Endangered
freedom
By
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
The
first casualty that was hardly noticed after the new government took over in
Delhi was the deletion of important documents of the home ministry. It was
taken rather casually and the voices who expressed their concern and anguish
over it were targeted. Initially, the incident might have looked a slight
mistake on part of the government as home minister informed parliament that
files related to assassination of Mahatma Gandhi were actually safe with
government department.
Initially
many thought that this is a government friendly for the business as the people
have given it mandate for ‘good governance’ but we all know such image creation
as part of media which has shamelessly taken the role of a propagandist for the
Bharatiya Janata Party. Media not just played a dutiful Public
Relation Organization of the Sangh Parivar and left no stone unturned in
discrediting the opponents particularly the ruling Congress which definitely
had not done anything worth sympathetic yet in the greater interest of impartiality,
media forgot its own role as a watch dog of the society.
Government
began with greater symbolism like Ganga cleaning operation or Prime Minister
deliberately choosing the Ganga Maha-arati to start the tenure. None ever
thought that the government and the party heading it would ultimately return to
their original agenda of Hindutva and polarization. The
scars of Mujaffarnagar have not yet healed and we have witnessed now series of
reports of communal polarization in Uttar Pradesh. A peaceful district like
Saharanpur has been assaulted by the communal violence that engulfed the Qutubsher
police station of the city resulting in loss of properties and human lives. Meerut and Mujaffarnagar are again on the rock
with rumors and stories of a forcible conversion and rape of a Hindu girl who was
working with a Madarasa. There should be
no sympathies with the perpetrators of any crime whether the rape or conversion
or spreading rumors for political gains but it speaks volume of the
irresponsibility of the Hindutva organizations who are rushing everywhere,
becoming moral police and now decided to escalate their ‘fight’ against ‘Love
Jehad’ which according to them is responsible for all this. If you know well, Hindu organisations have
long blamed the Muslim youths for enticing ‘their girls’ in love and then
converting them to Islam. Unfortunately, all this is a war against Indian
constitution, which guarantees individual to have a choice in their marriages,
which treat ‘individual’ as a ‘supreme’. Marriages are not a choice for
communities but individuals who must be respected at all cost. There is nothing
like Love Jehad but an attempt to communalize and then polarize the entire
social fabric for political games.
The
Prime Minister’s speeches at both Bhutan and Nepal Assemblies used Hindu
symbolism to its best. His travel to Pashupatinath and then a heavy donation of
2500 kilograms of sandalwood to the temple while deliberately not sending
customary greetings of Eid to Muslims in India reflected how the government was
functioning and what is in store ahead in the coming days. How can the Prime Minister of a secular nation be so blatant in
disrespect for secular values and ideals? Has secularism become so dirty a word
that Hindutva’s fanatics are looking better choice for people? The problem with the Hindutva’s political
philosophers is that it put ‘secularism’ equal to Muslim fanaticism and
therefore cleverly diverts the entire debate towards communal polarization. For
a person devoted to human rights of all, I would add here that if speaking for
the rights of minorities and marginalized makes is fanaticism then we must be
prepared to accept the tag.
The
problem is much bigger and need to be understood seriously. The Hinduisation of
Indian polity started long back with Congress Party unable to respond to modern
India’s challenges of fair representation for all the marginalized and
minorities. It did not develop
leadership from these segments.
The
result was deep erosion of secular values in our institutions, which are
resulting in deep unrest and anguish among the marginalized sections of our
society and creating a fear psychosis among minorities particularly the Muslims
and Christians. The agenda holders of
Sangh Parivar have done every effort to even break the unity of the minorities
so Christians and Muslims are separated from Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, which
are cleverly being presented as part of ‘broader Hindu family’. These are the ‘panths’ who originated from
India and Sangh parivar clearly make it
distinct between them and the religions, which originated from outside
India. So, Muslims and Christians
clearly do not fall in the category of the ‘Indian religion’ according to this
agenda long unleashed by the saffron ideologues.
The
saffronisation of education was a well-planned initiative and the government is
actively promoting it. There are top
priorities for the government. One, privatize the education and second
saffronise it completely particularly to influence the minds of young kids who
can be shaped according to the whims and fancies of those who wish to see India
a theocratic Hindu state where caste system would be ‘defined’ as ‘scientific’
as the new chairman of Indian Council of Historical Research suggest. And he is
not alone. Now we have saffron historians and social scientists who are
threatening to undo everything that has happened in the name of education and
secularization. So, who are these new
‘historians’ of Sangh parivar. The
biggest name is Arun Shourie who shamelessly tried to be in the Ministry
supported by the corporate but failed to make it. Now, he is back with his
favorite issue of bashing the ‘secular’ historians and questioning their
motives, vilifying the Muslims, putting all the invaders under the Muslim
category though they came from different regions.
The
state government of Gujarat has already introduced for its children the books
written by saffron historian Deenanath Batra who is on a fast mode to change
the entire curriculum. The children of Gujarat government’s school will have a
different idea of Indian nation and its achievements. So, don’t feel amusing about
the general knowledge of your children when they respond to your questions such
as ‘ who invented Aero plane ‘ and the answer would be not ‘Wright Brothers’
but a mythological one that they always existed in Mahabharat. Don’t scold him
or her for answering that plastic surgery and other important inventions had
already been there in our Vedas and Puranas. Don’t feel absurd when you find
them searching for answers of modern system in our ‘mythologies’ prescribed by
Batra. History for Sangh Parivar has to
be of ‘achievements’ of our society and our past must look golden. If the past was horrific and full of dirt then
we must justify that and blame it on the ‘foreign’ rulers namely the Mughals
and British, also add the ‘secular’ and ‘western’ historians for their
‘misrepresentations’ of fact. Batra’s history
talks of ‘Akhand Bharat’, which include Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Myanmar and even Afghanistan. One can now see how such countries are going to
have a healthy relations with India if Indian history text consider them part
of ‘Hindustan’, with the feeling that the ultimately aim of Batra’s history
lesson is to work for that Akhand Hindustan which basically is a threat to the
integrity of their nationhood.
Things
are moving perfectly as envisaged by the chitpavan priests of Sangh
Parivar. A Christian minister from Goa
said that he believe Modi will convert India into a Hindu nation. The Ram Sene chief was already in Goa
dictating how the girls should wear and what time they should venture in and
out. In Maharastra Shiv Sena continue to
rant against the migrants from UP and Bihar and now we see the same being
actively pursued by Delhi BJP leader Vijay Goyal though he later on tried to
explain that he did not mean that.
The
promotion of Hindi is being done deliberately at the behest of the
government. A dead language like
Sanskrit is being imposed on people. The anti English language protest against
C-Sat of Civil Services is clearly an attempt to make language issue a national
one and impose Hindi on non-willing partners. It has already created heartburns in state
like Tamilnadu.
The situation is alarming but at best being
ignored either due to political pressure or patronage by industrialists to
certain media organisations. The result is the rein of terror and intimidation
inside the newsrooms. The situation is worst than what was perceived during the
emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975. That was the time when state
terrorism in the form of intimidation was order of the day and media resisted
it with full cooperation of the civil society as well as political parties.
Today, the situation has drastically changed as India of 2014 is diametrically
different than that existed before 1975 when State was the sole arbitrator on
the national issues. Today, with active participation and encouragements from the
corporate giants, media has become a big challenge to the state itself. Today, corporate’s fascist tendencies are
growing in a much faster way and there is an atmosphere of distrust and uncertainty
in the media. Those who are considered
to be dissenter to current establishment, both in the Industry as well as in
the governments are being shunted out unceremoniously. The image of media as watch dog is now a
matter of past as today the corporate want them to act as their muscle flexing
Public Relations Organisations.
When
the fourth estate is in an absolute overhaul with likes of Deenanath Batra and
Arun Shourie taking Centre stage, the condition of judiciary cannot be
considered as very bright. The way
government scuttled the appointment of former solicitor General Gopal
Subrahmanyam reflect the mindset of the state at the moment that those who have
stood against its leadership in the past would be eased out and are unwanted
for them. It is not surprising therefore that Justice Anil Dave of the Supreme
Court, on the other day, actually, endorsed the demand of the likes of Batra,
when he said that if he were a ‘dictator’, he would have enforced strictly
studies of Gita and Puranas to our students at the very beginning as they can
manage all the conflicts.
You can imagine the state of the judiciary
of a country where one of the Judges is ‘fond’ of dictatorship and openly
accept the fact that he were that, he would have enforced the ‘spiritual’ and
‘religious’ education on us. There are two points here. One dictatorship and
other enforcement of Hindu values as defined in Gita and Vedas. Surely, the
honorable Judge knows it well that Indian constitution is a secular
constitution and is committed to democracy and socialist ideals.
India is home to nearly 200 million
Muslims. They are not invaders. They are indigenous population of this country,
those who embraced Islam to save themselves from the clutches of brahmanical
tyranny. There are nearly 10 million
Christians in this country and they have not migrated from Europe or West Asia
but children of soil. They too liberated
millions of people from the vicious cycle of caste-based discrimination. Of
course, caste dominance prevailed in these society too as attempt to find
answers in organized religions have failed but that is another matter as
religion or being atheist is a matter of choice of an individual and state and
the parties swearing to constitution of India must respect that. Baba Saheb
Ambedkar embraced Buddhism with nearly 400,000 of his followers in 1956, which
redefined Buddhism in India and revived it too.
Caste
system, untouchability is still prevalent in our country and violence against
Dalits and marginalized continue to happen. The social norms and rituals
actually dominate our political lives also and hence India remained a secular
state in papers and not in practice. Secularism or Hindu secularism became
victim of the competitive communalism in India with parties, leaders blaming
others for their problems. It is not surprising therefore when newspapers
welcome the ban on ‘loudspeakers’ at the Masjids but do not speak whether it is
on the temples too or whether it is just Muslim alone who created nuisance and
not others including Hindus. What about the regular torturing of common men
during the month of Sawan when thousands of Kanwars bring Ganga water to their
homes? In such a scenario, how can our courts and judges take recourse to constitutional values when they have in
mind that everything in the past has ‘meritorious’ structure and we can resolve
our modern day problems.
Suppose
we want to resolve the current crisis of caste discrimination and violence
against marginalized, can we take resource in the teachings of Gita and
Puranas.
Long
back Baba Saheb Ambedkar disclosed to us how Gita preached violence and
justified caste order. Ambedkar’s
riddles of Hinduism are a clear call to Dalits and marginalized to be vary of
such brahmanical crookedness. Joti Ba Phule and Savitri Bai Phule campaigned
relentlessly against the tyranny of scriptures on the Dalits, marginalized and
women. Periyar propagated self-respect marriages and movement for self-respect
among various Dravidian communities. They remained the biggest champions of Dalit
Bahujan movements of the country. All of them asked people to chose the path of
enlightenment through modern scientific and humanist education. All of them
propagated the path of ‘spirit of inquiry’ and reasoning and humanism.
India can not move ahead ignoring the
clarion call of Baba Saheb Ambedar to develop scientific temper and be an
iconoclast, question everything that comes before you, the path shown by
Buddha. It is sad that today’s ruling establishment feel the biggest
‘enlightenment’ as the biggest threat.
It reflect the idea of the current dispensation which is afraid of
modernity and free thinking and therefore trying to bomb every institutions
which has kept us informed and protected whether it is media, judiciary or
education. Today, all these sectors of our democratic life are under the severe
threat as the admirers of Hitler and Mussolini have really started their work.
Deenanath Batra is a symptom of a bigger crisis that is threatening to
challenge India, its age-old secular humanist values propagated by Buddha,
Ambedkar, Phule, Periyar. In 1991, Kalyan Singh’s government
withdrew Kabir from the textbooks of UP government’s high school and
intermediate courses as their writings and thoughts were considered a challenge
to those who wanted to play the politics of religion for their own power games.
Muslims
in India are direct victims of this brahmanical assault but the real targets
are the Dalits, tribal and backward communities who are asserting their rights
and identities as well as seeking their participation in power structure. The
corporate brahmanical elite is essentially trying to stop this march of
assertion of dignity of this segments hence these various plans, games and
conspiracies. It is a wake up call for
all enlightened people of the country and it is only those who understand the
age old conspiracies of India’s caste elite, can really defuse the brahmanical
bomb which has been planted over us.
