What Revenge?

The Times of India carried an article by Yamini Lohia expressing unrestrained glee over the Youth Congress smearing Sri Ram Sene head Pramod Muthalik's face in Managalore and going on to say that she would wish she could personally perpetrate this act of violence.


Violence is not only in causing physical hurt. It can be at many levels. Even silence can be a kind of violence. Another issue of TOI carried a story that a High Court held that in a marriage silence could tantamount to cruelty. Ms. Lohia feels that there is a justification for violence by groups with whose ideology she agrees and calls it sweet revenge. There is an unending discussion on the moral policing in the country but the advocates of freedom are always mysteriously silent when there is a fatwa in Kashmir for headscarves or for wearing Burqas. There is no discussion if Katrina Kaif is disallowed entry to a Dargah for being in an inappropriate dress. There is repeated discussion on the practices in Hindu temples including Sabrimala and Puri but nobody dares to speak about the practices and methods of their enforcement in other religions, the way they are practised in India. Is it not a bit strange?


There is no discussion if women are not allowed in certain places of worship belonging to other religions but there is much hue and cry on Sabrimala. Mahesh Bhatt and people of his ilk shout hoarse when somebody vandalises Hussains grotto in Ahmedabad in the name of freedom of art but they have nothing to say about the fatwas routinely issued on the lives of Salman Rushdie or the Danish painter, Taslima Nasreen and others. Is there something amiss? Is there a secret fear amongst the pseudo secularists that there antics won't work with Muslims but they have tested Hindus again and again and they know that in that case they can get away with whatever they like.


Let us look dispassionately at other things. The English speaking media people, editorial contributors, people like Jug Suraiya, Mahesh Bhatt and sundry cranks flaunt Hindu bashing like a medal. But they never fail to swear by Indian culture. I wonder if that is a kind of metaphor for Hindu culture. If Hindu culture is not about modesty (if with much less restrictions than in Islam), if it is not about vegetarianism, if it is not about Vedic religions and their offshoots and sub-cultures, if it is not about a certain code of conduct and set of boundaries in public and private behaviours (Maryadas), what is it about? And if these guardians of secularism and freedom are so worried about saying 'OM' or 'Jai Ram ji' in private being saffron, not withstanding the loudspeakers on mosques broadcasting Azaan, how come they don't realise the hurt the 'Indian Culture' is causing to minorities and to Indian Muslims in particular by singing Ganesh Vandanas, lighting lamps, chanting 'Tam so ma Jyotirgamaya', garlanding and vermilion marking foreheads of visitors and taking their Aratis and all the ceremonies that surround almost any and all Indian functions, most of them functions of a secular government, and the singing of Vande Mataram. Why have they not tried to stop it all? Is it fair? Before the British came Hindus were not ruling this land mass. I have the feeling that a lot of Muslims and especially those associated with Jamiat and other similar organisations, and those that chose to leave India at partition strongly felt betrayed by the British, as in their opinion the British took the rule from them and handed it over to Hindus. They are unable of course, to differentiate between a democracy and a theocracy of Hindus. But on a very real plane, they may not be that wrong, at least as far as the rule having been snatched away from them and handed over to whoever else. From their perspective there is also the downside that if we look at the number of years it took to convert a large part of Hindu population to other religions was not much - just four centuries or so. And the current rate of conversion is also quite high. If the British were not in India, arguably Hindus would have been a small minority in India by the middle of 20th century when the British left, as they became in Kashmir and probably in Kerala, Ladakh region and possibly some north eastern states.


Hindus have bragged about their tolerance for centuries now. I wonder if it is the smokescreen to hide their cowardice. M.J. Akbar is to my mind the most rational and straight thinking political thinker and commentator and he famously lionised Hindu tolerance for peaceful life of Muslims and small minorities in India in a debate I happened to watch on television. It was very charitable of him but I suspect it is probably not true. Hindus were defeated again and again by foreign conquerors and the vanquished may or may not be tolerant - it does not matter.