The Dangers of Negationism

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines, all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber, and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.”

Bertolt Brecht. 1898 – 1956, German poet, playwright, and theatre director

The survivors of most communal riots face an existential dilemma once situation gets ‘normalised’. Except for a handful who choose to migrate elsewhere, most are forced to continue on with their lives in their old localities, surrounded by the very people who had turned on them ferociously only a few days earlier. It is not always easy for the aggressor either to look into the eye of the survivor; particularly for those who otherwise had enjoyed congenial or even indifferent relations with the survivor. Not surprisingly, the ingenious human mind finds a way out and invariably, the rioters are declared to be ‘outsiders’, people from other localities or even villages, faceless and anti-socials beings! This transfer of culpability is not done by the aggressor out of guilt alone. The survivor too is complicit in this act, knowing fully well that he has no option but to share space with the aggressor even going forward and more importantly, to sate his need to believe that his friendly face of the yore couldn’t have turned beastly one day. Stories of such negationism (denial followed by fantasy) have been witnessed across riot torn people ever since the nature of riots became a subject of study. A few years after the partition, the very Punjabi who otherwise boasted of the number of men he killed or of the women he violated, started blaming the faceless 'other' for all ills of those riots.

While this negationism does manage to bandage the wound sufficient enough for life to progress, is this fair to those who suffered in riots? And how effective is denial in ‘reforming’ those who engage in riots?

Why does any society, howsoever primitive, possess a code of law which seeks to punish those who digress social mores? Simply speaking - to restore the societal balance, to provide justice to the harmed and most importantly, to punish the culprit for the crime so that the fear of punishment acts as a deterrent were he to stray from the societal path again.

But imagine a situation where the culprit is sought to be hidden and blame assigned to faceless people? Is the society then doing enough to redress the harm caused to the victim? Even more importantly, is it performing its moral obligation to hold a mirror to the culprit and show him his face made ugly by the crime? Punishment obviously cannot be imposed when the culprit is not even identified. So, is the culprit deterred by this denial? No. Is he emboldened further? Ys, as he knows no fear of punishment, secure in knowledge that he will neither be identified, nor shamed nor punished!

While the need for those involved in riots to engage in this exercise of denial can still be understood, what is inexplicable as to why do Governments and media-person engage in negationism? One generous reason could be their genuine belief in efficacy of denial. The second and more tragic reason is their pandering to their respective ideologies and biases. Hence, homilies abound whenever reporting of riots have to happen. If possible, riots don’t get reported if a particular community is the culprit and if too large to be ignored, blame is assigned to the victims. Readers shaking their heads in disbelief at this assertion would do good to take a single case - Bareilly, which has witnessed 3 riots in the last 2 years. The riots of March 2010, when the mob celebrating birthday of the Prophet attacked Hindu homes was sought to be blamed on Bajrang Dal. The July 2012 riots when mobs attacked Kaanwarias was sought to be blamed on music being played by them and riots again now, where scapegoats are still being found. A person reading news-reports of these riots will be stuck by the absence of any reproach for the Muslim mobs. If, even for arguments sake, it is agreed that music is abhorrent to Muslims, does it give them the right to murder and commit mayhem?

What will help in restoring order? A Government which identifies the culprits and punishes them or a one which only seeks to blame the victim?

An indulgent mother, who chooses to blame other kids for the shenanigans of her bully child only paves the way for her child becoming a hardened criminal. If only she had overcome her immediate maternal instincts and chosen to punish the child for his wrongdoings, her child still could have had a chance at being reformed. Sadly for the Nation, this attitude of successive governments and powerful media houses will only spell doom for its tottering fraternity. For too long has the Government and media indulged in this dangerous game of negationism. Will it have courage to recognise that their short term selfish interests are creating a Frankenstein which will devour them, in not so distant a future?

Let them have some courage, courage to see and report truth as it is. Let them develop a conviction strong enough to recognise that even the genuinely aggrieved, irrespective of their community, don’t have the right to riot and kill innocents. Let them be brave enough to recognise that there people who have grown on a narrative of victimhood can be the oppressors too.

Mopallah Rebellion - Part 2, 3, ...., n?

The year was 1921 and large swathes of India were in throes of an agitation. An agitation to force British to cede power to Indians and also to force them to reinstate the Caliphate in Turkey.  Interestingly, this Khilafat movement did not originate in Turkey, the seat of the erstwhile Ottoman empire. It did not originate in Iraq, the seat of among the most glorious of Caliphates. It did not originate in Saudi Arabia, the land of the two holy mosques either, nor did it originate in Iran, the seat of among the mightiest empires the world has seen. Not only did none of these Islamic Nations rise in protest against abolition of the seat of the Caliph, the spiritual and temporal head of Muslims worldwide; none of these Nations' protests came even close to the intensity  displyed by Khilafat in India. 

For most people, the act of deposing a never seen, never heard, never knew existed, nominal King in very very distant lands would not even register into consciousness. Inexplicably though, the issue was potent enough to harness the collective rage of large masses of Indian Muslims against the British. For the first time after the 1857 War of Independence did the Muslims see the British as enemies and they, as a body, for the first time joined a quasi struggle for freedom against the British. 

A movement for India, which was built around a cause irrelevant to India was bound to unravel and fail. Within a few months, the Khilafat movement morphed into the bloody Mopallah riots of Malabar, where the Muslim Mopallah, having been beaten by the British, turned its wrath to the hapless Hindu community. No distinction was made in between the peasant, the outcaste the jenmi (Landlord) and the Namboodiri (Brahmin), nor was any thought spared for the women and the old. Dr Annie Besant reported that Muslim Mappila (Mopallah) forcibly converted many Hindus and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatise, a number totaling to one lakh!

The Mopallah rebellion was the first among the many pogroms which preceded the state of Pakistan and showed what the Hindu could expect in a state governed by Islamic Law. While discussion on the massacres preceding and succeeding creation of Pakistan can take Gigabytes and Gigabytes, what is noteworthy that the ‘path’ shown by the Mopallah has been faithfully followed by the agitating Muslim even 90 years into that gory chapter of Indian history.

For those among us who mutter in muted tones on why should Muslims riot in Mumbai for supposed atrocities committed on their co-religionists in Myanmar (a foreign country), and Assam, they probably forget that such rioting has historical and recent precedent. Be it US attack on Iraq or a demonstration in support of Osama Bin Laden, the presence of Taslima Nasreen or attack on Afghanistan, the aggrieved Indian Muslim has rioted, killed and damaged public and private property. A little earlier, it rioted when Satanic Verses was banned, when the British invaded Suez and when the hair of the Prophet at Hazratbal was stolen. Note that in none of these riots could the average Hindu or even his co-religionist anywhere, could be accused of ‘hurting’ the Muslim but the former was the inevitable target of these riots. Seems that we will live to see a thousand more Mopallah rebellions on our lands.

Refer to Riots after Riots for a more detailed note.

PS:

Sadly, while our media discourse stretches credulity when it would make us believe that only an aggrieved minority has the right to protest, it goes far beyond the borders of negationism, when it manages to justify violence committed in course of unrelated protests. One gentleman from Times of India, today reports that 50 people, ‘dressed’ as Muslims protested at Lucknow today. This, when even TwoCircles.net reports that Muslims rioted in Lucknow and Allahabad and as per Rediff, this protesting mob was around 25,000 strong.

It is only a matter of time...

“My heart goes out for the people of Assam” so said Jawaharlal Nehru, when the hapless people of Assam were staring at the prospect of being invaded by the marauding Chinese. Nehru did not wash his hands off the North East with these immortal words. His Government ordered district treasuries to burn Indian currency lest they fell into Chinese hands and facilitated the exodus of civil servants from the state scrambling to escape the Chinese Invasion.

Much to Nehru’s surprise, the Chinese withdrew and Assamese realized that they were still an Indian state. Only, now with a realization that they were dispensable and mattered little to those dictating India’s destiny from their hallowed quarters at Delhi. Nehru and successive Governments have done precious little to allay the security concerns of our people from the North East. For decades, no roads were developed or bridges constructed out of the fear that they will aid the Chinese troops when they invade the North East next! Some border road development does seem to be happening now, now when the Arunachal border is connected to the Chinese mainland with all weather railway lines!

Successive governments at New Delhi have not been oblivious of the fact that armed invasions are not the only means to subjugate a people. Since we left the North East to its fate when they suffered an armed invasion, isn’t it fair that we leave them on their fate in face of other invasions too? If not the Chinese, why not the Bangladeshis? Assam has to be subjugated and preferably cut off from the rest of India and any means would do!

The recent bloodshed and humanitarian tragedy occupied a full 4.5 days of our National Media. Quite an achievement when the Guwahati molestation continues to stir up outrage and Rumi Nath continues to get new defenders of faith! Very clearly, for the National media, the death toll of 50 (official) and 4 lakhs of refugees mean little. But why did the same media go apoplectic when less than a tenth of these figures were affected by the Kandhamal riots, triggered off by the dastardly assassination of a venerated Hindu saint and his disciples? Let us not even talk of their Gujarat cottage industry where it would seem that massacres in African states took inspiration from the badlands of Gujarat.

Is it because it is quite inconvenient to visit Assam, particularly the affected districts? Or is it because the people don’t really resemble the ‘mainland Indians’ that much? Or is it because they believe that the North East is made of savage barbaric tribes who fall upon each other periodically just to sate their primeval bloodlust?  Or is it because the riots were between Hindus and Muslims, in which, horrors of horrors, atrocity on the Hindus, were too stark to be swept under the carpet? But try they did. Read any news-report and you will find it beginning with sorry tales of Muslim victims before it apologetically puts in a few lines for the Hindu victims too! One wonders what would have the police reaction been in case the ‘Promotion of communal violence bill’ been law? As per that Act, the Hindu refugees would have been treated as criminals and put behind bars!

Sadly, even those news anchors and columnists who are not unsympathetic to the plight of the Assamese Hindu, have adopted the moniker of ‘immigrants’ for the Bangladeshi swarms on Indian land. They are not ‘immigrants’. They are infiltrators. Period. 

Again, these people would like us to believe that this is not a Hindu vs. Muslim issue. Certainly, the Assamese Hindu sees both Hindu and Muslim Bangladeshis as people who have no rights over Assam but does the Assamese Muslim see it the same way? The answer is a clear no, with Muslim leaders vehemently protesting even the articulation of the idea of infiltration. If this is not about religion, why does the Assamese Muslim stand up with his Hindu counterpart to decry this demographic invasion? Why do all minority bodies in Assam promote and support the continued infiltration from across the border? Why do these leaders prefer to ignore the reality of Bodo refugees and claim that Muslims bore the brunt of the riots?

No amount of obfuscation would cover the fact the demographic invasion from Bangladesh has resulted in the native people becoming a threatened minority in their own lands. A proud race which withstood Islamic invasions and chased the Mughals out of their lands stand subjugated today, defeated by its very own Mir Jafars and Jai Chands. Lower Assam is as good as lost to us now, with the ethnic cleansing in this round of riots resulting in exodus of the remaining Hindu population from those districts. It took less than 3 years to cleanse Kashmir valley, 20 years to cleanse the West Pakistani lands to erase its Hindu population, and 25 years to irretrievably Islamise the East Bengal Lands. It has taken barely a century to silently invade and cover large swathes of Assam and adjoining states. The fact that the initial Bangladeshis were refugee Hindus does little to soothe the angst of the overwhelmed people. Who, in his right mind would be so generous so as to take in so many dependents that he turns to being a dependent himself? Unfortunately, for the North Easterners, the Tripura tribal has lost the land of his forefathers to refugees from the other side. The same way, Barak valley had turned into an outpost of Bengal long before the problem of Muslim infiltration had raised its head.

Some columnists have tried to give a spin to this entire saga by claiming the Bodo angst to the chauvinism of MNS. Are these people even aware of the import of what they are speaking about? To claim that the Bodo hostility to the Muslim infiltrator, if not controlled, will spill over to the Adivasi, to the Assamese and then the Indian is Goebbelsian propaganda of the worst order. Which Nation in this world would grant infiltrators rights? Forget about rights on an equal footing with its citizens? Even the celebrated Human Rights icon Au Sang Su Ki draws the line when it comes for ‘rights’ for the Rohingya Muslims, who by all accounts, are not Myanmarese citizens but descendants of Bangladeshi infiltrators. And since Myanmar won’t accept them and Bangladesh has little use for them, what better than to accommodate them in India? One can only wonder on how could over four thousand of them manage to supposedly cross Myanmarese borders and travel across Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to reach New Delhi to demand rights on our lands?

Over millenniums, India has been a melting pot of people from various races coming, settling and then finally mingling with the Hindu society. These people adopted the Hindu way of life, their dress and the language such that we cannot even make out the origin of people in our midst. But, these were people who wanted to be one amongst us. How can the Indian Nation embrace people who come stealthily, displace and dispossess us and wish to become masters of our destiny?

Is it only a matter of time that another feckless Prime Minster will exclaim ‘My heart goes out for the people of Assam’ once again?