Saswat Blog
All that's Left!
Ahmadinejad, Bollinger, Holocaust: the Great American Hypocrisy
By Saswat Pattanayak
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University was arguably the most important step taken by a world leader to initiate the global peace that is so much needed in the clearly terrorized world we live in.
Ahmadinejad is a leader of significant importance—chief of a major country and representative of a major world religion-- who was humble enough to accept a university invitation, and tolerant enough to appear in front of the most hostile audience that any academic institute in the world could feel ashamed of. And despite the odds, he was clearly on a mission: to promote the spirit of peace and open the road to desirable dialogue.
So, how was he received at the Land of the Free? First, the New York City Mayor displayed his level of arrogance by refusing Ahmadinejad a visit to 9/11 memorial site. Second, the Columbia University President exhibited unparalleled level of ignorance by verbally abusing the Iranian President. Third, the American President bathed in his self glory by refusing to entertain any possibility of any urgent dialogue.
Columbia: Elite University, Elitist Mindsets:
Columbia University characterized the drama usually associated with the great American Hypocrisy that has led to several wars and ideological confrontations during past many decades. One important way in which the First World countries have justified their position as regards to Freedom of Speech is by boasting about it. To prove that America allows freedom of speech, American administration needs to allow a certain amount of dissent to take place. Both the dissent and the freedom then have to be televised appropriately. Finally, the melodramatic confrontations are then needed to be compared with the economically subjugated world so as to prove an innate superiority in the methods of the free world.
In Ahmadinejad’s visit, all the above aspects were clearly evident. First, he was invited by Columbia University as the speaker. He was invited despite vehement protests from various student groups. This proved the spirit of tolerance that American democracy boasts of. However, critically deconstructing such an obvious reflection, one would fathom that the real reason why he was invited was not so much as “despite”, as was “because” of the protests from various groups of people. He was invited to speak on campus, because of the amount of controversy it would generate. And clearly, Columbia University did not do anything to stop the protests. Indeed, it advertised on its website additional permissions to student groups to create the noise and requested the community to bear with the protests which would continue for the entire day. Such vehement noisy protests where anyone could attribute any ghastly name to another country’s chief showcased a circus that was well planned and organized. Students and other social groups were not protesting against Columbia University (which they could have legitimately done by asking people to boycott a visit to the campus), rather they were enjoying the centrestage of press attention by using placards that could allow them to equate Ahmadinejad with Hitler and use any amount of vulgar slangs to denounce Iranian politics. In a country where peace marchers including octogenarian peacenik grandmothers are imprisoned because of silent protests, the rowdy behaviors from various “free speech” and student groups in front of a university was in fact encouraged.
Why was Ahmadinejad invited to the campus if the university was well aware that there would be thousands of people on the streets to protest? It was because the university was not afraid that they will lose reputation. It was not because the university was going to be boycotted. Not because students who resent Ahmadinejad were going to dissuade potential applicants from joining the campus. After all, a university which invites a “Hitler” naturally was going to be branded as anti-semite and was going to get bad press, and was going to be mocked at. The university was going to lose its own face by inviting someone whom many people on campus considered or even studied as a dictator.
Then why did the Columbia University invite someone as a chief guest who was so deeply hated by many in the campus community? In fact, Ahmadinejad was unique because he was (and continues to be) hated by both conservatives and liberals alike. Even several Free Speech coalitions did not have kind words for him. None of the politically correct historians had good thoughts about him. None of the civil rights organizations thought Ahmadinejad should be tolerated.
Lee Bollinger’s speech answered why: Calling the Iranian President “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated”, even before allowing him an audience, the Columbia University professor proved the invitation was premeditated to be insulting. “You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” Bollinger called Ahmadinejad. It was with the sole purpose of insulting the Iranian head that Ahmadinejad was invited to speak. The spirit of sheer hatred continued as stealth mockery found resonance throughout Bollinger’s long introduction.
Lee Bollinger who in the mask of being a free speech advocate (Michigan Affirmative Action champion) went all the way to demonstrate how utterly vulgar and autocratic he could be. A proclaimed “free-speech” advocate, Bollinger not only did not feel sorry about Ahmadinejad not being granted the freedom to visit 9/11 site, but he went one step further. Even before Ahmadinejad could speak on his “defense”, the Columbian professor went on verbally attacking the Iranian head as befitting a liar, idiot, rogue and conman.
Bollinger said a number of Columbian graduates were the brave fighters serving the American troop in Iraq. That was spoken in order to praise the American war against the Iraqi people! He asked Iranian President on their behalf why “Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq killing US troops”. Whether it is a proxy war that Iran is fighting in Iraq is a matter of dispute. What, however has been true is that the US fought an unjust war in Iraq and American troops caused much military misconduct that have been quite extensively recorded in recent past. What the Columbia University President should have done was to apologize on behalf of the infamous troop that has caused much distress to the world citizenry by its brazen inhuman treatment of peaceful civilians. Even after prison tortures, and civilian rapes committed by American troops (yes the same “brave” Columbian graduates as cohorts), the highly educated and informed professor proved his agenda of falsehoods and pretensions time and again.
Bollinger continued with his series of malicious attacks that were not evidenced nor called for. He brought to the fore the issue of Iran’s nuclear deal, which suggested his lack of awareness about the matter. Contrary to his accusations against Iran as a country working to create an unsafe world, the UN’s agency (International Atomic Energy Agency) has been in close collaboration with Iran and has found no such threats as being decried by the professor. Inviting a guest, and accusing him and the country he leads in highly derogatory terms and verbally abusing him as insane and unintelligent without even having evidence or knowledge to back up marked the genius of Bollinger. Who does Bollinger quote to support his opinions? French president Sarkozy – a right wing conservative—who apparently has lost patience (according to Bollinger) with Iran. Did such trivial information make sense in an introductory speech provided to “welcome” an international guest?
Bollinger then asked Ahmadinejad, “Why have you made the people of your country vulnerable to sanctions?” If Bollinger had any sense of empathy or understanding, he could have instead asked why do the first world powers foster vulnerable conditions for Iranian civilians. In an unsurpassed level of academic elitism that should ideally call for much loath and disgrace, Professor Bollinger outdid his sense of self-glorification by finally challenging the head of state of Iran to respond to his speech: “Let me close with a comment. Frankly and in all candor, Mr President, I doubt you have the intellectual courage to answer these questions but your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do…I am only a professor who is also a university president, but today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion of what you stand for. I only wish I could do better.”
A huge section of Columbia University audience cheered and clapped to their president’s hate speech and waited gleefully for Ahmadinejad to fail the test. In contrast to the obviously arrogant speech of Bollinger, Ahmadinejad’s talk was pensive, thoughtful, full of insights. Ahmadinejad asserted that he was still an instructor at a university and as an instructor he strived for the whole truth. Apart from the questionable religious wisdom and denial of homosexuality in Iran, Ahmadinejad’s speech was more than an answer to Bollinger’s outlandish accusations. Yes, he did not answer anything “straight”, despite pleading from the university for him to answer in “yes” or “no”. But that was more due to the fact that Islam logic is not necessarily as vertically dismissive as Christian expectations. In every sentence that Ahmadinejad spoke, there was humility, a touch of candor and empathetic understanding. In every sentiment of Ahmadinejad, there was a prayer for collaboration, a hope for global peace, a step towards mutual dialogue. In every answer of Ahmadinejad to the Q/A session, there was an assertion of a world leader who was humble enough to raise historical lessons, and of an educated non-elite who was unafraid to research.
Ahmadinejad was forced to revisit his stance on Holocaust. Clearly he had not come to the US to speak about his views on historical revisionism, but to extend a hand of friendship for future peace pacts. Even at that stage he said he was not a Holocaust denier, what he wanted instead was further research into the area of history that has led the world to prepare for the largest unrest in recent times. Palestine did not fight World War II. Europe did. And why are the Palestinians facing the crisis still? Not an easy answer to this question, and Ahmadinejad sought for further research into this aspect. Talking about the halt in Iranian progress, he dwelt on the root cause of the unrest and insecurity. Why was Iran under sanction? Why did the first world powers withdraw unilaterally after assuring nuclear energy support to Iran? Why should there be limitations imposed on Iran’s scientific endeavors especially when IAEA has not found any problem with Iran’s peaceful nuclear program?
Moreover, Ahmadinejad did not just ask questions that were uncalled for. He offered agreements. Despite the insults and abuses and threats outside the campus building that were encouraged by the university officials, he invited American students to visit Iran, attend the universities and speak with civilians. Whether he would agree to hold a dialogue with the White House regarding resolution of US-Iran disputes? Of course, anytime! Ahmadinejad requested for a peaceful dialogue. “Everything can be resolved over talks. We need to talk”.
White House ignored Ahmadinejad during the rest of his stay. Ahmadinejad even called for a meeting of religious leaders to initiate global peace talks and succeeded. Around 140 religious leaders attended the meeting in New York, with the sole exception of any Jewish leader who refused to attend.
On the Homosexuality Question:
I waited for a few days to study media response to such an uncivilized treatment meted out to a state’s head. The American corporate media of course bathing in its biased glories preferred to maintain the line adopted by Columbia University and at their best, tried to provide a “balanced” perspective to the issue that clearly called for critical intellectual intervention.
Most reports mocked at the ignorance of Ahmadinejad when it came to issue of homosexuality. They chose to play moral pundits while not mentioning how America treats its own LGBT community. The fact that the US has consistently failed to provide for basic human rights to homosexual population even after acknowledging their presence in every sphere in social life here is clearly amiss from all reports that attacked Iran’s condition. “Mr President, in your country, homosexuals are treated in this and that way” has been a standard line of both the Columbia University president and our enlightened western press. Not for once did the educated pause awhile to review the fact that not so long ago American Psychology Association (APA), the famed master of all things research, used to consider homosexuality as an abnormality. And even to this date, the major state religion whose dictums appear on the courtroom walls and classroom prayers has been the single biggest enemy to the cause of the LGBT community.
On the Holocaust Question:
Most amount of time devoted by the university professor in his speech and later on by the university during Q/A session, and by media reports before, during and after the visit of Ahmadinejad focused on the alleged “holocaust denial” of the Iranian head. It has been accused severally that he is an Anti-Semite, like most of anyone we know in the recent history who has challenged the Holocaust issue from different perspectives.
Even as we have succeeded in challenging the legacy of Columbus and George Washington, the only and perhaps the largest event of significance has remained beyond recent review. Bollinger, the academician said there was absolutely no need to do any further research on Holocaust while Ahmadinejad said to presume that research on a topic is already exhausted is to underestimate the power of knowledge itself.
The wisdom which Ahmadinejad brought to the conference hall of the New York based university was clearly demolished to pieces with overriding imposition that calling for research into Holocaust amounts to challenging the truth itself.
The fallacious logic applied by the dominant historical thread about Holocaust is clearly evident in the manner in which they are unwilling to entertain any slightest of suggestions that can be introduced to enrich our collective historical knowledge.
If the leading academicians of the western world are so vehement in their resistance to any further research into one specific historical event, then commonsense implies there is something wrong somewhere. Personally, for me, to deny Holocaust is a crime by itself, and I am sure Ahmadinejad has not committed that crime. However it is equally a crime if we refuse to allow any more research on a historical process that changed the geographical face of the planet. Like Ahmadinejad said, we need to conduct research into every possible field in the world. We do not know whether our beliefs will be restored or quashed. The motive behind conducting a research is not to prove one or the other side. The motive of conducting a research has been to excavate further truths that may or may not unsettle previously known knowledge. On the day of his speech, Professor Ahmadinejad had not forgotten the basics of research methods. Professor Bollinger, had clearly forgotten that. And in all earnest observation, Bollinger behaved every bit unlike a student, unlike a teacher. Where is the zeal to conceal truth coming from? What legacy does Holocaust hold?
This is a crucial question of our times. Let me state that each human being of this planet has a stake in this question and each of us have a moral responsibility to respect the multiple truths that emerge from the researches done, and researches awaiting to be done. Neither the professor at Columbia holds the key to a sole truth, nor the head of Israel, Iran or United States.
If fact be told as has been chronicled by every historian of our age, the truth is the people who are steadfastly holding onto the Holocaust theory are probably the ones to have distorted the truth. That is why we need further research into the field. If truth be told, the truth is the mainstream history by denouncing Stalin and Soviet Communism and trumpeting the capitalistic cause of the age have in fact automatically joined the world of holocaust deniers.
The fact is it was the Red Army which for the first time in the world discovered the Auschwitz camps that led to an understanding of the Holocaust. The fact is when Stalin’s administration tried to send out this message to the first world for it to react, none of the western countries came forward either to help the Red Army or the victims of Hitler’s camps as was required. Quite the contrary, as has been well-evidenced, the truth is Western Europe and America were foremost in denying access to the victims of the Nazi camps.
The truth is when the Vatican learned of the secret chambers, it refused to act against the Nazi powers because the Communists had helped release the victims and for the church, communism as a political theory was more dangerous than Nazism was. The truth is Hitler’s army was heavily funded and in fact sustained by most of the leading business empires of America and Europe that continue to amass wealth and do great businesses worldwide. The capitalists during that time were aiding Hitler because for them badmouthing communism was more important than saving the lives of people who were victims of Hitler’s camps. The truth is those corporations today own most of the media business, most automobile industries. Both Ford and General Motors were aiding the Nazis then, and they are as household names in American families even now.
The truth is that the actual Holocaust deniers are those that have been hesitating to give due credits to Stalin and Red Army for their role in letting the world know about the secret chambers, by saving the lives of the remaining survivors, and by revealing the actual number of Nazi massacres to the world.
The truth is the Red Army, the only brave people who fought Hitler to his death, had put the number of dead as 4 million. This is the statistics that remained the only official figure for more than four decades. There was no question of anyone denying Hitler’s concentration camps. Of these 4 million, overwhelming majority of people were communists and communist sympathizers and fellow travelers. Hitler’s main ire—aided by his western capitalistic sponsors and the church—was against the consolidation of communism in the world. The world embracing communistic philosophy that aimed at redistributing private properties for social good was the biggest threat to the Fascist and Nazi forces that ruled the minds and hearts of rulers of every western imperial power then. Recently the formerly classified British intelligence reports have proven how the UK was a partner in crime with the Nazi forces in imprisoning, torturing and murdering communists during the WW II period. Countless American reports have suggested that the apparent threats of McCarthy seemed like a joke when compared to the actual CIA interventions in the lives of the progressives in the world. Anti-communism was the biggest single weapon that was used by Hitler then and continued till Reagan later. Interestingly, between the both, the fact is the same companies financed their respective empires wholeheartedly for them to rise and shine in power ladders.
However, to erase the fact that Communists were the actual victims of Nazi camps, the attempts on part of conservative religious groups finally led to the revision of the 4 million figure. The revisionist conservative historians conveniently “denied” the camps and its death toll and revised the number from 4 million to a little over 1 million. And the revisionists claimed that the number was much less that 4 million because 1 million of them were the Jews that were killed.
Much before Ahmadinejad proposed for a revision, it was Dr. Franciszek Piper who did revisionist research into the number of prison camps, and his research erased more than 3 million people from the total number. And the Poland’s museum which for four decades mentioned 4 million as the number of people killed by the Nazis was forced to revise the number to 1.1 million because of the revisionist historians.
The sole purpose of reducing the number was to discredit the Soviet role in combating Hitler, and to erase the historical truth about the majority of those who were killed. The majority from 4 million were actually murdered because of political reasons, and if research is led in this direction to actually demonstrate the way the Nazi-Capitalism-Church combine led their ugly war against the communists of that era, much academic curiosities will end up perhaps in suggesting the need for further research into this area of history.
Israel was built on the legacy of Holocaust. Soviet Union was disintegrated on the legacy of Communism, and the Third World was ravaged on the legacy of anti-imperialism. This is our history. We must demand to know why the 3 million victims of Nazi Capitalism were forgotten from the history. We must demand to know why the millions of Red Army soldiers were eminently discredited because they fought the Hitler to his death. We must demand to know why the Vatican and the America and the Europe did not admit the Communists to their countries even after aiding the perpetrators of the biggest genocide in recent world history. We must demand to know why the corporate houses and banks that materialized Hitler’s army and funded it to wipe off millions off the face of earth still continue to dominate businesses. We must demand to know why the inhabitants of the land, the Palestinians still continue to remain dispossessed in their own lands while the plans laid out by the perpetrators have been allowed to succeed to decide on their fates. We must demand to know why intellectually dishonest academicians and historians on their own sweet will decide what constitutes apt to be called a history despite their revising it, and why something will be rejected as history simply because they do not approve of it. We must demand to know. We must demand. History is about us.
Helpful Links:
Ahmadinejad Meets Clerics, and Decibels Drop a Notch
Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University
Film: America and the Holocaust
Film: Amen
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University was arguably the most important step taken by a world leader to initiate the global peace that is so much needed in the clearly terrorized world we live in.
Ahmadinejad is a leader of significant importance—chief of a major country and representative of a major world religion-- who was humble enough to accept a university invitation, and tolerant enough to appear in front of the most hostile audience that any academic institute in the world could feel ashamed of. And despite the odds, he was clearly on a mission: to promote the spirit of peace and open the road to desirable dialogue.
So, how was he received at the Land of the Free? First, the New York City Mayor displayed his level of arrogance by refusing Ahmadinejad a visit to 9/11 memorial site. Second, the Columbia University President exhibited unparalleled level of ignorance by verbally abusing the Iranian President. Third, the American President bathed in his self glory by refusing to entertain any possibility of any urgent dialogue.
Columbia: Elite University, Elitist Mindsets:
Columbia University characterized the drama usually associated with the great American Hypocrisy that has led to several wars and ideological confrontations during past many decades. One important way in which the First World countries have justified their position as regards to Freedom of Speech is by boasting about it. To prove that America allows freedom of speech, American administration needs to allow a certain amount of dissent to take place. Both the dissent and the freedom then have to be televised appropriately. Finally, the melodramatic confrontations are then needed to be compared with the economically subjugated world so as to prove an innate superiority in the methods of the free world.
In Ahmadinejad’s visit, all the above aspects were clearly evident. First, he was invited by Columbia University as the speaker. He was invited despite vehement protests from various student groups. This proved the spirit of tolerance that American democracy boasts of. However, critically deconstructing such an obvious reflection, one would fathom that the real reason why he was invited was not so much as “despite”, as was “because” of the protests from various groups of people. He was invited to speak on campus, because of the amount of controversy it would generate. And clearly, Columbia University did not do anything to stop the protests. Indeed, it advertised on its website additional permissions to student groups to create the noise and requested the community to bear with the protests which would continue for the entire day. Such vehement noisy protests where anyone could attribute any ghastly name to another country’s chief showcased a circus that was well planned and organized. Students and other social groups were not protesting against Columbia University (which they could have legitimately done by asking people to boycott a visit to the campus), rather they were enjoying the centrestage of press attention by using placards that could allow them to equate Ahmadinejad with Hitler and use any amount of vulgar slangs to denounce Iranian politics. In a country where peace marchers including octogenarian peacenik grandmothers are imprisoned because of silent protests, the rowdy behaviors from various “free speech” and student groups in front of a university was in fact encouraged.
Why was Ahmadinejad invited to the campus if the university was well aware that there would be thousands of people on the streets to protest? It was because the university was not afraid that they will lose reputation. It was not because the university was going to be boycotted. Not because students who resent Ahmadinejad were going to dissuade potential applicants from joining the campus. After all, a university which invites a “Hitler” naturally was going to be branded as anti-semite and was going to get bad press, and was going to be mocked at. The university was going to lose its own face by inviting someone whom many people on campus considered or even studied as a dictator.
Then why did the Columbia University invite someone as a chief guest who was so deeply hated by many in the campus community? In fact, Ahmadinejad was unique because he was (and continues to be) hated by both conservatives and liberals alike. Even several Free Speech coalitions did not have kind words for him. None of the politically correct historians had good thoughts about him. None of the civil rights organizations thought Ahmadinejad should be tolerated.
Lee Bollinger’s speech answered why: Calling the Iranian President “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated”, even before allowing him an audience, the Columbia University professor proved the invitation was premeditated to be insulting. “You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” Bollinger called Ahmadinejad. It was with the sole purpose of insulting the Iranian head that Ahmadinejad was invited to speak. The spirit of sheer hatred continued as stealth mockery found resonance throughout Bollinger’s long introduction.
Lee Bollinger who in the mask of being a free speech advocate (Michigan Affirmative Action champion) went all the way to demonstrate how utterly vulgar and autocratic he could be. A proclaimed “free-speech” advocate, Bollinger not only did not feel sorry about Ahmadinejad not being granted the freedom to visit 9/11 site, but he went one step further. Even before Ahmadinejad could speak on his “defense”, the Columbian professor went on verbally attacking the Iranian head as befitting a liar, idiot, rogue and conman.
Bollinger said a number of Columbian graduates were the brave fighters serving the American troop in Iraq. That was spoken in order to praise the American war against the Iraqi people! He asked Iranian President on their behalf why “Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq killing US troops”. Whether it is a proxy war that Iran is fighting in Iraq is a matter of dispute. What, however has been true is that the US fought an unjust war in Iraq and American troops caused much military misconduct that have been quite extensively recorded in recent past. What the Columbia University President should have done was to apologize on behalf of the infamous troop that has caused much distress to the world citizenry by its brazen inhuman treatment of peaceful civilians. Even after prison tortures, and civilian rapes committed by American troops (yes the same “brave” Columbian graduates as cohorts), the highly educated and informed professor proved his agenda of falsehoods and pretensions time and again.
Bollinger continued with his series of malicious attacks that were not evidenced nor called for. He brought to the fore the issue of Iran’s nuclear deal, which suggested his lack of awareness about the matter. Contrary to his accusations against Iran as a country working to create an unsafe world, the UN’s agency (International Atomic Energy Agency) has been in close collaboration with Iran and has found no such threats as being decried by the professor. Inviting a guest, and accusing him and the country he leads in highly derogatory terms and verbally abusing him as insane and unintelligent without even having evidence or knowledge to back up marked the genius of Bollinger. Who does Bollinger quote to support his opinions? French president Sarkozy – a right wing conservative—who apparently has lost patience (according to Bollinger) with Iran. Did such trivial information make sense in an introductory speech provided to “welcome” an international guest?
Bollinger then asked Ahmadinejad, “Why have you made the people of your country vulnerable to sanctions?” If Bollinger had any sense of empathy or understanding, he could have instead asked why do the first world powers foster vulnerable conditions for Iranian civilians. In an unsurpassed level of academic elitism that should ideally call for much loath and disgrace, Professor Bollinger outdid his sense of self-glorification by finally challenging the head of state of Iran to respond to his speech: “Let me close with a comment. Frankly and in all candor, Mr President, I doubt you have the intellectual courage to answer these questions but your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do…I am only a professor who is also a university president, but today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion of what you stand for. I only wish I could do better.”
A huge section of Columbia University audience cheered and clapped to their president’s hate speech and waited gleefully for Ahmadinejad to fail the test. In contrast to the obviously arrogant speech of Bollinger, Ahmadinejad’s talk was pensive, thoughtful, full of insights. Ahmadinejad asserted that he was still an instructor at a university and as an instructor he strived for the whole truth. Apart from the questionable religious wisdom and denial of homosexuality in Iran, Ahmadinejad’s speech was more than an answer to Bollinger’s outlandish accusations. Yes, he did not answer anything “straight”, despite pleading from the university for him to answer in “yes” or “no”. But that was more due to the fact that Islam logic is not necessarily as vertically dismissive as Christian expectations. In every sentence that Ahmadinejad spoke, there was humility, a touch of candor and empathetic understanding. In every sentiment of Ahmadinejad, there was a prayer for collaboration, a hope for global peace, a step towards mutual dialogue. In every answer of Ahmadinejad to the Q/A session, there was an assertion of a world leader who was humble enough to raise historical lessons, and of an educated non-elite who was unafraid to research.
Ahmadinejad was forced to revisit his stance on Holocaust. Clearly he had not come to the US to speak about his views on historical revisionism, but to extend a hand of friendship for future peace pacts. Even at that stage he said he was not a Holocaust denier, what he wanted instead was further research into the area of history that has led the world to prepare for the largest unrest in recent times. Palestine did not fight World War II. Europe did. And why are the Palestinians facing the crisis still? Not an easy answer to this question, and Ahmadinejad sought for further research into this aspect. Talking about the halt in Iranian progress, he dwelt on the root cause of the unrest and insecurity. Why was Iran under sanction? Why did the first world powers withdraw unilaterally after assuring nuclear energy support to Iran? Why should there be limitations imposed on Iran’s scientific endeavors especially when IAEA has not found any problem with Iran’s peaceful nuclear program?
Moreover, Ahmadinejad did not just ask questions that were uncalled for. He offered agreements. Despite the insults and abuses and threats outside the campus building that were encouraged by the university officials, he invited American students to visit Iran, attend the universities and speak with civilians. Whether he would agree to hold a dialogue with the White House regarding resolution of US-Iran disputes? Of course, anytime! Ahmadinejad requested for a peaceful dialogue. “Everything can be resolved over talks. We need to talk”.
White House ignored Ahmadinejad during the rest of his stay. Ahmadinejad even called for a meeting of religious leaders to initiate global peace talks and succeeded. Around 140 religious leaders attended the meeting in New York, with the sole exception of any Jewish leader who refused to attend.
On the Homosexuality Question:
I waited for a few days to study media response to such an uncivilized treatment meted out to a state’s head. The American corporate media of course bathing in its biased glories preferred to maintain the line adopted by Columbia University and at their best, tried to provide a “balanced” perspective to the issue that clearly called for critical intellectual intervention.
Most reports mocked at the ignorance of Ahmadinejad when it came to issue of homosexuality. They chose to play moral pundits while not mentioning how America treats its own LGBT community. The fact that the US has consistently failed to provide for basic human rights to homosexual population even after acknowledging their presence in every sphere in social life here is clearly amiss from all reports that attacked Iran’s condition. “Mr President, in your country, homosexuals are treated in this and that way” has been a standard line of both the Columbia University president and our enlightened western press. Not for once did the educated pause awhile to review the fact that not so long ago American Psychology Association (APA), the famed master of all things research, used to consider homosexuality as an abnormality. And even to this date, the major state religion whose dictums appear on the courtroom walls and classroom prayers has been the single biggest enemy to the cause of the LGBT community.
On the Holocaust Question:
Most amount of time devoted by the university professor in his speech and later on by the university during Q/A session, and by media reports before, during and after the visit of Ahmadinejad focused on the alleged “holocaust denial” of the Iranian head. It has been accused severally that he is an Anti-Semite, like most of anyone we know in the recent history who has challenged the Holocaust issue from different perspectives.
Even as we have succeeded in challenging the legacy of Columbus and George Washington, the only and perhaps the largest event of significance has remained beyond recent review. Bollinger, the academician said there was absolutely no need to do any further research on Holocaust while Ahmadinejad said to presume that research on a topic is already exhausted is to underestimate the power of knowledge itself.
The wisdom which Ahmadinejad brought to the conference hall of the New York based university was clearly demolished to pieces with overriding imposition that calling for research into Holocaust amounts to challenging the truth itself.
The fallacious logic applied by the dominant historical thread about Holocaust is clearly evident in the manner in which they are unwilling to entertain any slightest of suggestions that can be introduced to enrich our collective historical knowledge.
If the leading academicians of the western world are so vehement in their resistance to any further research into one specific historical event, then commonsense implies there is something wrong somewhere. Personally, for me, to deny Holocaust is a crime by itself, and I am sure Ahmadinejad has not committed that crime. However it is equally a crime if we refuse to allow any more research on a historical process that changed the geographical face of the planet. Like Ahmadinejad said, we need to conduct research into every possible field in the world. We do not know whether our beliefs will be restored or quashed. The motive behind conducting a research is not to prove one or the other side. The motive of conducting a research has been to excavate further truths that may or may not unsettle previously known knowledge. On the day of his speech, Professor Ahmadinejad had not forgotten the basics of research methods. Professor Bollinger, had clearly forgotten that. And in all earnest observation, Bollinger behaved every bit unlike a student, unlike a teacher. Where is the zeal to conceal truth coming from? What legacy does Holocaust hold?
This is a crucial question of our times. Let me state that each human being of this planet has a stake in this question and each of us have a moral responsibility to respect the multiple truths that emerge from the researches done, and researches awaiting to be done. Neither the professor at Columbia holds the key to a sole truth, nor the head of Israel, Iran or United States.
If fact be told as has been chronicled by every historian of our age, the truth is the people who are steadfastly holding onto the Holocaust theory are probably the ones to have distorted the truth. That is why we need further research into the field. If truth be told, the truth is the mainstream history by denouncing Stalin and Soviet Communism and trumpeting the capitalistic cause of the age have in fact automatically joined the world of holocaust deniers.
The fact is it was the Red Army which for the first time in the world discovered the Auschwitz camps that led to an understanding of the Holocaust. The fact is when Stalin’s administration tried to send out this message to the first world for it to react, none of the western countries came forward either to help the Red Army or the victims of Hitler’s camps as was required. Quite the contrary, as has been well-evidenced, the truth is Western Europe and America were foremost in denying access to the victims of the Nazi camps.
The truth is when the Vatican learned of the secret chambers, it refused to act against the Nazi powers because the Communists had helped release the victims and for the church, communism as a political theory was more dangerous than Nazism was. The truth is Hitler’s army was heavily funded and in fact sustained by most of the leading business empires of America and Europe that continue to amass wealth and do great businesses worldwide. The capitalists during that time were aiding Hitler because for them badmouthing communism was more important than saving the lives of people who were victims of Hitler’s camps. The truth is those corporations today own most of the media business, most automobile industries. Both Ford and General Motors were aiding the Nazis then, and they are as household names in American families even now.
The truth is that the actual Holocaust deniers are those that have been hesitating to give due credits to Stalin and Red Army for their role in letting the world know about the secret chambers, by saving the lives of the remaining survivors, and by revealing the actual number of Nazi massacres to the world.
The truth is the Red Army, the only brave people who fought Hitler to his death, had put the number of dead as 4 million. This is the statistics that remained the only official figure for more than four decades. There was no question of anyone denying Hitler’s concentration camps. Of these 4 million, overwhelming majority of people were communists and communist sympathizers and fellow travelers. Hitler’s main ire—aided by his western capitalistic sponsors and the church—was against the consolidation of communism in the world. The world embracing communistic philosophy that aimed at redistributing private properties for social good was the biggest threat to the Fascist and Nazi forces that ruled the minds and hearts of rulers of every western imperial power then. Recently the formerly classified British intelligence reports have proven how the UK was a partner in crime with the Nazi forces in imprisoning, torturing and murdering communists during the WW II period. Countless American reports have suggested that the apparent threats of McCarthy seemed like a joke when compared to the actual CIA interventions in the lives of the progressives in the world. Anti-communism was the biggest single weapon that was used by Hitler then and continued till Reagan later. Interestingly, between the both, the fact is the same companies financed their respective empires wholeheartedly for them to rise and shine in power ladders.
However, to erase the fact that Communists were the actual victims of Nazi camps, the attempts on part of conservative religious groups finally led to the revision of the 4 million figure. The revisionist conservative historians conveniently “denied” the camps and its death toll and revised the number from 4 million to a little over 1 million. And the revisionists claimed that the number was much less that 4 million because 1 million of them were the Jews that were killed.
Much before Ahmadinejad proposed for a revision, it was Dr. Franciszek Piper who did revisionist research into the number of prison camps, and his research erased more than 3 million people from the total number. And the Poland’s museum which for four decades mentioned 4 million as the number of people killed by the Nazis was forced to revise the number to 1.1 million because of the revisionist historians.
The sole purpose of reducing the number was to discredit the Soviet role in combating Hitler, and to erase the historical truth about the majority of those who were killed. The majority from 4 million were actually murdered because of political reasons, and if research is led in this direction to actually demonstrate the way the Nazi-Capitalism-Church combine led their ugly war against the communists of that era, much academic curiosities will end up perhaps in suggesting the need for further research into this area of history.
Israel was built on the legacy of Holocaust. Soviet Union was disintegrated on the legacy of Communism, and the Third World was ravaged on the legacy of anti-imperialism. This is our history. We must demand to know why the 3 million victims of Nazi Capitalism were forgotten from the history. We must demand to know why the millions of Red Army soldiers were eminently discredited because they fought the Hitler to his death. We must demand to know why the Vatican and the America and the Europe did not admit the Communists to their countries even after aiding the perpetrators of the biggest genocide in recent world history. We must demand to know why the corporate houses and banks that materialized Hitler’s army and funded it to wipe off millions off the face of earth still continue to dominate businesses. We must demand to know why the inhabitants of the land, the Palestinians still continue to remain dispossessed in their own lands while the plans laid out by the perpetrators have been allowed to succeed to decide on their fates. We must demand to know why intellectually dishonest academicians and historians on their own sweet will decide what constitutes apt to be called a history despite their revising it, and why something will be rejected as history simply because they do not approve of it. We must demand to know. We must demand. History is about us.
Helpful Links:
Ahmadinejad Meets Clerics, and Decibels Drop a Notch
Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University
Film: America and the Holocaust
Film: Amen
|
Hindus, Muslims and Secular Traditions: Vande Mataram (Part II)
By Saswat Pattanayak
Vande Mataram debate has almost engulfed India these days. I would not claim it to be entirely of no consequence. And those who say that people should be left to sing what they want to, in the tradition of liberal democracy, in my view again, are continuing to enjoy a Hindu privilege. If for a moment, they would imagine how it feels to be member of a minority group being subjected to a song that was targeted against them, most of us would clearly understand the inherent pain. Muslims in India have been told from the beginning that they are citizens of a secular country, and it is the responsibility of the Hindu majority to live upto that expectation. There must not be any confusion in this regard.
Furthermore, some of my beloved readers of this blog have vociferously attacked the communalism in Islam, and in fact to that extent shown solidarity with Bankim Chandra, the poet of Vande Mataram, who also happens to be the founding father of modern Bengali literature.
I am not surprised at the way both perceptions have been intertwined. However, I shall like to dispel some myths about the dismissal of Islam as a communal or fanatical religion, as many in the Hindutva brigade would like to portray it and influence some of us in that process in their abominable quest to establish a “Hindu Rashta”. Some even bring to question the credibility of Mohd. Iqbal who penned down “Sare Jahan se Achha” and compared it with “Vande Mataram”, which I think is a valid comparison, but a grossly non-issue, this time. I will attempt to make some clarifications within the limits of a weblog:
Vande Mataram vs Sare Jahan se Achha:
Let there be no doubt that the origins of the writings and the world-views of the authors are important in understanding the significance of any work. However, even while doing so, one should always keep in mind the socio-political context in which the works have been authored.
I have elaborated on Vande Mataram already in a previous post. The origin of the song was embedded in the work “Ananda Matha” which was just like every other written work of Bankim Chandra, a highly hindu supremacist literature. It clearly outlined Bankim’s aversion towards Muslim people and possibly could have sowed the seed among the Bengali community to later on engage in the religious animosities that eventually led to partition of India into two separate religious regions (East Bengal-Pakistan region and India).
Sensitizing the Bengali population to become reactionary elements in that age was the sole aim of Bankim Chatterjee, and he fairly succeeded in it (which is why the Hindu hymn became so popular to begin with). It can be said without a doubt Bankim was the founding father of reactionary Bengali literature and unfortunately as it is, quite a handful of works during that time thrived with feudal stories and patriarchal protagonists with entire omission of British misrule, (Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s stories included) thanks to the unmistakable popularity of this legendary writer.
Speaking of historical context, Bankim Chatterjee lived at a time that was not about “Islam invasion”, that his works were so apprehensive about. It was rather a time when British people had already invaded India. The primary enemies of Indian people were the British colonialists. And yet, Chatterjee was a loyal civil servant of the British administration, and worked as a deputy collector. And he was instrumental in sowing the seeds of two-nation theory through his works full of hatred for Muslims, who he used to describe as “Mlechhas”.
As regards Mohd. Iqbal, who is unfortunately brought to discussion in the context of Bande Mataram controversy, one can only say this. Mohd. Iqbal was a patriot of the highest order whose revolutionary songs were targeted against the British rule only. He had no expressed hatred against Hindus, although looking at growing popularity of Hindutva brigade within the Congress those days, he had sufficient reason to turn skeptical. Muslims, Buddhists and Dalits were among the most oppressed in India, and yet they were the least represented in the high echelons of Congress power. Congress was losing its secular focus with continued tension between Nehru and Patel. Despite Gandhiji’s reluctance, the Patel faction was growing in strength also due to the immense influence the Indian business houses had on sponsoring Gandhi’s visits and shelters at Ashrams. In disillusionment, Netaji Subhas also had to quit Congress. One needs to remember that the hindu fanatics had taken up so much of political space that Netaji Subhash was as unsure as Mohd. Iqbal about the eventual victory of Indians under leadership of mere religious reformers. Netaji was always known for his determined effort to persuade people to give up all their political differences and get united under the banner of Congress. He has emphatically stated that Congress was the only platform that needs support from people all across political spectrum, thus helping to enlist thousands of communists as well as receiving communist support to win the presidentship. However, Netaji was deeply influenced by the Soviet system of governance, its secularism and collective ownerships and he wanted to establish India in similar lines. Except for Nehru, who had himself visited Soviet Union and was a pronounced supporter of Marxist philosophy, Netaji could not gather support from any other major leader, finally leading to his quitting the party and forming an alternative Left organization.
It was during these times that Mohd. Iqbal also went through transformation as he was witnessing how the power structure of Congress was slipping into the hands of Hindu fundamentalists. He used to be a teacher in Philosophy after completing MA from Lahore University. During the college days, his radical poetry to destabilize the British rule with united efforts from Hindus and Muslims were inflammatory enough. At the same time, while on a short visit to London, Iqbal became conscious of the international Islamic revolutions against the European colonial powers, and his alignment towards Islamists became sharper. India was not merely struggling for independence from British during those days, one also needs to remember that some Hindu supremacists within the Congress were making clear their intent to get rid of Urdu as the lingua franca (which it was till that period), and to declare a Hindustan where Muslims would be tokenly represented as was the trend. Hindu leaders like Rajendra Prasad, Radhakrishnan, Sardar Patel were rabidly pursuing Hindu scholarships. And Gandhi himself was trying to adjust to Hinduism demands by “reforming” the religion, not condemning it. Clearly the country was about to be divided, just like Bankim Chatterjee had envisaged, the question was regarding when.
Bankim and Iqbal: Dichotomies
Again unlike Bankim Chatterjee who preached religious violence based on Militant Hinduism, Mohd Iqbal was deeply secular despite being a Muslim. And this is why there were attempts to caste aspersions on his popularity. Iqbal’s poetry were nationally sung and were widely popular (interestingly, it became popular even on the space when Rakesh Sharma made India proud by saying he saw “Sare Jahan Se Achha” from above when asked by Indira Gandhi about what India looked like to him while he was on the Soviet space expedition). Iqbal’s poetry was in Urdu, as opposed to Sanskrit, and that was a great dichotomy already. He was a Muslim revolutionary writing about the poor and the oppressed people of India grounded on realism of political economy. Chatterjee was a Hindu Brahmin reactionary who was writing about glorification of one-nation of Hindu India that was conditional upon annihilation of the Muslims. Whereas Chatterjee was preaching that deaths of Muslims were inevitable for India to be a proud nation, Iqbal was writing:
(roughly translated it means: We are where our hearts are, and even when we reside abroad, our hearts live in our land. Thus artificial borders cannot separate our patriotic feelings. What of the religions? Our religions do not teach us to create enemies among each other. We are the people from the land of the Hind and shall remain thus despite religions and artificial borders.)
This was the great radical poet Mohd. Iqbal who wrote this “Taraana-e-Watan” among other brilliant works where he always stressed on Hindu-Muslim unity that was needed to overthrow the British rulers.
Sadly, the country was so taken hostage by the Hindu supremacists that they did everything possible to highlight Bankim Chatterjee’s conservative anti-Islam works while they continued to demean Mohd Iqbal. Any serious reader of progressive literature would be able to fathom the length at which Iqbal was subsequently saddened by the way his hopes for a united India was being shattered through the aspirations of the growing Hindu militancy even within the rank and file of the mainstream Congress.
I am reproducing a rare poem of Mohd Iqbal written to his beloved son, where he is asking his child to treat poverty as an asset, and not a weakness. Living the life of the oppressed calls for revolution against the foreign invaders, he declares. He directs his son to recognize that Mother Nature (interesting because its not a similar portrayal like Goddess Durga) has gifted a heart to him that must be used to appreciate the diversity of flowers (his stress on ‘Gul’ is consistently present in most of his poems, including another poem by the name ‘Gul Hai to Gulistan ho’. Also interesting, considering that flowers have universal appeal unlike nation-state names). Iqbal asks his son to dedicate life towards serving the poor and the oppressed in a colonial India and not get disheartened by inherent limitations. “Do not be a sell-out; Make a name amidst poverty!”
I could go on quoting from the works of the great poet who did his best to promote religious harmony in the country that was facing threats from fanatic Hindus and insecure Muslims in terms of its future. And bowing down to the pressure of the Hindu revivalism that was to sketch a conditional secular country, Iqbal, like Malcolm X of African-American struggle, turned more towards recognizing the religious mainstream than secular alternatives. When he died in 1937, the entire country mourned the great loss whose expectations could not be lived upto by millions of people of the country who were engaged in falling into the traps of Hindu supremacists’ hatred towards Muslims as well British endorsement of the riots. What’s ironic is that Hindu atrocities those days were only usually tolerated with grief (as Gandhiji famously used to feel ‘sad’ about the conditions in a non-violent manner, which later allowed people like Patel to infiltrate Kashmir with terrorism), and it was continuation of a tradition. What’s often missed in the discourse is that most Muslims actually were converted from Hinduism because of the atrocities and caste-structures of Hinduism. Islam, despite its Shia/Sunni divisions never practiced “untouchability” which was a cornerstone of Hindu religion, and continues to exist even today in practice.
Finally, the categorical difference between Iqbal and Chatterjee was that whereas the former was a die-hard secular who wanted a “Hindustan” based on religious harmony, Chatterjee was a Hindu fanatic and British loyalist who wanted the country to be divided into two parts. Of course Chatterjee won by design since that’s also what the British wanted, and later on towards the late 30’s and early 40’s even the secular people of India had no other option than to accept the two-nation theory, simply because in the other case, there was a clear indication that India would have been ruled by Hindu Brahmins almost to the exclusion of Muslim leaders in power sharing. Even having more Muslim population in India than there is in Pakistan, today, India continues to oppress Muslims when it comes to relegating power.
Those who say that Congress is “appeasing” the minorities are entirely misguided. In fact, Congress, as much as the BJP, has been appeasing the majority in all respects, as a result of which the country’s power equation has fallen in the hands of Hindu Brahmin Supremacists.
Historical evidences, and why the right-wing never quite gets it right?
“Battle of Algiers” is considered to be a landmark in the history of cinema. And its Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo (who co-wrote it with the great Franco Solinas) shot Algeria while the Islamic revolution was defeating French colonialists in the 60’s. His extremely sympathetic treatment of cause of the revolutionaries won him great admiration from the progressive world, whereas the French were quick to ban the film in their country.
Encouraged by the response from the world over, he and his son went ahead to shoot Algeria once again, this time in the 90’s to get the pulse of the country under Islamic rule. Surprised as he was, his videos showed that people just could not tolerate his entry into the country, simply because he was a European filmmaker. However, after knowing that this was the man who had directed “Battle of Algiers”, he was immediately recognized by the new generation of people who greeted him, although with a little pinch of salt.
Seeing the commotion on the streets, a fellow European journalist asked him the reason behind Islam being such a violent religion. Such violent was it, that the Muslims even would not entertain a Marxist filmmaker like Pontecorvo, just because he was a European. Since throughout Pontecorvo was sad while shooting the second film in Algeria (and at some places children were spitting on his car), I was anxious to see how Pontecorvo responds to this stereotyped “European” question.
Pontecorvo, unfazed, replied that Islam was never a violent religion. Indeed its been violent from phase to phase since last 200 years only, and that marks the beginning of European colonization period. It was only in the manner that the European colonizers projected an image of the Muslim people as inherently backward that, they are now facing the wrath of a reaction (which is an ‘open wound’ still). He said he is convinced that the women in Algeria are not oppressed due to their religion, they are oppressed due to economic sanctions imposed by a group of elite colonialists who have made wealth by looting the Muslims during their illegal occupations. As regards the culture, Islamists were not ‘backward’ and the women were not ‘humiliated’. When asked why the women then covered themselves up in such primitive manner, Pontecorvo quoted a female Muslim doctor who said that burka is actually one of the most liberal outfit a woman can wear. It reveals the least and that’s why it makes the woman sexier. The point is to also see the perspectives of the other culture from different levels.
This is also a lesson one can get from the various radical postcolonial studies about how the Islam was never a regressive or oppressive religion in comparison to any other (every religion thrives on codes that are equally repressive). As in the case of India, MJ Akbar, the renowned journalist and author, gives the most comprehensive account about Muslim Rule in his book “Kashmir: Behind the Vale”.
He cites how Saiyyid Bilal Shah (called with love as Bulbul Shah) introduced Islam with love and compassion. That was a time when Kashmir was being ruled by Hindu King Sahadeva. Owing to Bulbul Shah’s immense popularity, there was great support for him, and consequently the King had befriended him in order to carry on the rule. In fact by the time Bulbul Shah passed away in 1327, the king, king’s brother and commander-in-chief of the army were all converted to Islam! The converted king had even constructed Bulbul Langar in Srinagar.
Two things can be noticed here. One, that the King was himself a convert, naturally a voluntary one. And there were many Hindus, predominantly lower castes, but also quite many Kashmiri Pundits themselves, who were horribly disenchanted by Hinduism’s orthodoxy and voluntarily converted themselves. In fact, works by Mulla Ahmed, the first Sheikh-ul-Islam, such as “Fatwa-i-Shihabi”, and “Shihab-i-Saqib” were immensely secular works that held more relevance to Hindus and Muslims than the epic superstitious mythologies of Hinduism.
Upon death of mongol expansionist Kublai Khan (1260-1294), there were huge tribal uprising that led to death of Beijing’s viceroy Lha-Chen-Dugos Grub. Tribes attacked the region Sonamarg valley, which was being ruled by Rama Chandra, who was the prime minister of King Sahadeva. But Sahadeva did not lend much support to Rama Chandra during the period of crisis when tribals attacked the area (in fact Sahadeva was supportive of the tribals). This betrayal led to Rama Chandra declaring himself as the King. As a rather feeble king, Rama Chandra was no match for Lha-Chen’s son Rinchin who attacked the king soon after. Rinchin had escaped the border and aspired to be a king, as much as his friend from Swat valley Shah Mir. Rinchin with support of Mir took over the palace. And Rinchin was declared the Lord of Kasmir on 6 October 1320. Interestingly, Rama Chandra’s daughter Kota who was in love with Rinchin much before the attack, quickly declared herself the queen.
Rinchin’s era is considered to be the golden age in the history of Kashmir, as Rinchin was a Buddhist and he wanted to spread peace throughout the region. He not only married Rama Chandra’s daughter, he also made Rama Chandra’s sons his prime ministers. But since Rinchin was a Buddhist, he could not rule over the state that did not have much Buddhist presence. Hence he decided to convert to Hinduism and called for the head priest. And as shocking as it may sound, the high priests of Hinduism declined to convert him, since they could not determine what caste in the hierarchy was King Rinchin!
Since the Brahmin pundits exercised this folly, Shah Mir found the opportunity to ask his friend to convert to Islam. Although Rinchin was skeptical, he soon saw the great Sufi divine Bulbul Shah at a prayer. Bulbul Shah provided Rinchin what the Brahmins could not: a casteless religion. Islam had no caste: it was built on the equality of humans and faith in the omnipotence of Allah and His last Messenger, the prophet Muhammad. To become a Muslim, Rinchin only had to utter the Qalimah: ‘La-e-laha illallah, Muhammad un-Rasul Allah’.
Rinchin thus became a Muslim, and Islam arrived not through violent coercion, but through peaceful understanding of a harmonious religion. Rinchin took the name Sultan Sadruddin, and built a mosque called Bodro Masjid. During his friend Shah Mir’s rule as Sultan Shamsuddin, a dynasty that lasted for 222 years, Islam had become the paramount religion of Kashmir, but because of its popular success and their identification with the Kashmiri people. Jonaraja described this rule:
“This believer in Allah, calm and active, became the savior of the people and protected the subjects.”
And throughout, despite the brahminical prejudices against the converted kings (Hindus and Budhhists who had turned into Muslims), the Muslim rulers were always sympathetic towards the high priests. It was the period when Nand Rishi or Lal Ded and other religious people flourished. In fact, Abul Fazl wrote in the Ain-i-Akbari:
Moghul rulers likewise, and especially Akbar, were aware of the large Hindu population and worked towards their harmonious living. Firstly, it was the most practical thing to do, since any alternative could have called for doom. Tribal populations were always up in arms against any empire, and it could become a matter of time before Hindus got disenchanted and joined the revolution. To that end, the emperors were forced to be considerate towards diversity of religions. Needless to point out, just as characteristic of any empire (just like it is true in today’s so-called democracies running large thought controls called mainstream media), there were state propaganda working those days to lull people to passivity and relaxation instead of agitated uprising. And just like today’s cheap slavery and draconic hours of call centers, people were forced those days to seek cheap labor in works they had no interests in. But as evidenced, the secularism during the Muslim and Moghul periods were quite practiced at several levels.
Upon deconstruction, what it merely suggests is that Moghul rule created more problems for the upper caste Hindu feudalists than the working peasants. The assimilation was seen more among Muslims and the working poor of India, than between Muslims and the upper caste people.
Now I will quote from Orissamatters, authored by SCP, who is an eminent journalist of Orissa:
Eminent historian Irfan Habib says that Moghul rulers had even appointed Brahmins as administrators owing to their upper caste/class/knowledge backgrounds. And even in such positions, the Brahmins under the Moghul rule, did not amend their behavior. As an example, we shall take the case of ‘Satnamis’, a sect founded in 1657 by a native of Narnaul, who proclaimed himself to be of the tradition of the great monotheist Kabir, the weaver. They were opposed tooth and nail by the banyas and Brahmin caste people, since Satnamis (worshipper of the True Name or God) comprised people from sections such as sweepers, carpenters and tanners. “It was obviously owing to this contamination from contact with the untouchables that the sect became particularly hateful in the eyes of the orthodox,” says Habib. (Essays in Indian History, Tulika, New Delhi, 1995).
Isardas Mehta in “Futuhat-i ‘Alamgiri” quotes a loyal Hindu official of the Mughal government describing Satnamis as:
Thus, even during the Mughal period, the Hindu supremacists continued to hold sway, even in the face of definitive secular reigns by Akbar and Aurangzeb. Unfortunately, they continue to do so even to this date--to the extent that the stories of forced labor were exaggerated by the Hindu revisionists, without a mention of exploitation of workers to build temples. More than the Hindu kings, it was the Moghul rulers who played their part in promoting economic parity. Indeed Sir Walter Lawrence’s works show how in Moghul periods, women were given six annas a day for independent sustenance. And in projects involving large-scale labor, the main gates were written with inscriptions such as these:
“Na kardeh hech kas beggar anja
Tamame yaftand az makhzanash zar”.
(No one, it proclaims proudly, was shanghaied into beggar, or forced labor, for this imperial project; each worker was paid fully for his her labor.&rdquo
This blog cannot go on in the direction of glorifying the Moghul rulers. Indeed far from it, this stands to condemn any of the rules by the kings and emperors, since none of them established peoples’ democracy. Also because of the stages of development those days, such dreams were quite distant. But in view of the current attack on Islam and an ignorant dismissal of it as a religion inherently violent, oppressive or backward, I thought it would serve well to do a small analysis of the situation using a critical historiography.
In Conclusion:
The day of patriotic exhibition of India has passed us by. We can rejoice at its passage. To begin with 2006 is not the centenary of Vande Mataram. It was used this way solely for sensational purpose. In addition, even singing of National Anthem Jana Gana Mana is not compulsory and should not be. Hence Vande Mataram controversy was furthered solely for the political purpose. Lastly, Islam is unlike Hinduism. Just the way Hindu preachers know that Hinduism is an organically developed national religion that has always stayed inside India due to its exclusionary philosophy that forbids people from joining it (just like Puri Pandas are absolutely right in not allowing non-Hindus to enter Jagannath Temple since they know Hinduism quite well to be discriminatory), Muslims know it well that Islam is a global religion that is based upon spreading the word of the last Messenger of Allah, and hence it does not recognize a nation-state to be paramount. So certain religious people condemning certain other religious people because they think their base of religion is valid while other bases of other religions are not, amounts to mere assertion of misconception.
And the way the right wing brigade took advantage of death of Pramod Mahajan and statue of Bal Thackrey’s wife to cause unrest in the country, they are now trying to take advantage of a song-recital drama. News reports say that their Vande Mataram demonstrations are causing violence in muslim areas where the hindu fanatics are having a free hand in harassing the minorities in India. And this is simply intolerable and unacceptable, and every patriotic Indian must rise up against the narrow minded ignorant bigots of the rightist parties and stop them from further claiming that they represent us in any manner whatsoever. Its time for them to either gain newer knowledge and get rid of their professed idiocy, or prepare to face the wrath of the oppressed in coming times when the people of India will no more merely vote them out of power like a dying party of losers, but also wipe them off the public platforms where they stage hypocritical melodramas.
Vande Mataram debate has almost engulfed India these days. I would not claim it to be entirely of no consequence. And those who say that people should be left to sing what they want to, in the tradition of liberal democracy, in my view again, are continuing to enjoy a Hindu privilege. If for a moment, they would imagine how it feels to be member of a minority group being subjected to a song that was targeted against them, most of us would clearly understand the inherent pain. Muslims in India have been told from the beginning that they are citizens of a secular country, and it is the responsibility of the Hindu majority to live upto that expectation. There must not be any confusion in this regard.
Furthermore, some of my beloved readers of this blog have vociferously attacked the communalism in Islam, and in fact to that extent shown solidarity with Bankim Chandra, the poet of Vande Mataram, who also happens to be the founding father of modern Bengali literature.
I am not surprised at the way both perceptions have been intertwined. However, I shall like to dispel some myths about the dismissal of Islam as a communal or fanatical religion, as many in the Hindutva brigade would like to portray it and influence some of us in that process in their abominable quest to establish a “Hindu Rashta”. Some even bring to question the credibility of Mohd. Iqbal who penned down “Sare Jahan se Achha” and compared it with “Vande Mataram”, which I think is a valid comparison, but a grossly non-issue, this time. I will attempt to make some clarifications within the limits of a weblog:
Vande Mataram vs Sare Jahan se Achha:
Let there be no doubt that the origins of the writings and the world-views of the authors are important in understanding the significance of any work. However, even while doing so, one should always keep in mind the socio-political context in which the works have been authored.
I have elaborated on Vande Mataram already in a previous post. The origin of the song was embedded in the work “Ananda Matha” which was just like every other written work of Bankim Chandra, a highly hindu supremacist literature. It clearly outlined Bankim’s aversion towards Muslim people and possibly could have sowed the seed among the Bengali community to later on engage in the religious animosities that eventually led to partition of India into two separate religious regions (East Bengal-Pakistan region and India).
Sensitizing the Bengali population to become reactionary elements in that age was the sole aim of Bankim Chatterjee, and he fairly succeeded in it (which is why the Hindu hymn became so popular to begin with). It can be said without a doubt Bankim was the founding father of reactionary Bengali literature and unfortunately as it is, quite a handful of works during that time thrived with feudal stories and patriarchal protagonists with entire omission of British misrule, (Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s stories included) thanks to the unmistakable popularity of this legendary writer.
Speaking of historical context, Bankim Chatterjee lived at a time that was not about “Islam invasion”, that his works were so apprehensive about. It was rather a time when British people had already invaded India. The primary enemies of Indian people were the British colonialists. And yet, Chatterjee was a loyal civil servant of the British administration, and worked as a deputy collector. And he was instrumental in sowing the seeds of two-nation theory through his works full of hatred for Muslims, who he used to describe as “Mlechhas”.
As regards Mohd. Iqbal, who is unfortunately brought to discussion in the context of Bande Mataram controversy, one can only say this. Mohd. Iqbal was a patriot of the highest order whose revolutionary songs were targeted against the British rule only. He had no expressed hatred against Hindus, although looking at growing popularity of Hindutva brigade within the Congress those days, he had sufficient reason to turn skeptical. Muslims, Buddhists and Dalits were among the most oppressed in India, and yet they were the least represented in the high echelons of Congress power. Congress was losing its secular focus with continued tension between Nehru and Patel. Despite Gandhiji’s reluctance, the Patel faction was growing in strength also due to the immense influence the Indian business houses had on sponsoring Gandhi’s visits and shelters at Ashrams. In disillusionment, Netaji Subhas also had to quit Congress. One needs to remember that the hindu fanatics had taken up so much of political space that Netaji Subhash was as unsure as Mohd. Iqbal about the eventual victory of Indians under leadership of mere religious reformers. Netaji was always known for his determined effort to persuade people to give up all their political differences and get united under the banner of Congress. He has emphatically stated that Congress was the only platform that needs support from people all across political spectrum, thus helping to enlist thousands of communists as well as receiving communist support to win the presidentship. However, Netaji was deeply influenced by the Soviet system of governance, its secularism and collective ownerships and he wanted to establish India in similar lines. Except for Nehru, who had himself visited Soviet Union and was a pronounced supporter of Marxist philosophy, Netaji could not gather support from any other major leader, finally leading to his quitting the party and forming an alternative Left organization.
It was during these times that Mohd. Iqbal also went through transformation as he was witnessing how the power structure of Congress was slipping into the hands of Hindu fundamentalists. He used to be a teacher in Philosophy after completing MA from Lahore University. During the college days, his radical poetry to destabilize the British rule with united efforts from Hindus and Muslims were inflammatory enough. At the same time, while on a short visit to London, Iqbal became conscious of the international Islamic revolutions against the European colonial powers, and his alignment towards Islamists became sharper. India was not merely struggling for independence from British during those days, one also needs to remember that some Hindu supremacists within the Congress were making clear their intent to get rid of Urdu as the lingua franca (which it was till that period), and to declare a Hindustan where Muslims would be tokenly represented as was the trend. Hindu leaders like Rajendra Prasad, Radhakrishnan, Sardar Patel were rabidly pursuing Hindu scholarships. And Gandhi himself was trying to adjust to Hinduism demands by “reforming” the religion, not condemning it. Clearly the country was about to be divided, just like Bankim Chatterjee had envisaged, the question was regarding when.
Bankim and Iqbal: Dichotomies
Again unlike Bankim Chatterjee who preached religious violence based on Militant Hinduism, Mohd Iqbal was deeply secular despite being a Muslim. And this is why there were attempts to caste aspersions on his popularity. Iqbal’s poetry were nationally sung and were widely popular (interestingly, it became popular even on the space when Rakesh Sharma made India proud by saying he saw “Sare Jahan Se Achha” from above when asked by Indira Gandhi about what India looked like to him while he was on the Soviet space expedition). Iqbal’s poetry was in Urdu, as opposed to Sanskrit, and that was a great dichotomy already. He was a Muslim revolutionary writing about the poor and the oppressed people of India grounded on realism of political economy. Chatterjee was a Hindu Brahmin reactionary who was writing about glorification of one-nation of Hindu India that was conditional upon annihilation of the Muslims. Whereas Chatterjee was preaching that deaths of Muslims were inevitable for India to be a proud nation, Iqbal was writing:
“Gurbat mein ho agar hum, rehta hai dil watan mein
Samjho wohi humein bhi, dil mein jahna hamara
Majhab nahni sikhata, aapas mein bair rakhna
Hindi hain hum, watan hain Hindustan humara”
(roughly translated it means: We are where our hearts are, and even when we reside abroad, our hearts live in our land. Thus artificial borders cannot separate our patriotic feelings. What of the religions? Our religions do not teach us to create enemies among each other. We are the people from the land of the Hind and shall remain thus despite religions and artificial borders.)
This was the great radical poet Mohd. Iqbal who wrote this “Taraana-e-Watan” among other brilliant works where he always stressed on Hindu-Muslim unity that was needed to overthrow the British rulers.
Sadly, the country was so taken hostage by the Hindu supremacists that they did everything possible to highlight Bankim Chatterjee’s conservative anti-Islam works while they continued to demean Mohd Iqbal. Any serious reader of progressive literature would be able to fathom the length at which Iqbal was subsequently saddened by the way his hopes for a united India was being shattered through the aspirations of the growing Hindu militancy even within the rank and file of the mainstream Congress.
I am reproducing a rare poem of Mohd Iqbal written to his beloved son, where he is asking his child to treat poverty as an asset, and not a weakness. Living the life of the oppressed calls for revolution against the foreign invaders, he declares. He directs his son to recognize that Mother Nature (interesting because its not a similar portrayal like Goddess Durga) has gifted a heart to him that must be used to appreciate the diversity of flowers (his stress on ‘Gul’ is consistently present in most of his poems, including another poem by the name ‘Gul Hai to Gulistan ho’. Also interesting, considering that flowers have universal appeal unlike nation-state names). Iqbal asks his son to dedicate life towards serving the poor and the oppressed in a colonial India and not get disheartened by inherent limitations. “Do not be a sell-out; Make a name amidst poverty!”
“Garibi mein Naam Paida Kar”
Dayare-Ishq mein apna muqaam paida kar
Naya Zamaana naye subh-o-shaam paida kar
Khuda agar dil-e-fitrat-shanaas de tujhko
Sukute-laal-o-gul se kalaam paida kar
Utha na shisha-garane-Firang ke ehsaan
Sifale-hind se mina-o-jaam paida kar
Mein shakhe-taak hnu meri gazal hai mera samar
Mere samar se maya-e-lalafam paida kar
Meri tariq amiri nahni fakiri hain
Khud-i na bech, garibi mein naam paida kar
I could go on quoting from the works of the great poet who did his best to promote religious harmony in the country that was facing threats from fanatic Hindus and insecure Muslims in terms of its future. And bowing down to the pressure of the Hindu revivalism that was to sketch a conditional secular country, Iqbal, like Malcolm X of African-American struggle, turned more towards recognizing the religious mainstream than secular alternatives. When he died in 1937, the entire country mourned the great loss whose expectations could not be lived upto by millions of people of the country who were engaged in falling into the traps of Hindu supremacists’ hatred towards Muslims as well British endorsement of the riots. What’s ironic is that Hindu atrocities those days were only usually tolerated with grief (as Gandhiji famously used to feel ‘sad’ about the conditions in a non-violent manner, which later allowed people like Patel to infiltrate Kashmir with terrorism), and it was continuation of a tradition. What’s often missed in the discourse is that most Muslims actually were converted from Hinduism because of the atrocities and caste-structures of Hinduism. Islam, despite its Shia/Sunni divisions never practiced “untouchability” which was a cornerstone of Hindu religion, and continues to exist even today in practice.
Finally, the categorical difference between Iqbal and Chatterjee was that whereas the former was a die-hard secular who wanted a “Hindustan” based on religious harmony, Chatterjee was a Hindu fanatic and British loyalist who wanted the country to be divided into two parts. Of course Chatterjee won by design since that’s also what the British wanted, and later on towards the late 30’s and early 40’s even the secular people of India had no other option than to accept the two-nation theory, simply because in the other case, there was a clear indication that India would have been ruled by Hindu Brahmins almost to the exclusion of Muslim leaders in power sharing. Even having more Muslim population in India than there is in Pakistan, today, India continues to oppress Muslims when it comes to relegating power.
Those who say that Congress is “appeasing” the minorities are entirely misguided. In fact, Congress, as much as the BJP, has been appeasing the majority in all respects, as a result of which the country’s power equation has fallen in the hands of Hindu Brahmin Supremacists.
Historical evidences, and why the right-wing never quite gets it right?
“Battle of Algiers” is considered to be a landmark in the history of cinema. And its Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo (who co-wrote it with the great Franco Solinas) shot Algeria while the Islamic revolution was defeating French colonialists in the 60’s. His extremely sympathetic treatment of cause of the revolutionaries won him great admiration from the progressive world, whereas the French were quick to ban the film in their country.
Encouraged by the response from the world over, he and his son went ahead to shoot Algeria once again, this time in the 90’s to get the pulse of the country under Islamic rule. Surprised as he was, his videos showed that people just could not tolerate his entry into the country, simply because he was a European filmmaker. However, after knowing that this was the man who had directed “Battle of Algiers”, he was immediately recognized by the new generation of people who greeted him, although with a little pinch of salt.
Seeing the commotion on the streets, a fellow European journalist asked him the reason behind Islam being such a violent religion. Such violent was it, that the Muslims even would not entertain a Marxist filmmaker like Pontecorvo, just because he was a European. Since throughout Pontecorvo was sad while shooting the second film in Algeria (and at some places children were spitting on his car), I was anxious to see how Pontecorvo responds to this stereotyped “European” question.
Pontecorvo, unfazed, replied that Islam was never a violent religion. Indeed its been violent from phase to phase since last 200 years only, and that marks the beginning of European colonization period. It was only in the manner that the European colonizers projected an image of the Muslim people as inherently backward that, they are now facing the wrath of a reaction (which is an ‘open wound’ still). He said he is convinced that the women in Algeria are not oppressed due to their religion, they are oppressed due to economic sanctions imposed by a group of elite colonialists who have made wealth by looting the Muslims during their illegal occupations. As regards the culture, Islamists were not ‘backward’ and the women were not ‘humiliated’. When asked why the women then covered themselves up in such primitive manner, Pontecorvo quoted a female Muslim doctor who said that burka is actually one of the most liberal outfit a woman can wear. It reveals the least and that’s why it makes the woman sexier. The point is to also see the perspectives of the other culture from different levels.
This is also a lesson one can get from the various radical postcolonial studies about how the Islam was never a regressive or oppressive religion in comparison to any other (every religion thrives on codes that are equally repressive). As in the case of India, MJ Akbar, the renowned journalist and author, gives the most comprehensive account about Muslim Rule in his book “Kashmir: Behind the Vale”.
He cites how Saiyyid Bilal Shah (called with love as Bulbul Shah) introduced Islam with love and compassion. That was a time when Kashmir was being ruled by Hindu King Sahadeva. Owing to Bulbul Shah’s immense popularity, there was great support for him, and consequently the King had befriended him in order to carry on the rule. In fact by the time Bulbul Shah passed away in 1327, the king, king’s brother and commander-in-chief of the army were all converted to Islam! The converted king had even constructed Bulbul Langar in Srinagar.
Two things can be noticed here. One, that the King was himself a convert, naturally a voluntary one. And there were many Hindus, predominantly lower castes, but also quite many Kashmiri Pundits themselves, who were horribly disenchanted by Hinduism’s orthodoxy and voluntarily converted themselves. In fact, works by Mulla Ahmed, the first Sheikh-ul-Islam, such as “Fatwa-i-Shihabi”, and “Shihab-i-Saqib” were immensely secular works that held more relevance to Hindus and Muslims than the epic superstitious mythologies of Hinduism.
Upon death of mongol expansionist Kublai Khan (1260-1294), there were huge tribal uprising that led to death of Beijing’s viceroy Lha-Chen-Dugos Grub. Tribes attacked the region Sonamarg valley, which was being ruled by Rama Chandra, who was the prime minister of King Sahadeva. But Sahadeva did not lend much support to Rama Chandra during the period of crisis when tribals attacked the area (in fact Sahadeva was supportive of the tribals). This betrayal led to Rama Chandra declaring himself as the King. As a rather feeble king, Rama Chandra was no match for Lha-Chen’s son Rinchin who attacked the king soon after. Rinchin had escaped the border and aspired to be a king, as much as his friend from Swat valley Shah Mir. Rinchin with support of Mir took over the palace. And Rinchin was declared the Lord of Kasmir on 6 October 1320. Interestingly, Rama Chandra’s daughter Kota who was in love with Rinchin much before the attack, quickly declared herself the queen.
Rinchin’s era is considered to be the golden age in the history of Kashmir, as Rinchin was a Buddhist and he wanted to spread peace throughout the region. He not only married Rama Chandra’s daughter, he also made Rama Chandra’s sons his prime ministers. But since Rinchin was a Buddhist, he could not rule over the state that did not have much Buddhist presence. Hence he decided to convert to Hinduism and called for the head priest. And as shocking as it may sound, the high priests of Hinduism declined to convert him, since they could not determine what caste in the hierarchy was King Rinchin!
Since the Brahmin pundits exercised this folly, Shah Mir found the opportunity to ask his friend to convert to Islam. Although Rinchin was skeptical, he soon saw the great Sufi divine Bulbul Shah at a prayer. Bulbul Shah provided Rinchin what the Brahmins could not: a casteless religion. Islam had no caste: it was built on the equality of humans and faith in the omnipotence of Allah and His last Messenger, the prophet Muhammad. To become a Muslim, Rinchin only had to utter the Qalimah: ‘La-e-laha illallah, Muhammad un-Rasul Allah’.
Rinchin thus became a Muslim, and Islam arrived not through violent coercion, but through peaceful understanding of a harmonious religion. Rinchin took the name Sultan Sadruddin, and built a mosque called Bodro Masjid. During his friend Shah Mir’s rule as Sultan Shamsuddin, a dynasty that lasted for 222 years, Islam had become the paramount religion of Kashmir, but because of its popular success and their identification with the Kashmiri people. Jonaraja described this rule:
“This believer in Allah, calm and active, became the savior of the people and protected the subjects.”
And throughout, despite the brahminical prejudices against the converted kings (Hindus and Budhhists who had turned into Muslims), the Muslim rulers were always sympathetic towards the high priests. It was the period when Nand Rishi or Lal Ded and other religious people flourished. In fact, Abul Fazl wrote in the Ain-i-Akbari:
“The most respected people are the Rishis who, although they do not suffer themselves to be fettered by traditions, are doubtless the true worshippers of God. They do not revile any other sect, nor ask anything of anyone. They plant the roads with fruit trees to provide the traveler with refreshments. They abstain from meat and have no intercourse with the other sex. There are 2000 of these Rishis in Kashmir.”
Moghul rulers likewise, and especially Akbar, were aware of the large Hindu population and worked towards their harmonious living. Firstly, it was the most practical thing to do, since any alternative could have called for doom. Tribal populations were always up in arms against any empire, and it could become a matter of time before Hindus got disenchanted and joined the revolution. To that end, the emperors were forced to be considerate towards diversity of religions. Needless to point out, just as characteristic of any empire (just like it is true in today’s so-called democracies running large thought controls called mainstream media), there were state propaganda working those days to lull people to passivity and relaxation instead of agitated uprising. And just like today’s cheap slavery and draconic hours of call centers, people were forced those days to seek cheap labor in works they had no interests in. But as evidenced, the secularism during the Muslim and Moghul periods were quite practiced at several levels.
“The fusion of Islamic culture with existing Indian culture achieved the most positive expression in the activities of the artisan classes of the towns and amongst the cultivators, as is evident from the socio-religious ideas of the time, and also in primarily artisan activities such as building monuments, the fusion being evident in the architecture of the period. The pattern of living in both these classes came to be interrelated to a far greater degree than amongst the nobility. Domestic ceremonies and rituals such as those connected with birth, marriage, and death became mingled. The converted Muslims were also heirs to long-standing rituals practiced by the Hindus. New ceremonies which had come with Islam, and which were regarded as auspicious, crept into Hindu ritual.”
(page 300, A History of India, Volume One. Romila Thapar.)
Upon deconstruction, what it merely suggests is that Moghul rule created more problems for the upper caste Hindu feudalists than the working peasants. The assimilation was seen more among Muslims and the working poor of India, than between Muslims and the upper caste people.
Now I will quote from Orissamatters, authored by SCP, who is an eminent journalist of Orissa:
“Kalhan’s classic work ‘Rajtarangini’ describes how the Brahmins conspired against Queen Dida as she was not patronizing to Brahminism and after her death, beheaded from behind Sri Tunga, the most powerful protector of the liberal policies of the Late Queen.
So ruthlessly the Brahmins known as Kashmir Pundits imposed their caste supremacy that the people exploited under caste apartheid jumped into Islam which was not vitiated by caste system. They not only became Muslims en masse, but also they became so with so much revengeful resolution that they drove away the Pundits from the soil.
The entire land mass that has now become Pakistan and Bangladesh was the dwelling place of Indians where our ancient people had established their own civilization. It is the Brahmins’ supremacist mentality that has helped Islam to spread in India.
So whosoever has embraced the Muslim religion in this Sub-Continent is an Indian who has revolted against Brahminism, against Brahminic caste apartheid.”
Eminent historian Irfan Habib says that Moghul rulers had even appointed Brahmins as administrators owing to their upper caste/class/knowledge backgrounds. And even in such positions, the Brahmins under the Moghul rule, did not amend their behavior. As an example, we shall take the case of ‘Satnamis’, a sect founded in 1657 by a native of Narnaul, who proclaimed himself to be of the tradition of the great monotheist Kabir, the weaver. They were opposed tooth and nail by the banyas and Brahmin caste people, since Satnamis (worshipper of the True Name or God) comprised people from sections such as sweepers, carpenters and tanners. “It was obviously owing to this contamination from contact with the untouchables that the sect became particularly hateful in the eyes of the orthodox,” says Habib. (Essays in Indian History, Tulika, New Delhi, 1995).
Isardas Mehta in “Futuhat-i ‘Alamgiri” quotes a loyal Hindu official of the Mughal government describing Satnamis as:
“That community, because of its extreme dirtiness, is rendered foul, filthy and impure. Thus in their religion they do not differentiate between Hindus and Muslims. They eat porks and other disgusting things. If a dog has eaten from their bowl, they do not abstain from eating from it or show any revulsion.”
Thus, even during the Mughal period, the Hindu supremacists continued to hold sway, even in the face of definitive secular reigns by Akbar and Aurangzeb. Unfortunately, they continue to do so even to this date--to the extent that the stories of forced labor were exaggerated by the Hindu revisionists, without a mention of exploitation of workers to build temples. More than the Hindu kings, it was the Moghul rulers who played their part in promoting economic parity. Indeed Sir Walter Lawrence’s works show how in Moghul periods, women were given six annas a day for independent sustenance. And in projects involving large-scale labor, the main gates were written with inscriptions such as these:
“Na kardeh hech kas beggar anja
Tamame yaftand az makhzanash zar”.
(No one, it proclaims proudly, was shanghaied into beggar, or forced labor, for this imperial project; each worker was paid fully for his her labor.&rdquo
This blog cannot go on in the direction of glorifying the Moghul rulers. Indeed far from it, this stands to condemn any of the rules by the kings and emperors, since none of them established peoples’ democracy. Also because of the stages of development those days, such dreams were quite distant. But in view of the current attack on Islam and an ignorant dismissal of it as a religion inherently violent, oppressive or backward, I thought it would serve well to do a small analysis of the situation using a critical historiography.
In Conclusion:
The day of patriotic exhibition of India has passed us by. We can rejoice at its passage. To begin with 2006 is not the centenary of Vande Mataram. It was used this way solely for sensational purpose. In addition, even singing of National Anthem Jana Gana Mana is not compulsory and should not be. Hence Vande Mataram controversy was furthered solely for the political purpose. Lastly, Islam is unlike Hinduism. Just the way Hindu preachers know that Hinduism is an organically developed national religion that has always stayed inside India due to its exclusionary philosophy that forbids people from joining it (just like Puri Pandas are absolutely right in not allowing non-Hindus to enter Jagannath Temple since they know Hinduism quite well to be discriminatory), Muslims know it well that Islam is a global religion that is based upon spreading the word of the last Messenger of Allah, and hence it does not recognize a nation-state to be paramount. So certain religious people condemning certain other religious people because they think their base of religion is valid while other bases of other religions are not, amounts to mere assertion of misconception.
And the way the right wing brigade took advantage of death of Pramod Mahajan and statue of Bal Thackrey’s wife to cause unrest in the country, they are now trying to take advantage of a song-recital drama. News reports say that their Vande Mataram demonstrations are causing violence in muslim areas where the hindu fanatics are having a free hand in harassing the minorities in India. And this is simply intolerable and unacceptable, and every patriotic Indian must rise up against the narrow minded ignorant bigots of the rightist parties and stop them from further claiming that they represent us in any manner whatsoever. Its time for them to either gain newer knowledge and get rid of their professed idiocy, or prepare to face the wrath of the oppressed in coming times when the people of India will no more merely vote them out of power like a dying party of losers, but also wipe them off the public platforms where they stage hypocritical melodramas.
Vande Mataram as a Hindu Hymn
By Saswat Pattanayak
There is no reason why Vande Mataram, the Indian national song, should be in controversy any longer. This song should be now scrapped and deleted from its current status.
Ever since India’s ‘independence’, this song has created controversies, and for obvious reasons. However, just as the ‘secular’ leadership of India had tried to suppress the skeletons in its cupboard, the opportunistic media had also vociferously supported the need for the song to go on in its truncated form.
And India, mostly kept ignorant about the damaging consequences of having such a song was lulled into believing that everything was well so long as we could come to a consensus. For the consensus, however the four power estates of Indian democracy utilized a) the voices of Hindu seculars approving the song’s first two paragraphs, b) the voices of Muslim seculars approving the same paragraphs, c) the voices of Hindu fanatics demanding the whole song to be made compulsory, and d) the confusion of the vast majority of Indians who had no clue whatsoever of any possibility of controversy over a ‘patriotic’ song. But the structure deliberately left out a segment of public which had from the beginning staged protest against the song.
Since the mainstream premise of such a song begins with unquestioned patriotism, anyone who opposes an element within that realm is at once accused of being anti-national. Hence, the remaining group of people, the fifth group which fervently opposed the song everytime, unfortunately most of the time comprised radical Muslims, were denounced to the extent of being silenced by the media.
Bankim Chandra as a Patriot: The lies my teacher told me
In matters of social concerns, half-truths are synonymous with blatant lies. This is so, because half-truths promote biases, prejudices and stereotypes. The text books that most of us studied during our school days were full of the half-truths. This is nothing surprising or exceptional, though. Every government under a popular democracy has to resort to lies in order to sustain its power base. Hence the dominant Congress with its pseudo-Gandhian philosophy also worked towards integrating its lies by to projecting a reconciled difference and reaching a “consensus”.
There is nothing wrong in reaching a consensus, but in this attempt, the critical voices should not be silenced systematically either. And in this case, Vande Mataram should not have been allowed to triumph in a land that should have had it banned subsequent to pursuance of its ideals of secularism. Rajendra Prasad whose fanaticism with Hindutva is well known, of course wanted the song to be given equal status with national anthem. This was unfortunate, although not entirely unexpected of him, considering that the rabid religious elements still wanted to declare India as a Hindu Rashtra. But the condescending statesmen of the time also acquiesced to the demand, albeit in the truncated form.
The future generations of India were not to be told of the lies and deception that went behind projecting Vande Mataram as a national song. As a result, today most people do not even think twice before patronizing the song. Even the ardent Hindu fanatics forgave a Muslim composer making tunes and money off the obsession.
The colonial crisis?
The demands by the rightist brigade to make the song compulsory in educational institution has raised eyebrows. In this case, again, the criticism has mostly come from religious minorities, even at the expense of being categorized as anti-national. We all know it too well how the Hindu fanatics are running to any extent to blame the Muslims of India as instigators of terrorism instead of looking within for managing a society based on complete anarchy and making living off the institutional ignorance. And now, the Hindu supremacists, whose ideological forefathers were infamously hands in gloves with the imperialists (and which is why they were banned from contesting polls in secular India) have picked up sensitive threads of patriotism.
In the classic case of ignorance, the mainstream media propaganda, clearly overlooks certain facts that people of India have right to know and act upon. Here they are in a nutshell:
1. Anti-Muslim: Bankim Chattarjee, the man who wrote this song Vande Mataram was a rabid Hindu fundamentalist whose goal was not emancipation of India from the clutches of the colonialists, rather to establish a Hindu Rashtra by any means. His stress on Islam corruption of India is not only devoid of the highly secular past of India during the Moghul rule, but also smacks of religious chauvinism targeted against Muslim freedom fighters of the colonial period.
Historian R.C. Majumdar writes, “Bankimchandra converted patriotism into religion and religion into patriotism”. In fact Anand Math, the work from which Vande Mataram is derived, is a text of Hindu nationalism, and not Indian nationalism. The work is selectively targeted against Muslims all over the texts. Anand Math is a Hindu temple where there are scenes of Jivananda calling Muslims names: “We have often thought to break up this bird's nest of Muslim rule, to pull down the city of the renegades and throw it into the river - to turn this pig-sty to ashes and make Mother earth free from evil again. Friends, that day has come.”
A G Noorani (Frontline, January 2-15, 1999) quotes M.R.A. Baig’s analysis of the novel in which the song finds exclusive place:
2. Pro-British: If there ever was a piece of Indian literature that was most pronouncedly pro-colonialists, then it was Anand Math. Interestingly, and naturally enough, the right wing political parties have picked up their ideal role model in Chatterjee since their ideologues were themselves allies of the British rulers in India. Anand Math is replete with anti-Muslim slogans, no doubt. But it also celebrates the British rule in India. It in fact goes to the extent of saying that British were friends of India, and it was only the Muslim people against whom the Hindus should fight against.
In the last chapter of the work, the author speaks through the supreme character: “Your task is accomplished. The Muslim power is destroyed. There is nothing else for you to do.
Your vow is fulfilled. You have brought fortune to your Mother. You have set up a British government. Give up your fighting. Let the people take to their ploughs. Let the earth be rich with harvest and the people rich with wealth.
There are no foes now. The English are our friends as well as rulers.”
This is the context of the song that goes on to celebrate Hindu religious deities entirely and exclusively.
Baahute tumi maa shakti
hR^idaye tumi maa bhakti
tomaara i pratimaa gaDi
mandire mandire
TvaM hi Durgaa dashapraharaNadhaariNii
kamalaa kamaladala vihaariNii
vaaNii vidyaadaayinii namaami tvaaM
Its target is the Muslim people of India and their tradition which has been blatantly misrepresented in the work. And its ally in the vicious hatred campaign is the British rule in India. The mothers in Bande Mataram are the Hindu goddesses and there is no reason why people of other religions should be forced to sing their praises. Just because certain Bengal revolutionaries used this slogan and popularized it, and some more Bengali intellectuals upheld Bankim Chatterjee as an iconic litterateur, it does not mean the great peoples of India will forget the rich multi-cultural tradition that has been in existence in the country since centuries now and in the name of Hindu chauvinism, people should not be misled any further to denounce Moghul rule and celebrate British Raj.
Knowingly or unknowingly, people have believed in the mainstream history of India from almost a harmless angle. They believe that Gandhi was the ‘father of the nation’, that Congress was the party that gave freedom to India, they believe that Hindus contribute the most to the country’s cultural landscape, and they celebrate Saraswati and Sivaji. People are apparently content with the reservation policies working against the Dalits, with nominal celebrations of Islam culture, with not paying reparation to the tribal peoples for having snatched their dear lands.
Even as these acceptances come as mediocre consensus of some form to carry on with a liberal democracy, these have been still in a Gandhian tradition of positive compromises. Our objections should not be towards the social fiber of Indian constitution which is secular, democratic and socialist in its spirit. But if anyone tries to enforce their religious ideals down the future generations of the country, one and all of us must stand in solidarity to oppose the vicious steps. Once and for all, it must be declared that India is not a Hindu country and no Hindu glorifications can take place at an official level, not even if some right wing fanatics come to power once in a while.
We have had many a dramatic stands of consensus in the past. Indeed, this has been the policy of Indian ‘nation’ since its very birth. Although the country is composed of different nation-states, we declared a consensus that we were almost one nation. Although India had distinctly different language groups we declared Hindi as the adopted core. Despite numerous tribal and distinctly exclusive peoples historically inhabiting the country, we agreed that it was a country of the Aryas.
Need to oppose the reactionaries:
But what’s missing from the discourse is not the sense of agreement, but the sense of disagreement. We never studied anything where the genuine disagreements were brought forth for healthy dialogues. We agreed India was the most ancient civilization, that Paravati and Laxmi were goddesses, that Hindus needed more festivities than any other religious groups, that New Delhi needed to be the capital city and Vande Mataram was the national song.
The problem is not in the ultimate acceptance of something as official policy. This is needed for sound governance. The issue at stake is the manner in which the officiating agencies of India never propose the need for the measures that would seriously dwell upon critical issues at stake. Everywhere, regional and national chauvinistic forces are at work in India. The conservatives are creating vandalisms all over with their openly racist and primitively backward views, starting from setting up Saraswati Vidya Mandirs which goes unchallenged even though separation of education from religion should be the spirit of secularism, to install statues in parochial terms. They go on to disrupt Valentines Days, link Muslim cricketers and filmstars with underworld, even as they have formed the most pernicious underworld themselves, only operating wide open in the corridors of political power. They go on to revise history to celebrate Shivaji and claim a Gujarat civilization named after a Hindu goddess. And as their wont, they go on to celebrate their fellow hindu fanatic, one Nathuram Gadse, the killer of Gandhi by revising text books to omit the assassination incident.
We have been taking all these lying down even as the rightist brigade, safely harbored by the domestic business houses of India continues to celebrate the absurd. And now they want the rest of the country to celebrate these sectarian crimes as well, and hence there is a need for the rest of us to resist and desist the temptation to fall into the opium trap. The trap works variously. At times, the enlightened people just assume that its alright if things are this way or that way. Thats the Hindu privilege some people enjoy since their feelings do not get hurt, as long as the hymn remains as the national song.
And if the secular Hindus and religious Muslims of India have not denounced the song in such a serious manner to seek its withdrawal as India’s national song, it speaks of their great tradition of tolerance to Hindu bigotry. This should not be misconstrued as an organic weakness and allowed to be taken advantage of any further.
There is no reason why Vande Mataram, the Indian national song, should be in controversy any longer. This song should be now scrapped and deleted from its current status.
Ever since India’s ‘independence’, this song has created controversies, and for obvious reasons. However, just as the ‘secular’ leadership of India had tried to suppress the skeletons in its cupboard, the opportunistic media had also vociferously supported the need for the song to go on in its truncated form.
And India, mostly kept ignorant about the damaging consequences of having such a song was lulled into believing that everything was well so long as we could come to a consensus. For the consensus, however the four power estates of Indian democracy utilized a) the voices of Hindu seculars approving the song’s first two paragraphs, b) the voices of Muslim seculars approving the same paragraphs, c) the voices of Hindu fanatics demanding the whole song to be made compulsory, and d) the confusion of the vast majority of Indians who had no clue whatsoever of any possibility of controversy over a ‘patriotic’ song. But the structure deliberately left out a segment of public which had from the beginning staged protest against the song.
Since the mainstream premise of such a song begins with unquestioned patriotism, anyone who opposes an element within that realm is at once accused of being anti-national. Hence, the remaining group of people, the fifth group which fervently opposed the song everytime, unfortunately most of the time comprised radical Muslims, were denounced to the extent of being silenced by the media.
Bankim Chandra as a Patriot: The lies my teacher told me
In matters of social concerns, half-truths are synonymous with blatant lies. This is so, because half-truths promote biases, prejudices and stereotypes. The text books that most of us studied during our school days were full of the half-truths. This is nothing surprising or exceptional, though. Every government under a popular democracy has to resort to lies in order to sustain its power base. Hence the dominant Congress with its pseudo-Gandhian philosophy also worked towards integrating its lies by to projecting a reconciled difference and reaching a “consensus”.
There is nothing wrong in reaching a consensus, but in this attempt, the critical voices should not be silenced systematically either. And in this case, Vande Mataram should not have been allowed to triumph in a land that should have had it banned subsequent to pursuance of its ideals of secularism. Rajendra Prasad whose fanaticism with Hindutva is well known, of course wanted the song to be given equal status with national anthem. This was unfortunate, although not entirely unexpected of him, considering that the rabid religious elements still wanted to declare India as a Hindu Rashtra. But the condescending statesmen of the time also acquiesced to the demand, albeit in the truncated form.
The future generations of India were not to be told of the lies and deception that went behind projecting Vande Mataram as a national song. As a result, today most people do not even think twice before patronizing the song. Even the ardent Hindu fanatics forgave a Muslim composer making tunes and money off the obsession.
The colonial crisis?
The demands by the rightist brigade to make the song compulsory in educational institution has raised eyebrows. In this case, again, the criticism has mostly come from religious minorities, even at the expense of being categorized as anti-national. We all know it too well how the Hindu fanatics are running to any extent to blame the Muslims of India as instigators of terrorism instead of looking within for managing a society based on complete anarchy and making living off the institutional ignorance. And now, the Hindu supremacists, whose ideological forefathers were infamously hands in gloves with the imperialists (and which is why they were banned from contesting polls in secular India) have picked up sensitive threads of patriotism.
In the classic case of ignorance, the mainstream media propaganda, clearly overlooks certain facts that people of India have right to know and act upon. Here they are in a nutshell:
1. Anti-Muslim: Bankim Chattarjee, the man who wrote this song Vande Mataram was a rabid Hindu fundamentalist whose goal was not emancipation of India from the clutches of the colonialists, rather to establish a Hindu Rashtra by any means. His stress on Islam corruption of India is not only devoid of the highly secular past of India during the Moghul rule, but also smacks of religious chauvinism targeted against Muslim freedom fighters of the colonial period.
Historian R.C. Majumdar writes, “Bankimchandra converted patriotism into religion and religion into patriotism”. In fact Anand Math, the work from which Vande Mataram is derived, is a text of Hindu nationalism, and not Indian nationalism. The work is selectively targeted against Muslims all over the texts. Anand Math is a Hindu temple where there are scenes of Jivananda calling Muslims names: “We have often thought to break up this bird's nest of Muslim rule, to pull down the city of the renegades and throw it into the river - to turn this pig-sty to ashes and make Mother earth free from evil again. Friends, that day has come.”
A G Noorani (Frontline, January 2-15, 1999) quotes M.R.A. Baig’s analysis of the novel in which the song finds exclusive place:
“Written as a story set in the period of the dissolution of the Moghul Empire, the hero of the novel, Bhavananda, is planning an armed rising against the Muslims of Bengal. While busy recruiting, he meets Mahendra and sings the song 'Bande Mataram' or 'Hail Mother'. The latter asks him the meaning of the words and Bhavananda, making a spirited answer, concludes with: 'Our religion is gone, our caste is gone, our honour is gone. Can the Hindus preserve their Hinduism unless these drunken Nereys (a term of contempt for Muslims) are driven away?'... Mahendra, however, not convinced, expresses reluctance to join the rebellion. He is, therefore, taken to the temple of Ananda Math and shown a huge image of four-armed Vishnu, with two decapitated and bloody heads in front, "Do you know who she is?" asks the priest in charge, pointing to an image on the lap of Vishnu, "She is the Mother. We are her children Say 'Bande Mataram'" He is taken to the image of Kali and then to that of Durga. On each occasion he is asked to recite 'Bande Mataram'. In another scene in the novel some people shouted 'kill, kill the Nereys'. Others shouted 'Bande Mataram' 'Will the day come when we shall break mosques and build temples on their sites?””
2. Pro-British: If there ever was a piece of Indian literature that was most pronouncedly pro-colonialists, then it was Anand Math. Interestingly, and naturally enough, the right wing political parties have picked up their ideal role model in Chatterjee since their ideologues were themselves allies of the British rulers in India. Anand Math is replete with anti-Muslim slogans, no doubt. But it also celebrates the British rule in India. It in fact goes to the extent of saying that British were friends of India, and it was only the Muslim people against whom the Hindus should fight against.
In the last chapter of the work, the author speaks through the supreme character: “Your task is accomplished. The Muslim power is destroyed. There is nothing else for you to do.
Your vow is fulfilled. You have brought fortune to your Mother. You have set up a British government. Give up your fighting. Let the people take to their ploughs. Let the earth be rich with harvest and the people rich with wealth.
There are no foes now. The English are our friends as well as rulers.”
This is the context of the song that goes on to celebrate Hindu religious deities entirely and exclusively.
Baahute tumi maa shakti
hR^idaye tumi maa bhakti
tomaara i pratimaa gaDi
mandire mandire
TvaM hi Durgaa dashapraharaNadhaariNii
kamalaa kamaladala vihaariNii
vaaNii vidyaadaayinii namaami tvaaM
Its target is the Muslim people of India and their tradition which has been blatantly misrepresented in the work. And its ally in the vicious hatred campaign is the British rule in India. The mothers in Bande Mataram are the Hindu goddesses and there is no reason why people of other religions should be forced to sing their praises. Just because certain Bengal revolutionaries used this slogan and popularized it, and some more Bengali intellectuals upheld Bankim Chatterjee as an iconic litterateur, it does not mean the great peoples of India will forget the rich multi-cultural tradition that has been in existence in the country since centuries now and in the name of Hindu chauvinism, people should not be misled any further to denounce Moghul rule and celebrate British Raj.
Knowingly or unknowingly, people have believed in the mainstream history of India from almost a harmless angle. They believe that Gandhi was the ‘father of the nation’, that Congress was the party that gave freedom to India, they believe that Hindus contribute the most to the country’s cultural landscape, and they celebrate Saraswati and Sivaji. People are apparently content with the reservation policies working against the Dalits, with nominal celebrations of Islam culture, with not paying reparation to the tribal peoples for having snatched their dear lands.
Even as these acceptances come as mediocre consensus of some form to carry on with a liberal democracy, these have been still in a Gandhian tradition of positive compromises. Our objections should not be towards the social fiber of Indian constitution which is secular, democratic and socialist in its spirit. But if anyone tries to enforce their religious ideals down the future generations of the country, one and all of us must stand in solidarity to oppose the vicious steps. Once and for all, it must be declared that India is not a Hindu country and no Hindu glorifications can take place at an official level, not even if some right wing fanatics come to power once in a while.
We have had many a dramatic stands of consensus in the past. Indeed, this has been the policy of Indian ‘nation’ since its very birth. Although the country is composed of different nation-states, we declared a consensus that we were almost one nation. Although India had distinctly different language groups we declared Hindi as the adopted core. Despite numerous tribal and distinctly exclusive peoples historically inhabiting the country, we agreed that it was a country of the Aryas.
Need to oppose the reactionaries:
But what’s missing from the discourse is not the sense of agreement, but the sense of disagreement. We never studied anything where the genuine disagreements were brought forth for healthy dialogues. We agreed India was the most ancient civilization, that Paravati and Laxmi were goddesses, that Hindus needed more festivities than any other religious groups, that New Delhi needed to be the capital city and Vande Mataram was the national song.
The problem is not in the ultimate acceptance of something as official policy. This is needed for sound governance. The issue at stake is the manner in which the officiating agencies of India never propose the need for the measures that would seriously dwell upon critical issues at stake. Everywhere, regional and national chauvinistic forces are at work in India. The conservatives are creating vandalisms all over with their openly racist and primitively backward views, starting from setting up Saraswati Vidya Mandirs which goes unchallenged even though separation of education from religion should be the spirit of secularism, to install statues in parochial terms. They go on to disrupt Valentines Days, link Muslim cricketers and filmstars with underworld, even as they have formed the most pernicious underworld themselves, only operating wide open in the corridors of political power. They go on to revise history to celebrate Shivaji and claim a Gujarat civilization named after a Hindu goddess. And as their wont, they go on to celebrate their fellow hindu fanatic, one Nathuram Gadse, the killer of Gandhi by revising text books to omit the assassination incident.
We have been taking all these lying down even as the rightist brigade, safely harbored by the domestic business houses of India continues to celebrate the absurd. And now they want the rest of the country to celebrate these sectarian crimes as well, and hence there is a need for the rest of us to resist and desist the temptation to fall into the opium trap. The trap works variously. At times, the enlightened people just assume that its alright if things are this way or that way. Thats the Hindu privilege some people enjoy since their feelings do not get hurt, as long as the hymn remains as the national song.
And if the secular Hindus and religious Muslims of India have not denounced the song in such a serious manner to seek its withdrawal as India’s national song, it speaks of their great tradition of tolerance to Hindu bigotry. This should not be misconstrued as an organic weakness and allowed to be taken advantage of any further.
Happy Victory Day!
By Saswat Pattanayak
My father calls this, not the Independence day, but the Victory Day.
For, on August 14-15, 1947, peoples of the brave revolutionary land of India finally won the long war against British Imperialism. The war, spanning more than 200 years was fought with occasional non-violent demonstrations of millions of people, and more importantly, was fought with organized revolutionary peasants and workers movements which finally forced the Empire to concede defeat. It was perhaps the largest victory of the landless peoples over the landlords and invaders in the history of world. In doing so, peoples from the Indian subcontinent regions demonstrated that they would not concede a wee bit either to accommodate the foreign imperialists nor allow any rule by the homegrown royal families. The “purna swaraj” declaration by the radical left freedom fighters, although facing strong opposition from religious chauvinists who were in cohort with British colonialists, finally forced the expulsion of the rulers and silenced the communal politicians.
However, religions as addictively dangerous they are by nature, spread the poison of hatred incited by the British in their centuries old misrules. The ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics of old guard imperialists continued to show colors in the divided land of India. Not only were they successful in dividing the country into India and Pakistan, two regions who shared the same history of struggles, they also left behind a legacy that continued to help their former informers—the right wing Hindu fanatics who were backed by the British authorities to disrupt the harmonious ways of living, that were characteristic of the people of the land.
Today, sixty years hence, we still feel the uprising of the right wing colonial assistors. These are the same religious elements who stop at nothing in order to create environment of suspicion and foster an insecure climate for the religious and atheistic minorities. These are still hands-in-gloves with the oppressor classes worldwide who comfortably rule in various names, but propagate hatred, war, and feelings of hostilities which help them in targeting countries that practice different religions. In the name of religion alone, they have fought all the wars of the world so far. And they believe they will continue to kill people without even facing opposition, since they have already created the notions of God, cultures of religion, and politics of intolerance.
Today they are targeting Lebanon. Yesterday they targeted Mumbai. Day before that, they targeted working people of London. All in the name of a philosophy they created to sustain their ruling class status. The philosophy is called Religion.
Sixty years have passed since the day became sacred to Pakistan and India, for their peoples’ revolutionary overthrow of the imperialists. Yet it seems the enemy grows stronger. The religious fanatics in the name of their various Gods have been ruining the peace we deserve to have in this planet.
So I thought it will be worthwhile to reflect and tell to each of us and to each of our children, that enough has been lost. Now is the time for social justice. Now is the time to regain our lost causes. Not another life in the name of religion. Not another child to be declared religious. Not another war in name of religions, nationalities and moral standards. No more Christians and Sikhs. No more Muslims and Hindus. Just human beings who respect the roots of our shared history as peaceful, cooperative peoples. Just radical human beings.
I have translated Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem “Tu Hindu Banega Na Mussalman Banega” for this occasion. The poem was addressed to a child who did not know of his parents. Naturally enough, the child had no surname yet, no religion yet and no nationality yet! And such a joy was this child to the poet!
Full of hope and twinkles of determination. Sahir was not just the voice of the landless and oppressed, orphans and women, he was also the voice of the future, of a future that belongs to all of us, without private properties, mindless competition, needless nationalities and fanatic religions. Here it is:
Happy Victory Day!
Neither you will be a Hindu nor a Muslim will you be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
A bundle of joy you are, sans a given name
Disconnected from religions, that’s your gain
Religious texts have only divided humanity
My child! So far they couldn’t attack your sanity
Hence the clarion call for the revolution, will you be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
Mother Nature warmly nurtured us as human beings
Alas! we forced our children into Hindus and Muslims
One small world was all that we were bestowed
Bigots among us created India and Iran instead
Destroyer of barriers, of this unjust world order, will you be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
Religions preach hate--they are not designed for you
And they practice hostilities--not even an option for you
No good is this Quran since it excludes the Hindu temples
You disown the Geeta that mentions not the Islam shrines
Symbol of world peace, fighter for social justice you will be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
In garb of patriotism, these nationalists are daylight killers
Even they trade coffins meant for their warring soldiers
These rich capitalists adorned in power and fame
They barter the peoples’ peace for communal shame
Shudder them with deaths, a revolutionary you will be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
(Trans. By Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet)
The original poem by Sahir:
Tu Hindu banega na Mussalman banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Accha hai abhi tak tera kuchh naam nahni hai
Tujh ko kisi mazhab se koi kaam nahni hai
Jis ilm ne insaan ko taqseem kiya hai
Is ilm ka tujh par koi ilzam nahni hai
Tu badle huye waqt ki pehchaan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Malik ne har insaan ko insaan banaya
Humne use Hindoo ya Mussalman banaya
Kudrat ne to bakshi thi hamein ek hi dharti
Hum ne kahni Bharat kahni Iran banaya
Jo tod de har bandh woh toofan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Nafrat jo sikhaye woh dharm tera nahni hai
Insaan ko jo rounde woh kadm tera nahni hai
Quran na ho jis mein woh Mandir nahni tera
Geeta na ho jis mein woh Haram tera nahni hai
Tu amn aur sulha ka armaan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Yeh din ke taajir, yeh watan bechne wale
Insaanoen ki laashoen ke kafn bechne wale
Yeh mehloen mein baithe huye qaatil ye lootere
Kantoen ke awaj roohe-chaman bechne wale
Tu inke liye maut ka elaan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
My father calls this, not the Independence day, but the Victory Day.
For, on August 14-15, 1947, peoples of the brave revolutionary land of India finally won the long war against British Imperialism. The war, spanning more than 200 years was fought with occasional non-violent demonstrations of millions of people, and more importantly, was fought with organized revolutionary peasants and workers movements which finally forced the Empire to concede defeat. It was perhaps the largest victory of the landless peoples over the landlords and invaders in the history of world. In doing so, peoples from the Indian subcontinent regions demonstrated that they would not concede a wee bit either to accommodate the foreign imperialists nor allow any rule by the homegrown royal families. The “purna swaraj” declaration by the radical left freedom fighters, although facing strong opposition from religious chauvinists who were in cohort with British colonialists, finally forced the expulsion of the rulers and silenced the communal politicians.
However, religions as addictively dangerous they are by nature, spread the poison of hatred incited by the British in their centuries old misrules. The ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics of old guard imperialists continued to show colors in the divided land of India. Not only were they successful in dividing the country into India and Pakistan, two regions who shared the same history of struggles, they also left behind a legacy that continued to help their former informers—the right wing Hindu fanatics who were backed by the British authorities to disrupt the harmonious ways of living, that were characteristic of the people of the land.
Today, sixty years hence, we still feel the uprising of the right wing colonial assistors. These are the same religious elements who stop at nothing in order to create environment of suspicion and foster an insecure climate for the religious and atheistic minorities. These are still hands-in-gloves with the oppressor classes worldwide who comfortably rule in various names, but propagate hatred, war, and feelings of hostilities which help them in targeting countries that practice different religions. In the name of religion alone, they have fought all the wars of the world so far. And they believe they will continue to kill people without even facing opposition, since they have already created the notions of God, cultures of religion, and politics of intolerance.
Today they are targeting Lebanon. Yesterday they targeted Mumbai. Day before that, they targeted working people of London. All in the name of a philosophy they created to sustain their ruling class status. The philosophy is called Religion.
Sixty years have passed since the day became sacred to Pakistan and India, for their peoples’ revolutionary overthrow of the imperialists. Yet it seems the enemy grows stronger. The religious fanatics in the name of their various Gods have been ruining the peace we deserve to have in this planet.
So I thought it will be worthwhile to reflect and tell to each of us and to each of our children, that enough has been lost. Now is the time for social justice. Now is the time to regain our lost causes. Not another life in the name of religion. Not another child to be declared religious. Not another war in name of religions, nationalities and moral standards. No more Christians and Sikhs. No more Muslims and Hindus. Just human beings who respect the roots of our shared history as peaceful, cooperative peoples. Just radical human beings.
I have translated Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem “Tu Hindu Banega Na Mussalman Banega” for this occasion. The poem was addressed to a child who did not know of his parents. Naturally enough, the child had no surname yet, no religion yet and no nationality yet! And such a joy was this child to the poet!
Full of hope and twinkles of determination. Sahir was not just the voice of the landless and oppressed, orphans and women, he was also the voice of the future, of a future that belongs to all of us, without private properties, mindless competition, needless nationalities and fanatic religions. Here it is:
Happy Victory Day!
My Child, A Radical Human Being
Neither you will be a Hindu nor a Muslim will you be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
A bundle of joy you are, sans a given name
Disconnected from religions, that’s your gain
Religious texts have only divided humanity
My child! So far they couldn’t attack your sanity
Hence the clarion call for the revolution, will you be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
Mother Nature warmly nurtured us as human beings
Alas! we forced our children into Hindus and Muslims
One small world was all that we were bestowed
Bigots among us created India and Iran instead
Destroyer of barriers, of this unjust world order, will you be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
Religions preach hate--they are not designed for you
And they practice hostilities--not even an option for you
No good is this Quran since it excludes the Hindu temples
You disown the Geeta that mentions not the Islam shrines
Symbol of world peace, fighter for social justice you will be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
In garb of patriotism, these nationalists are daylight killers
Even they trade coffins meant for their warring soldiers
These rich capitalists adorned in power and fame
They barter the peoples’ peace for communal shame
Shudder them with deaths, a revolutionary you will be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be
(Trans. By Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet)
The original poem by Sahir:
Tu Hindu banega na Mussalman banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Accha hai abhi tak tera kuchh naam nahni hai
Tujh ko kisi mazhab se koi kaam nahni hai
Jis ilm ne insaan ko taqseem kiya hai
Is ilm ka tujh par koi ilzam nahni hai
Tu badle huye waqt ki pehchaan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Malik ne har insaan ko insaan banaya
Humne use Hindoo ya Mussalman banaya
Kudrat ne to bakshi thi hamein ek hi dharti
Hum ne kahni Bharat kahni Iran banaya
Jo tod de har bandh woh toofan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Nafrat jo sikhaye woh dharm tera nahni hai
Insaan ko jo rounde woh kadm tera nahni hai
Quran na ho jis mein woh Mandir nahni tera
Geeta na ho jis mein woh Haram tera nahni hai
Tu amn aur sulha ka armaan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
Yeh din ke taajir, yeh watan bechne wale
Insaanoen ki laashoen ke kafn bechne wale
Yeh mehloen mein baithe huye qaatil ye lootere
Kantoen ke awaj roohe-chaman bechne wale
Tu inke liye maut ka elaan banega
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega
End Global Terrorism. Save Mumbai from Hindu Fanatics.
By Saswat Pattanayak
Giving into pressure from his promoters, the so-called opposition parties in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, as usual, condemned Pakistan for Mumbai blasts, and threatened disruptions to any peace talk with Pakistan. The right-wingers of India are jubilant at this prospect of forthcoming war with Pakistan, in which they hope to wipe out Islam from the world.
The irreparable damage that could not have resulted from the right wing political rhetoric alone, has now been done through their orchestration of Mumbai tensions. Following the blasts, most of even otherwise liberal people of India are now readily supporting the cause of Hindu fanatics in declaring war against Indian Muslims and Pakistan. This is grossly pathetic display of patriotism by any standard, and a sense of ingratitude towards a great, exemplary minority religious community of India that has actively helped save whatever is left of India’s grace.
Hindus who constitute an overwhelming majority in India have an obligation to display a great sense of responsibility at this time of national crisis. Let it be mentioned that Mumbai blasts is an international tragedy caused by global terrorists (we will soon go to who are the people that are the terrorists and who fund them, and for what cause etc). It is definitely not an occasion to play communal political opportunism. ALL words and actions and thoughts and indications, discriminations and prejudices against Muslim population MUST STOP in India. And blame games against Pakistan and Indian Muslims must end and the peace process must resume as scheduled. This is the least we can do to ensure that India has not yet turned a mad militarist (Although the reality is it is. Although since it’s not North Korea and since it is an ally of USA, India was not declared a terrorist country of the world even after its missile tests last week).
Muslim influence in making of modern India is one for great celebration. Indeed, if the British colonialists would not have forced their way to further gaps between the two communities and would not have manipulated their power structure to divide the country into two or three halves, we would have a different history today.
India’s History of Freedom Struggle against Hindu Fanatics:
The history would have been surely different, if Mahatma Gandhi or Netajee Subhas or Bhagat Singh (all three had radically different ways of approach towards freedom struggle, but convincingly similar goals in mind) would have had their ways. All three of them fought tooth and nail against Hindu fanatics and did not tolerate the ideology that was preached in name of Hinduism. Three of them were secular to the core and they believed that the country’s foundation must be built on Hindu-Muslim unity (not separation).
Whereas Bhagat Singh was assassinated by British imperialists, Subhas Bose’s ideals were massacred by homegrown reactionaries like Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi was shot to death by well organized Hindu fanatics of India.
Whereas the freedom fighters wanted secularism at all costs, the reactionaries wanted communal tensions at all costs. Hence, India’s so-called glorious history has been nothing short of a shameful, casteist, communal history of religious hatred, incited, engaged in, and managed by Hindu supremacists.
This is true that Muslim League, despite having some great patriots of the era, was also religious in nature. But its impact waned after formation of Pakistan. But Hindu Mahasabha, despite having no freedom fighter worth a mention, went on ransacking the emotional wealth of the country even after independence from illegal British rulers.
The history of Hindu ransacking in a Hindu India has gone on unabated in India since British were forced to leave. Although the reality is that these fanatics never got any support from mainstream Indian population, (85% of whom are Hindus) despite their claims to be representing the Hindus!
In the early periods of India’s independent history, which can be truly claimed to be the only glorious period in India’s recent times, the country under Nehru emerged as highly respectable nation in the world, with an internationalist outlook, where India played global role in promoting peace, cooperation and non-violence. India was at its secular best, in curbing the forces of Hindu chauvinism and indeed acted heavily against Hindu fanatics to the extent that they had to go underground. Whereas forming the Non-Aligned Movement in order to refrain from entering a nuclear club (which a shamelessly communalist like Vajpayee or the agent of domestic businessmen like Singh marred by their show of inferiorities---declaration of India as a militarist country…sic!), Nehru stood in solidarity with socialist causes worldwide. India supported the Soviet policies of planning, programming and social welfare. Cooperation, not competition, cooperatives, not private companies, small scale industries, not multinational companies, advancement of scientific rational progressive thoughts, not superstitious religious and fanatic camps…India was the most enviable country as the great role model in the world then.
But just as supremacist Hindus (although a tiny minority, they are so well organized with half pants and lathis and reactionary mechanisms in place) assured the end of Gandhi, they ensured the end of Nehru by fielding Patel against him several times. Both of them had rivalry since few decades before freedom, and even before Nehru could act undemocratically (which was actually the need of the hour, as Netajee had suggested, to educate people about political empowerment), Patel had let the Indian Army loose on Kashmir.
Of course Nehru cannot be forgiven for having tolerated entry of Hindu fanatics in the group already. For example, people like Ambedkar or Aruna Ali were not given the power. Neither Dalits nor Muslims had any primary say in the state of the nation. It was reinstallation of a north Indian Brahmin supremacy in India, that went on playing a different ideology than what Nehru had envisaged (as found in his own writings about the need to curb communal elements in India).
Indian private businesses started to grow after the demise of Nehru and despite valiant efforts by the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India had inadvertently fallen into the cold war game. As can be seen from Nixon and Kissinger talks about Indira Gandhi, America started having great interest in India (strategically that’s the best bet to defeat China and USSR at the same time). To that end, as was the creation of Taliban or the Iraqi fascists, foreign aids came to Indian insurgents to organize acts of terror.
Who are the terrorists?
In the pre-independence era, when the British condemned Bhagat Singh as a terrorist, he was very clear on his response. He said he was a revolutionary, and not a terrorist.
We need to dwell on the coinage and definition of who is a terrorist. First off, this is a word founded and coined by the ruling class to portray the resisters negatively, which is why it becomes more logical to believe in their description of who fits the phrase.
For many of the resisters however, they would rather be called Revolutionaries. That’s because revolutionaries fight against the system. And terrorists are integral to the system. Hence, the police forces, military forces and the profiteering governments become the terrorists when they cause circumstances where innocent people are massacred.
This is going on right now in India. The Hindu supremacists of India –the biggest blot in India’s secular image—are the ones who spread the venoms in early last decade by demolishing a national treasure called Babri Masjid. The terrorists who stoned the walls of the mosques and destroyed it with active collaboration of police forces (since they are all integral to the terrorizing network) that December 6, went on to incite the Mumbai bomb blasts—the biggest in India’s history. The riots went on unabated with an entirely unapologetic Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackerey calling the shots and giving hateful speeches against the Muslims of India. Shiv Sainiks who were aided by BJP in demolishing the mosque are the neo-nazi elements of India who should have been declared as state terrorists long back.
These were the people who came to power by killing extremely popular labor union leader of Maharashtra Krishna Desai, who was a communist leader of amazing popularity, already a MLA and was poised to rule the state. Desai’s murder was the first act of political murder in independent India. Shiva Sena hacked him to death, whereas the police and administration watched haplessly. The rise of political mafia in India has now surfaced to become the voice of the Hindu nationalists, and there cannot be any sadder development than this in India.
Journalist Praveen Swami of Frontline writes:
“Through the 1970s, Sena gangs repeatedly attacked leading Communist trade union leaders, and in 1973 were responsible for the murder of popular Parel MLA Krishna Desai. It was only in 1984, with the Sena discredited as a criminal mafia and in electoral decline, that Thackeray sought alliances with the Hindu Right, first forming the Hindu Mahasangh, and then allying with the BJP.
Violent riots, starting with the anti-Muslim pogroms in Bhiwandi, Kalyan and Thane, and through similar butchery at Panvel, Nashik, Nanded and Amravati, marked this new direction taken by the Sena.”
Activist Praful Bidwai writes:
“The Sena consciously fomented religious hatred and communalised Maharashtra politics. It manufactured chauvinist prejudice against non-Maharashtrians and instigated or committed hate-crimes. The Sena, with its disgusting demagoguery, represents pure, unadulterated evil, a political force that concentrates much that’s negative and deplorable in Indian society, including hierarchical authoritarianism, repression and addiction to the use of force and bullying.”
Ashok Dhawale writes:
“Many other communal decisions were taken by the SS-BJP regime. These were the abolition of the State Minorities Commission, the Urdu Academy and the Haj Committee; the bringing of a bill banning all forms of cow slaughter, including buffaloes, but which was defeated in the Council; a shrill campaign for the imposition of a uniform civil code; an attempt to drive out so-called Bangladeshi infiltrators, most of whom were bonafide citizens of India hailing from West Bengal but who
Giving into pressure from his promoters, the so-called opposition parties in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, as usual, condemned Pakistan for Mumbai blasts, and threatened disruptions to any peace talk with Pakistan. The right-wingers of India are jubilant at this prospect of forthcoming war with Pakistan, in which they hope to wipe out Islam from the world.
The irreparable damage that could not have resulted from the right wing political rhetoric alone, has now been done through their orchestration of Mumbai tensions. Following the blasts, most of even otherwise liberal people of India are now readily supporting the cause of Hindu fanatics in declaring war against Indian Muslims and Pakistan. This is grossly pathetic display of patriotism by any standard, and a sense of ingratitude towards a great, exemplary minority religious community of India that has actively helped save whatever is left of India’s grace.
Hindus who constitute an overwhelming majority in India have an obligation to display a great sense of responsibility at this time of national crisis. Let it be mentioned that Mumbai blasts is an international tragedy caused by global terrorists (we will soon go to who are the people that are the terrorists and who fund them, and for what cause etc). It is definitely not an occasion to play communal political opportunism. ALL words and actions and thoughts and indications, discriminations and prejudices against Muslim population MUST STOP in India. And blame games against Pakistan and Indian Muslims must end and the peace process must resume as scheduled. This is the least we can do to ensure that India has not yet turned a mad militarist (Although the reality is it is. Although since it’s not North Korea and since it is an ally of USA, India was not declared a terrorist country of the world even after its missile tests last week).
Muslim influence in making of modern India is one for great celebration. Indeed, if the British colonialists would not have forced their way to further gaps between the two communities and would not have manipulated their power structure to divide the country into two or three halves, we would have a different history today.
India’s History of Freedom Struggle against Hindu Fanatics:
The history would have been surely different, if Mahatma Gandhi or Netajee Subhas or Bhagat Singh (all three had radically different ways of approach towards freedom struggle, but convincingly similar goals in mind) would have had their ways. All three of them fought tooth and nail against Hindu fanatics and did not tolerate the ideology that was preached in name of Hinduism. Three of them were secular to the core and they believed that the country’s foundation must be built on Hindu-Muslim unity (not separation).
Whereas Bhagat Singh was assassinated by British imperialists, Subhas Bose’s ideals were massacred by homegrown reactionaries like Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi was shot to death by well organized Hindu fanatics of India.
Whereas the freedom fighters wanted secularism at all costs, the reactionaries wanted communal tensions at all costs. Hence, India’s so-called glorious history has been nothing short of a shameful, casteist, communal history of religious hatred, incited, engaged in, and managed by Hindu supremacists.
This is true that Muslim League, despite having some great patriots of the era, was also religious in nature. But its impact waned after formation of Pakistan. But Hindu Mahasabha, despite having no freedom fighter worth a mention, went on ransacking the emotional wealth of the country even after independence from illegal British rulers.
The history of Hindu ransacking in a Hindu India has gone on unabated in India since British were forced to leave. Although the reality is that these fanatics never got any support from mainstream Indian population, (85% of whom are Hindus) despite their claims to be representing the Hindus!
In the early periods of India’s independent history, which can be truly claimed to be the only glorious period in India’s recent times, the country under Nehru emerged as highly respectable nation in the world, with an internationalist outlook, where India played global role in promoting peace, cooperation and non-violence. India was at its secular best, in curbing the forces of Hindu chauvinism and indeed acted heavily against Hindu fanatics to the extent that they had to go underground. Whereas forming the Non-Aligned Movement in order to refrain from entering a nuclear club (which a shamelessly communalist like Vajpayee or the agent of domestic businessmen like Singh marred by their show of inferiorities---declaration of India as a militarist country…sic!), Nehru stood in solidarity with socialist causes worldwide. India supported the Soviet policies of planning, programming and social welfare. Cooperation, not competition, cooperatives, not private companies, small scale industries, not multinational companies, advancement of scientific rational progressive thoughts, not superstitious religious and fanatic camps…India was the most enviable country as the great role model in the world then.
But just as supremacist Hindus (although a tiny minority, they are so well organized with half pants and lathis and reactionary mechanisms in place) assured the end of Gandhi, they ensured the end of Nehru by fielding Patel against him several times. Both of them had rivalry since few decades before freedom, and even before Nehru could act undemocratically (which was actually the need of the hour, as Netajee had suggested, to educate people about political empowerment), Patel had let the Indian Army loose on Kashmir.
Of course Nehru cannot be forgiven for having tolerated entry of Hindu fanatics in the group already. For example, people like Ambedkar or Aruna Ali were not given the power. Neither Dalits nor Muslims had any primary say in the state of the nation. It was reinstallation of a north Indian Brahmin supremacy in India, that went on playing a different ideology than what Nehru had envisaged (as found in his own writings about the need to curb communal elements in India).
Indian private businesses started to grow after the demise of Nehru and despite valiant efforts by the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India had inadvertently fallen into the cold war game. As can be seen from Nixon and Kissinger talks about Indira Gandhi, America started having great interest in India (strategically that’s the best bet to defeat China and USSR at the same time). To that end, as was the creation of Taliban or the Iraqi fascists, foreign aids came to Indian insurgents to organize acts of terror.
Who are the terrorists?
In the pre-independence era, when the British condemned Bhagat Singh as a terrorist, he was very clear on his response. He said he was a revolutionary, and not a terrorist.
We need to dwell on the coinage and definition of who is a terrorist. First off, this is a word founded and coined by the ruling class to portray the resisters negatively, which is why it becomes more logical to believe in their description of who fits the phrase.
For many of the resisters however, they would rather be called Revolutionaries. That’s because revolutionaries fight against the system. And terrorists are integral to the system. Hence, the police forces, military forces and the profiteering governments become the terrorists when they cause circumstances where innocent people are massacred.
This is going on right now in India. The Hindu supremacists of India –the biggest blot in India’s secular image—are the ones who spread the venoms in early last decade by demolishing a national treasure called Babri Masjid. The terrorists who stoned the walls of the mosques and destroyed it with active collaboration of police forces (since they are all integral to the terrorizing network) that December 6, went on to incite the Mumbai bomb blasts—the biggest in India’s history. The riots went on unabated with an entirely unapologetic Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackerey calling the shots and giving hateful speeches against the Muslims of India. Shiv Sainiks who were aided by BJP in demolishing the mosque are the neo-nazi elements of India who should have been declared as state terrorists long back.
These were the people who came to power by killing extremely popular labor union leader of Maharashtra Krishna Desai, who was a communist leader of amazing popularity, already a MLA and was poised to rule the state. Desai’s murder was the first act of political murder in independent India. Shiva Sena hacked him to death, whereas the police and administration watched haplessly. The rise of political mafia in India has now surfaced to become the voice of the Hindu nationalists, and there cannot be any sadder development than this in India.
Journalist Praveen Swami of Frontline writes:
“Through the 1970s, Sena gangs repeatedly attacked leading Communist trade union leaders, and in 1973 were responsible for the murder of popular Parel MLA Krishna Desai. It was only in 1984, with the Sena discredited as a criminal mafia and in electoral decline, that Thackeray sought alliances with the Hindu Right, first forming the Hindu Mahasangh, and then allying with the BJP.
Violent riots, starting with the anti-Muslim pogroms in Bhiwandi, Kalyan and Thane, and through similar butchery at Panvel, Nashik, Nanded and Amravati, marked this new direction taken by the Sena.”
Activist Praful Bidwai writes:
“The Sena consciously fomented religious hatred and communalised Maharashtra politics. It manufactured chauvinist prejudice against non-Maharashtrians and instigated or committed hate-crimes. The Sena, with its disgusting demagoguery, represents pure, unadulterated evil, a political force that concentrates much that’s negative and deplorable in Indian society, including hierarchical authoritarianism, repression and addiction to the use of force and bullying.”
Ashok Dhawale writes:
“Many other communal decisions were taken by the SS-BJP regime. These were the abolition of the State Minorities Commission, the Urdu Academy and the Haj Committee; the bringing of a bill banning all forms of cow slaughter, including buffaloes, but which was defeated in the Council; a shrill campaign for the imposition of a uniform civil code; an attempt to drive out so-called Bangladeshi infiltrators, most of whom were bonafide citizens of India hailing from West Bengal but who