Blast from the Past: An interview of Shri LK Advani

‘It is my faith in our past which has given me the strength to work in the present and to look forward to our future.’ KM Munshi, Union Food and Agriculture Minister, in his letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, on the latter’s reservations on restoration of the Somnath temple. 

Browsing through old records is in quite a lot of ways, humbling. Humbling because even the relatively well aware forget the spirits of the past. Humbling, because these records indicate that one time colossuses, intellectual or otherwise, sometimes become a poor replica of their past selves. 

Following is the reproduction of some extracts of an interview of Shri L K Advani, reproduced from G. Vazirani’s ‘Lal Advani: The Man and His Mission (New Delhi: Arnold Publishers, 1991). If nothing, this extract offers glimpses of the man’s convictions which made him a leader of his people. Quite a contrast it throws against the tentative and apologetic approach of many of our leaders today.

Q. What; according to the BJP, is the main issue in the coming elections (of 1991)? 

LKA. The main issue is going to revert back to the what was being talked about two months back. Mainly how can the unity of this country be preserved? What is nationalism? How do you ensure social harmony? Communal harmony? And in that context what is secularism? These issues have been there all along but have been sharply focused on as a result of Ayodhya. I view this not as an issue of Ayodhya, though at the level of the common man, the common voter, it will continue to be Ayodhya. I view it in this context. And this I believe is going to be the principle issue in this election.

Q. How do you square a purely religious ritual like temple building with the larger Hindutva concept?

LKA. I would like to answer this question by recalling Sardar Patel’s approach to Hindu-Muslim problems. His approach was that it is a broadly Hindu country and the tendency to shy away from Hindu feeling is not secularism. Take the case of Somnath, something like this could not have happened now. Some might say it was the aftermath of Partition and therefore it took place. I would say no. It was because of Patel. Nehru did not like it even then.

Q. How do you justify the BJP stand that the Rama Temple issue is a matter of faith?

LKA. There was that theft of the Prophet’s hair at the Hazrat Bal shrine in Srinagar. Now if someone explains that the relic has been stolen and the state must exert its entire energy to see that it is recovered, and someone counters: ‘Can you prove that this is the Prophet Mohammad’s hair?’ Would it be a right question? But I for one would say, that as my Muslim brethren believe that it is the hair of the Prophet, I respect their sentiments.

Similarly if crores of Hindus believe that it is the birthplace of Rama, I would expect the state as well as other sections of opinion in this country, especially the minorities, to respect that sentiment and say, ‘Well, if you believe that it is the birthplace of Rama, it is the birthplace of Rama, we are not asking you to prove this.’

Q. Isn’t upholding the cause of temple construction communal? What about the Muslims’ claim that it is the site of a mosque?

LKA. As for the Ayodhya site, for 54 years no one has offered namaz there. From 1949, 40 years now, regular poojas are going on. One should end the dispute on this. Moreover, the VHP has offered that, if you are attrached to the bricks and mortar, which you call a mosque, we are willing to reverently shift it to another site where you can construct another mosque, we would even contribute to its construction. It would be an amicable solution and settlement of the problem.

Q. How do you relate your demand for the construction of the Rama temple at Ayodhya to the larger issue of secularism? How do you propose to dispel the misgivings among the Muslims on this score?

LKA. I am fighting against the attitude of politicians and political parties that anything associated with Hinduism is communal, their allergy to it and their idea that if you cherish this allergy, only then your secular credentials are proved.

I have not made it a temple issue. I have made is an issue of secularism, of national unity. I am also trying to convert it into an issue pertaining to the welfare of the so-called minorities – that this is not their interest. These days Muslims meet me and say ‘humko jahan phasa diya. Humko pata bhi nahi tha ki hum wahan jaa bhi nahi sakte.’

And these political parties have done a singular disservice even to the reputation of the country by propagating that the Hindus have suddenly gone mad under the leadership of the BJP and they want to pull down a 500 year old mosque and build a temple in its place. If the facts were to be presented, the impression would be totally different. Hindus have not become fundamentalists. Not at all. It is a remarkable though happy fact that there are 35 mosques in Ayodhya apart from the controversial one. Not one of them was touched during these months of turmoil. Lakhs of people visited the place. All of them extremely devout and passionate. Not one of them was touched. Why is that no Muslims were killed in Ayodhya?  No riots took place in Ayodhya, Why?

It is our responsibility to see that the misgivings which have been deliberately created by our adversaries are removed. But at the same time, the efforts to remove those misgivings should not tend to make us apologetic and defensive about our basic beliefs. 

Q. What do you mean by positive secularism?

LKA. Positive secularism flows from our commitment to national unity which is an article of faith for us and not just a slogan to be converted into slick spots for TV. Our Constitution seeks to strengthen this unity by rejecting theocracy and by guaranteeing equality to all citizens, irrespective of their religion. These are the two principal facets of secularism as our Constitution makers conceived them, For most politicians in the country, however, secularism has become just a device for garnering block minority votes.

I wish the country’s political leadership; irrespective of party affiliations, could realize that the utterances and activities of some elements among the minorities are becoming increasingly aggressive and are ominously reminiscent of the pre-1947 years. These elements must be isolated, not propitiated. If these elements are allowed to grow, the consequences can be extremely dangerous for national integrity. Appeasement failed to avert partition. Appeasement is no way of combating the present threats to national unity. These threats have to be met head on, and squarely spiked. 

The BJP believes in Positive Secularism; the Congress-I and most other parties subscribe only to Vote Secularism. Positive Secularism means; justice for all but appeasement of none. In the ensuing elections, let this become the BJP’s distinctive message to the nation. 

Q. Why do you say that the courts cannot settle the dispute about the Ayodhya site? Why are you not prepared to abide by a judicial verdict?

LKA. My party has never said that we will not accept a court verdict. What we have said is that the nature of the controversy is such that a court verdict will not solve the problem. That is all that I say. Further, I say, let us understand that this present turmoil, the present acute controversy has itself arisen from court verdicts. It is not arisen because of any agitation as much as it has arisen out of court verdicts – tow court verdicts, one of 1951 and the second of 1986.

The 1951 case was Gopal Singh Visharad vs Zahoor Ahmed and others, and the court was that of the Faizabad Civil Judge. The Judge observed in this judgement of 3 March 1951 that, ‘At least from 1936 onwards, the Muslims have neither used the site as a mosque not offered prayers there and that the Hindus have been performing their pooja, etc.’ on the disputed site. And on that basis, he granted a temporary injunction, against removal of idols, though for considerations of low and order he said that locks should be imposed on the gates, the pooja should be done from a distance, people need not go inside, In 1986, the District Judge, Faizabad, referred to this 1951 order and directed that, ‘As for the last 35 years, Hindus have had an unrestricted right of worship at the place’, the locks put on two gates in 1951 on grounds of law and order should be removed. This is Civil Appeal No. 65/1986. It is after this appeal that suddenly the controversy became very acute, very bitter. Shortly after this, the Babri Masjid Action Committee was formed. 

Now the people are asking why are these locks there even after 40 years, why are we not allowed to have pooja without any hindrance, without any difficulty? I for one am of the view that if the Central Government had taken note of the problem that obtained in Prabhas Patan, a seaside plant in Gujarat in Surashtra, where at one time there was that Somnath Temple which was razed to the ground many times, destroyed many times, reconstructed many times, it would have been different.

Q. What is wrong in making a national monument of the Ayodhya site so that it will be neither a Hindu nor Muslim but will be purely of archeological interest?

LKA. A similar suggestion was made in the case of Somnath also. Many bureaucrats were unhappy over the decision of the Government to reconstruct the temple. The Department of Archeology itself suggested that the site at Prabhas Patan – where originally, there was the Somnath Temple and subsequently there was a graveyard – should be declared a .protected monument’. The then Home Minister, Sardar Patel, put it down in writing his reactions to the proposal. The Hindu sentiment in regard to this temple is both strong and widespread. In the present conditions, it is unlikely that this sentiment will be satisfied by mere restoration of the temple or by prolonging its life. The restoration of the idol would be a point of honour and sentiment for the Hindu public.

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Am planning to reproduce another interview, explaining why the acts of December 6, 1992 were a setback.

Unilateralism is not National Interest

Doing the same things again and again but expecting different results is a sure indication of madness.

The pending land swap deal with Bangladesh has taken a lot of space in newsprint and bytes. Most of these articles and op-eds refrain that it will be in the best interest of India to go-ahead with the land swap and that the opposition is putting sectarian interests over National interests.  On receiving end particularly is the Trinamul, which has been accused of constantly placing interests of West Bengal over interests of India, first when it torpedoed the Teesta water sharing treaty and now, when it has taken a stand against land swap. However, the accusers are probably not aware that such accusations in a way accept that the proposed treaties were not in the best interests of the State of West Bengal. Logically speaking, how could arrangements harmful for a state be beneficial for the Nation when it is states which comprise the Nation?

Another set of sage advice which our chattering classes have been offering pertain to our need to strengthen Nawaz Sharif and refrain from make a big issue of sundry killings of our soldiers. It is offered that while Sharif is keen on peace with India, the army establishment isn’t and hence is creating a situation where Indian reaction will force Sharif to adopt an anti-India stance. In the same breath, these worthies contend that it is the army which runs Pakistan and its nascent democracy rules only at the pleasure of the Army generals. If that be the case, then pray, what exactly will be gained by engaging with Sharif, a person not in control of his army’s actions?

A Nation displaying consistent behavior in its over 2500 years of chronicled history is not a commonplace occurrence. However, ethnographers have often commented on the amazing degree of continuity India has displayed over these centuries. In words of many, were it possible for people to travel across the dimension of time, an Indian villager of 500 B.C. would not have felt out of place in a 19^th century village. Why would he, when the mode of agriculture, allied occupation, festivals and the general way of life would hardly have undergone any change? Hence, given our natural tendency for status quo, it is not really surprising that India’s approach to its relations with neighbouring countries has been more or less consistent. There were aberrations though. Chandragupta Maurya, Kanishka, Chandragupta II, Alauddin Khilji and the British, all in varying degrees, followed policies which recognized that security of the heartland lies in fortifying its borders. Sadly, the cumulative impact of these regimes was not strong enough to bring about a change in the approach of other rulers. Overall, the approach of our rulers to our neighbours has been a mix of denial, disdain, fear and appeasement.

It must be said the Chinese cannot be accused of shortsightedness. Mao had seen the entire Himalayan region as ripe for China’s picking, with Tibet as the palm and Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and NEFA (Arunachal Pradesh), as its five fingers. And what has our approach been? India unilaterally and unequivocally gave up all its rights in Tibet and the result was a belligerent China entering our backyard. If Tibet had been the only foreign policy disaster bequeathed as legacy by our first Prime Minister, it could still have been explained away as a misstep. However, the same fantasy filled foreign policy saw India gift Manipur’s land to Burma without any reciprocity, failure to stand up for the rights of Tamils of Indian origin in Ceylon and the summary expulsion of Indians from Burma. In face of huge resistance from within the Congress and from the opposition, our first Prime Minster entered into a pact with Pakistan on protection of minorities in their respective Nations. Just how effective was this pact can be gauged from the large scale pogroms which East Pakistan unleashed on its hapless Hindu minority soon after this pact.

One could say that India found a resolute leader in Lal Bahadur Shastri when he took the war to the heart of Pakistan. However, Shastriji too succumbed to the very Indian trait of magnanimity and ended up frittering the gains of that war at Tashkent. Indira Gandhi proved that was a cut above most politicians when she took decisive action to create Bangladesh. However, it was the same Indira who gave away all the leverages at Simla. It was the same Indira who handed over a strategic island to Sri Lanka without any reciprocation. The iron lady gave wound up Shanti Bahini without any counter benefit from Bangladesh and proved ineffectual in protecting the interests of the Indian Diaspora in East Africa.  

One would have imagined that a Government headed by the hyper Nationalist BJP would have steered India’s foreign policy to a more pragmatic plane. Indeed, it did seem so when India detonated atomic bombs. However, the Nation soon realized that all the gains of the blasts were squandered away, first by a unilateral moratorium on further blasts and then by adoption of an ill-thought no first use policy. Fifteen years after the blasts, it will not be unfair to say that the only gainer from May 1998 was Pakistan. That Nation not only achieved a visible nuclear parity with India, today it has a larger and much more potent nuclear arsenal and more critically, a more reliable delivery system as compared to us. Some of us may take solace that our atomic and missile journey has been largely indigenous while Pakistan’s weapons are a bastard child sired by China and North Korea. But how does it matter on the battlefield? Pakistani weapons won’t decide to reduce their potency out of respect to our efforts. How effective are our weapons anyway when the blasts allegedly failed to meet all of their vitals and a no-first use policy is certain to allow a hostile Nation to decimate our seats of power before India is even ready to react?

Probably in his quest for a Peace Nobel, Vajpayee inflicted significant harm to our National interests. If surrendering our last leverage on Tibet was not enough, he created further openings for China in the hitherto uncontested region of Sikkim. It was the NDA Government which legitimized Musharraf’s coup when it invited him to Agra. Each abomination, be it the Kaluchak camp massacre or the Parliament attack, India was adamantly consistent in its efforts to engage with Pakistan. And who can forget the spectacle of the tortured, maimed bodies of16 BSF soldiers, hung on poles like carcasses of dead animals, paraded gleefully from village to village by bloodthirsty Bangladeshi mobs? Even in that year, it was an India friendly Awami League Government at helm of affairs at Bangladesh and India’s shamefully muted protests were explained away as being driven by the need to strengthen Sheikh Haseena’s hands in an election year.

As far as the need for having a land-swapping agreement with Bangladesh is concerned, it is a no-brainer. For more than half a century, residents of those enclaves have led virtually orphaned lives. With there being no practical way of connecting those enclaves with their respective Nations, it is best that those pieces of land be exchanged. But, like any other human transaction, International relations too cannot be unilateral and devoid of a quid pro quo. Bangladesh will gain land out of this agreement. Bangladesh will gain water out of the Teesta agreement. What will India gain, if we leave aside the nebulous talk of some goodwill with God knows who! Will India gain transit rights across Bangladesh or will it see firm action from that country in holding back those who infiltrate into India? Or at the very basic level, will it result in Bangaldesh handing over an equivalent portion of excess land to India?

This will not be for the first time that sundry voices have asked India to play the magnanimous big brother to a smaller Nation. However, past experiences indicate that none of our actions have resulted in any gains for India. Much was made of the need to transfer the Tis Bigha corridor to Bangladesh but what did India gain out of it? Likewise, the Tin Bigha transfer in early 1990s achieved little other than creating new Indian enclaves in Bangladesh. India signed a heavily biased Ganga water treaty with Bangladesh in the hope the hostile Begum Zia would become friendlier to us. What exactly did we gain out of that give-away?

It is a truism that a Nation ought to strive to maintain healthy relations with its neighbours. It is even truer that a rigid adherence to a singular approach cannot be effective. Our standard approach of engagement, even in the face of gravest indignities and unilateral appeasement is not going to secure our neighbourhood. For too long has the Nation been held hostage to an unrealistic make believe world of low-impact diplomacy. Let our policy makers go back in ages and recognize the genius of Chankaya. Let them adopt the principle of managing our neighbours through a judicious mix of Saam, Daam, Danda and Bheda.

A Quisling too many

Among the many reasons why we study history, one is the wisdom we are supposed to gain, so that errors committed in the past do not get repeated.

This belief seems little grounded on facts when we see people indulging in those precise behaviors which facilitated occurrences of tragedies in the yore.

At one level, we have a situation where profligate governance and red tapism has brought the country back to the economic brink of 1991. Then, as we see now, the leadership was engaged in platitudes and character assassination of political opponents rather than on governance, all while being deeply committed the failed & discredited socialist model of economy.

While the economic ills plaguing the nation are certainly debilitating, concerted policy and decision making can still salvage the situation. What is more serious and will certainly have a much longer terms implication are political acts, at times committed by the righteous but most of the time, guided by those intending to serve narrow self interest.
 

Our Nation has had more than its fair share of quislings. If the Nation saw Ambhi helping the Greeks over 2400 years back, a more devastating help was offered by Jaichand of Kannuaj in the second millennium. If Chittor was laid to dust by the covert helping of Raghav Chetan to Alauddin, Ranthambhore was sacked not by the Sultan, but by the mechanisms of Bhoj Deva. And anyway, it was Shah Waliullah, who had invited the Emir of Afghanistan to restore India to its pristine Islamic glory! If one were to think that such seditious acts were limited to people looking for personal political glory, one would be mistaken. KM Munshi chronicles in his work, Jai Somnath, the travails of Shivrashi, an ordained Shaivaite priest, who guided Mahmud Ghazni to the weak defences to the temple city, helping him wreak devastation on the Hindu psyche. Shivrashi was not guided by personal glory. He believed that the head priest and the king had lost moral authority to officiate and hence wanted them removed to restore Dharma!

Sadly for our Nation, the long, very long list of people who helped invaders and bloodthirsty maniacs is still getting added to. At a more organizational level, first we had the Communists and now the Maoists who look to USSR/China as the model state and wish to turn India into a vassal again. We have continued to have organized groups of separatists operating from foreign sanctuaries, seeking to help destroy India with foreign help. To cap it all, we have always had motley individuals; self declared one-person nations, who in their insatiable hunger for attention, go around making incredulous claims against the Indian people.

What has changed over the last few years is that sustained Institutional support to such individuals/institutions is now being offered by the Indian state itself. The spectacle of ‘activists’ holding seminars and conferences on foreign lands, holding seminars in India but getting people with pronounced anti India/anti Hindu leanings to harangue on their pet hates and petitioning foreign bodies with a long list of imagined grievances, is to put it mildly, dangerous. What can the attempt to get foreign judicial bodies intervene in Indian issues be called, if not seditious? Unless legal credulity is stretched to the extremes, how can acts committed by foreign individuals, in foreign lands and on foreign people be tried in some other country?

There are groups which are trying to get indictments against sundry Sikh politicians and of course, the pet hate of the so called liberal sects of India in the UK, USA and Canada. Just imagine a situation where some court does proclaim some Indian leader a proclaimed offender and issues warrants for his/her arrests? Will police of that Nation land up in India (with permission of the Indian Government) or will that Nation conduct an Abbottabad like expedition. In case the said Nation desist from taking up such ambitious acts, will it proceed to issue a red corner Interpol notices against the ‘offender’?

For those who would be ecstatic with glee at such an event befalling their pet ogre, let that glee be tempered with the awareness that at the receiving end, may not be their hates alone. Only a couple of years back, a US Court upheld the rights of Narain Kataria and a few others to continue their libelous and distasteful campaign against Sonia Gandhi in the USA. What if some people file a case in some court, either in USA or UK or even in Nepal or Mauritius against some worthies on grounds of massive corruption or on restriction of right to practice and propagate their Hindu religion? If this sounds fanciful, what about a scenario where some Mirpuri files a case against the Indian Defence established on some ground of Human Rights violation in Kashmir. While some ‘liberals’ may find such event warming cockles of their hearts, will the Indian establishment respond with equal glee?

How will that impact India? Extension of legal jurisdiction to India would automatically mean that India is not Sovereign Nation. Without much ado, our Nation would have lost a short lived independence and come back under foreign yoke.

Political faultlines run deep in the most advanced of democracies. The visceral hatred of the Democrats against George Bush did not result in senior Democrats berating Bush in foreign lands, condemning him in Op-Eds in foreign publications, even as exalted as the Times of India or pontificating on NDTV/IBN Live on why Bush was evil personified.

For all the pretence of a disdain for the West, our people still fall over each other to gain acceptance as a ‘progressive’ in the western sense. While the so called liberal otherwise sees the USA is as an emblem of the worst model of a capitalist and hegemonic state, a singular act of this country denying visa to their pet hate, makes the ‘liberal’ become a ‘visa-denial-thumper’.

Just what were those 65 MPs (incidentally 64 as MA Jinnah has signed both as a Lok Sabha and a Rajya Sabha member) trying to achieve? A curtain raiser to their lurking request to ‘righteous’ Nations to march into India, if horrors of horrors, their pet hate does becomes the Prime Minister of India?

The Road Much Travelled

It is not very often that communal riots, particularly which see the number of dead running into single digits, get raised in the parliament. At the same time, it is also not often that a local skirmish in a single village sparks off chain events in nine adjoining districts of the region. While it is sad that Jammu had to yet again undergo the cataclysm of riots, the only very thin silver lining in this otherwise dark cloud is a hitherto unseen appreciation of the fact that communal fault-lines in Jammu are strong enough to tear the region asunder.

For a very long time, the general public have been made to believe by the Government and the media that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is a non sectarian land and that a common thread of Kashmiriyat, seeded and nurtured by generations of Sufism, had made those citizens truly secular. So far as the secessionist movement is concerned, it has been painted as the result of disillusionment of the youth, a feeling which was completely independent of the religious identity of people demanding azadi.

If the contemptuous assertions that the Kashmiri Pandit migrated en masse of his free will and in connivance with the evil Jagmohan were not enough, we have been fed stories on how the Amarnath Yatra and the Kheer Bhavani fairs are supported by the local Muslims, the economic benefits being purely an irrelevant afterthought.

While the above tales were probably meant to control Hindu retaliation elsewhere, the general belief in the rarefield public decision making offices, which is supposed to be aware of ground realities, that the entire secessionist movement was restricted to the Kashmir Valley alone and that the general population of Jammu and Ladakh were absolutely pro-India, belies credulity.

This commentator may be accused of generalizing stray observations and presenting it as applicable for the entire region. However, when that generalization is seemingly proved by sequential events and evidence to the contrary seems absent, the hypothesis stands validated. Those interested in more details may refer to the post ‘Oh Kashmir’

It was only a few weeks back that Ramban was hit by skirmishes, instigated by a local Imam maliciously claiming that a copy of the Quran had been desecrated. The initial disturbances were only a precursor to riotous mobs chanting Azadi slogans taking over the town. Now, we have the spectacle of Azadi demanding mobs taking over Kishtwar and other Muslim majority areas of Jammu.

The reality was and still remains that other than the two and a half undivided districts of the Jammu region and the Leh district of Ladakh, the rest of the state of Jammu & Kashmir identifies itself as a body united in its desire for Azadi. This independence is not independence for political ends. Few even in J&K are unaware that residents of Pakistani occupied portions of the State have received a much worse deal compared to them. Hence, the demand for azadi is merely the yearning to fulfill the unfinished agenda of partition, which is securing a land of the pure, made even more pristine by the absence of those who do not follow the doctrine of the ‘pure’.

Communal riots in J&K are not a new phenomenon. The 1931 skirmish which resulted in cold blooded killing of 31 Muslims by the Dogra troops resulted in an uprising which immediately morphed into large scale attacks on Hindu lives and properties across all regions of the State. In 1947-48, it was not the Pakistani troops and Tribal invaders alone who targeted the Hindu population across areas which are called POK today. Perhaps only a few care to remember that not only did the towns of Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Gilgit and Skardu have large Hindu populations, the countryside, right upto Gilgit had significant pockets of Hindu presence. Just a few weeks of mayhem and the entire POK was cleansed of non-Muslim presence.

The more informed amongst us, particularly of the liberal variety, justifiably condemn the disgraceful conduct of Dogra troops when they, by their inaction, became party to massacre of Muslims in some Hindu majority areas of Jammu. However, what many forget is that overall; the conduct of the Muslim Police in Jammu was all the more reprehensible as it was an active participant in the massacre of Hindus, particularly in areas of mixed population. Unlike what many would now like us to believe, the mayhem in Indian areas of Jammu were plain communal riots in which there were a large number of casualties from both the communities.

The events of 1947-48 were not isolated in nature. Riots have recurred with nauseating frequency in the districts of Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar. True, the casualties were never as high as those in many other parts of the country but unlike those riots, the design behind communal unrest in J&K has always been more sinister. On a very statistical level, the absence of a large number of dead does not necessarily denote that the riots were minor, particularly when the number of dead is juxtaposed against the small populations of these districts. The Kashmiri Pandit community too faced around a thousand direct killings in the last few years leading to their forced exodus. The relatively small number against the supposed much larger number of Muslim casualties are sought to be presented as proofs that the terrorist movement in J&K is non-sectarian in nature. However, this half truth cleverly glosses over the fact that the thousand odd dead belonged to a small minority of some three lakhs, who overall comprised only some five percent of the Valley’s population. In effect it meant that almost each extended family was directly impacted by the terrorist activity – in form of a dead cousin, uncle, nephew or in-laws.

The forced exile of Kashmiri Pandits was not an overnight event. Disempowered and discriminated against by the rulers, target of frequent riots, the targeted brutal public killings of 1989, threat letters and public warnings from mosques, the Kashmiri Hindu took recourse to the only option he had. He left, perhaps never to return, the land of his forefathers with only his life and barest of necessities as his possessions. The residual Hindu community, holed up in villages continued to be the target of both the terrorists and the locals alike and today, barely three thousand Hindus survive, if it can be called such, in the Valley.

In this land of the pure, Anantnag and Verinag of 1986 are history and will never be repeated. After all, one needs an adversary to riot against. Still, the Valley is not tranquil. Each summer, the Valley denizens manage to find some issue to rally around and vent their hatred for India. Be it Shopian, Amarnath Land Transfer, Summer of 2010, hanging of Afzal Guru or simply alleged army high-handedness, each demonstration becomes the excuse for vandalizing of a few more temples and beating up of the residual Hindus and migrant labour population in the Valley.

Some amongst us might remember that the in the immediate afterglow of success of their ethnic cleansing strategy in Kashmir, the terrorists had tried to replicate the same formulae of targeted killings and public warnings in the undivided Doda district of Jammu. A series of massacres, specifically targeting the minority Hindu community, raised the specter of yet another forced exodus in the State. Fortunately for the country, at helm was a Prime Minister, who believed in securing his countrymen. It was PV Narasimha Rao who was instrumental in creating the Village Defence Committees, which managed to secure the Doda district against the nefarious designs of the terrorists.

This bulwark against the secessionist movement and indeed the safeguard against yet another forced exile of the Hindu minority is obviously not palatable to the secessionist forces of the State. While the likes of Geelani and Yasin Malik have long called for disbanding of these committees, now the Chief Minister of the State has joined their ranks. That this demand does not arise from some intellectual conviction is starkly obvious when we realize that this worthy does not appear to know that February in a non-leap year has only 28 days! Be it the demand for revocation of the AFSPA or the pre-1953 autonomy for the state, there appears little difference in between the political and secessionist belief systems in the Valley. With a Central Government indifferent to their plight, it will not be long before the hapless Hindu minority of the Muslim majority districts of Jammu gets overwhelmed and is forced to share the fate of their co-religionists from across the Pir Panjal.

Not only should the Village Defence Committees not be disbanded, for the very simple reason that the secessionist movement is still on, it is imperative that the artificial state of Jammu & Kashmir, an agglomeration of disparate people and geographical entities, brought together only by the expansionist zeal of the Dogra Kings, be restored to its natural boundaries. Not only will a trifurcation of the State on geographical lines secure the Hindu and Buddhist minorities of Jammu and Ladakh, drawing of new borders and a new political establishment will ensure that secessionist sympathies in the new states are crushed comprehensively.

It is likely that any move to trifurcate the state will face resistance from the secessionists as the dominant view in those circles seem to center around allowing only the heavily Hindu majority districts of Udhampur, Reasi and Kathua to separate from the State. The National Conference, it its controversial report on Regional Autonomy, which suspiciously mirrored the recommendations of the ISI backed Kashmir Study Group, has sought division of the Jammu & Ladakh regions on communal lines. The Muslim majority districts of Jammu and Ladakh have been positioned as the Pir Panjal & Chenab and the Kargil divisions respectively.  Such arguments cannot be accepted as none of the Indian States with mixed majorities saw such granular partition. Had that been the case, Thar Parkar and Umerkote districts of Sindh and Chittagong from East Bengal would have been ceded to India. The trifurcation of J&K has to be on geographical lines alone, to protect the land and its people from an otherwise certain descent into chaos. The need of the hour is not some high sounding politically correct pontification but firm actions to secure large sections of our Nation from its adversaries.

A Legend of Ganga

The River Ganga is exalted as someone who provides salvation to even those who are utterly unfit. The Padma Puran tells us that while sons may abandon their parents, wives their husbands and friends, their dearest friends, the Ganga abandons no one. A legend associated with Pandit Jagannatha stands as a testimony to this all embracing nature of the River.

Jagannatha, a Brahmin from the 17^th century was declared an outcaste on account of his love affair with a Muslim woman. So, the Pandit went to Varanasi to try and restore his status as a Brahmin. However, shunned by all and devoid of all hope of acceptance, Jagannatha sat atop the Panchganga Ghat alongwith his beloved and composed an ode to the River Goddess. Poetically, his composition had 53 verses to correspond to the 52 steps of the Ghat and the stepping ground

The poetry begins

You were sent for the salvation of the world by Shiva, Lord of Lords….

It continues

I come to you as a child to his mother

I come as an orphan to you, moist with love

I come without refuge to you, giver of sacred rest

I come a fallen man to you, uplifter of all

I come undone by disease to you, the perfect physician

I come, my heart, dry with thirst, to you, ocean of sweet nectar

Do with me whatever you will

It concludes

Take us into your embrace for ever for Moksha sublime bliss for ever

The legend says that as Pandit Jagannath composed his 53 verses of Ganga Lahari, the river rose step by step. At the penultimate hymn, the waters touched the feet of the poet and his beloved and at the last verse, purified them, embraced them, and carried them away.

The River is the Mother who loves and claims the child who has been rejected even by the outcastes, criticized even by the madmen and rejected by the other tirthas. There are plenty who care for the good, but who cares for the Sinner except for the one who has only Love in her heart.

The entire Ganga Lahri can be accessed here

Adopted from: India, A sacred Geography by Diana L Eck

The Tragedy of Devbhoomi

For someone who was fortunate to have had safe darshan at the four holy sites only weeks earlier, the tragedy of Uttarkhand seems a little bit more personal. The scenes of devastation unfolding on TV screens and gut wrenching tales of survivors make the eight days spent on criss-crossing Devbhoomi seem so surreal now. 

It is heartwarming that though the Central Government has refused to declare this tragedy a National Disaster, the common citizens of our Nation have displayed no such hesitation and are coming together to help the victims. At the same time, the near absence of the ‘local’ factor in the prevailing discourse raises disturbing questions. Very certainly, the presence of pilgrims from across the country made the tragedy seem closer to people from other states. Surely, each one of us prayed for the safe evacuation of hapless pilgrims stuck without food and water at various stretches of the pilgrimage route and cheered boisterously as the television beamed images of the Indian Army evacuating the victims heroically.

But why has our concern not extended to the residents of these lands – the ponywallah who made the trek at Kedarnath possible, the pitthoo from Nepal who carried the infirm on his back and those dandies who transported people in maximum comfort. Why is there little attention to fate of those dhabawallahs, those hotel staff who lined up the roads and those residents of those villages which dotted the mountainside? The pilgrims lost a lot and many will probably remain scarred for life. But that should not have, in any way, eclipsed sufferings of the Uttarakhandi from public images. Many villagers lost everything – their material possessions and even more tragically, their bread-earners who got swept away by those swirling masses of angry waters, mud and rocks. The pilgrims did not deserve to suffer and neither did the local residents deserve to get pushed to corners of our consciousness. What is the update on those thousands of local residents present at Gaurikund, Rambara and Kedarnath. What about those present in Pithoragarh, at Gangotri, at Badrinath and those numerous other villages and towns which dot the devastated landscape? They seem to figure neither in the list of the dead nor the list of rescued. Surely, they couldn’t have vanished overnight!

As with any tragedy, questions on ‘could this have been averted’ started reverberating soon after the devastation had stuck. At one end, we have the rulers claiming that the devastation could not have been averted and at the other, the group of environmentalists pinning the blame on unplanned ‘development’. Sadly, lack of sensitivity seems to bind both these stands – the rulers stand indicating brazen disregard for common sense and the environmentalists ‘I told you so’ stance being a little too smug to be palatable.

And yes, it is true that motor cars clog the highways and leave behind a trail of empty chips packs, pet bottles and general refuse. However, it is truer that any attempt to clamp down the number of pilgrims the way many environmentalists are suggesting, will not impact those who dirty the hills. The well off will still come – for their share of darshan and if nothing else, for fun. What it will certainly impact is that multitude from all parts of the country which saves for years for the yatra, that which performs arduous trek on foot simply because it cannot afford a pony and sleeps in buses for it cannot afford hotels.

While it may not be possible to prevent natural calamities, it is certainly possible to plan for mitigation and even more critically, adhere to norms which will minimize casualties. One does not need to be an engineer to realize that structures constructed on pillars and platforms reclaimed from mountainsides and overhanging river banks are fragile and prone to collapsing. Likewise, any person concluding that the cumulative impact of kilometers of tunneling across mountains could lead to loosening of rocks and soil would only be someone with common sense and not an Einstein. Certainly, human activity has contributed to the disaster. It was not many months back that flash floods had hit Uttarkashi or when cloudburst had damaged Rudraprayag. The damage was high then and has multiplied exponentially now. Sadly again, no lessons will be learnt. Across the country, the burgeoning growth of cities and towns has made them sitting ducks for disaster. Our own capital city has seen court sanctioned encroachment of the Yamuna floodplains while Rajarhat has come up choking the water outlets of Kolkata. Who will be to blame if God forbid, these cities get flooded as a result of a deluge?

That said, the story of Uttarakhand cannot be dismissed as a tragedy compounded by human greed. The region is desperately poor and the images of young kids hauling fodder over long distances and running dangerously after speeding cars asking for 1 rupee are nothing if not a testimony to the financial state of the people. Concern for environment pales into insignificance if the trade off is a decent human existence. The Char Dham Yatra presented the only opportunity for many locals to make their earnings for the year. The burgeoning of hotels, rest houses, dhabas only indicate existence of demand and where demand exists, the human brain devises ingenious means to meet it. Add personal need to human ingenuity and you have a situation where people will find ways to disregard governmental norms.

It is more than likely that the current tragedy of Uttarakhand is being seen as a god-send by those who blast mountains, dam rivers back to back and create rickety buildings on fragile mountain scopes. After all, a relief and rehabilitation effort in India presents immense opportunity of both rent-seeking and legal business profits. Is it any wonder that Indians love a good calamity?