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A recipe for Talibanisation

In the last week of 1998, a splendid display of Hindu civilised life was demonstrated to the pagan revellers at the annual Christmas dance hosted by the St Francis parish of Borivili, Bombay. The local Bajrang Dal's creme de la creme sauntered in, and with the visual aid of large placards, discoursed on the essence of Christianity, educated everybody on the event's offensiveness to Indian culture, and sensitively persuaded them to call off the gathering well before the diabolical hour of 11.30 pm. Explained Shankar Gaikar, state joint secretary of the BD, "We were protesting against noise pollution. Our Navratris were closed down. If people do not listen when you tell them nicely, you have to force them to listen."

I hope I don't sound like a stick-in-the-mud, but Navratris aren't "closed down." I should know since it's my good fortune to live opposite a building whose denizens do not look upon garba merely as a pleasant pastime. We are talking about middle-aged men spending entire days twirling their dandiyas. We are talking about an all-out, totally obsessive community effort involving truckloads of loudspeakers, a sanctioning body, and reams of detailed rules and specifications dedicated to acquiring the most tone-deaf performers available. We are talking serious decibels, here. But for the sake of argument, let's suppose that Navratri soirees are, like a sick industrial unit, closed down. Then, who did the closing...?

Even with all my foreboding about the dangers stemming from the puritanical aspects of any religious ideology, I was still not prepared for the actual imposition of someone else's beliefs on my life. The first time was when the Shiv Sena's Pramod Navalkar trained his guns on the "vulgar advertisements of sanitary napkins" -- inspired by complaints from Mumbai Grahak Panchayat activists who found it "very embarrassing to watch these ads" since "even small children are asking what sanitary napkins are all about". Considering that menstruation is as natural as defecating, and that some of us do the latter in full public view, I couldn't grasp the ickiness about the former. If watching such ads filled parents with dread, the next step would be to ban those on wc's, flush-cisterns and diapers. While at it, why not purgatives and food? After all, these, too, facilitate the functions of our other orifices...

And then came the call to ban beef. And then, the cessation of night-life. And then, the censorship of ads. And then, the Saraswati imbroglio. And then, the monitoring of rock concerts. And then, the thing on Fire...

Even so, proscription is not just a Sena thing. Indians have taken pains to foster an atmosphere where anybody can get up and start enforcing bans. For instance, did you know of the 10-year boycott on Kathak at the Elephanta Festival organised by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation? This was under Congress rule. MTDC's managing director, a certain Mr D Mehta, held that Kathak couldn't be performed before Hindu gods since it was a Mughal form. No matter that Kathak is too ancient (over 1,500 years) to be called a Mughal legacy or that it originated as a tradition in temples. So long as it was tarred by the patronage of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, it was bad. (BTW, our artistic intellectuals, so vociferous today, were quiet about it).

One would think that only those in power dole out such diktats... Think again. Take Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh. There never was an official ban on that excellent book during the period that it was unavailable in India (and not just Maharashtra). It simply wasn't stocked by any store since "distributors haven't sent us copies." Meaning, a voluntary ban by the publishers, Rupa. Which is far worse than an edict. For, who does one rally against...?

The "invisiblizing" of the Moor wasn't a Hindutva thing, either: The Congress was ruffled by it. Moor, like E L Doctrow's Ragtime, has real people from history mingling with fictional ones and affecting the course of its narrative -- Pandit Nehru may have sired its hero. Mrs G's turbulent relationship with Sanjay, the low-down on mill strikes, FSI scandals, shady arms deals, etc, weave through its tapestry -- things we all know, but which never get an official airing. Typically, what irked the Congress most is that a dog is named Jawaharlal, then stuffed upon its death, and "walked" on attached wheels. I doubt if Congresswallahs saw the allegory...

As with Islamdom and The Satanic Verses, and Italy with The Last Temptation of Christ, Rushdie's treatment of religions could have caused trouble: "The followers of one fiction knock down another popular piece of make-believe, and bingo! It's war. Next they will find Vyasa's cradle under Iqbal's house, and Valmiki's baby-rattle under Ghalib's hangout. So, OK. I'd rather die fighting over poets than over gods." But, what got to ALL the politicians is probably: "Only one power in this damn country is strong enough to stand up against those gods and it isn't blankety blank secularism. It isn't blankety blank Pandit Nehru and his protection-of-minorities Congress-wallahs. I'll tell you what it is. Corruption. You get me? V Miranda's definition of democracy: one man, one bribe." I do so adore Rushdie...

Then, take the brouhaha over Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen, which the government promptly barred from the Oscars and created obstacles for release. That, too, wasn't a Hindutvawadi government. Thing is, Kapur stepped on several fat toes: When Phoolan massacres the 21 men who had silently watched her torture and humiliation, there's furious lobbying by thakurs in Delhi, leading to an outright war against dacoits. The police are shown to have poisoned the waters to eliminate dacoits. The tacit statement is that, on being sanctioned by the Centre, the police do curb terrorism at any cost, and Delhi stirs only when pushed against the wall by powerful vote-banks. When it is far too late. And for all the wrong reasons...

And what should I say about the Gandhians who forced a ban on Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy? Was that a religious thing...?

However, despite their incessant meddling into affairs which a government should steer clear of, it ain't the Voice of Marathi Morality, or the Guardian of Hindu Culture, or the Preserver of Islamic Virtue, or the Protector of Gandhian Values who worry me. It's the people who bolster them that fill me with dread. For, with each successful demand for a ban, their hunger for control multiplies...

After spending many a tippling hour deriding what I considered to be a disgustingly non-Hindu mindset -- the fatwas on Rushdie and Tasleema Nasreen; the spraying of paint on tourists' bare legs by the Wahabis; the Taliban forcing people to pray; the banning of Scorsese's film; the Pope and his anti-abortion meddling -- this banning business made me see that all dingbats are cut from the same cloth. And it leaves Hindus like me -- those who oppose, both, the incessant pandering to minorities, and the forcing of one's personal morality and slants on others -- as orphans. Which is precisely how all political parties see us anyway: They know that we'd never say: My party, right or wrong. Ours is a voice lost in the wilderness...

Which makes me cut back to the Bajrang Dal and the hounding of Christians: There's no doubt that a section of the Sangh Parivar is involved in the atrocities committed in Gujarat. This is fair warning to the BJP: If it doesn't cut itself loose from the authority of the VHP and the SJM and the 52 groups under the umbrella of the RSS's brand of Hindutva, it has *NO* chance. I myself will campaign against it. For, I follow a different Hindutva, being raised as I was on the deeds of Shivaji and Savarkar -- the former who invented the concept of Hindupadpadshahi, and the latter who gave it a modern form and name.

Yes, Chhatrapati decimated some masjids -- but only those built on deliberately-razed Hindu temples. And when he did this, he provided funds to Mussalmans to build new mosques. He protected all those in his domain, whether Hindu or Muslim. And, he was particularly hostile to what's become the governing culture of India: Vashiley-baaji -- the ascendance of those with influence. The account of Khandoba Khopde, a feudal lord who had fought alongside Afzal Khan, is a telling one: When the time came for Shivaji to do to Khopde what he'd done to Khan, his trusted lieutenant Jedhe begged for Khopde's life to be spared. Shivaji acquiesced -- and then had Khopde's right arm and left leg lopped off. His answer to Jedhe: "If prominent people like you intervene to change the destiny of criminals, law and order will vanish from the state. We do not encourage the exertion of vashila." What a far cry from the "shivshahi" of today...

I agree with Alan de Lastic, archbishop of Delhi, when he says about the situation in Amod, "It is because there is a government which does not take action. They have allowed things to go on... The chief minister has given the miscreants a free hand. He is responsible as he is the face of the government." Whether the Congress has backed off from the demand or not, the correct course is to sack Keshubhai Patel. It does not matter whether the miscreants are the ubiquitous ISI agents or Shri Ashok Singhal himself. Whichever the case, that Patel could not foresee and stall the attacks, is sufficient indictment.

Yes, I'm aware that, between 1981 and 1991, the Christian population in Dangs has grown by 416%. In fact, Christianity, Buddhism and Jainism are growing faster than Hinduism in Dangs, Panchmahals, Ahmedabad, Kutch, Valsad and Surat. But attacks on churches and missionary schools?! Burning of Bibles?! Exhuming graves?! What is the rationale behind it? Does Pandurang Shastri Athavle need to do any of this for reconversion? NO! What he does is provide that which the poor lack -- that which the missionaries have been supplying. The threat to Hinduism is not from Abrahamic proselytisers -- but those who ignore the needs of the beggared till such a time that they have no place to go but the arms of Christ. Oh yes, I am against reconversion drives which seek to add to numbers and care not for the circumstance.

I'd felt that with ideology came responsibility. Which would clear the sight for priorities. And good governance would naturally follow... The BJP would do well to strive for a credibility based on Hindutva -- a Hindutva not in the lumpen mould, but as envisioned by Savarkar: "Even from the point of Indian nationality, must ye, O Hindus, consolidate and strengthen Hindu nationality; not to give wanton offence to any of our non-Hindu compatriots, in fact to any one in the world but in just and urgent defence of our race and land; to render it impossible for others to betray her or to subject her to unprovoked attack by any of those 'Pan-isms' that are struggling forth from continent to continent." Knock, knock, is anybody listening...?

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