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Test of
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Uncontained desperation Afghan refugees’ passage through hell The stowaways rescued by the British authorities from a shipping container that reached Tilbury Docks were severely dehydrated and frozen to the bone. One of them had died while his children watched. After they were rescued, the other 34 received medical aid. The authorities have now identified those rescued as Afghan Sikhs and various agencies are investigating the case. The risk that these people took underlines the plight of one of the most vulnerable minorities in the world. Sikhs have been in Afghanistan for over two centuries. The small community has been under pressure over the past five decades.
India
must never be a ‘Hindu Pakistan’
Dialling
a wrong number
Have we
lost the art of listening ?
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Uncontained desperation The
stowaways rescued by the British authorities from a shipping container that reached Tilbury Docks were severely dehydrated and frozen to the bone. One of them had died while his children watched. After they were rescued, the other 34 received medical aid. The authorities have now identified those rescued as Afghan Sikhs and various agencies are investigating the case. The risk that these people took underlines the plight of one of the most vulnerable minorities in the world. Sikhs have been in Afghanistan for over two centuries. The small community has been under pressure over the past five decades. The situation in Afghanistan has triggered an exodus from time to time and brought down the number of Sikhs from an estimated two lakh in the 1970s to 5,000 or so now. They have faced discrimination at every step in the war-torn country, including having to wear yellow patches in the Taliban era. Even though the present Hamid Karzai government has been more liberal, some points of contention remain. British Immigration and Security Minister James Brokenshire said that the latest incident was “a reminder of the often devastating consequences of illegal migration”. He pointed a finger at criminal gangs that indulged in human trafficking. While correct, it is a myopic view since it just concentrates on the law and order dimension, and ignores the reasons that make people undertake such perilous journeys. The police have made an arrest. Medical and other aid has been provided, but there is a need to look beyond the immediate. Economic liberalisation in the developed countries is often paired with increasingly protectionist tendencies on immigration. The contribution of immigrants to their host societies is well documented, yet seldom are politicians able to see beyond present voters. The British authorities have been praised for treating the refugees humanely. Now effort will have to be made to resettle them in the safe environment they sought at the end of their passage through hell.
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Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. — Mae West
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The day's news Aug 18. — King's Message to the British troops and Lord Kitchener's instructions to them. Gen. Sir Horace Smith Dorrein commands an Army Corps. The removal of Belgian Government to Antwerp does not imply
success of the enemy. Leige forts are holding out though cut off from Franco-Belgian forces. The French on the 17th routed Germans who had occupied a fortified position south-west of Sareburg. Russian mobilisation has been completed. Russians occupied 5 points in German territory taking hundreds of prisoners. Turkey has assured Great Britain of her strict neutrality. Aug 19. — A fierce battle is proceeding between Belgians and
Germans along an extended front. 201 persons perished in the sinking of the Austrian cruiser and 101 were saved. The U.S. has passed a bill extending American registry to foreign built vessels. Lord Crewe suggests the formation of an Indian Volunteer Aid
Contingent in England. Punjab contribution to the Imperial relief fund THE Punjab Government has not yet inaugurated a Provincial Branch of the Imperial Indian Relief Fund. The Punjab Government has its headquarters at Simla and might have taken the initiative in this respect immediately after the publication of His Excellency the Viceroy's appeal. Perhaps action has been taken and the wheels of official machinery grind very slow. We are not writing in a carping spirit.
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India must never be a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ Sadly, this seems to be coming to pass, not by the efforts of only foot soldiers and fringe elements. The minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was the first to talk of repealing Article 370 of the Constitution that gives the state of Jammu and Kashmir a special status. This produced a reaction in the sensitive state so vehement that the state's Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, and his father and then Union Cabinet minister Farooq Abdullah, even threatened secession. This did not deter another minister to propose that it was time to have a uniform civil code, inviting another furore. Then something startling happened, of all places, in Goa. A BJP leader there announced that Mr Modi would make India a “Hindu State” before the end of his first term. He was upstaged by the state's Deputy Chief Minister, who blandly stated that this was already the case. Obviously, no one took him seriously because the international president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Ashok Singhal, mounted the rostrum to declare that the Muslims had citizenship rights in this “Hindu” country, but they also had the duty to accept Hindutva’s doctrines and demands. One specific demand he made was that, the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya out of the way, “the Muslim community should willingly give up two other mosques in the holy cities of Varanasi and Mathura”. In Parliament and elsewhere Opposition members and people continued to ask Prime Minister Modi to say something about these “objectionable and divisive” declarations but he continued to maintain his eloquent silence. A few of those who claimed to know him pointed out that to remain silent was both his strategy and style. This reading seemed to be correct. For Parliament's first session ended on a very sharp note just before Independence Day. The Congress and other Opposition parties condemned his government for having encouraged both polarisation and increasing communal violence since its very formation. His ministers retorted that the greatest communalist in the country was the Congress. But while speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the Prime Minister dealt with the burning issue very briefly. He appealed to everyone to embark on a ten-year moratorium on all violence whether the “poison” be casteism, communalism, regionalism or discrimination of any kind because all these “are obstructions in our way forward”. This attracted no criticism although some did ask: “Why should there be a moratorium for a limited number of years? Why not get rid of all these evils permanently”? Ironically, it was at this precise moment that the leadership of the campaign to Hinduise the Indian state — that under the Constitution has to be secular — was taken over by the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mohan Bhagwat. He is the head of the entire Sangh Parivar of which the Bharatiya Janata Party is but one member. Nor has it gone unnoticed that the new BJP president, Amit Shah, who is also the right-hand man of Mr Modi, has given the RSS representation in his team that is greater than ever before. Mr Bhagwat at first propounded the strange theory that since every citizen of America is called American and that of Germany is known as German, every citizen of Hindustan “must be called a Hindu”. Someone should explain to this learned gentleman that by his own logic citizens of Hindustan should be known as Hindustanis, not Hindus. No America would call himself/herself as an “Am” or the German as “Ger”. If every Indian is called a Hindustani there would be no problem. Followers of the Hindu religion in this country are a huge majority of over 80 per cent. But the rest are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jews, Parsis and so on. To call them Hindus would be an invitation not to a disaster but to a catastrophe. Probably for this reason the RSS chief changed his tune. “Hindustan (he has stopped using the names India or Bharat)”, he proclaimed, “is a Hindu state and Hidutva is the identity of our nation … and it (Hinduism) can incorporate in itself other religions”. No fewer than seven political parties, including the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the CPM, have lambasted Mr Bhagwat for planning to “impose Hindu majoritarianism” on the country. Several Opposition leaders have called him “Hitler” and a radical Sikh organisation, Dal Khalsa, has declared that it would not allow the RSS to “foist its fascist agenda on Punjab”. This said, one must add that communalism of every religious community is equally dangerous and deplorable. The entire Kashmiri Pandit minority was hounded out of the Kashmir valley two decades ago. The Pandits have become refugees in their own country, and their return to their homes remains problematic. Some Sikhs in Punjab have made a film glorifying the assassins of Indira Gandhi that cannot but cause trouble. In all fairness, it must also be recognised that the Congress that ruled the country for the last 10 years must accept its share of responsibility for encouraging the votaries of Hindutva. It always declared that its fight against the BJP was a contest between secularism and communalism. But, as former Defence Minister A. K. Antony, who investigated the causes of the Congress party's electoral debacle has admitted, the Congress' practice of secularism was more rhetorical than real. The country perceived it as the “appeasement of Muslim minority”. Whatever might have happened in the past, the two sides must learn a lesson from what the Pakistani Taliban have done to that Islamic country in the name of Islam. India doesn't deserve that.
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Dialling a wrong number The best part is that when these vehicles i.e. police cars, ambulances and fire engines are racing from different directions, with their sirens/hooters “on”, the traffic en route literally stops and does not move till these vehicles pass or cross. It is a sight to see what discipline is ingrained in the population. Sometimes Indians have been a source of trouble to these agencies. Whenever an Indian wants to call back home, he has to dial 011- 91 (country code) and then the area code like 172 (for Chandigarh) followed by the actual phone number. It so happens sometimes due to an error that instead of an international call, it gets registered as '911'. The caller is generally not aware but the emergency system gets into action. They do call back the number to find out if everything is OK. Once during my recent visit I was dialling a Chandigarh number I did not realise that by mistake my call got registered as '911'. But soon I redialled the correct number and started talking to my people in Chandigarh. I realised there was someone trying my number as I was getting an indication of call waiting but I did not discontinue and kept talking. In fact, it was the call centre trying to find out if I had an emergency. When they did not get through to me as it was engaged continuously, within a few minutes there was a loud knock at our main door. When I opened the door I found a smart (RCMP) policeman who entered the house without waiting for me to greet him. He asked me quickly if everything was alright. I then realised that I must have dialled '911' by mistake. I apologised for my mistake but the RCMP was not leaving it at that. He enquired who all were at home. I told him my wife was upstairs in the washroom having a shower. He took no chances and quickly went to all rooms in the house, while I kept following him mutely like a guilty child. Finally, he stopped at the washroom door, and asked me to call my wife since he wanted to listen from my wife if she was OK. I knocked the washroom door and shouted to my wife that an RCMP was there and wanted to know if you were alright. Only after he heard my wife, the RCMP went back. Once again I expressed regret for having troubled him and was awestruck at the efficiency of the system. It is an amazing response in cases of dire need of the citizens.
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Have we lost the art of listening ?
Watching
TV can be a fascinating but disturbing exercise. As India glues itself to watch its favourite soap opera, one senses the country loves news. This news has a structure. The introduction is flat, usually delivered by junior broadcasters. News as fact interests no one. What creates controversy, gossip, a sense of patriotism and its accompanying hangover is news as interpretation. The process is simple. At the centre is an anchor who asks questions and hunts for the answer he wants. Eight to 10 so-called experts converge around him. Most are party representatives sent to recite their points to redundancy. There are also a few retired bureaucrats hawkish in their policy, a few Army officers fighting old wars with relish, a bevy of hand-picked journalists and an odd academic or two for garnish. The battle is ruthless. Each of them outshouts the other, yet each grins knowing he will be back to fight the next day. Lost act of communication It is a battle of stamina and few bother to communicate or listen. The act of communication, the ritual sharing of differences is completely lost. Any shift in position is seen as suspect in this arena where jingoism, vigilantism, witch-hunting, fundamentalism are enacted as ruthless shadow plays. Each commentator is a bit player in this mayhem, while the anchor plays God and judge. This evening show is India's proudest moment and citizens rush to watch it. It is a modern substitute for the hanging where the citizens were duty bound to applaud the sovereign's decision. At least in earlier eras, the crowd could turn difficult and try to liberate the victim. Now all a spectator can do is switch it off or write a letter to the editor. Debates are doomed There is another variant of the TV. This is social media, which is less reverent and yet even here there is a structured sense of inevitability, a feeling that debates are doomed. The argumentative Indian, to use Amartya Sen's label, does not want to listen. He prefers to use his opponent as a dart board, shoot his points and settle back to acclaim. As a wag put it, “It is a drama, where a government needs a hearing aid and the expert a lesson in the art of listening”. Listening becomes important not just to break through the redundancy of speech but to explore its complexity. If conversations are an act of reciprocity, listening is that ritual where the self acknowledges the necessity of the other. One of the most poignant anecdotes I heard about listening was during the Delhi riots of 1984. One of the citizens helping with relief during the aftermath, a distinguished scientist Dinesh Mohan, recounted this story. He told the audience that he was stunned by the violence and almost ashamed of his helplessness. He said so to a survivor, an old woman sitting quietly. She consoled him gently by saying, “Teri duty sunana hai, meri duty rona hai”. (“Your duty is to listen and mine is to cry”). This statement emphasises the ultimate poignancy of listening, its power of empathy, its tacit magic of healing, its ability to reinforce and redeem memory. In the BJP regime of today there is a political impasse of several kinds. A suppressed majority, mauled and taunted for years about its culture and identity now lashes back at a minority. In fact, the majority feels it has been victimised for years by an amalgam of Mughal rule, colonial power and modern electoral democracy. It despises the secular elite which suppressed its feelings and now considers the liberal and secular with contempt. There is a second variant of the impasse where the Left and the Right are locked against each other, each ejecting ideological clichés from its political vending machines. Politics of suspicion Whether it is CPM or CPI, they look anachronistic reciting bits of Engels even when referring to the latest political budget. The Right also responds in kind, criticising the Congress for betraying the poor. The third variant is the debate between civil society and the State, where each practises the politics of suspicion. The Right feels patriotism is in perpetual threat and the Left that radicalism, like virginity, must remain untouchable. Any shift in position, any attempt to respond positively is met with suspicion. Ideological purity seems to be valued even more in this era where ideological coffers are empty. This almost set piece opera of slap-stick debates is all we have in the public space masquerading as democracy. Pluralistic possibilities of India Any attempt to rethink sends danger signals to the political barometer. Let me recount a few personal examples. As a sociologist in Gujarat, I spent almost a decade studying the riots. I watched the slow sanitisation of Modi as he rose to power. I also covered Modi's election and witnessed the media machine that brought him to power. I was often impressed with his media performances which I analysed symbolically. Immediately, the custodians of ideology, would speculate if I had “sold out”. They label anyone who opposed Modi but now agree with him as “neo-converts”. I agree many have accepted Modi after the emptiness of the Congress.Yet none of them see the need for long tactical battles, for scholarly studies for the critiques in the long run. They impose fatwas on those they do not agree with, hardly ever examining why the Left lost or is so irrelevant. The pluralistic possibilities of India are lost between these battling groups. Strangely, many talk of justice. The Right hits out at the Left for advocating Palestine, dismissing them for not fighting for the rights of Kashmiri Pandits. The Left hits back by talking of Muzzafarnagar or Gujarat of 2002. Equation of nation with society Yet none of them are bothered about debate and the importance of communicating with your opponent. Words like patriotism, secularism, development —all become Procrustean. Think of a simple suggestion. One of the most obvious presences after Modi's rise to power is the RSS. But the RSS is treated as a hoarding rather than a living entity which needs to be enticed and challenged. The politics of “untouchability” allows the RSS to get away with a nationalism which is unquestioned. No one challenges its equation of nation with society when nationalism needs a desperate exorcism. Similarly, the Left needs to realise that its political economy of technology, has no real theory of culture. Illiteracy adds to illiteracy as Indian democracy faces its greatest impasse. Worse, the intellectual map becomes dotted with silences and the unsayable. The dissenting individual, the lone academic scholar, the insights of other languages are ignored as the band marches Left or Right. In fact, the Left and the Right become strange bedfellows against the claim to other insights or other imaginations. Polarisation becomes a lazy way of constructing either the politics of
knowledge or democracy. One has to realise democracy can only survive on the compost heap of conversations. There is a desperate need to escape the current atmosphere of hate,
suspicion and cliché. Both sides have to have a concept of the common
good because without it a public debate is impossible. There is a need to shed our fear of vulnerability. One needs to look the fool, play the trickster, look silly, admit to shifts in position, argue from different angles and retain the vision of democracy as playfulness. Of course, one needs the stomach to survive and relish debate. It has casualties and it is never bloodless but it need not suffer the violence of vigilantism, the tyranny of majoritarian threat, the mechanisms of state which sees dissent as sedition. Such a position is an art form where the self becomes both lens and kaleidoscope, reflecting on both self and other. India has few practitioners of such an art. One thinks of Ashis Nandy's secular reading of corruption as a form of competence. The novelist UR Ananthamurthy, showing how literature could rework ideological socialism. One remembers Ramu Gandhi insisting that philosophers should represent the philosophies of the last man, and the anthropologist JPS Uberoi re-reading science to show a dream of other possibilities. India needs such contrary imaginations. This essay is an invitation to honour them and quarrel with such ideas. Democracy needs to be liberated regularly from its certainties. One has to return play, surprise and difference to the centre of our world before clichés reduce us to tyrannical dullness. — Shiv Visvanathan is a social science nomad
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WHEN Narendra Modi was swept to power spectacularly just over three months ago high hopes of an early improvement in both development and governance were accompanied by some fears that Hindutva hotheads and other extremists in the Sangh Parivar might try to queer the pitch by promoting the cult of “Hindu Rashtra”.
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