Trojan in Trap

The now forgotten Mitrokhin Archives had a small chapter devoted to India where in one of the notes, the Soviet Communist Party has expressed its satisfaction that the Communist Party of India, following its instructions, had allowed its members to join the Congress (I) at various levels of leadership. This happened for the Communists realized the impracticality of their coming to power in India, either through ballot or through bullet and settled for the next best – ensuring the rule of their ideology through influence. 

While this infiltration lasted from the mid sixties to the mid seventies, it had its reflection in a curious event occurring in the mid 90s’. It would seem that the Communists, unable to bring themselves to infiltrate the BJP on account of their visceral hatred for the reactionary right, settled for the 3^rd best – installing a Trojan Horse in the party to destroy it from within.

A cursory look at the career of Sudheendra Kulkarni would indicate that he managed to do just about that – the man who can claim disproportionate credit for the ghastly ‘India Shining’ campaign and more importantly, shaking the ideological roots of the party with his design of its architect’s LK Advani’s ‘Jinnah…my homage to a Great man.’ comments. What Kulkarni managed to do in his short stint with the BJP is enviable by any standards. Not only did he become a close confidante of AB Vajpayee, he managed to win the ultimate confidence of Advani too, something which very few leaders in the BJP had managed.  A measure to his influence could be assessed from the fact that within 2 years of his joining the BJP (he joined the party in 1996); the party managed to set aside its ideological moorings (1998 elections) and jettisoned it completely in the next 6 years (2004 elections). It is a wonder that a man as erudite and intellectual as Advani could allow himself to be influenced by Kulkarni, so much so that the architect of the modern Indian polity, had no second thoughts in disowning the baby he had reared. 

Of course, with the disaster of 2009, Kulkarni had to quit the BJP in disgrace. This quitting however, in no way meant that the man was out of favor of his mentor Advani. Advani made it a point to defend him time and again and it is a matter of time before Kulkarni is brought back to the BJP with full honors intact.

If one wonders as to why a seemingly lightweight like Kulkarni is being given so much of space today, it is all courtesy the mis-adventure of cash for votes sting operation. While the arrest of the 2 BJP ex MPs, Suhail Hindustani and Kulkarni do seem like a travesty of justice and must be condemned, one wonders whether Kulkarni had contrived the failure of this sting right from the beginning.

For one – the partner chosen for the sting was IBN-Live, whose owners Rajdeep Sardesai et al, form a part of the Sonia fan brigade, a channel which never even attempted to hide its sympathies for the Congress and abhorrence of the BJP and the one which led the cacophonous cry of (alongwith NDTV) ‘Singh is King’ when Manmohan ‘Integrity’ Singh won the vote of confidence. How could a rational person even imagine that the views channel would do anything which would besmirch the reputation of the spotlessly clean UPA Government? It happened what had to happen – the sting was not aired and when aired after a considerable gap, it was a mild edited version of the entire operation. BJP pretended to boycott the channel for sometime and soon, the boycott too was forgotten.

Second – Neither Advani, nor the BJP made a big deal over the tainted vote of confidence or the scam. While it is understood that the man of impeccable integrity, Somnath Chatterjee, counted all votes cast as valid (even though the Anti Defection Act declares such votes as invalid), what is not understandable is the BJP’s silence post that. Except for asking for disqualification of the defecting MPs, the BJP did not challenge the speaker’s decisions, neither in the Parliament nor in the Court of Law. Further, the BJP did not make it an election campaign either. No Sir, no squeak on the ‘spotless’ Prime Minister winning his trust vote on the basis on damned lies and corrupt practices.

After a gap of 3 years, the still born investigation in the cash-for-votes scam was given a breath of life by the Supreme Court. But in yet another inexplicable turn of events, the Court has dissociated itself with monitoring of the case and we have a situation where the perpetrators of the crime are roaming free, not even having been named, leaved aside being questioned and imprisoned, the scam-busters are behind bars.

For those trying to paint a nuanced picture of the BJP wallahs being entrappers and not a sting operator, let them go back to the procedures adapted by the anti corruption bureau. People are caught red-handed while accepting bribes, traps for which are set by the agency itself. Or let us go back to the Left and Congress celebrated stings conducted by Tehelka. Right from Bangaru Laxman to Dileep Singh Judeo to Gujarat riots to cash for questions, traps were sprung. Nowhere did it happen that the accused had themselves sought out the scambusters and asked for bribes / shared information – so how different is the cash for votes sting conducted by the BJP that it be condemned. Of course, Tehelka being owned by the son of a senior Congress leader from Punjab, the former’s condemnation of the BJP sponsored sting is understandable. What is not understandable is the willing suspension of reason and plain indifference from the relatively more neutral and right thinking of our not-so-civil society.

Maybe and remotely maybe, our indifference to the UPA shenanigans and the plight of Kulkarni flows from our sub-conscious realization that the sting did not flow from an honest intent. Even otherwise, a few days in Tihar pale in comparison his monumental sin of having irreparably compromised the father figure of modern Indian Nationalism.

Promotion of Communal Violence Bill

Centuries ago, by the time Islamic Sultanates had managed to exercise their supremacy over Gangetic India, there arose a peculiar conflict – of bands of sanyasis being beaten and robbed by bands of fakirs. If one wonders on what made these fakirs act so violently towards sanyasis, the answer lies in three basic facts:

·      Fakirs were considered above the law on most matters

·      With the imposition of Jaziya on Hindu lands, carrying arms had become the sole prerogative of Muslims, with the only exceptions being Hindu noblemen / warriors being in direct service to the emperor

·      Crimes by Muslims against the kaffirs carried little censure as compared to crimes by Muslims against fellow Muslims and worse, crimes by Hindus against Muslims

Anyways, the drift continued for a couple of centuries only being broken in phases where the Muslim rule weakened. However, with the consolidation of Akbar’s rule, jaziya was first temporarily and then permanently removed and Akbar, on representation by various sanyasi orders, allowed them to carry arms and act in self defense. Very soon, the Sanyasis found themselves on surer footing compared to fakirs and we had more militant sanyasi orders coming into being. Things, of course, took a worse turn for sanyasis with the rule of Aurangzeb when the fakir order became bolder again but soon again, the rise of multiple revolts through the country weakened his Empire and the Mughal Empire was served a fatal body blow with the rise of Maratha Empire. 

And the impact of these changes – many sanyasi orders became equivalent to a band of brigands, collecting taxes from villages and zamindars in their area of operations and many a times, liquidating competing bands of sanyasis and fakirs. These sanyasi bands had become so powerful that even during the oppressive Islamic rule in Bengal, their writ run over large areas and later, the East India Company had had to fight pitched battles to get rid of the marauding bands.

But how are events which happened over the last few centuries relevant to us now? Plainly, because it reinforces the fading reality that without the fear of law, even the most humble and meek creatures can turn into bloodthirsty marauders. Had the fakirs been under the pale of law, the sanyasis, in most likelihood, would have continued to be away from acts of retributive violence. Likewise, if the sanyasis had been adequately controlled by local kings, it is unlikely that they would have turned to medieval version of local warlords.

Today, we are faced with the prospect of being thrust with a legislation, which will ensure that the identified ‘minority’ communities will be above the law while any act of the majority, which can even remotely be construed as damaging to the identified minority.

And who is this minority? Minority in a state – meaning Hindus and Buddhists in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Muslims in all other states of the country and probably Christians in all states of the country other than the North Eastern states of Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya. Even here, it is to the discretion of Jammu & Kashmir assembly if they do indeed decide to extend the law to the state.

Rather than delve into the point of weakening of the federal structure of our country on account of this legislation, let us only concentrate on the banality of assumptions which has moved the NAC driven UPA Government to introduce such legislation.

Assumption 1: The legislation assumes that minorities are minorities through the entire geographical / demographical area of the state and hence are always weak.  

Reality: Each state may have districts where the minority is in a majority, i.e., Malappuram and Manjeri in Kerala, Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, Malegaon in Maharashtra, Murshidabad and Malda in West Bengal, Dhubri and Barpeta in Assam, Kishanganj and Purnea in Bihar, Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and so on. Likewise, if not in districts, many states have parliamentary and assembly constituencies where the minority is in a majority or towns / cities where this phenomenon can be observed. Further, each town has at least one locality where the so called minority is a majority. If we leave aside the question of base majority/minority, we have whole regions like Western UP, North Bihar, Lower Assam, Gangetic Bengal etc where the so called minority is around 40%-45% of the total population. If the Act defines minority at the macro level, should it not go deeper and define minority in a fairer and more relevant micro level.

Assumption 2: Numbers alone mean domination.

Reality: if the assumption were true, a handful of colonizers from Europe would not have ruled the world, 300 strong Muslim army would not have won the Battle of Badr, nor would Babur have won Panipat and Plassey would have seen Siraj-ud-daula victorious. A determined, organized and well resourced group with a definite goal is way more powerful that an larger group of vacuous and disparate individuals. It is not for nothing that one says, ‘Having One Lion in the army is better than having a million sheep’.

Assumption 3: It is always the minority which bears the brunt of the riots.

Reality: While this assumption is certainly true in countries like Bangladesh, which have only Hindu casualties whenever riots happen, one would be surprised to note that the so called majority community forms a disproportionately large proportion of the killed, hurt and displaced. Rather than delving too far into history, let us look at figures on riots in the last decade or so:

a.   Mumbai – 1993 - 575 Muslims and 275 Hindus (2:1)

b.   Malegaon – 2002 – 12 Muslims and 3 Hindus (4:1)

c.   Gujarat – 2004 – 794 Muslims and 254 Hindus (3:1)

d.   Marad – 2003 – 1 Muslim and 8 Hindus (1:8)

e.   Mau – 2005 – 2 Muslims and 10 Hindus (1:5)

f.     Aligarh – 2006 – 2 Muslims and 4 Hindus (1:2)

g.   Hyderabad – 2010 – 0 Muslims and 4 Hindus

h.   Deganga – 2010 – 0 mosques damaged and 4 temples burnt

In case riots are really one sided, one can wonder whether the number of dead from the ‘majority’ community means that they committed suicide only to give a bad name to the meek, peaceful minorities! And before anyone steps into point out that minority casualties are higher than the majority casualties in case of Bombay and Gujarat riots, one should account for the fact that normally an 80% strong majority would ensure that cent percent casualties are from the 20% minority or a the very most, a few collaterals in course of the one way blood bath. But one can see, reality is different. Higher number of Muslim casualties in Muslim dominated Malegaon was on account of police action on marauding mobs, yet again an indicator that better armed crowd can inflict more damage on a larger opposing mob.

Assumption 4: Riots are always instigated by the majority 

Reality: Majority of riots in the country have been instigated and led by the minorities. Even the arch liberal, Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his 1971 address to the Parliament, used home ministry data to buttress that point. But since 1971 is so last century – let us look at facts for the last 2 decades.

a.   Mumbai – 1993 – Destruction of Ganesh Idol in Bandra East

b.   Malegaon – 2002 – Procession protesting attack on Afghanistan turned violent

c.   Gujarat – 2004 – Godhra carnage

d.   Marad – 2003 – Unprovoked. Police inquiry pointed to a conspiracy to intimidate the Hindu ninority.

e.   Mau – 2005 – Attack on Ram Baraat procession

f.     Aligarh – 2006 – Attack on Bharat Milap procession

g.   Burhanpur – 2008 – Attack on Hanuman Rath

h.   Dhule – 2008 – Attack on Navratri Pandal

i.     Kandhamal – 2008 – Killing of Swami Laxmananand Saraswati

j.     Miraj – 2009 – Ganpati pandal depicting killing of Afzal Khan by Shivaji

k.   Bareilly – 2010 – Banned Tazia procession taken out through a prohibited route

l.     Hyderabad – 2010 – Removal of Hanuman Jayanti banners

m. Deganga 2010 – Unprovoked. Apparent Muslim anger at the upcoming Durga Puja celebrations

n.   Bharatpur – 2011 – Attack and arson on Gujjar homes following dispute on a public ground

Both the above lists can go on and on. 

All the right thinking citizens should ponder and evaluate if this proposed bill is indeed being driven by the noble intent of preventing communal violence? In its present form, the bill is certain to handle immunity from prosecution and retribution to a very organized, militant and belligerent ‘minority’ – which may not even be a minority in the true sense of the word.

The passage of this bill in its current form, where perpetrators and victims are defined by birth is the worst form of legal apartheid and can only lead to a situation where a cornered ‘majority’ may be forced to jettison its wavering belief in the intent and capability of its ruling classes to protect its basic rights to life and dignity.

Gandhi and Anna

Funnily enough, the same set of people who had accused of Anna Hazare’s team being mulishly unreasonable in their negotiations with the Central Government have rubbed their hands in glee when the fast ended, without any tangible goals being achieved. So, damned if I am unreasonable and more damned if I am reasonable!

While such comments are very well expected from the status quoists and blind supporters of the UPA Government, what is disappointing is the inability and more importantly, indifference of Team Anna to counter the allegations that Anna’s Satyagraha was non-Gandhian and went against basic tenets of Satyagraha.

Before we move to Gandhian Satyagraha, let us pause for a moment on the very Dharmic sounding term Satyagraha, or Truth Force. It is a tribute to the Gandhian genius that a concept which had no roots in any of the Dharmic traditions, being a gift of early Christianity in general and Celtic monks in particular, is recognized as Indian. Gandhi picked what he thought was doable in Indian context and gave truth-force an Indian imagery. While Gandhi did popularize Satyagraha, the concept is not his own and so the talk of x Satyagraha not being a copybook Satyagraha is at best mirthful. Satyagraha flows from one’s conviction on correctness of one’s belief. Hence the Satyagrahi is right in his/her own limited universe. But since few truths are absolute, any Satyagraha may indeed by countered by a contrary but equally valid Satyagraha. In this probable clash of Satyagrahis, it will be the strength of conviction of the individual that may triumph – not necessary the degree of ‘righteousness’ of the cause. Anyways, since Truth itself is not absolute, we don’t have any right to point fingers at Anna’s fast by way of calling it autocratic and the one stifling voices of dissent.  Anna fasted for his own convictions not for beliefs of an Arundhati or an Aruna Roy.

Yet again, we have been told that how Gandhi’s fasts were against the foreign occupier and never against Indian authority. Since Anna was fasting against a democratically elected Government, he was seen as going against the very grain of Satyagraha. However, a perusal of Gandhi’s numerous fasts would indicate that Gandhi fasted against his countrymen too and fasted even after independence. In fact, it was his fast to force the Central Government to pay Rs 55 Crores to Pakistan, that became the proverbial last straw, in Nathuram Godse’s words, and triggered his assassination. Truth force is directed against some act or some person who is believed to be morally in the wrong. So, Anna had every right to force an immoral and corrupt Government to listen to his diktat, by the way of his choosing.

Further, a careful study of Gandhi’s Satyagraha and in fact, all civil disobedience movements across the world, will indicate that such movements are successful more against one’s own, rather than the oppressors / colonial masters. None of Gandhi’s fasts / movements against the British were successful in the sense of achieving their stated goals. At the same time, his fasts against the Indians, be it Ahmedabad Mill Owners, the King of Rajkot, for security of Muslims in Kolkata in 1947 and the Pay Pakistan fast were all successful – not because Gandhi had a more valid or stronger moral case, they succeeded because people who were the target of those fasts cared for loved him, their Mahatma. 

People aware of the Gandhian struggle would be stuck by parallels in between the world famous Salt Satyagraha and the Anna fast at Ramleela Maidan. Testing them against a few parameters:

Seemingly Trivial Cause: Abolition of the Salt Tax and not some other larger cause of independence. Likewise, Anna took up Jan Lokpal, not the behemoth of corruption all together.

Apolitical: Except for Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, who led a now forgotten, parallel march on the East Coast, all other leading Congressmen, Patel and Nehru included, had reservations on the efficacy cause and had kept their distance from the Dandi March. It was only when the march captured the imagination of the world that it became a Congress movement. Similarly, political parties tried to clamber on to the anti-corruption bandwagon only when they realized the potency of the collective emotional upsurge Anna had created.

Media Role: The world press reported Gandhi’s march on a daily basis and was instrumental in making the world aware of India’s struggle for freedom from the foreign rule. Is it any wonder that the media, magnified in its presence on account of technology, played such a powerful role in spreading Anna’s message?

Elite snobbery and mass participation: The British Government was hardly unnerved by the prospect of salt tax law being broken. Same way, UPA was hardly bothered with the prospect of the fast of a 74 year old. Court scribes were asking aloud if this fast would generate the spectator interest equal to early April’s spectacle. Well, events certainly spun out of control in both instances. Salt Satygraha was a watershed in the term that it saw huge participation from the womenfolk, hitherto untouched by the Nationalist struggle. Anna’s fast, for all the contrary noises struck a chord with the Youth, who had been away from the political discourse since the Ayodhya and Mandal heydays. 

Violence: Contrary to popular perception, Satyagrahas were not always completely non-violent affairs. In course of the Salt Satyagraha, violence broke out in numerous places in Bengal and Bihar and even Gandhi, wiser after the flak received after withdrawing his movement over Chauri Chaura, declined to even condemn mob violence. Of course, since there weren’t mass incarcerations, chances of violence on those scales in Anna’s campaign were lower. Yet, the only instance of violence where some drunk youth clashed with police was shrilly denounced by the likes of shallow-as-usual Sagarika Ghose as the proof of fascists in Anna’s campaign!

Quasi Religious nature: Seculars may beat their hearts out but like Anna’s Satyagraha, the Salt Satyagraha too was heavy on Hindu imagery with Bhajans, havans, pujas and of course, cries of Vande Ma Taram!

Muslim participation: Get it straight- Muslims as a group, did not participate in the Salt Satyagraha. Muslim League opposed it and major imams / pirs (including the powerful pir of Manki Sharif) declared that they had nothing to do with it. While I would like to believe that the rants of Imam Bukhari comes from his being a pro-establishment person, even if his assertion was correct, level of Muslim participation in Anna’s Satyagraha would be no different from their indifference to the Salt Satyagraha. Regarding allegations of lack of Dalit and backward class participation, they are a little tough to swallow when you consider that these allegers - Udit Raj had little support outside the Akbar Road, while the likes of Kancha Illaiah are not even known to anyone outside the circle of habitual Hindu bashers. More critically, the middle class and the rural class are not upper castes alone but are predominantly OBCs with a good sprinkling of the lower classes (particularly in rural areas). And one had to move around Ramleela Maidan and Indian heartland to see for oneself the chord Anna had stuck.

Success: If success means achievement of the stated goals – both movements are unsuccessful. The salt law was not repealed nor do we have a Jan Lokpal. However, the Salt Satyagraha was epoch making in the sense that the scale of mass awareness and anger at the now seen as unjust British rule was instrumental in building a National consciousness. We may never have a Jan Lokpal the way Anna wants. It is however, beyond doubt that the energy unleashed by his fast can only do good to our quest for a clean polity.

Marxist Pop Historians like Ramchandra Guha have claimed that the relatively low public attendance at Ramleela Maidan indicated that people did not really support Anna and what we saw were magnified images of a small minority. As per the most liberal estimates quoted by Late Morarji Desai, not more than 5% of the Indian population actively participated in the National Independence Movement in their lifetime. Does that mean that 95% of people in India were against the independence movement or does support only mean coming to the streets and getting arrested? For that matter, none of the Central Governments in India have been elected on account of ever having won more than 50% of the popular vote and no General Election has seen a turnout higher than the range of mid-sixties. So, even if we take the upper extremes of both the popular vote (incidentally 48% by Congress (I) in 1984) and the voting percentage, we will still be left with a 33% overall mandate for the winning party. Does that mean that people oppose those Governments?

Professional dissenters and habitual attention seekers have tried to denounce Anna’s campaign for a better India in all possible ways. Rather than being stuck with questions on whether Anna supports Kashmiri Separatists or wants a ban on Cow Slaughter or whether he is an admirer or a sworn opponent of Narendra Modi, let us try to remember than he is fighting for his own conviction. There are a thousand causes and he cannot support all of them, however fashionable or desirable they might be. Till the time Anna or anyone for that matter displays sincerity in addressing a cause which is the same as or even identical to mine, even if our paths diverge otherwise, let us all say – ‘I am Anna’