On January 3, 1831, 176 years ago Savitribai Phule, arguably India’s first woman teacher and forgotten liberator was born. With the first school for girls from different castes that she set up in Bhidewada, Pune (the seat of Brahmanism) Krantijyoti Savitribai as she is reverentially known, by the Indian Bahujan movement, blazed a revolutionary trial. There have been consistent demands to observe January 3 as Teachers Day. Without her, Indian women would not have had the benefits of education.

To mark the memory of this remarkable woman we bring to you her letters to life partner Jyotiba. Jyotiba and Savitribai were Comrades in Arms in their struggle against the emancipation of India’s disenfranchised people.

Translated from the Original Marathi with an introduction Sunil Sardar Reproduced here are the English translation of three important Letters – (originally in Marathi and published in MG Mali’s edition of her collected works, Savitribai Phule Samagra Wangmaya) – that Savitribai wrote to her husband Jyotiba in a span of 20 years.

The letters are significant as they write of the wider concerns that drove this couple, the emancipation of the most deprived segments of society and the struggle to attain for them, full human dignity and freedom.

This vision for a new and liberated society – free from ignorance, bigotry, deprivation, and hunger – was the thread that bonded the couple, arching from the private to the personal.

Theirs was a relationship of deep and shared concerns, each providing strength to the other. When large sections of 19^th century Maharashtrian society was ranged against Phule’s reconstructive radicalism, it was the unfailing and shared vision and dedication of his life partner that needs have been emotionally sustaining.  In our tribute to this couple and the tradition of radical questioning that they harboured, we bring to our readers these letters.

1856. The first letter, written in 1856, speaks about the core issue: education and its transformative possibilities in a society where learning, had for centuries been the monopoly of the Brahmins; who, in turn, used this exclusive privilege to enclave, demoralize and oppress. Away at her parental home to recuperate from an illness, Savitri describes in the letter a conversation with her brother, who is uncomfortable with the couple’s radicalism.

October 1856
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jyotiba,
Savitri salutes you!

After so many vicissitudes, now it seems my health has been fully restored. My brother worked so hard and nursed me so well through my sickness. His service and devotion shows how loving he really is! I will come to Pune as soon as I get perfectly well. Please do not worry about me. I know my absence causes Fatima so much trouble but I am sure she will understand and won’t grumble.

As we were talking one day, my brother said, “You and your husband have rightly been excommunicated because both of you serve the untouchables (Mahars and Mangs). The untouchables are fallen people and by helping them you are bringing a bad name to our family. That is why, I tell you to behave according to the customs of our caste and obey the dictates of the Brahmans.” Mother was so disturbed by this brash talk of my brother.

Though my brother is a good soul he is extremely narrow-minded and so he did not hesitate to bitterly criticize and reproach us. My mother did not reprimand him but tried instead to bring him to his senses, “God has given you a beautiful tongue but it is no good to misuse it so!” I defended our social work and tried to dispel his misgivings. I told him, “Brother, your mind is narrow, and the Brahmans’ teaching has made it worse. Animals like goats and cows are not untouchable for you, you lovingly touch them. You catch poisonous snakes on the day of the snake-festival and feed them milk. But you consider Mahars and Mangs, who are as human as you and I, untouchables. Can you give me any reason for this? When the Brahmans perform their religious duties in their holy clothes, they consider you also impure and untouchable, they are afraid that your touch will pollute them. They don’t treat you differently than the Mahars.” When my brother heard this, he turned red in the face, but then he asked me, “Why do you teach those Mahars and Mangs? People abuse you because you teach the untouchables. I cannot bear it when people abuse and create trouble for you for doing that. I cannot tolerate such insults.” I told him what the (teaching of) English had been doing for the people. I said, “The lack of learning is nothing but gross bestiality. It is through the acquisition of knowledge that (he) loses his lower status and achieves the higher one. My husband is a god-like man. He is beyond comparison in this world, nobody can equal him. He thinks the Untouchables must learn and attain freedom. He confronts the Brahmans and fights with them to ensure Teaching and Learning for the Untouchables because he believes that they are human beings like other and they should live as dignified humans. For this they must be educated. I also teach them for the same reason. What is wrong with that? Yes, we both teach girls, women, Mangs and Mahars. The Brahmans are upset because they believe this will create problems for them. That is why they oppose us and chant the mantra that it is against our religion. They revile and castigate us and poison the minds of even good people like you.

“You surely remember that the British Government had organised a function to honour my husband for his great work. His felicitation caused these vile people much heartburn. Let me tell you that my husband does not merely invoke God’s name and participate in pilgrimages like you. He is actually doing God’s own work. And I assist him in that. I enjoy doing this work. I get immeasurable joy by doing such service. Moreover, it also shows the heights and horizons to which a human being can reach out.”

Mother and brother were listening to me intently. My brother finally came around, repented for what he had said and asked for forgiveness. Mother said, “Savitri, your tongue must be speaking God’s own words. We are blessed by your words of wisdom.” Such appreciation from my mother and brother gladdened my heart. From this you can imagine that there are many idiots here, as in Pune, who poison people’s minds and spread canards against us. But why should we fear them and leave this noble cause that we have undertaken? It would be better to engage with the work instead. We shall overcome and success will be ours in the future. The future belongs to us.

What more could I write?

With humble regards,

Yours,

Savitri

The Poetess in Savitribai

The year 1854 was important as Savitribai published her collection of poems, called Kabya Phule (Poetry’s Blossoms).
Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (The Ocean of Pure Gems), another collection of what has come to be highly regarded in the world of Marathi poetry was published in 1891. (The Phules had developed a devastating critique of the Brahman interpretation of Marathi history in the ancient and medieval periods. He portrayed the Peshwa rulers, later overthrown by the British, as decadent and oppressive, and Savitribai reiterates those themes in her biography.)
Apart from these two collections, four of Jyotiba’s speeches on Indian History were edited for publication by Savitribai. A few of her own speeches were also published in 1892. Savitribai’s correspondence is also remarkable because they give us an insight into her own life and into the life and lived experiences of women of the time.

1868. The Second letter is about a great social taboo – a love affair between a Brahman boy and an Untouchable girl; the cruel behavior of the ‘enraged’ villagers and how Savitribai stepped in. This intervention saves the lives of the lovers and she sends them away to the safety and caring support of her husband, Jyotiba. With the malevolent reality of honour killings in the India of 2016 and the hate-driven propaganda around ‘love jehad’ this letter is ever so relevant today.

29 August 1868
Naigaon, Peta Khandala
Satara
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jotiba,
Savitri salutes you!
I received your letter. We are fine here. I will come by the fifth of next month. Do not worry on this count. Meanwhile, a strange thing happened here. The story goes like this. One Ganesh, a Brahman, would go around villages, performing religious rites and telling people their fortunes. This was his bread and butter. Ganesh and a teenage girl named Sharja who is from the Mahar (untouchable) community fell in love. She was six months pregnant when people came to know about this affair. The enraged people caught them, and paraded them through the village, threatening to bump them off.

I came to know about their murderous plan. I rushed to the spot and scared them away, pointing out the grave consequences of killing the lovers under the British law. They changed their mind after listening to me.

Sadubhau angrily said that the wily Brahman boy and the untouchable girl should leave the village. Both the victims agreed to this. My intervention saved the couple who gratefully fell at my feet and started crying. Somehow I consoled and pacified them. Now I am sending both of them to you. What else to write?
Yours
Savitri

1877. The last letter, written in 1877, is a heart-rending account of a famine that devastated western Maharashtra. People and animals were dying. Savitri and other Satyashodhak volunteers were doing their best to help. The letter brings out an intrepid Savitri leading a team of dedicated Satyashodhaks striving to overcome a further exacerbation of the tragedy by moneylenders’ trying to benefit.  She meets the local District administration. The letter ends on a poignant note where Savitribai reiterates her total commitment to her the humanitarian work pioneered by the Phules.

20 April, 1877
Otur, Junner
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jyotiba,
Savitri salutes you!
The year 1876 has gone, but the famine has not – it stays in most horrendous forms here. The people are dying. The animals are dying, falling on the ground. There is severe scarcity of food. No fodder for animals. The people are forced to leave their villages. Some are selling their children, their young girls, and leaving the villages. Rivers, brooks and tanks have completely dried up – no water to drink. Trees are dying – no leaves on trees. Barren land is cracked everywhere. The sun is scorching – blistering. The people crying for food and water are falling on the ground to die. Some are eating poisonous fruits, and drinking their own urine to quench their thirst. They cry for food and drink, and then they die.

Our Satyashodhak volunteers have formed committees to provide food and other life-saving material to the people in need. They have formed relief squads.
Brother Kondaj and his wife Umabai are taking good care of me. Otur’s Shastri, Ganapati Sakharan, Dumbare Patil, and others are planning to visit you. It would be better if you come from Satara to Otur and then go to Ahmednagar.

You may remember R.B. Krishnaji Pant and Laxman Shastri. They travelled with me to the affected area and gave some monetary help to the victims.

The moneylenders are viciously exploiting the situation. Bad things are taking place as a result of this famine. Riots are breaking out. The Collector heard of this and came to ease the situation. He deployed the white police officers, and tried to bring the situation under control. Fifty Satyasholdhaks were rounded up. The Collector invited me for a talk. I asked the Collector why the good volunteers had been framed with false charges and arrested without any rhyme or reason. I asked him to release them immediately. The Collector was quite decent and unbiased. He shouted at the white soldiers, “Do the Patil farmers rob? Set them free.” The Collector was moved by the people’s plights. He immediately sent four bullock cartloads of (jowar) food.

You have started the benevolent and welfare work for the poor and the needy. I also want to carry my share of the responsibility. I assure you I will always help you. I wish the godly work will be helped by more people.

I do not want to write more.
Yours,
Savitri

(These letters have been excerpted with grateful thanks from A Forgotten Liberator, The Life and Struggle of Savitrabai Phule, Edited by Braj Ranjan Mani, Pamela Sardar)

Bibliography:

Krantijyoti : Revolutionary flame
Brahmans: Priestly “upper” caste with a powerful hold on all fairs of society and state including access to education, resources and mobility (spelt interchangeably as Brahmins)
Mahars:The Mahar is an Indian Caste, found largely in the state of Maharashtra, where they compromise 10% of the population, and neighboring areas. Most of the Mahar community followed social reformer B. R. Ambedkar in converting to Buddhism in the middle of the 20th century.
Mangs: The Mang (or Matang -Minimadig in Gujarat and Rajasthan) community is an Indian caste historically associated with low-status or ritually impure professions such as village musicians, cattle castraters, leather curers, midwives, hangmen, undertakers. Today they are listed as a Scheduled Castes a term which has replaced the former the derogatory ‘Untouchable’
Satyashodhak Samaj:  A society established by Jyotirao Phule on September 24, 1873. This was started as a group whose main aim was to liberate the shudra and untouchable castes from exploitation and oppression
Shudra: The fourth caste under the rigid caste Hindu system; these were further made more rigid in the Manu Smruti
Ati Shudra: Most of the groups listed under this category come under the untouchables who were used for the most venal tasks in caste ridden Hindu society but not treated as part of the caste system.
Jowar: The Indian name for sorghum

How the Education for girls was pioneered

The Phule couple decided to start schools for girls, especially from the shudra and atishudra castes but also including others so that social cohesion of sorts could be attempted in the classroom. Bhidewada in Pune was the chosen site, a bank stands there today. There is a movement among Bahujans to reclaim this historic building. When the Phules faced stiff resistance and a boycott, a Pune-based businessman Usman Shaikh gave them shelter. Fatima Shaikh Usman’s sister was the first teacher colleague of Savitribai and the two trained teachers who ran the school. The school started with nine girl students in 1848.

Sadashiv Govande contributed books from Ahmednagar. It functioned for about six months and then had to be closed down. Another building was found and the school reopened a few months later. The young couple faced severe opposition from almost all sections. Savitribai was subject to intense harassment everyday as she walked to school. Stones, mud and dirt were flung at her as she passed. She was often abused by groups of men with orthodox beliefs who opposed the education for women. Filth including cow dung was flung on her. Phule gave her hope, love and encouragement. She went to school wearing an old sari, and carried an extra sari with her to change into after she reached the school. The sheer daring and doggedness of the couple and their comrades in arms broke the resistance. Finally, the pressure on her eased when she was compelled to slap one of her tormentors on the street!

Once the caste Hindu Brahmanical hierarchy who were the main opponents of female education realized that the Phule couple would not easily give in, they arm-twisted Jyotiba’s father. Intense pressure was brought by the Brahmins on Phule’s father, Govindrao, to convince him that his son was on the wrong track, that what he was doing was against the Dharma. Finally, things came to a head when Phule’s father told him to leave home in 1849. Savitri preferred to stay by her husband’s side, braving the opposition and difficulties, and encouraging Phule to continue their educational work.

However, their pioneering move had won some support. Necessities like books were supplied through well wishers; a bigger house, owned by a Muslim, was found for a second school which was started in 1851. Moro Vithal Walvekar and Deorao Thosar assisted the school. Major Candy, an educationalist of Pune, sent books. Jyotirao worked here without any salary and later Savitribai was put in charge. The school committee, in a report, noted, “The state of the school funds has compelled the committee to appoint teachers on small salaries, who soon give up when they find better appointment…Savitribai, the school headmistress, has nobly volunteered to devote herself to the improvement of female education without remuneration. We hope that as knowledge advances, the people of this country will be awakened to the advantages of female education and will cordially assist in all such plans calculated to improve the conditions of those girls.”

On November 16, 1852, the education department of the government organised a public felicitation of the Phule couple, where they were honoured with shawls.
On February 12, 1853, the school was publicly examined. The report of the event state: “The prejudice against teaching girls to read and write began to give way…the good conduct and honesty of the peons in conveying the girls to and from school and parental treatment and indulgent attention of the teachers made the girls love the schools and literally run to them with alacrity and joy.”

A Dalit student of Savitribai, Muktabai, wrote a remarkable essay which was published in the paper Dyanodaya, in the year 1855. In her essay, Muktabai poignantly describes the wretchedness of the so-called untouchables and severely criticizes the Brahmanical religion for degrading and dehumanizing her people.

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For over four decades the resonant voice of Ameen Sayani was the voice of Indian radio entertainment. On Radio Ceylon’s Geetmala and then All India Radio or Akashwani’s Vividh Bharti, Sayani’s radio hours brought us the pick of Hindi film songs interlaced with his attractive commentary in Hindustani. A child of the freedom movement, born into a family that hailed from Gujarat and was especially influenced by Gandhi, Ameen Sayani journeys through 60 years of India’s experiment with public broadcasting, culture and entertainment.

I was initiated into radio broadcasting at the age of seven by my elder brother Hameed who was a very fine broadcaster with the English section of All India Radio (AIR), Bombay. He used to take me along with him for smaller programmes and gradually I started lending my voice to radio plays and later on, to other broadcasts. It was not until 1949-50 that I shifted towards full-fledged broadcasting in Hindustani. I was a student from the Gujarati medium, then an English broadcaster and later I graduated towards broadcasting in Hindustani.

In expanse, my career has spanned decades of broadcasting. Geetmala was aired on Radio Ceylon for 38 years after which, in 1989, it started as a half-hour programme on Vividh Bharti. The material was the same in both but the songs were reduced in length for the half-hour version. On Radio Ceylon the entire song was played but as reception of Radio Ceylon became difficult in later years, I shifted to AIR. Vividh Bharti ran until quite recently, 1993-94. In fact, we celebrated Geetmala’s 42nd birthday on Doordarshan through a 31-episode series. I was also producing programmes and commercials for seven or eight countries across the world, countries like the UK, Mauritius, Fiji and Canada, Swaziland and Dubai.

The atmosphere at All India Radio in those days, pre and post-independence, was special. A motto hung over the entrance of the building: “Bahujan Hitai Bahujan Sukhai” – for the benefit of the people, for the happiness of the people – this was the proclaimed aim of broadcasting. AIR had, in those days, an army of the best writers, performers, musicians, and the best producers. The cream of talent used to gravitate towards AIR and it was considered a matter of great pride to be able to participate in any AIR programme. This was through the late forties and early fifties when AIR was perhaps one of the finest broadcasting organisations in the world, on par with the BBC.

They broadcast fabulous plays and features backed by first-rate newsreaders. Though the formal name, Akashwani, was adopted later, AIR was indeed like an akash wani (broadcast through the skies). Anything that was broadcast on radio was the absolute last word. It carried weight and creativity.

It was only about a decade after independence that AIR started receiving the first shock waves of bureaucratic and political interference that slowly began to affect its functioning. The first shock came of course with partition, the greatest tragedy we faced. Partition took the best of our talent away; many writers and producers migrated to Pakistan.

Finally, after all that bloodshed, on the night of August 14-15, with the hoisting of the national flag for the first time, I heard Nehru’s great “Tryst with Destiny” speech. Less than six months later, in January 1948, it was the shattering news of Gandhiji being killed that AIR broadcast on its airwaves. For us in the Sayani family, passionately fond of and devoted to Gandhiji, for me, growing up in the laps of the great leaders of the freedom movement, it was a very personal tragedy. Why this man, who was so peaceful, so non-violent, a man who spread love and goodness and goodwill? Why did anybody have to kill him off? As a schoolboy, my reaction was one of pain and bewilderment.

At the New Era School in Bombay, where I studied for seven years, I learnt Gujarati from the Balpothi (primer) from kindergarten onwards. These formative years were critical. Our school song, for instance, it was in Gujarati and its words, which made a lasting impression on me, embodied a fantastic concept of unity – love, affinity, neighbourliness and humility – it’s all there. I remember at New Era we also had a four-line motto that was, in fact, a four-language motto because it had all the four main languages of Maharashtra! The first was English, the name of the school, which was in English, the second was a Gujarati line, the third line was in Marathi and the fourth line was in Hindi. This is how it went: “New Era, Nau Jawan Badho Aage, Aami Jagat Che Nagreek Ho, Bharat Bhumi Jai Jai Ho (New Era; Youth, forge ahead; We are citizens of the world; Hail, hail to India)”.

So this fusion has always been part of my life and a part, I think, of the life of all Indians. As I keep saying, if we had been more inclusive and creative on the issue of language there would have been less separateness, less tension, we would have engendered an ability to understand the other. The maulvi saheb who used to teach me taught me about the opening prayers in the Koran, “Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alamin”, which means, Praise be to Allah, lord of the worlds – master of the entire universe, not only the god of Muslims. Similarly, in the Rig Veda you will come across a line, “Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti” – there is only one truth, we look at it from different points of view. There is also a famous Sanskrit saying, “Vasudeva Kutumbam” – the whole world is one family.

As a schoolboy and a keen listener of the radio, I remember listening to all the beautiful film songs in all the farmaishi (request) programmes. The farmaishi list would be about a mile long and in school all of us youngsters used to wait in the common room hoping that our names and choice of song would sometimes feature. What music it was, the golden years of Hindustani music!

Slowly, with the golden age of Hindi cinema producing songs and music of incredible quality, I shifted over to broadcasting film music. I started with Radio Ceylon where thanks to my brother I got my breakthrough. Initially, it was difficult, as I had to speak neither English nor Gujarati but Hindi and I did not know Hindi or Urdu very well.

I inched my way into broadcasting in Hindustani with determination and hard work. I did have a background of written Hindustani. My mother was a shishsya (student) of Gandhiji and he had instructed her to start a regular publication, a fortnightly on adult education for neo-literates. Inspired and guided by him, she began it from our home and ran it for several years. Gandhiji had instructed her to start it in three scripts, the Hindi script (which is the Devanagari script), the Urdu script and the Gujarati script, which were the three main scripts used in Maharashtra. What vision! What simplicity of integration! Whilst three distinct scripts were used, each line read the same in simple, spoken Hindustani. It sounds trite and obvious but it was this vision that made Gandhiji what he was. It was an incredible stroke of genius from Gandhiji and reflected his awareness of the importance of a common language, a simple language that can bring people together, through which they can communicate with each other, which can build up a sort of affinity and integrate people into one whole body of people.

You see, in those days the only lingua franca was English and although Hindi, Urdu, were widely used and simple Hindustani was being promoted quite a bit, it was not officially the Indian language. I remember that at a very important session of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), Gandhi proposed that Hindustani be the national language, not Hindi. But at a subsequent CWC session after his death, by a majority of just one casting vote from the president, Hindi was chosen instead of Hindustani. Thereafter, we began to use a language that was barely understood by millions of our people.

So when the challenge of broadcasting in Hindustani was thrown at me, I found that my mother’s publication and its basis in and affinity with Hindustani helped me to slip into the role of broadcaster quite easily. Through Radio Ceylon I was communicating not only with Indians and the whole of Asia, Radio Ceylon used to be the popular radio station as far as the east coast of Africa. As producer and presenter of Geetmala, my main programme, I was learning how to speak simple Hindustani. I already knew how to write it but I was learning the correct accent of speech and the communication and nuances along with my listeners, using rich material that my mother used in Rahbar (Showing the Way), the magazine she published from our home right up to 1960. I used a lot of the material she used, the philosophy of life that this fascinating experience, the publication of Rahbar, provided, to link my Geetmala programme between songs, thematically.

My own experience with the Hindustani language, my learning it, grew with my programme and with my listeners. My listeners would write back with their choice of film songs and their views, sometimes in Marathi or in Punjabi or Gujarati or Telugu or Bengali. Gradually, as the programme grew in popularity, Hindustani was the language that the listeners shifted to.

My listeners and I grew together with a simple, common denominator language that was a tremendous connecting point between them and me. I believe that if the simple language of Hindustani had been our national language, many of our complications as a nation would not have arisen.

There is a very simple saying in Hindustani that has been part of my life and also an intrinsic part of the leadership of early India, “Todo Nahi, Jodo” – Don’t break, Unite.

All my life in broadcasting, which spans four decades, that’s what I’ve been trying to do, simplify concepts and communicate them with social relevance as connections between songs.

Why break up this beautiful nation, why break up this lovely conglomeration of cultures, of philosophy, of social habits, of colours, taste and attitude? There is no country anywhere in the world with so many diversities, so many colours and so much variety.

Instead of getting all that dynamite together, moulding it into an actual Saare Jahan Se Achcha, Hindustan Hamara (Our India, Unequalled in the entire universe), we have been breaking it, dividing its people. What is the point of the Sensex booming if our farmers are committing suicide? There are two or three main reasons for this disparity, this tension, this hatred. We do not know our own faith or religion and neither do we know the faith practices of our neighbours. I can say this because of my experience in holding the listener through Geetmala; my programmes always had an undercurrent of social relevance. No entertainment can ever exist or succeed without being close to life and no socially relevant programming can ever be successful unless it has a little or lots of bits of entertainment, a little bit of lure. So there has to be a mix, of both good and bad. Whether calamity or great achievement, both always got talked about on my programme.

For instance, man’s first step on the moon, Armstrong taking the first step, I made a whole programme on Geetmala, weaving this theme through everything with couplets referring to the moon, references to the moon, what repercussions this would have on us and so on. If there was a famine or calamity or a great leader died or a big festival, it was reflected somewhere in the programme and interspersed with songs or listeners’ comments.

In all my broadcast programmes, communication for me was the essence. I never let my listeners feel that I was preaching any kind of integration because integration can never be preached. For example, during the emergency, the government introduced its 20-point programme when an order was issued to both Doordarshan and AIR to make programmes on the 20-point programme! There were hundreds of proposals but none saw the light of day. Another time, there was this bureaucrat who called all of us producers and directed us to produce a television programme on humour! I remember saying, Sir, humour is always the soul of all conversation, you can put humour into as many things as you like, why do you say that you want only a humorous programme? Say you want an interesting programme. How interesting programmes are made is the producer’s lookout. If you like it, take it, if you don’t like it, don’t take it but don’t put a kind of maniacal handcuff on them, it will not work. Good work originates from within.

All India Radio still has the potential, it has the physical potential, it also has a tremendous number of excellent people still there and if they were allowed to come together and work in a conducive and creative manner it could have tremendous scope and reach, giving the new FM channels (whose chatty styles are quite interesting, actually) a run for their money.

So as a broadcaster I would narrate anecdotes, poetry, which spoke of my experience of our people, the goodness, sweetness, beauty, gentleness, affinity, getting together is the big thing for me. This is what I tried to do everywhere, I can’t pinpoint that I did this or that for integration. Everything I was saying was for integration.

When we started the programme it was as an experiment and I got to have a go at it because I was the juniormost in the group and they were only going to pay 25 rupees to the person who presented, produced and scripted the programme and even checked the mail it received! After the very first broadcast, we got 9,000 letters in response and I went mad checking them. Within 18 months, when the weekly listeners’ mail jumped to 65,000 letters a week, it became impossible to faithfully monitor so we decided to convert it into a simple countdown show.

We used our unique way of rating the most popular songs. First, we tied up with the 20-25 major record shops all over India that used to receive clear reports of popularity ratings and sales. We then discovered that we could still miss accurate ratings because there was often about a fortnight’s gap between demands for records (78 format) being expressed and stock being delivered. We then started depending upon the farmaishi list but realised at the end of six months that a lot of pulls and pushes were influencing this selection – film producers, music directors, who bought postcards in bulk and sent them to us (postcards, some ostensibly from Pune, some from Delhi, some from Kanpur, some from Madras, had actually been posted from one post office in Kalbadevi, Bombay, the postal franking showed us!).

So finally we hit upon a very good idea – lining up several small groups of listeners from all over India who were writing to us very regularly. They had formed radio clubs and they met every week, listened to the programme together and engaged in other related activities. So I started encouraging them and we built up as many as 400 clubs all over India, which used to regularly send us their weekly or fortnightly ratings and numbers. We used these as a basis to be collated with sales reports from record shops and voilà, we got 99.9 per cent accurate ratings.

Coming back to my form of communication, my method was simple, my language was simple. See, I feel communication must be straightforward, honest, understandable and simple. There should be no double meanings; there should be no kind of equivocation as they say. It should be a direct matter of one heart to another. You say what you mean and the other person understands what you are saying. There are two things wrong with our country, our lack of understanding of each other’s faiths coupled with our very confused communications. Especially official communication. I have also started a movement on the need for a national anthem that is understood by one and all.

(As told to Teesta Setalvad.)

Archived from Communalism Combat,  February 2008  Year 14    No.128, Culture

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The Musalmans and a United Nation-India

Today, November 11 is the 128^th Birth Anniversary of Maulana Azad. In 1992 he was posthumously awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. He was 70 years when he passed away on February 22, 1958.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was twice elected President of the Indian National Congress, in 1923 and again in 1940. This excerpt from his historic address made at the Ramgarh Session of the grand old party are soul searching on the observations on the minorities and the syncretic fusion of religions on the sub-continent. The rest of the address may be read here.
 
“In 1923 you elected me President of this National Assembly. For the second time, after seventeen years, you have once again conferred upon me the same honour. Seventeen years is not a long period in the history of national struggles. But now the pace of events and world change is so rapid that our old standards no longer apply. During these last seventeen years we have passed through many stages, one after another. We had a long journey before us, and it was inevitable that we should pass through several stages.

“We rested at many a point no doubt, but never stopped. We surveyed and examined every prospect; but we were not ensnared by it, and passed on. We faced many ups and downs, but always our faces were turned towards the goal. The world may have doubted nur intentions and determination, but we never had a moment’s doubt. Our path was full of difficulties, and at every step we were faced with great obstacles. It may be that we did not proceed as rapidly as we desired, but we did not flinch from marching forward.

“If we look back upon the period between 1923 and 1940, 1923 will appear to us a faded landmark in the distance. In 1923 we desired to reach our goal; but the goal was so distant then that even the milestones were hidden from our eyes. Raise your eyes today and look ahead. Not only do you see the milestones clearly, but the goal itself is not distant. But this is evident: that nearer we get to the goal, the more intense does our struggle become. Although the rapid march of events has taken us farther from our old landmark and brought us nearer our goal, yet it has created new troubles and difficulties for us. Today our caravan is passing a very critical stage. The essential difficulty of such a critical period lies in its conflicting possibilities. It is very probable that a correct step may bring us very near our goal; and on the other hand, a false step may land us in fresh troubles and difficulties.

“At such a critical juncture you have elected me President, and thus demonstrated the great confidence you have in one of your co-workers. It is a great honour and a great responsibility. I am grateful for the honour, and crave your support in shouldering the responsibility. I am confident that the fulness of your confidence in me will be a measure of the fulness of the support that I shall continue to receive. 
 
“I am a Musalman and am proud of that fact. Islam’s splendid traditions of thirteen hundred years are my inheritance. I am unwilling to lose even the smallest part of this inheritance. The teaching and history of Islam, its arts and letters and civilisation, are my wealth and my fortune. It is my duty to protect them.

“As a Musalman I have a special interest in Islamic religion and culture, and I cannot tolerate any interference with them. But in addition to these sentiments, I have others also which the realities and conditions of my life have forced upon me. The spirit of Islam does not come in the way of these sentiments; it guides and helps me forward.

“I am proud of being an Indian. I am a part of the indivisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to this noble edifice, and without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete. I am an essential element which has gone to build India. I can never surrender this claim.

“It was India’s historic destiny that many human races and cultures and religions should flow to her, finding a home in her hospitable soil, and that many a caravan should find rest here. Even before the dawn of history, these caravans trekked into India, and wave after wave of newcomers followed. This vast and fertile land gave welcome to all, and took them to her bosom. One of the last of these caravans, following the footsteps of its predecessors, was that of the followers of Islam. This came here and settled here for good.

“This led to a meeting of the culture-currents of two different races. Like the Ganga and Jumna, they flowed for a while through separate courses, but nature’s immutable law brought them together and joined them in a sangam. This fusion was a notable event in history. Since then, destiny, in her own hidden way, began to fashion a new India in place of the old. We brought our treasures with us, and India too was full of the riches of her own precious heritage. We gave our wealth to her, and she unlocked the doors of her own treasures to us. We gave her what she needed most, the most precious of gifts from Islam’s treasury, the message of democracy and human equality.

“Full eleven centuries have passed by since then. Islam has now as great a claim on the soil of India as Hinduism. If Hinduism has been the religion of the people here for several thousands. of years, Islam also has been their religion for a thousand years. Just as a Hindu can say with pride that he is an Indian and follows Hinduism, so also we can say with equal pride that we are Indians and follow Islam. I shall enlarge this orbit still further. The Indian Christian is equally entitled to say with pride that he is an Indian and is following a religion of India, namely Christianity.

“Eleven hundred years of common history have enriched India with our common achievement. Our languages, our poetry, our literature, our culture, our art, our dress, our manners and customs, the innumerable happenings of our daily life, everything bears the stamp of our joint endeavour. There is indeed no aspect of our life which has escaped this stamp. Our languages were different, but we grew to use a common language; our manners and customs were dissimilar, but they acted and reacted on each other, and thus produced a new synthesis. Our old dress may be seen only in ancient pictures of bygone days; no one wears it today.

“This joint wealth is the heritage of our common nationality, and we do not want to leave it and go back to the times when this joint life had not begun. If there are any Hindus amongst us who desire to bring back the Hindu life of a thousand years ago and more, they dream, and such dreams are vain fantasies. So also if there are any Muslims who wish to revive their past civilization and culture, which they brought a thousand years ago from Iran and Central Asia, they dream also, and the sooner they wake up the better. These are unnatural fancies which cannot take root in the soil of reality. I am one of those who believe that revival may be a necessity in a religion but in social matters it is a denial of progress.

“This thousand years of our joint life has moulded us into a common nationality. This cannot be done artificially. Nature does her fashioning through her hidden processes in the course of centuries. The cast has now been moulded and destiny has set her seal upon it. Whether we like it or not, we have now become an Indian nation, united and indivisible. No fantasy or artificial scheming to separate and divide can break this unity. We must accept the logic of fact and history, and engage ourselves in the fashioning of our future destiny. 

Conclusion
“I shall not take any more of your time. My address must end now. But before I do so, permit me to remind you that our success depends upon three factors: unity, discipline, and full confidence in Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership. The glorious past record of our movement was due to his great leadership, and it is only under his leadership that we can look forward to a future of successful achievement.
The time of our trial is upon us. We have already focussed the world’s attention. Let us endeavour to prove ourselves worthy. “
 
(Source: Congress Presidential Addresses, Volume Five: 1940-1985, ed. by A. M. Zaidi (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1985), pp. 17-38)

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Representational image

With the debate on the Arya-Vysya attack against me was taking place at the national and international level two things have happened. One, the Chandrababu Naidu government in alliance with BJP in Andhra Pradesh confined me in my home on October 28 so that I would not go to Vijayawada (Amaravathi) and attend a public meeting being held by the Samajika Joint Action Committee of Andhra Pradesh.

They also arrested thousands of people from all over Andhra Pradesh. All those detained are from productive communities, including Kammas, Kapus and Reddys. The Banias and Brahmins were opposed to that meeting irrespective of their parities. The SJAC was headed by Y Koteshwar Rao (80) with a spirit of young man who worked tirelessly. The police arrested him and several hundred others. At several places lathi-charges were made. From Karnool — the town where TDP MP TG Venkatesh owns massive properties and lives in a mansion –, hundreds of men and women reached Vijayawada. There were more women in that team than men. They were all arrested at Vijayawada and taken to various distant police stations.

At Hyderabad, when more than 150 people belonging to T-MASS and other organizations started for Vijayawada from my residence they were all arrested. U Smabashiva Rao, well-known social activist, Vimalakka, a well-known folk singer, were arrested in Hyderabad city itself and and taken to different police stations. Why did the Hyderabad police take this step when the meeting was in Vijayawada? Obviously the Centre was involved in the whole issue. Since Naidu functions under the direction of Delhi he had no option but do this. The Hindutva government at Delhi is hostile towards the right to freedom of expression. Unfortunately Naidu followed their dictate.   

All this brutal suppression exposed the Arya-Vysya community to more scrutiny of the SC/ST/OBC and the Sudra producers from village shops. Checking and mass auditing of their businesses across Andhra Pradesh more than in Telangana is now being done by the village youth. This conflict between the producer-sellers and the buying Vysyas in the Telugu states is going to be a long term issue. This will have huge impact on the seller-buyer relations for long time to go.

In the political domain every party has its own concerns as the Vysyas are the richest cash donors for elections. The most worried party is the BJP. The BJP gets highest amount of donations. After the attempt to subvert the public meeting by arrests, as that itself exposed the role of social smuggling in business, the same forces started another ploy of plastering ‘Jai Sriram’ posters around my apartment. On November 4, they put a poster, Moorkudaina Ilaiahnu Skamiddam, Hinduisanni Kapadudam—Jai Sriram! It roughly translates as “Let us excuse idiot Ilaiah and save Hinduism—Jai Sriram’’. One can easily understand what its actual meaning is.  As I said in my police complaint at Osmania University police station on November 6, 2017 on this poster issue:    
   
“When they use the slogan ‘Jai Sriram’ it has a serious attack connotation. If they were to say ‘Jai Srikrishna’, that would have connoted peace and love. In the whole country, the Yadava community (to which I am a part) uses ‘Jai Srikrishna’ as god of animal grazing and production, but not as war hero. My community is the one which grazes sheep, goat, buffaloes and cows. In this context ‘Jai Sriram’ has a dangerous warning signal to me”.

According to Bheenaveni Ram Shepherd a young and upcoming social anthropology scholar, who teaches at Osmania University: “Krishna was born in a prison and later shifted to Gokulam, a place of cattle-raisers. He was brought-up by his foster parents Nanda and Yashoda as a cow and buffalo boy.  Raja Ravivarma has shown only white cows around him. But Yadavs in the post-Harappa period grazed both animals… It is crystal clear that Krishna is not a strict follower of Varnadharma as he himself married a Kshatriya (Rukhmini), Adivasi mountaineer (Jambavati), Naga (Nagajithni), and Satyabhama (Ahir/Yadav). Krishna was always an independent thinker and doer whereas Rama was dependent and loyal to Manu dharma. Krishna possessed the courage to disturb the Varnadharmic structures.  This is why, Sangh Parivar took Rama as their icon and they made Krishna as a playboy”.

This is a significant narrative that tells why the Yadavs adore Krishna but not Rama. This is amply clear in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar political battles, where the Yadavs stood up against these ‘Jai Sriram’ forces. 

However, why do hate mongers or murder strategists use divine images to communicate their plan to attack someone? The ISIS forces use the name of “Allah” to communicate similar game plans. The Hindutva forces use the name Ram to communicate their nefarious designs. They have used this slogan just before every communal riot.

Why did the Arya-Vysya community which is said to follow the Gandhian tradition get into this vertex? Look at the big business and the capitalist immorality that sinks to the level of using the Nathuram Godse kind of strategy against me for writing a book, a book that was cleared by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court. The love for money and luxury of community can take it to any level, as against a movement of anti-caste and anti-exploitative order.

The BJP owns all these strategies quite unabashedly. It is the ruling party in the nation. If a dissenting voice is threatened with this kind of violence, we all must stand up and say, “this nation will not allow this, death or no death”. If the capitalist ethic gets into a communal garb and threatens every working class voice with this slogan, I am sure that nation is on the way of moral and ethical death.

The capitalist exploiters have to be exposed in terms of their nefarious day-to-day designs, whether casteist or not. Exploitation is exploitation. If the ruling party goes to the rescue of exploiters using religion or caste comfort zone, the left liberals should not remain silent as they are doing now. Do they think that what I have coined as ‘social smuggling’ does not apply to the Indian mode of caste-class exploitation? Let us join hands to ensure that the ‘Jai Sriram’ slogan does not intimidate us put into putting our pens down. 

(The author is a member of T-MASS that works for SC/ST/OBC and poor people’s rights).         
 

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I am in Yavatmal for an assignment and thought of finding the facts about the farmer poisoning in this area. I went to Yavatmal Govt Hospital, Sri Vasantrao Naik hospital in Yavatmal.I met Dr. Elke, medicine department, he is in-charge of briefing about the hospital/patient data. 
The dean had asked me to meet him.
 
Our report from Yeovatmal:
Dr. Elke said till yesterday (Wednesday October 11,2017) 445 patients have been admitted for poisoning due to chemical spaying in the farm. The first patient of poisoning came in on July 6
and to date 445 persons are admitted in this hospital, all victims of pesticide poisoning.
 
Eleven have so far died out of the 445 seriously ill who had been admitted. The success rate of saving lives is 98%. ( Last year though lesser number of patients came and 6 died, the survival was 96%, this year there has been a marginal improvement in saving lives)

Dr Elke said that this year it has rained better than the last year. (it is drought affected area, the rainfall was less than the requirement but more than last year).The plants grow taller 5-7 feet if rainfall is adequate and this year due to rainfall plants grew tall. (mostly cotton Kapas plants, but same chemicals are also sprayed on Tuar daal and Soyabean too). The height of plants matter: when it is at the same or the higher level than the height of the person spraying it, the particles/fumes come back to the person, and they get soaked in the chemical, being affected and vulnerable totally. 

    
 
Poisonous Pesticide

The organic Phosphorus Compound in the chemical is what caused poisoning. Most commonly Monocil (popular pesticide brand name) is used, it contains Monocrotophos, exposure (inhalation) of monocrotophos causes poisoning. It affects many vital organs in the body, and the deaths are caused due to a respiratory muscle paralysis. 
 
Most of the farmers know how lethal this compound is, therefore, they hire poor labourers for spraying, the labourers take up this risky spraying job in seasons because they paid more than normal wages. Hence, most of the patients admitted in this hospital are the labourers, they are from the same or nearby villages. 
 
There are many more poisoning cases and patients are being treated in various government and private hospitals. Total numbers can be availed from the collector or the civil surgeon. 
 
Every year new brands of pesticides are entering the market, some farmers who had used similar pesticides previously never had this experience. There is no awareness or standard of toxicity in similar chemicals. 
 
This is happening all over Vidarbha region, Dr. Elke could give data only about Yavatmal hospital. He said there is a separate data of suicides by drinking poison with poison, that is very common in Vidarbha and they regularly get such cases. 
 
I also met a relative of two patients who are now out of danger. 
 
Rajarao Wadkar has his son Vijay Rajaram Vadkar and a relative Haribhau Manik Kundekar admitted in ward no 19 of the hospital. They were lucky to reach hospital in time (on 30th sept and 1st oct), they are from Bhari Village only 9 kilometre from Yavatmal. 
  
Background:
The Indian Express has reported on October 8 and 9 that on October 3, two and a half months after the first death, the government ordered a probe and announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to families of each of the deceased. This was after court proceedings, when on October 6, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court issued notices on a PIL seeking criminal action against the officials concerned and pesticide firms. While no action has been taken against anyone so far, Minister of State for Agriculture Sadabhau Khot on Tuesday said, “Officials responsible will be made answerable.”
Cotton cultivation experts and researchers have said the cumulative effect of several factors, such as humidity, spraying of pesticide cocktails and use of a new kind of spraying machine, seem to be behind the deaths of cotton growers in Maharashtra. The number of deaths climbed to 32 on Sunday.
According to these reports, since July 19, 18 farmers have died in Yavatmal and 14 in surrounding districts in the cotton growing belt of the state. The two fresh deaths have been reported from Nagpur and Akola.
 
 
 

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Updates from Teesta Setalvad:
5.28 p.m.: “SDM claims that they will soon take a bond and release. Let’s see”.

5.15 p.m.: “Its now 5:15pm. There is not an inch that the Police is budging. Still here and still not communicating with me. It’s 7 hours and 45 minutes of being detained. Pathetic.”

3.17 p.m.: “No formal arrest. Freedom curtailed. Gheraoed by Banaras and local SDM here. No idea whether preventive detention or arrest. How long will be freedom be curtailed?”

1.00 p.m.: I have been arrested by Banaras police after being detained since 9.30 am. Had come for a programme of youth training of Samajwadi Jan Parishad (prog fixed a month ago) but all I have been hearing since morning is are you going to BHU?

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I just deplaned after a 15 hour flight to see hundreds of messages of love and support for the work Gauri did and her shining ideals. She lived a beautiful life of purpose and fought the good fight. It will not be in vain. On the flight, I reflected on our growing up years and updated some of the recollections below because it is important to understand the wonderful milieu we grew up in. Thank you friends for the touching messages. Love and peace.

Gauri Lankesh: Amazing Grace

If Gauri Lankesh read all the tributes and accolades for her, particularly those that refer to soul and afterlife and heaven, she’d have cracked a good laugh. Maybe not a laugh, but at least a chuckle. We had decided in our teens that heaven and hell and afterlife were a lot of b.s. There was enough heaven and hell on earth, and we should just leave god alone – he has enough on his hands – instead of begging him for favors.

But part of our compact was we would not be hurtful to others – including family — even if we disagreed with their beliefs and practices. We didn’t always succeed – ah, the impetuosity of youth! — but it was a good principle that served us well later. Which is how even when we divorced 27 years ago, after five years of courtship and five years of marriage, we remained great friends. Part of the compact. Don’t be hurtful. Even to each other.

We met at a school that was the birthplace of the Rationalist Movement of India – National College. Our principal, Dr H.Narasimaiah, and the Sri Lankan rationalist, Dr Abraham Kovoor, were pioneers of the movement, and right from our teens we took to the thrill of questioning and debunking a variety of godmen/godwomen, charlatans, frauds, superstitions etc.

More on this another time, but I’m putting this out here early to provide some context to Gauri’s murder. Rationalists and agnostics are in the cross hairs of uber-religious bigots.

One of the first books we read together — before getting into the weeds (I mean metaphorically) of religion, politics, and life itself — was Will Durant’s Story of Philosophy. Neither of us was proficient in our mother tongue Kannada (at that time), so we regretfully forsook our own bounteous literature for everything from Wodehouse to Graham Greene, devouring anything that Premier Book Shop’s Mr Shanbhag could produce for us – at a matchless 20 per cent discount (others got 15 per cent). She returned to Kannada years later, but more on that soon.

Meanwhile, we “skinned our hearts and skinned our knees, learned of love the ABCs.” Terry Jack’s sappy, saccharine “Seasons in the Sun” had been released a few years earlier, and we hummed it between Dylan and Beatles. I’d return to Indian music years later; she was tone deaf. We read and laughed at Eric Segal’s Love Story, saw the movies Abba, Saturday Night Fever, and Gandhi on our first dates, and went to the boonies on moonless nights to see billions and billions of stars and galaxies after reading and watching Carl Sagan.

Feisty wouldn’t even begin to describe her. She hated the fact that I smoked in college. Years later, when I had given it up for a long time, she had begun to smoke. One time, she visited me in U.S (crazy innit? ex-wife visiting me? But we were better friends!) I insisted that she not smoke in the apartment because it was carpeted and the stink wouldn’t go away. It was winter.

“What do you want me to do?”
“If you have to smoke at all, go to the rooftop and smoke.”
“But it’s cold and snowing!”
“Shrug”
“You tightass!…I started to smoke because of you!”
“Awww…sorry old girl. I’m asking you to stop now.”
“Yeah, right. You’ve become too *&^%$#@ American!”
“American has nothing to do with it. Being healthy.”
“Bollocks. I’ll outlive you!”

Liar.

Many friends were bemused by our unbroken friendship. Separations and divorces are often messy, bitter, and spiteful in India, or anywhere for that matter. We had our volcanic moments, but we transcended that quickly, bound by higher ideals. On our day in court, as we stood next to each other, our hands reached out. Fingers interlaced. If you want to go your own ways, better disengage, the lawyer hissed.

After it was done and dusted (“by mutual consent”), we went out for lunch at the Taj down MG Road. The restaurant was called Southern Comfort. We laughed at the irony and said goodbye as I moved first to Delhi, them Mumbai, then Washington DC. She visited me in each place to argue about Life, the Universe, and Everything (we read Douglas Adams in school).

My parents loved her despite her rebellious nature, and remarkably for traditional, orthodox Indian parents, kept in touch with her – and she with them — even after we split. One time, when I told her about a budding dalliance, she drew herself to her full height (all of five feet and HALF INCH – she never failed to emphasize the half inch) and said: “Ha! You can never take away the honor of being the first daughter-in-law of the family.” When my mother passed away this past February, Gauri Lankesh was there, literally “live casting” for me the final rites as I flew home.

My ties with her family were as unusual. Through our separation and splitsville, I continued to meet her dad P.Lankesh, a writer, playwright, film-maker and an inspiration for a generation of rebel writers and journalists, and her sister Kavitha – “baby” to us-now a fine film-maker in her own right. Early in our college dalliance, after Lankesh’s due diligence determined that I passed the literary litmus test, I became part of the family – including the extended family of writers, poets, artists, teachers, and what I’d kid as the “buddhijeevi” (intellectual) crowd.

Starting early 80s, we met every Sunday evening for a game of cards, where the stakes were modest but the conversation was rich. Poetry, proverbs, epigrams, aphorisms, bon mots in English and Kannada flowed ebulliently at the table. If someone slowed down the game, someone else would intone “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…” Another person: “….creeps at this petty pace from day to day.” Third one: “…to the last syllable of recorded time!” It became bad form to speak in anything other than through literary allusions – in any language. A daring pick always invited “Vinashakaale Vipareetha Buddhi.”

They were brilliant, effervescent men, and Gauri (who joined us occasionally and was the only woman at the table) and I marinated in their learning. Appa, as I called Lankesh, taught Eng.lit in Bangalore University, but had decamped to Kannada when we met, having just directed his first movie (I think it was either Anuroopa or Pallavi, and it won the national award). Like many great Kannada writers (Bendre, Kuvempu etc) he started out wanting to write in English before finding his métier in his roots. His play “Sankranti’ was prescribed reading for undergrads, but we discussed everyone from Kalidasa to Ibsen, Chekhov, and Brecht.

All this continued through courtship, marriage, separation, and divorce, and even after I moved to U.S. Every time I went home, over a drink or two, pop-in-law and I, refereed by his daughter, would argue about politics, religion, literature, movies, U.S-India ties, farming distress, health, the world. Father and daughter would tease me about abandoning the good fight, while I’d insist that it was temporary, and a little time and distance is good for perspective. Lankesh had a low threshold for idiocy (there was a high turnover at the cards table in the initial years with those unable to handle his temperament scramming quickly) but his continued affection for me earned brownie points from Gauri. When he passed away in 2000, she truly became her father’s daughter, taking over the newspaper he founded and continuing the good fight.

To this day, I unfailingly drop into to the Sunday cards table (long after Lankesh passed away, Doc Gowda, the writer-physician, is the current torchbearer). At every other visit or so, as the years took their toll of the older generation, I’d see someone missing at the table. “Yelli Sharma? (Where’s Sharma?)” I’d ask, as they made place for me at the cards table, referring to the wonderful poet Ramachandra Sharma. “Oh! He’s gone up to join Lankesh at another table,” someone would respond, without batting an eyelid or breaking the game. “And Mysoremath is on his way to join them. He’s in hospital.”

I’m relating all this to give a sense of the intellectual atmosphere Gauri grew up in – practical, rational, and largely agnostic. Death was just incidental. Respect, affection, and admiration for the good people did and what they stood for was important. Her – our – favorite word and topic of conversation in recent years was “horaata” – a Kannada word roughly meaning a movement/agitation/revolution. “Haegide horaata?” I’d ask during our occasional phone calls. She’d launch into a litany of struggles she was in at the moment.

Gauri’s presence at the cards table became rare as she threw herself into the fight against right-wing bigots, zealots, and extremists. We argued about that too at the cards table because some friends thought she had gone the other extreme. There was no doubt she was left of center, even extreme left of center. But heart was in the right place, and there was no place in her world for violence. Only cowards took to violence.

Some eight years back, after I had built a new home in Bangalore in the fond hope that I’d return to India some day, she determined that I needed a housekeeper to manage the place. “I am sending someone over,” she declared over the phone. “She’s a widow with two young daughters. Make sure you take care of them and put them through school.” It was an order. I complied.

Ramakka, her gift to us, is still with us; her daughters Asha and Usha both finished from school, earned degrees, and now work – Asha in Syndicate Bank and Usha at an NGO. There are hundreds of Ashas and Ushas because of Gauri Lankesh.

Just a few weeks ago, when Mary, the kids and I were in India, Gauri called to announce she was coming over. She always came to see the kids, bearing gifts, none more precious than the love and warmth she brought with her. Days passed, and she did not turn up. Busy, busy, busy, she said…you know how hard it is handling the paper and fighting the chaddis (she called the right wing nutters “chaddis”).

One day, she called to announce that she’s coming with her son. “Who have you adopted now?” I asked. “Kanhaiya Kumar,” she chuckled. “You mean the JNU bloke?” “Yes, you’ll love meeting him.” Little later she called to say his flight was late and she can’t make it. That was the last time I heard her voice. Bubbly and bursting with energy and passion for causes big and small.

As my plane now wings towards India to a place without Gauri, my mind is a cauldron of fragmented memories. One phrase keeps repeating and resonating in my mind: Amazing Grace. Forget all other labels: leftist, radical, anti-Hindutva, secular etc. For me, there is just this: She is the epitome of Amazing Grace.
 

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An activist colleague of Medha Patkar, Bilal Khan’s account (in his own words) of his close brush with the MP police. 

Narmada Bachao activists’ brush with the MP police

I, along with four others, reached Bombay Hospital, Indore on August 8 to meet Medha Patkar who was forcefully hospitalised on the 12th day of her indefinite fast by the Madhya Pradesh Police. Medha Patkar was fasting to protest against the illegal submergence of 192 villages and one township in Madhya Pradesh by the backwaters of the Sardar Sarovar Dam.
 

The post My Abduction by the Madhya Pradesh Police: A First Person Account appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Certain universal truths/ customs about Islam are above debate and cannot be dismissed by law, nor need to be authenticated by the so-called clergy whether they are essential or non-essential components of faith.

The Qur’an preaches that there is One God. Muslims recite from the Qur’an in their daily prayers. Muslims are required to do ablution (wet or dry) before commencing the prayer. The Qur’an prohibits flesh of swine as food. The Qur’an abolished the custom of burying alive of new born girls. The Qur’an abolished the custom of instant divorce and introduced a time frame for divorce. The Qur’an abolished incestuous relation between clearly identified close relations.

Now if a clergy or even a secular person says no to any of the above propositions, he is simply telling a lie against the Qur’an or is stark ignorant of what is written in the Qur’an.

This leads up to the tricky question embedded in this statement in the article in the context of instant divorce: It [The Court] does not have the expertise to decide which practice/ritual is essential/non-essential. These are purely religious questions, which is best left to clergy.”

The flaw in the stateent is that i) it does not define ‘clergy.’ ii) it fails to recognize that the Qur’an does not recognize any clergy class or any other authority entrusted with the interpretation of its message.

The question around which this writer’s consistently advocated argument of constitutionally invalidating triple Talaq rests, is its enduringly devastating impact on a poor Muslim woman who receives the triple talaq at a fatal moment.

In the blink of an eye, she loses her husband, her children, her home and hearth, her status, her livelihood. She is barred from all her Qur'anic rights; her fundamental human rights are violated. She is abjectly dehumanized, and is struck with such overwhelming shock, trauma, and mental agony, that may be no less tormenting than if she were about to be buried alive. Also unlike a wife who is, so to say, buried alive (instead of getting instant triple divorce) she will suffer stigma, disgrace and deprivation all her life. So a woman from a poor family who is handed a triple divorce suffers more grievously than if she was buried alive – a parallel that India’s ex-Union Minister Mohammed Arif Mohammed Khan aptly gave in a recent court hearing.

Bearing the above in mind, it is simply ridiculous to suggest that the ‘court’ does not have the expertise to decide the essentiality or otherwise of triple Talaq. The Judges are no robots. They are human beings. Regardless of what Muslim clergy say on a matter that is expressly repugnant to Qur’an (the holy book of Muslims), to universal human values and opposed to the noble notions of justice, mercy, compassion that distinguish man from beast, the court can surely say that such practice/ ritual cannot be ‘essential ‘to Islamic faith or for that matter any faith.

Let us not forget the case of Imrana [June 06, 2005]. Raped by her father-in-law, the local clerics invoked Hanafi law to turn the rapist father-in-law into lawful husband of the rape victim. The Supreme Court did not leave the matter with the clergy. It intervened and handed due punishment to the rapist father in law.

Think of the case of so many un-known sisters of Imrana, whom their husbands instantly divorce in a state of drunkenness or anger and then force to marry a friend and have intercourse with him and get his friend to divorce her for him to remarry her back – all within just a few days – what a colossal violation of human rights under the ambit of MPL. Is the court going to leave the mater in the hands of the clergy, which, in any case, is not recognized in Islam.

As to the learned Professor’s [reference to the article by Faizan Mustafa in the Tribune] repetitive suggestion of incorporating a clause in the Nikahnama ‘that triple divorce shall not be given’, this writer will reiterate that “this will purport to imply imposing some limitations on the prerogatives of the male spouse, who may in practical terms, violate the contract and take recourse to this practice. … In other words, instant triple divorce must be declared constitutionally invalid and culpable in the eye of Law, and not included in Nikahnama as a condition of prenuptial contract.”[5]

This writer, who is keeping a close tab on the arguments of those who are bent on retaining ‘triple Talaq’ either in MPL or in the Nikahnama as a prohibitive clause, and is consistently tabling counter-arguments is now compelled to say this:

Having failed to establish its case by telling lies upon lies about the Qur'an in their recent submission as reported by the media and exposed by this writer in his last two articles [3-5], the advocates of triple Talaqs an Islamic custom, have taken to a labyrinthine legal argument to support their case. It is reminiscent of labyrinthine Fatwas by terror groups who will cite opinions of different scholars of different era and overwhelm the lay reader into accepting their views but the world knows they are terrorists and so are those who advocated instant triple Talaq as expounded in one of my articles referenced below:

AIMPLB Advocates Of Instant Triple Talaq Are Gender Terrorists And Traitors Of Islam And May Be Sued For Human Rights Violation Under Cover Of Religion
http://www.newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/muhammad-yunus,-new-age-islam/advocates-of-instant-triple-talaq-are-gender-terrorists-and-traitors-of-islam-and-may-be-sued-for-human-rights-violation-under-cover-of-religion/d/110871

This is this writer’s 7th article on the subject consistently advocating constitutional invalidation of triple Talaq:

[1]  Qur’anic Sharia (Laws) On Divorce: Triple Divorce, Temporary Marriage, Halala Stand Forbidden (Haram)
http://newageislam.com/islamic-sharia-laws/the-qur’anic-sharia-(laws)-on-divorce.–triple-divorce,-temporary-marriage,-halala-stand-forbidden-(haram)/d/6391

 [2 ] The Medieval-Era-Rooted, Qur’an-Conflicting Muslim Personal Law (Sharia Law) Must Be Reformed To Avoid Injustices to Muslim Women – An SOS to the Indian Ulema Fraternity
http://www.newageislam.com/islamic-sharia-laws/muhammad-yunus,-new-age-islam/the-medieval-era-rooted,-qur’an-conflicting-muslim-personal-law-(sharia-law)-must-be-reformed-to-avoid-injustices-to-muslim-women-–-an-sos-to-the-indian-ulema-fraternity/d/97692

[3]  Indian Muslim Ulema Who Insist On Retaining the Anti-Qur’anic Triple Talaq (Instant Divorce) In Muslim Personal Law Are Sinners, Haters of Their Women-Folk and Criminals and Must Be Resisted
http://newageislam.com/islamic-sharia-laws/muhammad-yunus,-new-age-islam/indian-muslim-ulama-who-insist-on-retaining-the-anti-qur’anic-triple-talaq-(instant-divorce)-in-muslim-personal-law-are-sinners,-haters-of-their-women-folk-and-criminals-and-must-be-resisted/d/104483

 [4] Supreme Court Has Already Declared Triple Talaq Invalid – So What Is the Need for the Recent Petition to the Supreme Court
http://www.newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/muhammad-yunus,-new-age-islam/supreme-court-has-already-declared-triple-talaq-invalid-–-so-what-is-the-need-for-the-recent-petition-to-the-supreme-court/d/111090

 [5]  Triple Talaq Must Be Invalidated Constitutionally and Criminalized – Inclusion of Prohibitive Clause in Nikahnama Could Allow Its Perpetuation by Defaulters
http://www.newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/muhammad-yunus,-new-age-islam/triple-talaq-must-be-invalidated-constitutionally-and-criminalized-–-inclusion-of-prohibitive-clause-in-nikahnama-could-allow-its-perpetuation-by-defaulters/d/111139

Having stretched his vocabulary in protesting against AIMPLB and its sympathizer’s insistence to keep triple Talaq in MPL – at least as an express prohibition (thus tacitly acknowledging its religious bearing, the author would now like to end this article with the following quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero – an iconic figure of the Roman era, remembered for his political and juristic erudition:

“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.”

Triple Talaq must not be confused with Polygamy that i) is permitted in Islam in exceptional cases – though the Qur’an’s holistic message stands for monogamy [2]  and ii) cannot be paralleled with triple divorce by any stretch of imagination on human rights violations and traumatic impact to a wife (existing versus divorced).

Muhammad Yunus, a Chemical Engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, and a retired corporate executive has been engaged in an in-depth study of the Qur’an since early 90’s, focusing on its core message. He has co-authored the referred exegetic work, which received the approval of al-Azhar al-Sharif, Cairo in 2002, and following restructuring and refinement was endorsed and authenticated by Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl of UCLA, and published by Amana Publications, Maryland, USA, 2009.

This article was first publoshed on New Age Islam.

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