Bihar defeat is Modi's defeat

Had drafted this note in longhand on the 9th of November. Lethargy had stopped me from posting it for 8 weeks. Though dated, still posting it so that it at least appears in the timeline of 2015.

Claiming ‘I-told-you-so’ post occurance of an event carries high credibility risks, particularly when there is like evidence of one actually having said so. For this reason and this alone, and even after discounting the lusty cheerleading going on till around 11 AM on October 8, words of many pundits, who now claim to have had foretold BJP’s debacle, are flummoxing.

Did not the Modi brigade claim an overwhelming mandate for development all along? Did it not claim that Modi’s INR 1,75,000 Crores package was a deal-sealer, that Modi’s personal appeal was transcending caste/class barriers and that people are voting for Modi in droves or that Modi’s attack on possibility of reservations for minorities had stymied the desertions of backward classes and had re-rallied support for the BJP?

Just what did happen in a mere hour that the cheerleading got replaced with a list of sage reasons, ranging from the lazy intellect of Biharis to weird conspiracy theories. All sort of reasons but scarcely any blame getting attributed to the Modi-Shah duo or any the BJP’s lackluster governance. It was quite striking when you consider that only an hour earlier, paeans were being sung to them for their vision, sagacity and efforts. Now, if credit was to be given for good show, how can the same people not be blamed for a bad show? Just how different from Congress is this ‘party with a difference’. There too, all victories are by the ‘Grace of Gandhis’ and all defeats ‘collective responsibility’?

This intermittent blogger, to all those who had cared to ask, had all along maintained that there was no way the BJP would win in Bihar, and that too for the most simple and obvious of reasons.

Modi triumphed in 2014, buoyed by a ‘wave’. Then, the general public voted for an icon, an idea that would deliver them from the hopelessness all around and guide them to a better future. Seventeen months in power is a long enough time for people to form impressions whether their hopes are being fulfilled. If they are not, people may still cling on hope, but definitely will not rally around the hope-giver like they had done previously. And even otherwise, Modi wave was a catharsis of frustrations, blood and tears of many. Our most successful politician ever, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi knew that public emotions cannot be aroused again and again. Hence, he kept a lag of a decade in between each of his major mass movements, from the non-cooperation to the Civil disobedience to Quit India.

Can we rationally expect people to come out and vote in droves for a messiah who may be false? Can people really be expected to vote for someone who seems disconnected with the masses, disowns electoral promises, talks haughtily and most critically, under whose rule, the humble onion, dal and mustard oil became food for the not-so-humble?

To all those who claim that the outcome of even 2014 would have been different had Nitish-Lalu allied in those elections, I beg to differ. History shows that individual vote shares of 2 parties do not translate into an absolute total when win alliance. Most candidates being their own loyal votes too, the core vote of the party could be lesser than the increments provided by the candidates. A case in point would be Maharashtra where the combined vote shares of NCP-Congress when they had contested separately was over 50%. If elections were sum of core vote shares, there would not have been any point in strategising, in conducting strenous campaigns. Outsiders like AAP would never have made an impact anywhere. So the claim that the BJP was at a huge disadvantage needs to be dismissed. To say that backward castes polarised is disingneious. Major chunks of even Brahmins and Rajputs have voted for Mahagathbandhan. Moreovr, polarization carries an inherent risk of counter-polarisation. Given the Modi wave in 2014, there is little to suspect that even a Nitish-Lalu combine could have worsted NDA in Bihar.

Many Modi apologists keep on claiming that 17 months is too small a period to undo 60 years of mess.

Was India really a complete mess in these last 60 years? No, it wasn’t! And does it really take 5 years to make a difference to the lives of people? Again, no – it doesn’t!

A case in point – only a few months in the NDA’s first regime in Bihar, there was a perceptible improvement in law and order. The first few months of UPA saw such momentous (some may say disasterous) actions in terms of NREGA, RTI and so on. Each spell of Mayawati’s rule in UP invariably sees an improvement in general administration. Modi’s own 1^st stint in Gujarat saw a dramatic improvement in the relief and rehabilitation measures being taken for the earthquake survivors. Kayan Singh’s 17 month old Government, even when pre-occupied with the Ram temple liberation movement, gave the best governance UP had had in years.

Just how long is incrementalism or planted stories on Modi’s work ethics going to sway the gullible masses? If we believe that Modi’s promises led people to vote for him, how can we reject the hypothesis that his u-turns on those promises disillusioned at least some of his voters, who if not voting for his opponents, did not vote for him this time? That if people rallied to vote for him driven by his promise to get black money stashed abroad back to India, would at least some of them, not reacted with disgust when the party president called those promises mere jumla?

In isolation, neither Modi’s taste for rich dressing, his insipid governance, his u-turns would have been strong enough to prompt people not to vote for the BJP. But together, they certainly take away the sheen off the self-proclaimed deliverer and show him to be just another politician, a glib talker, a jumla master, an alliterating demagogue, but at the end of the day, just another self-serving politician, in service to the suited-booted of the world.

Now, if the voter had to choose between just another politician and his own caste brethren, why would he overlook his caste loyalties? On the other hand, if he had felt that the great leader was actually working to change his (the voter’s) life for the better, he would have cared little for caste or the contrived controversy over Mohan Bhagwat’s comments (which I maintain, going against conventional wisdom, was factual and had nothing objectionable in it)

On governance, just how credible an attack on Nitish for his mis-governance when the BJP was very much a part of his government for 8 years? Personally, I had relied on the average Bihari’s appreciation of Nitish’s efforts in delivering them from jungle raj to bless him with their votes. They did. I dare say that Nitish could have fought alone and still managed a comfortable number of seats to gain support from Congress and RJD to form a government with less dependence on Lalu for survival.

Ever since the impact of Nitish’s governance had been manifest on ground, the NDA had hardly lost any election in Bihar, be it the general elections or bypolls. Hence, to claim that the Bihari does not reward good governance is plain lazy blame-shifting,

Finally, the Lalu factor. The media loves to write off people. It loves to deify people. Then it loves to write them off again only to deify at a later date. It is simply because extreme tales grab eyeballs much more than plaid staid facts. Even in the worst of times, Lalu commanded some 20% vote share in Bihar. Any commander of 1 in 5 voters in the state is a formidable force, particularly in the 1^st-past-the-post electoral system of India. That the RJD came back from the dead is a story only for those who confuse sensationalism with news. RJD was never dead. It simply prospered again in the right conditions.

If anything, the story of RJD’s rejuvenation should provide a jolt to those Modi-worshippers who had actually started believing in fanciful tales of a Congress-mukt Bharat.

In its worst ever performance, the Congress has managed to win over 18% of votes. A few right alliances, a few more failures of Modi, a little more of people shedding their hopes and it won’t be long before the Congress, aided by dispirited Modi supporters staying at home, wins a vote share of 23%-25%, sufficient enough for them to form Government once again.

Some optimistic right-wingers believe that Modi/BJP will learn their lessons from this defeat. Lessons they will surely learn, but all the wrong ones!

Rather than focusing on making people’s lives better, the trio of Modi-Shah-Jaitely is likely to focus on keeping the ‘fringe’ in control. That the BJP’s performance post ‘cow-polarisation’ in Seemanchal was comparatively much better than in rest of Bihar would be lost.

We know what happened in 2004. Then, the arch-secular BJP was routed and it took 10 years of UPA misrule for it to make a comeback. Let’s make no mistakes; Modi would not have become the phenomenon that he became had the UPA under Rahul Gandhi not been his alternate.

Today, if elections are conducted, inspite of all the disillusionment, Modi may still emerge as the leader of choice, though by a much reduced majority. The same Bihar which has voted for Nitish-Lalu now may still vote for Modi as PM. All this for 2 reasons. There are still vestiges of hope. People do not want to lose hope till they can. And even more importantly, there is no credible alternative to Modi on the horizon right now.

Yet, it will take only a few more mis-steps and a sustained campaign by a re-branded Rahul or a Priyanka or even a Nitish, to ensure that Modi and the BJP get confined to history in 2019. The diiference with 2004 would be that this time, the exile would be much longer. While Modi could not deliver a Congresss-mukt Bharat, the next rulers would definitely ensure a BJP-RSS mukt Bharat in their rule.

Sarmad - the naked heretic

“When a heart is vulnerable to love, the darner’s needle acts as efficaciously as the executioner’s axe in slicing it down the middle… It seems that the simple Iranian trader, with an intensely lonely heart, was desperately looking for a buyer. When he felt the thrill of discovering one, he did not bother to find out who he was and what he offered in exchange. That a precious commodity (his heart) was desired by a pair of magical eyes, was enough reason for celebration. The deal was clinched.”

(Except from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s Urdu essay ‘Sarmad Shaheed’)

Contrary to the syncretic image which Sufi preachers enjoy, almost all without fail preached Islam, many fought Jihad for the Sultans and none parroted the Hindu belief of all religions being the same. What did set apart many of the Sufi preachers from their more puritanical counterparts was their relative benignity and unorthodoxy which in some ways, did not seem to conform fully to the Shariah.

What is noteworthy is that inspite of a popular imagery of conflict with puritanical Islam, hardly any major Sufi mystic was punished for heresy in India, even during the reigns of orthodox Sultans like Firuz Shah or Aurangzeb. Most of the times, the persecution of a particular Sufi mystic, e.g. Mansur Al-Hallaj of the Abbasid Caliphate followed more from political conflicts rather than on issues pertaining to religion. And why would it be? When right from the tenth century, it had been settled in Islamic jurisprudence that Sufi sects are true believers and act in conformity to principles of Islam.

Of the handful of Sufis who did not die on battlefield or of old age, the name of Muhammad Sa‘id Sarmad Kashani stands out. The tales around Sarmad are interesting for many reasons.

Probably born a Jew in the Iranian city of Kashan, Sarmad, in course of his trade, reached Thatta, a major port in Sind. There he fell in love with Abhai Chand, an inordinately beautiful sixteen year old son of a rich trader. Understandably horrified by the idea of a middle aged man seemingly lusting for his son, the trader sent his son away. Overcome by the shock of this act of Abhai’s father, Sarmad gave away all his belongings to the point of discarding his clothes. In his nude state, he sat at the door of Abhai’s house for days.

Abhai’s parents were touched by Sarmad’s act of renunciation. Convinced that his love for their son was genuine, they allowed Sarmad to take him under his tutelage. As surprising as this may sound today, this is what the tradition says.

Apparently, Sarmad never cared to cover himself ever again, let his hair and nails grow and became, at least in the physical sense, one of the many wandering mendicants of India. Accompanied by Abhai, he moved across India, to Lahore, to Hyderabad in Deccan before setting up his base in Delhi.

Dara Shikoh took a fancy to him and Sarmad proclaimed an impending victory to Dara in the war of succession. However, Dara lost, was captured, publicly humiliated and killed. Soon after his coronation, Aurangzeb put Sarmad to trial on 2 charges, nudity which was haram as per Islam and for refusing to recite the complete shahada. Sarmad would stop his recitation at “La Ilaha,” which means there is no God. He refused to recite the rest of it (Illallah, Muhammad-ur Rasul Allah) as he claimed that he was still absorbed with the negative part and won’t tell a lie.

For this heresy, Sarmad was beheaded on the steps of Jama Masjid. Miraculously, his cleaved head recited the complete shahada, indicating that he had completed his search and found God!

While this is the tale, more that the story itself, it is its treatment by many, which makes Sarmad Kashani such an interesting figure.

In popularity, Sarmad hardly stands anywhere even remotely close to the Chishtis and Aulias of India. His shrine is a small domeless structure, opposite Gate no 2 of Jama Masjid. Sarmad shares his resting place with Hare Bhare Shahm another Sufi mystic. The mazaar does not attract many visitors and even the locals identify the structure more with Hare Bhare Shah rather than Sarmad Shahid.

Sarmad has not left behind any order, any prominent murid or even any significant body of work. Though feted by Dara and probably respected well enough by the general public, there is little evidence that Sarmad was a very influential figure even in his prime. True, he was an accomplished poet and has left behind 300-odd Rubaiyyat in Persian. 

Exquisitely crafted, many of these can be read simply as a tribute of his love for Abhai Chand.

My heart is again lost in love for a beautiful one;

It is lost in desire and grief for the sweet-faced one;

I’m old but my heart still has the strength of youth,

That is, in autumn it blooms like spring. (from Asiri 1950, No. 71)

At the same time, Sarmad also composed more sublime verses in praise of God

Though He knows about my sins well,

Yet He calls me every moment to the table of His bounties,

I contemplated much about my hopes and fears,

And [I found] He is kinder to me than to all others (from Asiri 1950, No. 125)

Yet, the fact remains that many of Sarmad has had very limited impact on evolution of spiritual thoughts in the Sufi order in India. Many of his contemporaries despised Sarmad’s devotion as naẓar ilā-l-murd, love for the beardless boy and today, hardly are people aware of him.

Hence, it is quite interesting to note that almost all works by foreign authors on Sufi traditions in Delhi, or those works which explore history of alternate sexuality, celebrate the tale of Sarmad Kashani.

For someone who lived his life in the most unorthodox of manners, it would be most galling to note that after death, each of the groups have moulded his tale to suit their own prejudices.

If we discount miracles, the story of the severed head of Sarmad reciting the full Shahada only serves to affirm that the killed was not an apostate but a true believer, that death showed him the truth which he could not comprehend in life. Sarmad did not hide his unconventional love anytime when he was alive.

In religion, o Sarmad, you have created a strange confusion,

As you have offered your faith to the intoxicating eyes (of the Beloved)

With all humility and politeness you approached

And offered all your gains to the idol-worshipper. (from Asiri 1950, No. 326)

Yet, in death, all those who have accepted him have morphed his life to suit their own sensibiities. For the conservative, his love for Abhai is the love of a father for his son (as per fakirs frequenting the shrine). Some prefer to align it more with conventional Sufi percepts where the God is loved as a lover. Hence, arch-conservatives like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad could navigate around his forbidden love through use of the following imagery - “Thatta was Sarmad’s Mount Sinai… it was a Hindu boy whose divine glance cast a spell over Sarmad.” (from Azad’s Urdu essay ‘Sarmad Shaheed’). For the self-professed liberal, he is a blazing symbol of same-sex love in medieval India while for some others, he is an emblem of diversity inherent to Indian people. Perhaps the most benign of all these assimilations is that of the lay devotee, who sublimely unaware of Sarmad's sexuality or politics, comes to his shrine with a simple hope of getting their wishes fulfilled.

In a history full of warrior Sufis, proselytizing Sufis, orthodox Sufis and Sufis who either waged Jihad themselves or invited foreign rulers to wage Jihad on al-Hind, Sarmad Kashani stands apart for being a mendicant who had little time for matters other than love. From all accounts, Abhai Chand remained a Hindu and Sarmad’s own verses were at times ambiguous as regards his own convictions.

O Sarmad! Thou hast won a great name in the world,

Since thou hast turned away from infidelity to Islam.

What wrong was there in God and His Prophet

That you hast become a disciple of Lacchman and Rama? (from Asiri 1950, No. 334)

Was Sarmad truly a saint? No, if we want proofs of miracles. His own prediction of Dara Shikoh’s victory was proven false and he tried to cover it up by proclaiming “God has given him eternal sovereignty and my promise is not falsified.”

But moving away from miracles, if we see conviction, absence of pretensions and renunciation as a proof of sainthood, then the mere fact that Sarmad Kashani remained steadfast to his beliefs even at the altar of death, makes him deserving for respect.

Among his last lines were:

There was an uproar and we opened our eyes from eternal sleep

Saw that the night of wickedness endured, so we slept again

The nakedness of the body was the dust of the road to the friend

That too was severed, with the sword, from our head

History is many a times a fantasy filled game of ‘what-ifs’. What if Dara Shikoh had won the war of succession? Would Sarmad then have enjoyed renown rivaling better known Sufis. Difficult to say, but unlikely. Sarmad was too much of a heterodox to be accepted whole-heartedly in any order.

In the words of American historian Waldemar Hansen, Sarmad is one of those profoundly disturbing mystics whom only the East could produce and perhaps only India could tolerate”

And toleration is far-far away from veneration.

The very reason why Sarmad’s story is fascinating is that it is one of its kind. Neither his philosophy, nor his acts and definitely not his life is a representation of Sufism in India. He should be studied, if for nothing, if only to confirm that India is indeed a land where even caricatures are real, where unbelievable gets believed in and where the impossible happens.

Reference: Sarmad: Life and Death of a Sufi by Natalia Prigarina (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russia).