NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Passion play

December 6. The seventh anniversary of the demolition of the derelict structure at Ayodhya. We've been informed that several companies of the armed constabulary and the Rapid Action Force, and battalions of the state police, have been requisitioned to beef up the security at Ram Janmabhoomi. That the Vishwa Hindu Parishad will celebrate the day as Shaurya Divas and the Shiv Sena, as Vijay Divas. That "the Muslim organisations" (who has the guts to name them?) will mourn the day as Yaum-e-Gham.

During this annual breast-beating by the secular Press, one newsman stands out by dint of his non-conformist honesty and courage. He is no Hindutvawadi. He is no Parivari. He is no supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Still, I'd rather have pasted his entire column in this space, so strong and apt are his thoughts for this day. Unfortunately, all I can do is reproduce extracts:

"The news that a mosque is to be built in Nazareth saddened me...Nazareth is quintessentially a Christian town in its ambience and historical echo. Every cobbled stone is bound inextricably with the myth or the reality of Jesus Christ...

"Every great religion generates its own culture which manifests itself in architecture, literature, music and painting. Thus the great cathedrals of Europe, Michelangelo, Bach, Handel, Milton are only some of the enduring gifts left behind by that great religion. The majestic dome and measured spirals of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the mosque in Isfahan, the Jama Masjid of Delhi, the thought and poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi... all represent freedom, amplitude and aesthetic pleasure derived from the faith...

"The frescos in the exquisite temple in Tanjore, depicting every known movement in Bharatnatyam, the incomparable detailing in stone at Halibed, the granite grandeur at Shravanbelagola, poetry of Sur and Tulsi and the Kritis of Thyagaraja, are the highest aesthetic expression of Hindu civilisation. Tirupati, Rishikesh, Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi are, according to me, towns and cities which are as Hindu as Mecca is Muslim or the Vatican is Christian.

"A temple or a mosque in the Vatican, or a church in Mecca would militate against the sheer aesthetic harmony of these places. Should it then be difficult to realise that mosques in the heart of the most prominent temples in Varanasi, Ayodhya and Mathura would be aesthetically revolting for any Hindu?

"History of invasions and the crusades is replete with the destruction of places of worship. Europe never really forgot the hurt inflicted by the Ottomans on the Christian world by transforming the St Sophia Church in Constantinople into a mosque. Ataturk softened the wound by shutting down the mosque and restoring St Sophia as a museum.

"Have you ever visited the mosques in Varanasi, Ayodhya and Mathura? I did and I did not like what I saw. Any Hindu would be hurt. That such things happen in history is true. The history of civilisation is also the history of their eclipse by decay or conquest... We too lost our balance in the heat of politics when the Babri Masjid was pulled down. But that irrational act apart, the fact of the matter is that the mosque in Varanasi and Mathura are, aesthetically, as incongruous as the one in Nazareth will be, if it ever is built. Like the mosque in Varanasi, and Mathura, it too will be a divisive mosque. Yes, mosques must be built if there are worshippers, but not imposed or accepted in spaces where they violate the aesthetic ambience of these places."

Thank you, Mr Saeed Naqvi. Thank you, from a journalist to a journalist. Thank you, from a Hindu to a Muslim. Just: THANK YOU for sensing.

I know, I know, I get all gooey-gooey or mad-mad and capitals-capitals when something moves me. Readers say: Bad girl. For the heart of Good Journalism is said to beat healthily only when the writer is dispassionate. I say: Balls. For there's no life without passion. My understanding of life is music and art, song and dance, poetry and literature, and the will to change the trend of society. Could any of it be executed without passion?

What is this "passion," anyway? The Oxford English Dictionary lays down that it is a strong, barely controllable emotion; an outburst of anger; intense sexual love; strong enthusiasm. Which of these are terrible things...? Ok, I concede, angry outbursts aren't to be striven for. But could you go through life suppressing them? You'd be in a strait-jacket pretty soon! What in heaven's name is wrong about enthusiasm and intensity of feelings...?

Do read Mr Naqvi's column; it appeared in The Indian Express on December 3. Nowhere, does he present or consider the feelings of or tabulate the arguments from India's Muslims. A dispassionate journalist would certainly have set down the conflicting views, too. Like any forensic accountant, he would have drawn up a spreadsheet of pros and cons. But spreadsheets move only merchants and brokers... Had Mr Naqvi done that, I'd have read the article -- and damned him for trivialising Hindu feelings by diluting his message. I'd have called him a coward for sitting on the fence in fear of being damned by his community. I would never have come away with the idea that all Muslims are not hideously self-indulgent in their religious beliefs. And that is something only the passion guiding Mr Naqvi could achieve.

When one is passionate, one instinctively does not think of the consequences. When one's earnest, one will hammer in the message boldly. Passion breeds courage; and courage can move mountains. The neutral, the disengaged, the impassive, they have their place in the scheme of things -- but that is NOT the only scheme that must exist. The likes of Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Veer Savarkar et al -- writers who shaped the opinions of generations to come -- what did they have if not passion? Didn't they once belong to the Press? Must contemporary columnists have the mentality of 9-to-5 clerks? Must today's newspaper writing uniformly reflect the mediocrity asphyxiating the world? The world that automatically rejects Passion -- I reject that world! This way or that, I *will* stand apart.

Which, of course, will bring you to rage with the thought that, Does Bhosle think she is a Marx or a Tilak?! No, Bhosle does not think she is either. But she does not consider herself inferior, either. Precisely: where there's passion, there are dreams. Dreams of making a difference; dreams of being unique. Yes, sure, a dream is just an illusion. Yet, like Mark Twain says: "Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to Live." To reach for the impossible is to live. Corr, I'm on a roll... here's Khalil Gibran: "A man becomes old only when Regrets take the place of Dreams." Shukar hai, abhi to main jawaan hoon...

Know something? I don't really blame the dorks who slam me for being "passionate." A person's attitude to that which is atypical is drawn from the reservoir of his own faculties. If that tank is thinly filled, one can be sure that he'll have thick blinkers on, the dray-horse that he is. What brought this bang to the fore of my mind is, again, Mr Saeed Naqvi.

If you read even the little that I've copied above, you'll notice that the author is knowledgeable -- and passionate -- about the humanities. He talks of "measured spirals" and "incomparable detailing in stone"; he talks of ambience, architecture, frescos, literature, music, painting... Indeed, his entire thrust against the validity of mosques in Hindu centres is through aesthetics. That is Mr Naqvi's reservoir. The tank is so full to the brim with the passion for Beauty that the blindness that Religion can evoke can't slip in to pollute it. Indeed, although being a hum-kitab of Christians, he refers to Christ as "the myth or the reality." You see, Mr Naqvi isn't concerned with the historicity of prophets and gods or the pilgrimage sites they spawned -- it's only Man he sees: "I did not like what I saw. Any Hindu would be hurt."

When the Babri was demolished, my first, and second, and third, reaction was: It should not have happened. I began from the same place whence did Mr Naqvi. Problem is, the intellectually curious do not remain static for long -- they delve, snoop, learn, study and move. As did Mr Naqvi. Though we took wholly different routes, we arrived at the same station: the feelings of Hindus. The historicity of gods is *not* the issue -- what remains in collective Hindu consciousness, is.

The centuries of protecting their tradition from being crushed under the juggernaut of Islam has made Hindus a weird lot. They wait, and they wait so humbly that no one would ever imagine the turmoil within. And then there comes a time when it explodes -- and you have the Babri. Or charred evangelists. No matter what the great and the good may say about the spark which caused the blight of the Babri, the fact remains that a multitude of Hindus was upset enough to allow themselves to be ignited. Whether the BJP's motives were political or not, the hostility of the people who manually brought down the structure *cannot* be denied.

But denied it is -- by the maggots who pass as human beings. Our secularists believe that Hinduism allows no violent resistance; that Hindus must only absorb, absorb and absorb... But Hinduism ain't a eunuch of a philosophy. And that's why there always will be those ready to light the tinder-box of Hindu unrest. Throughout history, there have been movements for reinstating the ascendance of the religion of this land: Mangal Pandey was incensed by cow-fat greased bullets, and Hindvi Swarajya is no 20th century concept. No matter what Gandhiji preached, the volatility never died. For others recognized what Gandhiji had ignored: The essence of the Gita is, force is legitimate if required to uphold Dharma.

Secularists do not want to dampen the tinder -- they only want the spark to be annihilated. They do not care to know why the tinder exists. Indeed, they deny its existence altogether, by shifting the onus onto the spark that lit it. Sparks, being unpredictable, cause dismay, fear, horror and panic. For a spark cannot be a spark without having passion. And passion is frightening...

Mr Naqvi will be feared, for if he keeps on in this vein, he may gradually turn the opinion of his community. Orthodox Islam will loathe him; orthodox Hinduism will be wary of him -- for they both thrive on maintaining the old order. He will get tons of mail heaped with abuse. But I think he won't care at all. Instead, he'll be one satisfied man if he ever learns that he changed the mind of just a single die-hard fundie. Passion's rewards are strange things; it takes a kindred soul to understand.

Varsha Bhosle