‘Sedition…Sedition…Sedition….’

Harish Khare

Judging from the sedition charges being framed left and right, it would seem that suddenly the country has become totally vulnerable, weak and fragile, with powerful forces out to tear us asunder. 

First, it was in Gujarat last year that sedition charges were slapped on Hardik Patel (of the Anamat Andolan Samiti) for demanding reservation for the Patels. A young man was able to mobilise the Patels, a community that had traditionally been staunchly supportive of the BJP governments in the state since the days of Keshubhai Patel. The Patels aggressively backed Narendra Modi during his long chief-ministerial innings. Because Hardik Patel could so innovatively work up the Patels on the reservation issue, he found himself accused of 'seditious' activities. 

Now, sedition charges have been invoked against JNU student leaders. 

Despite finding itself on the back foot on the intolerance debate, the rightwing went ahead and sought to impose itself in the post-Rohith Vemula debate in Hyderabad. Now, a new conformity is being demanded, all in the name of “martyred” soldiers and Bharat Mata. 

The polity is in for another round of over-stated nationalism and xenophobia. 

Two weeks ago, a leading citizen of Chandigarh and valued reader of The Tribune asked me whether I would be willing to spare some time for a meeting with representative(s) from the Art of Living organisation of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. It has to be admitted that in an over-crowded guru market, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has carved a conspicuous space for himself. I said I would gladly meet but “please do tell them that I do not approve of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's politics.”

A few days ago, I did have the pleasure of receiving Sanjiv Kakar, who made a very suave and inspired envoy for the Art of Living. He presented me a book, Celebrating Silence, a compilation of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s pravachans. Kakar had sought the meeting to know whether I would be willing to attend the ‘World Culture Festival’ being organised next month in Delhi to celebrate 35 years of “service to humanity.” There is a very impressive ‘Reception Committee’ with a global cast of characters, sending out invitations. As many as 35 lakh people are expected to attend the ‘festival.’ 

Kakar tactfully brought up the issue of my reservations about Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's politics. I repeated my piece: I was not enamoured of the political company he kept; he was mixed up with a crowd whose politics was regressive and retrograde (an Art of Living nominee was given a BJP ticket in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll; he won, also). 

My general position was that those who traffic in spiritual well-being should not get involved in political matters. Political matters are partisan affairs per se. 

With practised sophistication, Kakar heard me out and politely countered that the opinion was divided on this count and there were very many who thought that “spiritual people” should indeed enter the public arena as only they could cleanse the politics’ dirty stables. A necessary call to be made by the spiritual community. 

I was not impressed. My own intellectual position in this matter, perhaps, got formed in my younger days after I first read Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, a withering novel about the tribe of evangelical preachers. Recently there was this delightful indictment of the guru business in John Updike's ‘S.’

During my student days in America, I got a taste of spiritual and religious leaders’ involvement in political partisanship. In the late 1970s, a Baptist preacher, Reverend Jerry Falwell, became a national-level political operator when he formed a platform called the Moral Majority. It became an easy and willing tool in the hands of the Republican conservatives. Since then, American public life continues to suffer from this toxic mix of religion and politics. 

In India, there has never been any dearth of gurus, dispensing wisdom, spirituality and religion. In our own region, the lines between religion and spirituality have got very blurred, as have the lines between religion and politics. Often, the results have been far from happy. 

The politician is a clever fellow. He knows that bonds and solidarities that are forged at deras, gurdwaras, temples, maths, masjids and churches. The politician entices the man of religion and spirituality into his den by offering to listen to and follow the spiritual leader’s wisdom and teachings. The guru gets tempted, perhaps confident in the knowledge that he could always return uncontaminated from the politician's parlour to the purity of his ashram. 

No one can possibly suggest that our politics has become gentler or healthier or nobler because of the presumably benevolent involvement of all these spiritual and religious gurus. Nor does our society seem to have benefited from an over-supply of religious preachers. If anything, we have become more violent, more greedy and more selfish.

That said, no one can deny the gains and benefits — both physical and spiritual — from meditation and yoga. Each guru has his own style and each ashram has its own technique. But essentially, these are personal undertakings, each individual finding his own rhythm and own pace to seek solution and salvation.

It is the basic duty of an intellectual to question the conventional values and it is the obligation of a scholar to bring new facts of history to light. By writing Muslims Against Partition, Professor Shamsul Islam has fulfilled both the responsibilities. In this slim book, based on painstaking research and scholarship, Professor Islam has put to rest the myth that before 1947, all Muslims were for the division of India. 

He challenges the premise that “all Muslims favoured the creation of Pakistan while all Hindus stood for a sovereign, secular and democratic India.” He identifies a large body of “patriotic Muslims” who opposed the Partition. And, the tallest among these “patriotic Muslims” was Allah Bakhsh, who twice was premier of the Sind province. He had his own political platform, called the Azad Muslim Conference. 

Allah Bakhsh was murdered on May 14, 1943, on the outskirts of Shikarpur town of Sind. It is Professor Islam’s contention that Allah Bakhsh was killed by pro-Partition activists. Based on meticulous research, Professor Islam has catalogued a very large number of tall and prominent Muslims leaders who spoke and worked against MA Jinnah. He also records some poems of patriotic Muslims as they sought to fight a battle of the heart and mind. According to Professor Islam, the “patriotic Muslims” lost ground and eventually failed because of the Muslim League’s reign of terror, Hindutva politics of polarisation and the Congress Party’s vacillation and betrayal. 

History is regularly sought to be made a tool of partisanship. This book comes at a time when the country’s discourse has been fine-tuned into a historic Hindu-Muslim standoff. Professor Islam has spoken in a voice of sanity.

I have known Professor Islam for more than two decades, as a fervently patriotic and zealously secular intellectual. For years, he and his wife Neelima Sharma have been part of Nishant, a street theatre group, and have together spread the message of sanity tirelessly — and, perhaps, unrewardingly. 

Today is St Valentine’s Day. It is a day for those in love. In the best traditions of the western consumer culture, the day is one more occasion to buy gifts for loved ones. According to a Google search, over 150 million cards are exchanged on this occasion. 

Well, this is my Valentine's Day card for our beloved readers. For the old readers, The Tribune is an established relationship, but for me it is a new romance. Each week, I feel energised by the response and respect I receive from our readers.

It definitely calls for a coffee.

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