'Secularism khatre mein' - The murder of reason

A few days back, University of Hyderabad students, or more precisely those affiliated to the Students Federation of India (CPM's student wing) and other assorted leftist bodies protested against yet another brazen attempt at 'saffronisation' of education. 

This contemptible attempt was the University floating a circular asking graduating male students to wear kurta-pyjama or dhoti-kurta and women to wear saree or salwar kameez, rather than gowns during covocation ceremony. While the more innocent among us would have seen this circular only in light of a series of efforts to indegenise our ceremonies (remember Jairam Ramesh condemning convocation gowns as barbaric, Uttar Pradesh Governer Ram Naik asking for doing away with the gowns, or students at BHU and many other universities in North India switching over to Indian attire during convocations?), our leftists with deeper perspective on all issues under the universe, discerned an attempt to ‘impose RSS’s idea of Indian culture’, which is ‘Brahminical and patriarchical’ and of course religious (what else can an angavastram denote?)

SFI’s valiant defence of Indian secularism was successful and the RSS had to withdraw licking its wounds. It is now probably planning its next assault on that modern and only true religion, Indian secularism!

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Globally, the left has had the most fantastic of conspiracy theories (though upstaged by the Islamists now). In all seriousness, they still believe that the telecommunication reforms started by Rajiv Gandhi was a tool to popularise television, which in turn was meant to popularise Ramayana, which in turn was meant to polarise people. In times when common sense had not yet met its demise, the above assertions would have elicited only mirth and ridicule. Yet, years of brainwashing by dominant section of media has ensured that our own beliefs, preferences, sense of outrage are all dictated by others. Not for nothing did one of the hoardings at the Mahim Church proclaim – ‘The media is the most powerful institution in the world. It controls what we think!’

When does a crime stop being a crime and become much more sinister? How do we determine that acts committed by an individual have been influenced by the groups she/he belongs to? Does the outcome of a crime change depending on the identity of the victim? When does a crime committed by individuals or motely groups become heinous enough so as to demand condemnation of the community they belong to? How does it get determined that ‘x’ act is a provocation and ‘y’ a reaction? Or does crime become excusable if committed by certain groups but punishment-worthy only when committed by some others?

In a world with its moral centre intact (ooops... sorry for having used the regressive 'M' word), the response to above questions would have been a no-brainer. A crime is a crime irrespective of the identity of the criminal or the victim. Unless supported by a common consensus of the community, no crime committed by an individual or a motley group would become a pretext to hound any community. The criminal’s mere association with a group would not make the group party to the crime. Most of all, the outrage and judgement on crimes would not have differed from case to case.

In spite of having followed socio-political developments quite closely since 1989, I cannot really quite make out the tipping point when Indian Nation-hood, Indian Culture, Indian tradition, Indian religion became cuss-words. It is quite inconceivable that even in the late 90s, leading media houses would not have had the guts to condemn India for taking a strong line against Pakistan or China. It would again have been quite inconceivable that the media would have openly promoted Hinduphobia the way it does now.  In the late 80s and early 90s, even when the bulk of media was ranged against the Ram Janmabhoomi reclamation movement, there were quite a few media and social personalities who openly sympathised with the National sentiments. Even those who opposed, qualified the opposition on the grounds of the issue being time-barred, generally avoiding mocking the Hindu faith in existence of Rama or his divinity. Post destruction of the disputed structure in 1992, while it became quite fashionable to condemn the RSS-BJP more virulently, the visceral hatred which the left-liberals have for the Nationalists is quite a recent development. Was this tendency exacerbated when the BJP lost the 1993 assembly polls, or then when it tried to cleanse itself of its Hindutva leanings or when Sonia Gandhi’s leadership gave a decisive anti-Hindu tilt to the Congress or post Gujarat riots 2002, when the RSS-BJP proved hopelessly inadequate in countering the left-liberal propaganda?

Maybe a mix of all!

Currently, we are in throes of mass hysteria over lynching of a Muslim man over suspicions that he had consumed beef. Just what makes this crime so noteworthy? It is not the first time that a lynching has happened. In India, thieves, docaits, suspected rapists, child-lifters have all been lynched at some time or the other. A few months back, a Muslim man was snatched from police custody and lynched by thousands in Nagaland. Scores of women get branded as witches and get killed by mobs every year. A couple of years back, Rudrapur was hit by riots. It started with some roadside temple being defiled with beef. Hindus lodged a complaint. Nothing happened. Then, the incident got repeated, the difference was that the beef was loosely packed in pages carrying Quranic verses. Riots happened. Muslim mobs roamed the streets of Rudrapur and lynched 3 men, before any action was taken to restore calm. Are these crimes any lesser than the crime committed in Dadri? Of course not. So, what is different here?

Have we not always been pontificated that crime must not be given a communal colour. When Sachin and Gaurav were lynched by Shahnawaz’s family and other Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, were we not told that this issue was merely of competitive machismo over eve-teasing and that it was only incidental that the Hindus were Hindus and Muslims, Muslims? In news-reports almost every other day, have we not been told how nefarious designs of the chaddi gang (RSS and its co-horts) were defeated when the conscious liberal bravely fought its attempts to communalise a crime? So, why is it different now?

A few months back, a Hindu cow-protection activist was killed by Muslim butchers when the latter were caught smuggling cattle at Devengaore, Karnataka. Does anyone even remember this event, leave aside it becoming the National rage? Very recently, a Muslim father killed his 4 year daughter for her ‘failure’ to cover her head properly. Did any single news-report make it a cause celebre and claim that this was an outcome of rising fundamentalism among Muslims?

So, why do our scales of judgement change when the criminals happen to be Hindus and the victims Muslims? How can a Kavita Krishnan or a Mukul Kesavan ‘bravely’ write that ‘murderous Hindus kill innocent Muslims’ but the media becomes mealy mouthed and report ‘members of a particular community’, when the victims are Hindus and the perpetrators Muslims?

A Charlie Hebdo massacre does not become a cause to poke fun at Muslim fascination with imagery of the Prophet. So why does reinforcement of a ban on beef become a focal point of ridicule of Hinduism and its belief systems?

It has become quite fashionable to claim that the ancient Hindus consumed beef. Yes, they did, under certain circumstances as pointed out here and here. Are those eating it now fulfilling those requirements? And in any case, Hindu taboo on beef is over two millennium old. Even the medieval Islamic rulers recognised cow’s sanctity to Hindus. Some prohibited its slaughter, others ritually killed it in temples and adorned idols with its entrails. The entire early twentieth century, particularly the decade of the 1920s is full of communal riots triggered by cow slaughter. During the partition riots and East Pakistan massacres, the conversion of Hindus to Islam would be sealed only when the Hindu consumed had publicly consumed beef. None of the sixteen sanskars governing the Hindu life can be completed without a cow.

Given the salience of cow in the Hindu religion and its symbolism in the Hindu-Muslim relation, do I then need a BJP or an RSS to tell me that the cow is a venerated animal? Or is it that only RSS-BJP stand for Hinduism? Did riots over beef happen only after Modi became the PM? We cannot be expected to remember the massacre of Sadhus (not aligned to any political party), when they laid seige to the parliament demanding law for ban on cow slaughter in 1966. But how stupid are we if we don't remember the series of minor riots plaguing Haryana and parts of West UP over cattle smuggling for slaughter in the last few years? A time when neither Modi was the PM nor BJP ruling in Haryana.  Then just why is the blame of the lynching being laid on the doors of the RSS-BJP? What a case that neither the local police, nor the district administration, nor the state government is responsible for the crime, but the RSS is!

What is painfully clear is that the traditional RSS-BJP way of managing media has resulted in zero impact. With more and more of the younger generations growing up in nuclear families, far beyond any association with traditional groups, their sense of world-view gets impacted more and more by media which is all around them. Many ape the ‘cool thing’ to do without even bothering to understand the issue and its cause. At one level, we condemn khap. At another level, our social media behaviour makes us worse than the worst of kangaroo courts where the first allegation becomes the crime and its proof!

Just taking the example of beef, while the social media imagery of Muslims mocking cows was on expected lines, what has been a revelation is the stand taken many young Hindus. What was taboo even a few years back is very clearly isn’t one any longer. On what grounds? Individual choice? Give us a break!

The State which bans beef also bans consumption of wildlife, something which has directly impacted existence (not merely taste buds) of our forest dwellers. Did we hear any voice of outrage? Many European countries have outlawed consumption of cats, dogs and horses on account of their ‘association of love and service to humans’. Even in India, killing of a dog or a cat can get you behind bars. So, those bans are ok because they have been imposed by more ‘enlightened’ people?

What the left-liberal demands is that in order to accommodate the ‘dietary preferences’ of others, we have to forego an article of our faith. After all, as per them, since it is the Hindu faith, of course, no article of faith is worth having!

Some pompously claim that since Hindus cannot take care of their cows post their productive age, they have no right to get offended if someone kills them. Oh, I did not know that respect and killing were a binary and nothing could exist in between!

One would like to believe that people can see through the evil behind selective outrages. Sadly, little has happened which would make one believe that people actually do so. Through repeated assertions, Gujarat 2002 has become a tale of Muslim massacre (the Godhra carnage and Hindu deaths never happened), Church attacks and nun rapes have become real, bombings perpetrated only by the Hindu fringe, a Muslim suspect automatically declared innocent while a Hindu suspect - guilty by birth. Where is it ok to handover relief to Muslim victims of a riot but impose penalty on Hindu victims in the very same riots. When it is 'known' that Hindus start rioting and it is only the 'poor Muslim' who is the victim!

As life becomes simpler and our capacity to think independently reduces, our belief will be more stark. We will then openly bray: Hindus bad, non-Hindus good!