The muslim in Hindu Rashtra

 

The muslim in  ‘Hindu Rashtra’(Part I)

My parting thoughts (in two instalments) on Hindu Rashtra . 

Earlier, I  wrote that the symphony of Hindu Rashtra is a PlayPause, playing to a crescendo when elections are around ,and  breathers in between.  As polls are mostly around,  the span of pauses, the diminuendos, are getting shorter. I also noted that if the call for Hindu Rashtra is not about vote bank politics it is equally not about making better Hindus. Or about empowering Hindus as they already hold all levers of power. What else may account for the zealot’s  infatuation with it ? 

But first, who is a ‘Hindu’ and what meaning is given to the term ‘Rashtra’ ? The broadest interpretation of ‘Hindu’ by partisans  is of one believing in any indic God or not believing in any God at all,  an atheist . ‘Rashtra’ is an association of people. So a Hindu Rashtra is peopled by believers in Gods born, conceived and worshipped in India. The God may be Brahminic, Arya Samaji , Basava, tribal, caste specific, Buddhist, Jain, or Sikh, it doesn’t matter so long as He ‘dwelled’ in ‘Bharat’ or the starry dome enveloping it. 

So, where is the elephant in the room ? It is in the clubbing of disparate, at points antithetical, indic traditions, under one generic term Hinduism.  Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Lingayats, Kabirpanthis, Tantrics and like differ widely in their traditions inasmuch as they worship differently, have different conceptions of divinity, of living existence ,and of  human salvation. Though there is a semblance of affinity manifest in a common outlook on life and certain social beliefs, cultural traditions show much diversity as well.  Shoveling them into the same cart blurs the line between religion and culture, a process further facilitated by an innate propensity of Hindus to subscribe to multiple traditions. For example, I do offer prayers at prominent  dargahs, gurdwaras, Buddhist monasteries and Jaina shrines whenever the occasion arises. 

The next step for its proponents comes easy. Reductionism. Having ‘forged’ a ‘unity’ through an assumed  ‘common way of life’ the elephant in the room is now extruded.  This cultural substrate  is a priori invested in all - an extrapolation wholly presumptuous. Then the ‘immemorial past’ in the nebulous time-space falling between history and pre-history is selectively recalled to posit, ‘rashtra existed from vedic times based on a view of life shared by all people living in Bharat evolving a unique way of life.’ Forgotten in the process is the bewildering array of ways of life then prevailing among the vast majority of inhabitants – Aryans,  tribes, aborigines, Dravidians, Harappans, the ethnically distinct North-Eastern tribes. There never was one way of social life in the length and breadth of the realm, only, invoking the metaphor of a pizza, an evolving  similitude in the top dressing provided by Brahminism, to be more precise Sanatana Dharma,  on bases of different sizes and shapes. The cultural differences even today are  stark. But it goes to the credit of Brahminism that the  extension of its footprints deep into the hinterland was accompanied by assimilation of local deities into the vedic pantheon and local traditions as ‘folk Hinduism’. 

We are a proud, ancient civilization that has held together for millenia. Only, because of unity in diversity, only because that unity came from  a unique composition in a cultural crucible into which poured very many different ways of life,   not from a unity in uniformity. It is incomprehensible why later non indic religious traditions aren’t supposed to flow into that very same potpourri . 

Because the ideological bases of Hindu Rashtra 'others' minorities it emboldens zealots to  spew exhortations  like, minorities must end “their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Rashtra ,claiming nothing ,deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment -not even citizen’s rights” . Another writes much the same prescription, “either merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture ,or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race”. 

Shyama Prasad Mukherjee made no bones of his avowed mission-to ‘nationalise’ all non Hindus : KS Sudarshan lamented ,’we need to Indianise their faith’:  Bala saheb Deoras, ‘one nation one culture’: Manmohan Vaidya says, ‘There are many religions in India but only one dharma as there is only one way of life.’ And with that all conventional wisdom about secularism goes for a toss. And emerges a new form-Political Hinduism. 

Wherefrom springs such deep- seated animus, particularly towards Muslims? More baffling now that they no longer lay claim to political, social ,religious supremacy that could disturb the equipoise of the majority.

To the partisans of Hindu Rashtra I commend these words of caution from a very ‘right’ leaning statesman, Rajaji ,

“the monotypist is a fool to believe his creed of uniformity will make for happiness”

The Hindu in 'Hindu Rashtra'

   

In a post puranic work, ‘Pandava Gita’ (The song of Pandavas), an anthology of devotional hymns drawn from Mahabharata, Bhagvata and Visnu Purana Duryodhana chants , 

 “Janami dharmam na cha me pravrttih,

 Janamy adharmam na cha me nivrttih;"

 I know what is dharma, yet I cannot get myself to follow it ! I know what is not dharma, but I am unable to keep away from it ! Verse 56 

 Much the same moral conundrum confronts propagandists of Hindu Rashtra. Knowing fully well its patent unconstitutionality, impracticality and its adharmic exegesis, yet to them its allure is irresistible. Hindu nationhood as such is conceptually incontestable, what is malefic is its fashioning into statehood- a double seduction. It lets minority ‘Otherness’ to be demonized to foster Hindu ‘Oneness’. In the process power and pelf become exclusive Hindu prerogatives . Besides, it numbs any guilt feel arising from stark iniquities in Hindu society. 

 A Hindu Rashtra should, ideally speaking, aim at integrating diverse Hindu streams and castes into a unity, and mould Hindu character in the cast of Hindu spiritual values. That is what Islamic states do- order communal life in accordance with sharia. For close to a century RSS has been actively, aggressively and expansively engaged in ‘character building’ for a Hindu Rashtra. And it has had little competition from other Hindu religious organizations, missions, maths, peeths, and ashrams. All of them now lurk in its shadows. So it is legitimate to ask, is RSS doing a good job of making good Hindus in preparation for a Hindu Rashtra ? 

 First and foremost, Caste. Eliminating existing social stratification of Hindu society into distinct endogamous castes is too distant a goal ,but abating caste iniquities is achievable. Reality check isn’t very edifying. A survey of 1589 Gujarat villages conducted by Kennedy Centre in 2009 found 99 forms of untouchability still being practiced in villages. For example , in 67% of the surveyed villages Dalit Panchayat members were served tea, if at all, in separate cups called Dalit cups. The unsavoury happenings involving cow vigilantes in UNA ,Gujarat, and its aftermath only confirms that not much water has flowed down the Sabarmati since then. 

 Sacchar Committee found that 90% of those designated as sweepers were Dalits. Even now, Centre admits, manual scavenging is prevalent. We are still far adrift from Rabidas’s dream of a Be-Ghum-Pura , Kabir’s Premnagar, Tukaram’s Pandharpur or Ambedkar’s Prabuddha Bharat. But 

Is RSS even making an attempt ? Its ideologue DD Upadhyay extolled the chaturvarna ordering of society in Purusha Sukta hymn as conducive to social solidarity and functional division of labour. He posited harmony (samrasta ) among castes, not its annihilation, as RSS’s goal.That explains why RSS is ambivalent, if not hypocritical ,in espousing reform of Hindu society. It may also partly explain the preponderance of Dalits and OBCs in the 1577 Hindus arrested for Gujarat 2002 riots. Is it a fortuity that RSS’s stormtroopers and defenders of injured faith, seem to be drawn mostly from the lower castes ? 

 We continue to respond differently based on caste considerations. The protest against brutal rape of Nirbhaya became a landmark civil movement but in the same year 1504 Dalit women were raped. No one coughed. While the Hyderabad rape of a Vet elicited deafening outcries to lynch the rapists, Hathras rape of a dalit caught bureaucracy and politicians blinking. Still, there is no gainsaying that there has been noteworthy improvement in loosening of caste disabilities. Almost all of it has come about from the ebbing influence of time aided by urbanization and modernization, little from the ‘character building’ missions in its daily sakhas and catechism in schools under the aegis of Vidya Bharati. RSS remains firmly status quoist. And its members hit the headlines more often for the wrong reasons- militant and often murderous vigilantism and needless violence. 

 So we are back to square one. What for the Hindu Rashtra, to prioritize building of temples at disputed sites ? Does it deserve primacy over bread and butter issues? God is ever on the mind when stomach is empty, don’t we Hindus fast for spiritual salvation? Perpetual hunger is another matter. It needs speedy address. Is a Hindu Rashtra inherently more competent than a secular one in tackling our monstrous economic ills ? The jury is out on that.

What is indisputable is that a Hindu Rashtra is a moral hazard. If it comes about it would lead to convergence of political and cultural streams into a single institution, the hydra headed Sangh Parivar with tentacles reaching deep into society, politics and economy. We yearn for the unity of a Hindu nationhood, at the same time must dread a single party ruled fascist ‘Hindu Pakistan’. That’s the moral hazard a Hindu Rashtra under the umbrella and ideological framework of RSS presents. Even Nepal, once a Hindu Rashtra, baulked at preserving it in its new republican constitution . 

 If the demand for a Hindu Rashtra is not motivated by a sectarian reforming zeal, or the mundane business of temple building, or economic considerations, and ignoring its obvious electoral appeal for the moment , what else impels it ? 

 More in the final concluding part. Till then ruminate on this shloka from Gita 

पृथक्त्वेन तु यज्ज्ञानं नानाभावान्पृथग्विधान्। 

वेत्ति सर्वेषु भूतेषु तज्ज्ञानं विद्धि राजसम्।।18.21।। 

That knowledge which apprehends all beings as a multiplicity with mutual distinctions and in their separateness only, without anyl apprehension of an underlying unity -know that knowledge to be born of Rajas.

Abracadabra of a Hindu Rashtra

 

As pinpricks of early morning wintry chills get increasingly felt, the smog laden air of North India will carry, additionally, a suffocating overload of chilling political rhetoric. Political temperature will take quantum leaps as leaders criss cross the five election bound states. Expectedly, North India will be in the throes of an intense political ferment, galis and mohallas will echo polemics, abstruse punditry in caste and creed dynamics, and partisan prognostications : social media will be awash with rancor, fake news and doctored videos : TV channels will reverberate with opinion polls invested with the aura of infallibility, sanctified as baptismal Truths. TV anchors will pronounce doomsday for one , glory for another. 

 The grammar and structure of poll campaigns will remain as before, too familiar for comfort - idioms ,however, will change. Abbajaan and chachajaan will replace, Ramzade and Haramzade : a census of kabristan and shamshan will get underway : Ayodhya being a done deal will give way to Mathura, Krishna not Ram will be the toast of the season. A Balakot maybe found to spice up electoral prospects. Lesser known temples will become political spaces with VIP darshans. Leaders will vie with one another to crash-land on scenes of crime and police atrocities, and homesteads of families of victims will become places of political pilgrimage to offer condolences and commiseration. 

 Previous narratives will take a 180° turn. Inflation, once a डायन, will now become फाइन, an essential ingredient of vikas’s वाइन. Agitating farmers demonized as khalistanis, terrorists, anarchists, anti nationals will regain their 'value and identity’ as annadatas. More importantly, they will provide yet one more occasion to plaster the walls and hoardings with the inscription ‘ Thank you Modiji’. The non-negotiable will magically turn eminently negotiable, like the farm laws and MSP. 

 CMs of poll bound states will cotton onto Modiji’s coattails, rather plough the electoral fields with his immense oratorical skills and capacity to spin attention grabbing catchwords and phrases to ford the Baitarani river of polls. Some will even walk in the shadow of his car to inauguration sites. Welfare schemes and project announcements, sins of opponents and virtues of rulers will get highlighted. 

 One thing is certain, this winter will be warmed by the seething cauldron of politics. The resplendent flamegold tree in full bloom overlooking my balcony will stand as a stark reminder of the fireworks in offing. 

 And the springboard for all of this feverish activity will be the two antithetical ideological strains- composite and territorial nationalism versus overt profession of secularism, covert evangelism of a Hindu Nation or Rashtra . 

 Leaving aside considerations of legality, constitutional legitimacy, social solidarity and harmony, relevancy in a globalizing world, issues beyond my mental faculties, I pose a very commonsensical question- how much more Hindu our Rashtra is to become and how morally commensurable is a Hindu Rashtra ? It’s time we confronted this issue and lifted the veil off subterranean motives that impel this demand. 

 In this information age data is gospel truth. Let’s roll out some. 

 All panoply of power are monopolized by Hindus, even the one muslim state, J&K ,has now a Hindu head. There isn’t a single elected muslim central cabinet minister and of the 543 elected LS members only 27 are Muslims, almost half of them from just the two states of UP and Bengal. Central investigative agencies are Hindu held. Except for a couple in North East all CMs are Hindus. In the central bureaucracy all levers of power are held by Hindus and in the country as a whole Muslims hold less than 4% posts in government services, that too mostly in the lowly third or fourth grades, a figure disproportionately low compared to their 15% population. In the Supreme Court the galaxy of honourable judges, CJI and 32 puisne, has but one Muslim , the 24 High Courts only 26 out of 601sitting judges. In the entire country there isn’t a single Muslim DGP heading the state police, not even in the Muslim majority state/UT of JK and Lakshadweep. More data to labour the point would make for dull, nauseous reading. Unarguably, the Rashtra couldn’t get more Hindu than it is now.

 Yet, the once muted now increasingly expressed, oftener in shrill, strident notes, the cry for Hindu Rashtra finds elevated traction with a not too inconsiderable section of Hindus and Hindu intelligentsia. Obviously, it cannot just be for pelf and power, Hindus have always had ample scope for it in a free India. Also proven is the efficacy of an appeal to Hindu Rashtra in religious polarization for electoral gains, and to shepherd Hindus into the supremacist embrace of Nagpur and impliedly into the BJP fold. 

 But there is more to it than meets the eye. 

 In the concluding part to follow I will delve into it. For now, I sign off with this delectable Persian poem, 

 What you and I hear are different

 You hear the sound of closing doors 

 But I of doors that open.