the Muslims support the introduction of representative government in one case and oppose it in the other. The dominating consideration with the Muslims is not democracy. The dominating consideration is how democracy with majority rule will affect the Muslims in their struggle against the Hindus. Will it strengthen them or will it weaken them? If democracy weakens them, they will not have democracy. They will prefer the rotten state to continue in the Muslim States rather than weaken the Muslim ruler in his hold upon his Hindu subjects. The political and social stagnation in the Muslim community can be explained by one and only one reason. The Muslims think that the Hindus and Muslims must perpetually struggle; the Hindus to establish their dominance over the Muslims and the Muslims to establish their historical position as the ruling community—that in this struggle the strong will win, and to ensure strength they must suppress or put in cold storage everything which causes dissension in their ranks. If the Muslims in other countries have undertaken the task of reforming their society and the Muslims of India have refused to do so, it is because the former are free from communal and political clashes with rival communities, while the latter are not."

History for us is either to be hidden or invented. We tell and retell what we like of it, and of what we don’t, we scrunch it up and slip it under the mattress, and then perch ourselves cross-legged over it to retell a little more. We are born storytellers. A lap and a head is all we need. As for truth? Well, it is not there; it vanished from view; and so it never happened.

But it did happen. Ambedkar did say these things on Islam and Indian Muslims. In doing so, he gave a choice to us, for he knew us only too well. We could either discuss his views on Islam openly like we do his views on Hinduism, or we could scrunch them up like a plastic bag and slip it under our mattress. He did not live long enough to witness the option that we chose but being the seer that he was he had an inkling. As a preface to his book, he wrote:

"I am not sorry for this reception given to my book. That it is disowned by the Hindus and unowned by the Muslims is to me the best evidence that it has the vices of neither, and that from the point of view of independence of thought and fearless presentation of facts the book is not a party production. Some people are sore because what I have said has hurt them. I have not, I confess, allowed myself to be influenced by fears of wounding either individuals or classes, or shocking opinions however respectable they may be. I have often felt regret in pursuing this course, but remorse never.

“It might be said that in tendering advice to both sides, I have used terms more passionate than they need have been. If I have done so it is because I felt that the manner of the physician who tries to surprise the vital principle in each paralyzed organ in order to goad it to action was best suited to stir up the average Indian who is complacent if not somnolent, who is unsuspecting if not ill-informed, to realize what is happening. I hope my effort will have the desired effect."

What words. What beautiful, forceful, tender words. Here was Ambedkar, trying to goad us as a physician would paralysed organs. But he misjudged us. We remain fearful, indifferent, paralysed.

Nations that fear their past fear their future, and fearful nations worship, never follow its great men and women. Ambedkar is no exception.

Islam, Quran, Sharia and Refugees

The End of Enlightenment?

Pervez Hoodbhoy in The Dawn

I was invited to lecture on ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Age of Global Terrorism’ at Missouri State University. Missouri is Trump country — he had a 70 per cent majority there. Some essential points are excerpted below.

The first seven words of the title belong to the 1776 Declaration of Independence from Britain: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

America’s founding fathers derived these ideas of equalitarianism from Europe’s then-bubbling cauldron of the European Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson’s phrase “all men are created equal” is perhaps one of the best-known and profound sentences in the English language.

But truths once self-evident to Americans are no more evident to very many today. They elected a president who sees differences between men as more important than their equality. Had America’s judiciary not struck down his executive order banning Muslims from setting foot on America’s soil, I could not have delivered the lecture. Europe — from where the Enlightenment sprang — is witnessing the emergence of exclusionists like Marie Le Pen and Geert Wilders. This phenomenon begs an understanding.

Some blame this on terrorist acts perpetrated by certain Muslims. Indeed one must not dismiss the importance of fear. Terrorism terrifies. Crazed fanatics piloting airliners into skyscrapers or driving trucks into holiday crowds scare everyone out of their wits. But how seriously should one take this threat, and where did these monsters come from?

Truthfully, we all stand guilty. All scriptures contain a radical strain but whether or not that tendency gets developed and amplified depends on political circumstances. A significant part of today’s organised terrorist groups — though by no means all — originate from the actions of the US and its allies. There would be no Taliban or Al Qaeda but for Ronald Reagan’s obsession with the ‘Evil Empire’, and no IS but for George W. Bush’s criminal invasion of Iraq.
Even so, terrorists — unless they somehow seize nuclear weapons — are not an existential threat to humanity. The number of victims of terrorism is small compared to wars, traffic accidents, killings by deranged individuals, etc. Terrorism alone does not explain why the US is drifting away from its wonderful Enlightenment ideals.

Among the real reasons is growing economic inequality. To profess equality of humans is one thing, to enforce and protect this principle is yet another. When differences of wealth and power become astronomically large, grand assertions lose meaning.

Example: A popular — but absurd — Urdu couplet tells of Mahmood (sultan) and Ayyaz (slave) magically becoming equals as they pray side by side. But could King Salman al-Saud — just back after traveling to Indonesia with 505 tons of expensive luggage — and a Javanese Muslim peasant become equals even if that poor chap somehow got within praying distance alongside the monarch?

The US is faced with an equally absurd situation. Extreme income inequality is imperiling its future, and a decent life for citizens is ever harder to achieve. American CEOs draw seven-digit salaries, workers just five-digit ones. University education is increasingly restricted to richer sections of society. Forty-eight years ago in Boston I could do a weekly average of 20 hours of menial labour and cover nearly half of my university education. Today the same number of hours would not pay for even an eighth.

The upsurge of angry populism is actually fuelled not by terrorism but by America’s losing out in the global race. This is the conclusion reached by a global investment firm (GMO) which recently carried out an extensive data-driven study of this phenomenon. The report details how neoliberal economic policies are leading the US towards disaster.

Arising in the 1970s, neoliberalism has four key economic signatures: the abandonment of full employment as a desirable policy goal and its replacement with inflation targeting; an increase in the globalisation of the flows of people, capital, and trade; a focus at a firm level on shareholder value maximisation rather than reinvestment and growth; and the pursuit of flexible labour markets and the disruption of trade unions and workers organisations.

The upshot: the US has increasingly become a winner-take-all society. According to Forbes, the combined net worth of the 2016 class of the 400 richest Americans is $2.4 trillion, up from $2tr in 2013. The New York Times reported that the richest 1pc in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90pc. An angry populace is vulnerable to hate-spouting demagogues who blame everyone — Chinese, Mexicans, and Muslims.

This is only going to get worse because the days of American hegemony are gone, as is its absolute dominance of the world’s economy. When crises threaten, people everywhere tend to retreat into their comfort zones. Resurgent tribalism, aggressive nationalism, and religious fundamentalism become more attractive. But these can only provide solace, not solutions.

It would be tragic if the US were to fail its own constitution. Many countries are not even formally committed to accepting the equality of their citizens, and many more sharply discriminate between them even while professing not to. Pakistan’s constitution explicitly distinguishes between Muslim and non-Muslim, Iran officially espouses vilayat-i-faqih (guardianship of Islamic jurists), Saudi Arabia prohibits all places of worship on its soil except mosques. Although Israel lacks a constitution because of a conflict between its religious and secular forces, legally, as well as in practice, it privileges Jews over non-Jews. And India, which was once committed to secularism, is now turning into a state for Hindus run by Hindus.

How can the future of humanity be protected against this return to primitivism? No magical force drives history; there is only human agency. We must therefore educate ourselves into rising above accidents of birth, think critically, examine facts before forming opinions, keep widening the scope of our knowledge and, above all, act compassionately. To fight for universal humanism, world citizenship, and for the Enlightenment spirit is the only option for a world where boundaries are increasingly irrelevant.

Ram Janambhoomi - Wading forward into the past

Jawed Naqvi in The Dawn


THE chief justice of India, Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, says he would prefer that the Ayodhya dispute be settled outside the court, mutually, between the perpetually unyielding Hindu and Muslim petitioners. The apex court is currently studying the Allahabad High Court’s decision of 2010, which had insinuated that there was in fact a birthplace of Lord Ram as claimed by Hindu militants at the disputed site where the 16th-century Babri Masjid once stood. World-renowned historians and archaeologists have desisted from supporting such claims for want of basic evidence.

A progressive judge was earlier dealing with the dispute for years at the Allahabad High Court. He retired with his unalloyed belief that matters of faith were essentially non-justiciable in a secular court such as the one he presided over. A secular court must ideally protect everyone’s religious beliefs as well as the right to remain aloof from all of them. Religious courts would begin from the premise that they are carrying out God’s command, which has its own set of consequences as one can glean from the poison-spewing clerics having the run of Jinnah’s dream nation.

The Ayodhya dispute, therefore, given India’s secular constitution put together by 85 per cent Hindus in the constituent assembly, boils down to a temporal standoff — the rival claims on the land in question between those who say that the mosque was arbitrarily built on what they believe to be the birthplace of Ram and those that want the courts to prevent their forcible eviction from the land on which the mediaeval mosque stood until Dec 6, 1992.

Justice Khehar has offered to personally mediate the complex case if accepted by the parties. There could be no doubt that the judge has offered his help with good intentions. A range of thoughts cross the mind nevertheless about why the apex court would not prefer to explore a legal route and settle the case one way or another as India’s secular law mandates.

A rival fact begs discussion. It is not easy to enforce the law in India, with or without the state’s patronage of rogue parties. Remember that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was carried out as a brazen snub to the Supreme Court’s authority. Its standing orders forbade any changing of the status of the disputed monument in Ayodhya. The world knows who all were complicit in disobeying the binding orders, and who led the mobs to wilfully undermine the highest and most revered institution of the Indian state. Among the leading campaigners for the temple movement was Prime Minister Modi. Would his government now allow his mentor L.K. Advani, named in the case, to be tried or punished?

Justice Khehar has described the dispute as a sensitive issue. What happens when he retires though, as early as August this year? Will there be a mechanism backed by the apex court and the government for him to continue as a mediator whose imprimatur is honoured by all when he finds a solution? And what will we do if the solution, in which he suggests a little bit of give and take, widens into a full-blown assault on law and justice as it did in 1992?

We have after all chosen to accept the route, willy-nilly, of vigilante squads and Hindutva zealots swarming through Nehru’s India. They are not dissimilar to the bigots that Pakistan and Bangladesh are struggling to tame after unwittingly releasing them from the bottle, beginning with the reign of the two Zias. What is happening in India is a third or fourth carbon copy of what we have seen elsewhere. Uttar Pradesh, for example, is a smudged copy of the moral policing in Iran. They too enforce dress codes there and are particularly severe on young men and women whose hands even brush each other in public squares. If the so-called anti-Romeo squads of UP (Shakespeare would be turning in his grave) are bodily lifted from the streets of Islamic Iran, the threat by another BJP chief minister to hang (without recourse to law, naturally) people who kill cows, brings to mind the ‘laughing assassin’ of the early days of the Iranian Revolution. Ayatollah Khalkhali would roam the streets with a crane from which he hanged countless innocent men and women without ever losing the smile on his bearded face. There is a somewhat similar atmosphere in India in which Justice Khehar has offered to stick out his neck on behalf of reason.

A less discussed highlight of the mandir-masjid controversy is that it has created a dialogue (or a standoff) between overtly religious parties, both garnering their constituencies with right-wing agendas that leave out India’s open-minded middle ground to worry for the future helplessly. Muslims claim to seek justice, their demand framed in a legal petition. The Hindutva case is framed in religion, which Hindus insist on passing as historical fact.

In these days of right-wing ferment, be it Muslim, or Hindu, or Jewish, or Christian ferment, any demand for justice does seem laughably anachronistic. The Palestinians have a just cause, as do the Kashmiris, the Latinos, the blacks, the tribespeople of Chhattisgarh, or the liberal students of Indian universities, for example, at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. They have all been wronged and the world has put them together in a slot labeled ‘terrorists’. What they face is death, or eviction or slander.

If Justice Khehar can buck the trend, and prevent Ayodhya from mutating into Mathura and Kashi and a larger national inferno, India’s Muslims, but above all the overwhelming majority of secular Hindus, should give him a chance. The future cannot be worse than it looks.

The curse of the ‘strong leader’

Tabish Khair in The Hindu




A strong leadership may be fine, but only if the leaders do not end up turning their political parties into ghosts



One feels for Rahul Gandhi. He has to cope with not one but two ‘strong leaders’: Narendra Modi and his own grandmother, Indira Gandhi.

Rahul Gandhi is haunted by the ghost of a once worker-cadre-based party, the Congress, which ‘strong leader’ Mrs. Gandhi transformed into a family-run, one-boss organisation. Rahul Gandhi’s failure in Uttar Pradesh, Assam, etc. has little to do with his own abilities or inabilities; it has to do with a common feeling among Indians that the Congress needs to be led by a charismatic leader whose surname is not and has never been ‘Gandhi’ or ‘Nehru’.

Indians are not unique in this: given the nexus of politicians and finance capital and the transformation of politics into a kind of initiated profession, where connections matter far too much, the ordinary voter is suspicious of leaders whose prominence seems to be a family- or peer group-inheritance. So suspicious that the voter can even prefer a person with no solution over a better and more deserving candidate, as we witnessed in the U.S. last year, simply because the former is seen as not being an insider.

When Congress lost coherence

Even the ill-gotten millions of an ‘outsider’ candidate no longer disqualify him, as long as his opponent is seen as part of the political establishment. Riches, the voter (mistakenly) believes, can come to him too, but political inheritance — of the sort associated with Hillary Clinton and Rahul Gandhi — cannot. And in this latter supposition the voter is not mistaken. This gets worse, as is the case with the Congress now, thanks to a process initiated by Mrs. Gandhi, when the party seems hardly to exist apart from its top leadership.

No doubt, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru did fight to shape the Congress, but they encouraged much difference too. This showed in the wide variety of pan-national leaders the Congress threw up in that period: Sarojini Naidu, Vallabhbhai Patel, Abul Kalam Azad, Rajendra Prasad, Lal Bahadur Shastri, etc.

It is with the ‘strong leader’ personality cult that Mrs. Gandhi encouraged in the 1970s that the Congress began to lose both its internal coherence and a repertoire of equivalent national-level leaders. At the level of party structure, this led to the gradual evaporation of committed Congress workers at district and village levels and their replacement with careerists and strategists rushing off to party headquarters at the drop of a Gandhi cap. Today, the Congress is far less a worker-cadre-based party than the BJP. This ghostly Congress party — reduced to a family name that most voters are tired of hearing — is Rahul Gandhi’s bane. Despite this, it is not the Congress today but the BJP that seems to be following Mrs. Gandhi’s doubtful legacy: the curse of the ‘strong leader’ which reduces a political party to a ghostly affair in later years.

Conservatives united

I have never dismissed the BJP as a genuine party within a democratic India, as I have considered it a party with various tendencies — not that dissimilar from the Congress of yore — united by a few core commonalities. What passes for the BJP is a collocation of conservatives of various kinds, pro-market ideologists, nationalists, cultural revivalists, religious chauvinists, and reactionaries. All of them are united by a general belief in an India structured along ‘Hindu’ rather than secular lines, even though their understanding of ‘Hindu’ is not identical. Again, as the Congress was before the 1970s, the BJP is essentially a grass-roots party united by a cadre which includes, and is dominated (for better or for worse), by cadres of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The BJP allows more upward mobility for its workers than the Congress today.

This, then, is the BJP as it has been until now. While lacking the azadi-inspired breadth of the Gandhi-Nehruvian Congress, it has nevertheless thrown up major leaders of national visibility such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, many of whom, like Narendra Modi himself, rose from the ranks.

All this might be changing in the BJP today, as it slowly becomes a personality-based ‘strong leader’ party. It is not a coincidence that the only Congress leader that supporters of Mr. Modi sometimes praise is Mrs. Gandhi: ‘Modi’s India’ may not be that far apart from ‘Indira is India.’

There is a pattern — reminiscent of the Congress in the 1970s — of concentrating party power in the top echelons and appointing ministers and Chief Ministers (most recently in Uttar Pradesh) who seem incapable of gaining a national stature. Strong leaders may be fine, but only if they do not end up turning their parties into ghosts.

Fateh ka Fatwa 3 - Who is a kafir?

Christian India

by Girish Menon 

I studied in a Christian school

I speak and think in English

I have crossed the ocean

I eat animals and the holy cow

Am I a Hindu?

The government regulates my temples

'Free will' applies to the church

Ghar wapasi is frowned upon

Love crusade is the norm

How do I practise as a Hindu?

Christian India, Christian India

No Hindus left in Christian India

India’s constitution is secular

But look at the demographic change

The army of Jesus grows faster

With their offshore bureaucratic might

 How do I survive as a Hindu?

The Congress party hates us

So do the Communists,

Muslims and Dalits

The parliament loves Americans,

free marketers and evangelists

How do I survive as a Hindu?

Christian India, Christian India

No Hindus left in Christian India

Africans and Koreans have seen the light

Many Chinese believe in Jesus

The Nagas all used their 'free will'

to embrace the Holy Father’s gospel

The missionaries work in stealth

How do I survive as a Hindu?

Christian India, Christian India

No Hindus left in Christian India