A 'secular' attack on the Kashmiri

July 25, 2014. Local inhabitants attack the Kheer Bhavani temple, Tulmula, Kashmir. They damage its gates by heavy stone pelting and threaten the pilgrims inside the temple, all the while raising pro-Pakistan and anti-India slogans. Coverage of the shameful event – twitter, facebook, an inside page story of a few newspapers of Kashmir. No mention in the mainstream media (MSM).

For the uninitiated, Kheer Bhavani, the shrine of Ragnya Devi is considered the premier worshipping site of Kashmiri Hindus, even more so ever since Sharada Peeth became out of bounds for its devotees. In spite of having been forced into exile, even during worst of the terrorism years, Kashmiris from all over the globe made a once-a-year pilgrimage to this ancient temple to offer rice-porridge to Ragnya Bhagwati. Even for the secularists, this shrine is of critical importance as each year, the annual mela would provide an opportunity to the CM of the day to pose with an old Kashmiri exile, smiling to the cameras, all of this proving that the chimeral Kashmiriyat was very much alive and kicking.

This attack on the temple has coincided with a strike in Kashmir Valley, protesting against the Kashmiri Hindu efforts to restart those religious yatras (Kaunsar Naag, Harmukh, Surveshwar, Dhyaneshwar, Thejwaer, Harshawar etc) which had been stopped for the last two and a half decades on account of terrorism and their exile from the Valley. The ostensible excuses may seem strange but still bear reproduction, if for nothing, simply to highlight their absurdity and the rabid nature of Islamic separatism which wants nothing but to erase the last vestiges of non-Islamic presence from the valley.

The perpetually aggrieved Kashmiri Muslim has the following objections against the Kashmiri Hindu efforts to practice their religion peacefully:

1.    “I have not heard of these yatras being conducted for last so many decades”

2.    “At Amarnath, you at least have an ice Shivling. These other yatras have no idol, no object of reverence but simply lakes, mountains and springs. So, there is no reason why you should conduct the yatra.”

3.    These yatras have been invented by the Indian Government which wants to Hinduise Kashmir. Under the pretence of yatra, the Indian Government plans to resettle large number of non-Kashmiri Hindus to alter the demographics of Kashmir.

4.    “Your yatras will destroy the fragile ecology of these areas”

It does not take a very high degree of intelligence to determine that no emotion other than a visceral hatred of the non-Islamic presence in Kashmir has given rise to these objections of the ‘secular’ communalists. The many lost decades did not witness any of the above pilgrimages simply because the dispossessed exiles were not in a position to undertake them. It is akin to the classic case of the bully taking possession of an object by force and then claiming right of possession even though it was he who had dispossessed the weak.

As regards the supposed absence of any object of veneration in these yatras – well, by Islamic contention itself, Hindus are pagans par excellence. After all, which other people manage to find divinity in both the animate and the inanimate, stupid enough to lack the power of discrimination and worship the stone, the tree, the cow, the snake, the mountain and the rive? Does the fervent Islamist not know that a Hindu’s trip to the sources of rivers, of mountains, of sacred ponds and springs are a homage to the spot, to that very miracle of nature? More importantly, is it the Islamist who will decide how and what the Hindu will worship? In the all-pervading atmosphere of dimmitude, perhaps yes! After all, isn’t the MSM discourse on Moradabad riots full of homilies on how the generous Muslims ‘allowed’ the Hindus to build a temple, on how they ‘allowed’ the Hindus to celebrate Holi and use a loudspeaker once a year on Mahashivaratri and how the perfidious Hindu, goaded by the Talibanasque BJP has sought rights which they do not deserve, more so because they form a small minority on those ‘secular’ lands?

The excuse that the Indian Government wants to ‘Hinduise’ Kashmir is nothing but self-induced hallucination on the part of the Islamist. We have a state of affair where even the Jammu region has seen massacres and riots designed to force exodus of the minority Hindu from areas of mixed demography like Doda, Kishtwar and Rajaouri. Can Hindus really count among their ranks people with Islamist like fanaticism, who would be willing to settle in hostile, unfamiliar terrain, where each day would bring new dangers to life and limb? If, for argument’s sake, we assume both availability of such people and a Government design to settle them in these regions, will nature allow them to survive on what are essentially mountains, cut off from civilization, accessible only through trekking routes and anyway, under the snow for over six months a year? However, what use is logic and common sense to that fanatic who participated in a mass movement against the Amarnath Shrine Board’s desire to construct temporary shelters for Amarnath Yatra pilgrims on lands which are non-accessible for over eight months a year! And… even if the Hindu does want to Hinduise Kashmir, then what exactly is wrong? Is not the Hindu a citizen of Kashmir? Does she not a right to practice her religion like her sisters belonging to a different faith? What crime has she committed if she wants to maintain and celebrate the civilizational links of the land of Sharika Devi with rest of India?

The only valid concern is ecological damage. However, this excuse loses credibility when the same Kashmiri protesting religious tourism has no problem with commercial/adventure tourists. As against a few hundred yatris, thousands anyway trek to the Kaunsar Naag lake each year and no squeak is ever heard on the 'havoc' they wreak on the Kashmiri ecology. And in any case, environmental degradation is not a concern which cannot be addressed significantly through focused rules and implementation by both Government and pilgrim agencies.

Only a few weeks back, pilgrims and langar organisers were attacked at Baltal. Numerous tents were burnt, people assaulted, property worth lakhs damaged and pilgrims were left to fend for themselves without food and shelter. Other than this riot, vehicles carrying Amarnath pilgrims have been subject to stone pelting on numerous occasions this year. But of course, leave aside the ‘secular’ MSM, these events have been of little concern even for the ‘Hindu Nationalist’ BJP.

The way Kashmiri Islamists manage to discover nefarious schemes in almost all acts of Govt of India, the same way, our ‘secularists’ have managed to create an alternate reality of ‘Kashmiriyat’ under which the Kashmiri Hindu was cared for by the benign Muslim. In this alternate world, the only oppression was of the Dogra kings on Kashmiri Muslims, the only massacres were those of some Muslims in the aftermath of Partition. In this land, the Kashmiri Hindu ‘migrated’ from the valley on her own accord, under a revolting scheme hatched by the RSS and implemented by Jagmohan. For the ‘secularist’, there is no better example of the large-heartedness of the Kashmiri Islamist than the Amarnath Yatra, where the locals not only ‘allow’ the pilgrimage but also ‘facilitate’ it, of course oblivious of its financial implications to them. Now, such secularists cannot obviously be expected to berate the liberal Kashmiri Muslim for a Baltal or a Kheer Bhavani. And certainly, if the gorilla becomes too big to ignore, one or the other ‘secular’ fact-finding missions would certainly discover that the injuries sustained by the Hindus would be self-inflicted and their grievances, imaginary.

Yet, at one level, it is more the Nationalist Hindu who is to blame when she indulges in such breast-beating, berating the MSM for ignoring attacks on her person and identity. For so many years, the MSM has been nothing, if not consistent in ridiculing the Hindu angst in service of ‘secularism’. For the MSM, the only issues worth covering with vituperative fury would be some random comment and supposed forced feeding. Why cannot the Nationalist Hindu create a systemic alternate discourse where the need for validation from these ‘secularists’ would not arise? Alas, it may not be, for even the supposed ‘outsider’ who got elected in face of no-holds-barred attacks of these very secularists, seems to have decided to make all out efforts to win their approval. We have seen what happened to a previous regime which embarked on such defeatist and meaningless endevour. History will repeat itself and leave behind in its trail, tears of the Hindu who does not have the right to speak even for herself!

Update

The J&K State Government has succumbed to Islamist pressure and withdrawn permission to the Kaunsar Naag yatra. This is of course not an attack on the religious rights of minorities of Kashmir for no act of Islamists can be anything but kosher for our 'seculars'. 

Defend Minority Rights - Liberal Style

How a society treats its poorest and most helpless citizens, often a minority group, is indicative of its strength. While this statement has been ‘Indianised’ to refer only to minorities, its righteous rhetoric cannot be ignored.

Since the protection and furtherance of all minority ‘causes’ is the life defining mission of our ‘liberals’, it is quite surprising to see that rather than protecting, they have ganged up against one of the most vulnerable minorities in India – the Vegetarians!

Contrary to the image of India being a vegetarian land, the vast majority of Indians consume meat. In 2004, as per the Anthropological Survey of India (as against a pop survey by CNN-IBN), barely 220 million Indians out of 1028 million (2001 census) were vegetarians. Even within traditional vegetarian communities, more and more families are taking up meat and fowl consumption. Hence, not only are the vegetarians a minority; horror of horrors, they are a declining minority in dire need of state protection to shore up their numbers and way of life! Without adequate safeguards, it is likely that they will be overwhelmed and consumed by the majoritarian meat-eaters in the country. What a travesty that would be? A beautiful strand of Indian diversity getting subsumed by that anaconda of majoritism! Even the die-hard meat eater will agree that an India sans vegetarians will militate against the very ‘Idea of India’, whosoever’s it is.

Then why, why is this hapless minority the butt of ridicule and attacks from the very people who are supposed to protect them?

The resident agony aunt of ‘secularists’ in India, the venerable Outlook ran a story of how Jains (a very small minority) are terrorizing the palate of Muslims by insisting that their sacred town, Patilana, be declared vegetarian. Soon after, the relapsed Open The Magazine ran another story on Vegetarian Terrorism, bemoaning how the evangelical vegetarians want all to survive on grass and yet again coming down on the Jain minority for seeking to protect, practice and propagate their religious beliefs. But, how could they? Jains, being vegetarians and numerically much smaller than Muslims are a huge (sic) minority. Then, should not the weaker minority be supported in the clash of two minorities?

It must be quite a lapse of judgement for the venerable Outlook to agitate against a sect which is double-minority and granting of minority status for whom, it celebrated only months back. After all, isn’t respect for minority practices a cornerstone of ‘liberal’ activism? Not only do these liberals need to stop protesting against these minorities, they should launch a campaign to protect those vegetarian property owners from those majoritarian meat-eaters who insist on becoming their tenants. The issue is of course not whether an individual’s right of ownership. It is simply religious identity. How can the majoritarian meat-eaters force minority vegetarians to dance to their tunes? Taking the campaign ahead, these liberals should fight for the right of those vegetarian run establishments who do not want meat to be cooked / warmed in their premises. As a next step ‘liberals’ need to get a hate law passed to protect the hapless vegetarian against jibes of her meat eating acquaintance, who asks with mock concern ‘ how do you survive on grass?’, ‘but what do you eat other than paneer in restaurants?’ ‘why don’t you try chicken/mutton/fish?’ This done, ‘liberals’ must pressurise the Government to legislate tough laws on the lines of dalit and women protection laws, to prevent harassment and intimidation of this vanishing minority.

As in the case of sexual orientation, vegetarianism is both a choice and a result of conditioning. So, why should the paternal protection sought for one not be offered to the other group?

Who exactly is a minority in India? The answer is a little complex. For the layperson, any individual or group, which is less than 50% of the total group of people, comprises a minority. However, in the Indian ‘secular’ parlance, the minorities are a broad spectrum group comprising of Muslims, women, tribals, dalits etc. Now, if some 90% of the population gets identified as minorities, how can a mere 10% of the population be considered a majority?

Very clearly, the assumption that minority must equal helplessness, weakness is flawed. After all, a handful of British ruled over India’s teeming millions. And, isn’t it the numerically insignificant tiger, which sits at the apex of the food chain, even when the jungle is full of herbivores?
 

But, paradoxically, for Indian ‘secularists’, some groups remain ‘minorities’ irrespective of absence of any weaknesses attributable to their being a ‘minority’. Hence, an Allahabad High Court judgement pronouncing that Muslims were not a minority (owing to their history, size and political influence) was treated with derision with many ‘secularists’ offering to teach basic arithmetic to the learned judge of the court. So, in India, the matter is settled. Any person who is not a Hindutvawadi, preferably an ‘upper’ caste, Hindu male, is a minority. Hindu here specifically excludes followers of Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism and for some, followers of Kashmiri Shaivism and the Lingayats.

So, any action by any person who belongs to this abominable group, if against any member of the numerous ‘minorities’ populating India, becomes a communal act. Hence, the crass actions of a Shiv Sena MP becomes an attack on Indian secularism only because the person who was at the receiving end of this ‘religious persecution’ happened to be a Muslim, who was fasting even at night! Wonder why non-Muslim students being denied mid-day meals or being forced to have lunch in school toilets in some North Kerala districts are not seen as worthy of concern, particularly when they too are minorities in those Muslim-majority lands?

Poriborton - a mere change of face is not enough

With successive Indian Governments not exactly having set the Ganga on fire with their list of accomplishments, the 6 year NDA Government (1998-2004), was not really a bad deal for India. If nothing else, that Government did nothing which created a social fissure or economic meltdown. Yet, the Government failed to get re-elected. The reasons vary as per biases of the observer. For the secular fundamentalist, it was on account of the Gujarat riots, for the statistician, an outcome of alliances, for the socialist, a backlash against capitalism and for many committed BJP supporters, an apathy which held them back for voting for the party.

This intermittent blogger has previously argued that the seeds of BJP’s downfall had been sown in between 1998-1999 itself and that the NDA’s return to power in 1999 General Elections was more of an incidental event rather than an affirmative reward by the public. The reasoning is simple – the BJP lost vote-share as compared to 1998 and rather than breaking new ground, like it had done in between 1996-98 and earlier in between 1989-1991, its footprints had reduced. Moreover, unlike previous occasions, when a war or a large internal security issue had resulted in an electoral surge for the party seen as being best placed to secure the Nation, the Kargil War could help the BJP only retain its tally of 182 seats.

While the non-BJP/anti-BJP camps may offer different viewpoints, the reasons behind BJP’s denudation was obvious. The people who had voted for the BJP all through the 90s had not done so for love and fresh air alone. They had done so in hope of a break from the past, a new model of governance and a hope of having a ruler who could walk the talk. Yet, what did we have? A Prime Minister who made the obnoxious Nehruvian consensus his own! A party which seemed determined to desperately woo those who seemed even more determined to hate it and a polity which continued to rule the way it had for the previous half-century! Unfortunately, it was not the BJP alone which paid a price for acting like those proverbial pigs in ‘Animal Farm’, who, having dispossessed the oppressor, aped the latter and became one of them. More than the BJP, it was the Indian Nation which got punished in form of a decade long debilitating rule of the UPA.

So much so from the past!

But why to rake up these painful memories when we have a BJP Government at the centre today led by a charismatic individual who single handed has won a majority for the party?

This digging up of the past is important for while early, not only is the BJP is acting like those who it has defeated, it is showing signs of yet again succumbing to the need of getting accepted by those who have nothing but disdain for those who make the BJP what it is. If this assertion seems to verge on hyperbole, let’s consider the following:

• Commencing dialogue with Pakistan even when the ground reality of its support to terrorism has not changed
• Effecting an individual driven change in rules of service for TRAI
• Changing railway fares through an executive order rather than the budget
• The PM’s ostensible views getting communicated through whispers and leaks
• Proposal on easing Visa restrictions on Bangladesh, forget about clamping on illegal migration
• Government’s inclination to press ahead with enclave swap, Teesta water treaty with Bangladesh
• Continuing with UIDAI
• Little movement or even statement of intent on corruption cases involving the previous dispensation, sons-in-laws

More ominously, those very experts, who had warned of apocalypse if Modi were to come to power, are now sending messages of reassurance that the new dispensation’s adventurism has been replaced by pragmatism and life will continue as it was before May 26, 2014. After all, for these experts, anyone who lights candles at the Wagah border is certain to warm cockles of their bleeding hearts.

True, the India society has become accustomed to a slow pace of change. Yet, the masses who voted in droves for Modi, did not do so with a hope of having a saffron Congress in saddle. If a vote for Modi was an endorsement of what he had come to embody, it was an even stronger rejection of the past. A vote for Modi was a vote in hope of a better tomorrow, not a fatalistic acceptance of a little more of the same of the last decade. 

The BJP may complaint that the public is not allowing them a honeymoon period. But why should the public do so? If a Government enjoys fruits of power from day 1, it has to be accountable from that day. True, there is a time for build up but that gestation period should not end up un-nerving the public, particularly when the early signs of poriborton are more of the same. Anyway, in this world of instant communication, which incidentally the BJP should understand, having tapped its power only recently, there will be little patience shown by those who got swept to voting booths on the promise of a positive change. 

Lest the BJP feel that it being treated unjustly, let it remember that human beings are designed to judge more strongly those who they have trusted. Vengeance for trust broken is high – ask Aam Aadmi Party. A BJP seen as getting back on its promises will be wiped out even more comprehensively than the Congress. While that fate may be five years away, we have critical assembly polls happening later this year. For a government whose legitimacy was questioned on shallow grounds of vote-share, a loss in the polls would be a serious setback, indicating that the surge of support for Modi/BJP was but a temporary anomaly. The polls are for BJP’s taking. What it needs to do is to simply walk its talk and if that seems difficult, at the very least, not commit those acts which it had opposed, while in opposition.

For the sake of the Nation, let us hope that what are now being seen as disturbing signs turn out to be false alarms and that the BJP does deliver what it has promised.