JNU Registrar Asks for Romila Thapar’s CV To “Evaluate” Her Work

September 3, 2019

Professor Romila Thapar, the well-known historian and my long-time colleague at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), received a letter from the Registrar of JNU in July 2019, asking her to submit her curriculum vitae (CV) so that a committee appointed by the university could evaluate her work and decide whether she should continue as professor emerita of the JNU. Thapar retired in 1991 and was made emeritus soon after.

The current Executive Council of the JNU seems to be unaware of even the meaning of an emeritus professorship. It seems to think that it is an appointment against a post for which there are multiple applications.

An emeritus position is completely different. There are no posts and nobody ever applies for it. It is an honour conferred for life by the university on a retiring or retired professor in appreciation of their outstanding past work. This is true of every university in the world.

This current action of the JNU contradicts the very basis on which the status of professor emeritus was conferred on retired faculty in the JNU.
It needs to be reiterated that in the letter conferring the title of professor emeritus/emerita, it is described as honorary and is for life. It is clearly stated that it is in recognition of the outstanding contribution in teaching and research of the professor so honoured, and as an esteemed faculty member for outstanding academic achievements.

The current Executive Council and administration of JNU have either not understood, or have chosen to overlook, the import of this. Hence it needs to be explained for their benefit.

That the emeritus professorship is honorary means just that. The university does not have to make any special arrangements, financial or otherwise, to accommodate such professors. It is only a status that is conferred by the university on the retirement of a selected faculty member.
So the question of making positions available for other potential candidates does not arise. It costs the university nothing. The choice of professor emeritus is a comment on the academic values of the university. There can be any number of such professors. It is quite clearly an honour that is given for life; therefore any periodic reassessment is out of the question.

The honour is not conferred for work in the future, work that is yet to be done, but for the work that the faculty member has done before retirement. This means that it is based on the work that the professor has done before the award was conferred. It is a lifetime achievement award as well; therefore any assessment of work subsequent to the award is not required. The continuity of the award is not dependent on future work.

When a university confers this honour, there is no question of any prior submission of an application for it nor of a CV. Detailed information about the academic achievements and activities of its faculty should in any case be known to the university from its own website and records, provided these are properly maintained by the administration. There should be no need to ask for CVs. Nor is there any need for testimonials and peer group views since it is conferred.

In her response to the registrar, Thapar has reminded the university administration that they should be aware of what it means to confer an emeritus professorship, as has been explained above.

Furthermore, she has quite rightly asked, what exactly is the committee going to assess and how? Is it going to give a grade to the books that she has published since becoming a professor emerita, the major one, The Past before Us, being a pioneering study of historiography in early India? Is it going to evaluate the fact that she was awarded the Kluge Prize in History in 2008, which is regarded as equivalent to the Nobel and is given specifically in disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize? How is the committee going to grade the other publications and the other awards?

Ironically, just prior to receiving this letter from the registrar of JNU, Thapar received a letter from the American Philosophical Society (APS), informing her that she has been selected for the society. The APS is the oldest scholarly society in the United States with a restricted membership selected on the basis of intellectual achievement.

The contrast in the treatment of a reputed Indian scholar by a foreign learned society, and the university that the scholar has served for decades and of which she was among the founding professors, is too stark to be missed. The Centre for Historical Studies of the JNU has also objected to this attempt to reconsider the status of emeritus for Thapar.

There is much talk these days about improving the quality of our higher education. This would remain a chimera if our outstanding scholars are treated in this manner by their own universities.

First published in Indian Cultural Forum

Economy Shredded, Childhoods Ruined

September 3, 2019

According to the recent figures by Central Statistics Office, the growth rate of India has fallen to 5%. For this duration, last year, the rate was recorded at 8%. The automobile sector of the country is in shambles.

According to the recent figures by Central Statistics Office, the growth rate of India has fallen to 5%. For this duration, last year, the rate was recorded at 8%. The automobile sector of the country is in shambles. Unemployment is on rise. In this episode of NewsChakra, senior journalist Abhisar Sharma talks about how the deteriorating condition of the economy is being overlooked, and how instead the focus remains on spreading hatred, and making even the children a part of the divisive propaganda.

Courtesy: News Click

My First Lessons in Diversity, the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at Mangalore college

September 2, 2019

It was amazing to me that students from different religions, from different parts of India- Hindu, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs- as well as NRI’s and Foreign Nationals, were dancing and singing together as we followed the Ganpati idol down the streets of Mangalore. Local residents and college volunteers offered us water and Prasad at regular intervals.

My first memory of Ganesh Chaturthi is from my first year of college in Mangalore. I studied dentistry in Manipal College of Dental Sciences (MCODS), Mangalore from 2007-2012. The academic year begins in August every year and the first and biggest celebration comes soon after, in the form of Ganesh Chaturthi festival that the college celebrates in conjunction with the medical college, KMC(Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University). Every year since 1954 (KMC was established in 1953) 3-600 college students under the Mangalore branch of Manipal University come together in a grandVisarjan procession spanning 3 kilometres from the Main Campus to the Lake atKudtheri Shree Mahamaya Temple in Carstreet, Mangalore.

Since the first-year students have a separate campus, it is their first interaction with their seniors and teachers in an informal setting. I remember being apprehensive and excited at the same time, boarding the bus to attend the Ganpati Aarti and Visarjan. As a Sikh girl from Punjab, this was the first time I had heard of Ganesh Chaturthi. I arrived at the opulent pandal set up in the main KMC campus on LightHouse Hill road to witness the grandeur of the Rangoli art, the spiritually uplifting Aarti ceremony, and then the laughter and cheers that erupted as the dhol started playing.

It was amazing to me that students from different religions, from different parts of India- Hindu, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs- as well as NRI’s and Foreign Nationals, were dancing and singing together as we followed the Ganpati idol down the streets of Mangalore. Local residents and college volunteers offered us water and Prasad at regular intervals. Meanwhile, as opposed to what I had heard about ragging in colleges, senior students at Mangalore were doing their best to make us juniors feel safe and included. They came and danced with us, asked us repeatedly if we were all okay, offered refreshments, and even took time to explain the significance of the festival to foreign students and students who belonged to other religions like me. I remember a post graduate student taking the time to tell me, “Ganesh Chaturthi is the great unifier. Here you are not bound by caste, economic status, or religion. You are here to celebrate with everyone as equals.”

It was Lokmanya Tilak who had popularized the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi as a grand public celebration “to bridge the gap between Brahmins and non-Brahmins, and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them.”

Mangalore taught me my first lessons in diversity. My fellow students spoke languages I didn’t understand, had cultural and religious practices that were completely unknown to me, and yet, all of us found common ground. Whether we were pulling all-nighters for exams in the TV Room, or putting together dance performances for the cultural week, our differences were what made us grow as people. We learnt not just tolerance, but acceptance.

From what the current student coordinators Ojasvi Praveen (Cultural Secretary, KMC) and Gulmehak Kalsi (Fine Arts Secretary, MCODS) told me, the tradition has continued in the same spirit, “We are expecting more than 400 students and teachers to walk in the Visarjan procession this year. Students from all religions and nationalities are not only attending but also part of the organization process.”

Gulmehak, who is herself a Sikh, further added, “Ganesh Chaturthi celebration is not seen as a religious event, but rather a celebration of unity and people from all religions and cultures are welcome. Everyone takes part in the celebrations with great fervour each year.”

As I ponder on my own memories of the celebration from my 5 years in Mangalore, what I cherish most is the part when after the Visarjan, we would sit on the Temple steps tired out yet full of energy. We would listen carefully while the Dean made a speech and await with much suspense whether a holiday would be announced for the next day (it always was). Then we would pile into our college buses late at night and sing all the way back to the hostels, clapping and chanting “Ganpati Bappa Morya!”.

To have that experience of being part of a community, being close to people you would have never met in your hometowns, sharing happiness and joy, that was what made Mangalore special to me. I will always think of the city as home, because it embraces everyone regardless of who you are or where you come from. I hope this tradition that completes 65 years this year in KMC and MCODS Mangalore, will continue for many more years to come, and give lakhs of young people hope that there is always a place they are accepted.

What next for those left out of the NRC?

September 2, 2019

The NRC, is a process that is complex and not so easy to understand. So far, it has been unique to Assam. It was a consensual process arrived at after the tumultuous years that preceded the Assam Accord, when aggression, strife and violence marred a politics that was driven by real or imagined fears of the outsider.

Image Courtesy: Parismita Singh / https://www.huffingtonpost.in

Today, forty-one years later, in a much-changed India where an ultra-right government is firmly in the political saddle, the discourse has been twisted cleverly now to mean ‘foreigner’ and ‘infiltrator’. It is these peculiar and seemingly parochial preconditions that have to be factored in to understand how and why a wide consensus developed around the process of a ‘free and fair’ NRC. Terms like ‘genuine Indian citizens’ have now emerged to form an integral part of the wider humanitarian discourse within Assam. (Setalvad, Telegraph, July 22, 2019)

The process of finalisation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has been closely monitored by the SC since 2009. It actively began since 2013. Today, August 31, under this monitoring, the NRC Coordinator has declared the final list. What lies ahead for the 19,06,657 persons excluded? What is likely to be their plight in the coming months and what of their fate eventually?

At a hearing on July 23, 2019 this court monitored process was thrown open to groups working on the ground, for ‘suggestions.’ The Court, in its wisdom did not interfere with a flawed conclusion arrived at by the NRC Coordinator, Prateek Hajela. In a deeply problematic order, he had suggested the exclusions of countless persons born in India prior to June 30, 1987 on the ground that one parent of such person is either a “doubtful voter (DV)”, or a “declared foreigner (DF)”, or a “person whose claim for citizenship is pending before a Foreigner’s Tribunal (PFT)”. This was clearly violative of Section 3(1)(a) of the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955.

These are persons who have lived in the country for several decades, and now, thanks to this, risk being declared stateless because of a deeply flawed process. Section 3(1)(a) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 mandates that every person born in India between Republic Day 1950 and June 30, 1987 shall be a citizen of India by birth, yet the Coordinator, and thereafter, even the Supreme Court decreed that it would ‘exclude’ such persons despite the existence of Section 3. (Thus lakhs of persons born in this category, that is between 1950-1987, have been today excluded simply because one parent of such a person is either a “doubtful voter” or a declared foreigner” or a person whose claim is pending before a Foreigners Tribunal. This order was passed by the Supreme Court on August 13. The matter will now be finally decided by a Constitution Bench). Initial reports suggest that, among 40-60 per cent of those excluded include those from such an abovementioned category whom the latest directives of the SC had signed a death knell to.

Appeals
Appeals of all the 19 lakh excluded will now have to be filed under the stipulated 120 days before the Foreigners Tribunals set up for the persons. To file such an appeal, each person will need to access a certified copy of the exclusion order and list of documents submitted by her or him to the NRC. Will the deadline of 120 days start ticking after these documents are accessed as is just and fair? Clarifications are awaited.

Details of the modalities and nitty-gritties of filing the appeals are eagerly awaited. Of special concern will be the issue of areas of jurisdiction. Of particular concern is where a victim of exclusion will have to go, which district of jurisdiction, and to which Foreigner Tribunal, to file her or his appeal. Through the NRC process, and the claims and corrections process, marginalised and unlettered sections of the population have been subject to inhuman procedural hassles, not least being sent to Nagrik Seva Kendras, sometimes 200-400 kilometres away! It took repeated complaints to the Supreme Court to get this issue somewhat clarified through an order of April 10, 2019. However, even during the ‘re-verification process’ this torture continued.

Discussions are rife in Assam about how de-centralised the locations of these FTs will be given the vast distances in the state. Already the state government is trying to overtly centralise the process by locating these tribunals in ‘six zonal areas’ of the state. All these logistical issues will remain crucial in the accessibility to justice for all those excluded.

Background

The background to this humanitarian crisis is complex. In Assam, there has been, apart from the NRC process, the ‘D’ voter process initiated by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the mid-1990s. In 1997, more than 3 lakh people were marked as “doubtful voters” overnight, without even the pretence of any prior investigation whatsoever. (This is violative of judgments of both the Supreme Court of India and the Guwahati High Court, most especially Sarbananda Sonowal, 2007, Moslem Mondal. 2012 where fair investigation is emphasised as a pre-requisite for anyone being served such a notice).Some more ‘D Voters’ were added in later years. A study shows that a majority of those declared “doubtful voters” were women, some newly-wed. Some have subsequently been able to prove their citizenship, others not. However, many people marked as “doubtful voters” are still disenfranchised and have, to date, not received any notice from Foreigners Tribunal to prove their citizenship. The children of such persons, following the SC Order of August 13, 2019 (and in apparent violation of Section 3(1) (a) of the Citizenship Act, 1955), have now been excluded from the final NRC list.

What next?
As I have said above, all those excluded from the NRC list have to appear before the Foreigners Tribunals. These Tribunals have already been in existence dealing with those cases of persons declared ‘D’ voters (by the Election Commission) or those ‘referral cases by the Assam Border Police’ who are ‘suspected foreigners’. We reported that, on July 19, 2019, in reply to an un-starred question No-3804, the minister of state of home affairs stated in the floor of Parliament that up to 31 March this year, 1.17 lakh people have been declared foreigners by the tribunal, 63,959 people have been declared foreigners by an ex parte order. Those who contested the case claimed themselves to be Indian, very often people are declared foreigners because of minor anomalies or variations in names, age and place of residence in documents. Any contradictory statement or not proving documents as per evidence law could cost them their citizenship.

Given the high human stakes involved and the balance of power against the marginalised and unlettered it is crucial that these tribunals function transparently, following acceptable and standardised processes of allowing appeals and evidence, precluding existing complaints of the sheer arbitrariness in their dealings. Open, fair and judicious trial is the fundamental guarantor of every citizen living under the rule of law, apart from being a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. India’s claim to these fundamentals will, once again be put to test in every case before the Foreigners Tribunal given that citizenship is the very basic of rights and to be arbitrarily being declared ‘non-Indian’ is akin to a ‘civil death’.

Exclusion, then Detention and Deportation?
In July this year, CJP undertook a rather depressing task. We compiled a list of citizenship and NRC related deaths in Assam: 60 people who had lost their lives and whose deaths are connected to citizenship related issues. Today the number is higher. This morning Sayera Begum jumped into a well around 8 am long before the list was published just on a rumour that she may not have made it to the list. Tragically, her family found that she actually had. While some of the others have allegedly committed suicide due to frustration, anxiety and helplessness related to the National Register of Citizens (NRC), some reportedly took their own lives fearing the deadly detention camps.

Although those excluded from the final NRC will not be detained immediately, the Sword of Damocles will be an ever-present peril. Once declared as “foreigner” by a Tribunal –whose functioning(s) have hitherto been marked by arbitrary and ad hoc functioning —he or she may be detained in such camps, with an intent to deport. There are already around 1,100 detainees in six detention centres across Assam. Reports of pathetic conditions abound. As of now, Assam has six detention camps. These operate out of makeshift facilities in prison compounds located in Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Silchar, Jorhat, Tezpur and Dibrugarh. There are also reports that new facilities have been planned in other parts of the state.

The government has admitted to 25 deaths within these camps between 2013 and now. Our film, Behind Shadows—Tales of Injustice from Assam’s Detention Camps makes for chilling viewing and the fear of detention has driven women and men to despair, and even death in the state. Only last year, on May 10, 2018, the SC has directed the release of those detenues who have completed more than three years in detention. While this order has rightly put an end to indefinite detention, questions around the initial three years of arbitrary confinement, remain.

On the contentious deportation issue, there is little clarity. The state of Assam in its affidavit before the Supreme Court in on-going matters filed in February 2019 admitted to only four declared foreigners being deported since 2013! On a recent visit to Dhaka, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar has even said that the NRC is India’s internal problem. To date, India has not spoken to Bangladesh about deporting “declared foreigners”.

Under these unclear political circumstances, will the option be indefinite detention? A person declared “foreigner” has of course the right to appeal, to the higher courts, also an onerous and resource consuming process. Detained, she or he is denied a dignified life, and also a dignified death.

At least 15 lakh plus cases will now be heard by Foreigners Tribunals (3,70.000 did not file for registration before the NRC.). The number is high and the limitation of 120 days may seem inappropriate and need extension. What is needed foremost is some clarity and commitment on the status of such persons who will be compelled to undergo a legal process, not just at the initial stage, in Foreigners Tribunal through their appeals but also, possibly, in subsequent appellate forums like the high court and the Supreme Court, even.

Will the state ensure their basic rights remain intact until then? Will political expediency not snatch these away as the media glare dies down?

The spectre of statelessness is what haunts the populace. Denied the right to a nationality by a state, stateless persons are particularly vulnerable to abuse. We have seen this with the Rohingyas. India has not signed either of these international proclamations that bind the signatory country to norms and procedure: the 1954 Convention on Status of Stateless Persons nor the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. However, as judgements of the higher courts have so far asserted, Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution apply to both citizens and non-citizens in India.

Two judgements are worthy of mention. In NHRC vs. State of Arunachal Pradesh, 1996, the Supreme Court has held that rights under Article 21 are as much available to non-citizens as to citizens, and to those whose citizenship is unknown. Or else, stateless persons are at the risk of being deprived of access to basic rights, including access to education, health care, employment, the right to buy or sell property, open bank accounts, or even get married. In 1981, in Francis Coralie vs The Admn, Union Territory of Delhi, the Supreme Court has held that it is the fundamental right of everyone in this country to live with human dignity, free from exploitation.

Our Constitutional foundations and the fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Article 14 and 21 should be the guiding principles to mitigate the NRC and citizenship-related crisis affecting Assam, hereafter. The institutions created and the measures put in place to redress grievances of the 15 lakh plus excluded must pass this litmus test. Turmoil, trauma and a vicious targeting have dogged an otherwise consensual process for over four years in the state while the wounds have festered for decades. It is time the process forward is constructive and provides some healing.

Final NRC published in Assam
CJP in Assam: The evolution of our campaign to avert a humanitarian crisis
Citizens for Assam: A Quest for Hope and Justice
CJP trains paralegals to help Indians defend their citizenship
CJP moves SC to defend genuine Citizenship of people in Assam
CJP in Action: Additional Exclusion list released, our team swings into action in Assam

O GANESHA! – Part 2

September 2, 2019

Communalism Combat published this two part cover story on the Ganesh festival in October 1996. We bring this to our readers during the ten day Ganesh festivities in Maharashtra, two decades later

In Kafka’s frightening masterpiece, Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a gigantic insect. What was otherwise normal suddenly turns malevolent.

In a somewhat similar and dramatic vein, though over the last twenty years, the beloved, benign Ganapatibappa too seems to have transformed before our eyes – from a symbol of all that is auspicious to a symbol that is potentially threatening. The alchemy is alarming. It is like the loss of childhood innocence. Ganapatibappa hardly inspires any more the certain laughter and ambience of playfulness of old, with a promise of modakam or laddoo or mewa. He comes now increasingly accompanied with a faint whiff of teargas and the heavy body-stench of the policemen guarding him.

I still remember with genuine nostalgia my teenage years spent in the refugee rehabilitation mohalla of Lajpat Nagar’s double storey flats in Delhi.

It was cosmopolitan middle class community. Our Maharashtrian neighbour was a sculptor, working at the newly instituted Lalit Kala Akademi. Every year, come Ganesh Utsav, he and his family would invest in a shamiana in our mohalla, put up a modest platform of low-slung tables and treat the entire community to seven days of classical music from an impressive list of artists who he specially invited.

Those were the ‘pre-market’ days for the arts. Artists were yet human beings; not celebrities. From Bade Ghulam Ali Khan to pandit Ravi Shankar; from Vilayat Khan to Ali Akbar; from Bismillah Khan to Siddheshwari Devi; from Ram Narain to Pandit Kishen Maharaj to Ustad Ahmed Jaan Thirakwa: it was evening after evening of unadulterated adoration.

There were no 30 or 40 or 50 feet tall Ganesha icons; there were no mangal artis through the night; there were no tilak marks resembling blood ritual; this was devotion and worship at its purest, where one own moment of beatitude simultaneously became a moment of social participation and collective joy; where the cultural expression of a community manifested as a complex mesh of diverse strands reconciling the many conflicting ‘selves’ within us, thus disabling narrow sectarianism to worm in.

It still amazes me how that locality, notorious these days for its incipient violence and organized gangs inherited from the devastations of the Punjabi diaspora, would subside into a week of conviviality, and it would not surprise you at all if you found yourself rubbing shoulders under the shamiana with the local don, swaying in appreciation of an Amir Khan alaap. Ganesh Utsavs sure were different those days.

It couldn’t last. Like everything else, both Ganesh and the Utsav changed. Ironically, I returned to that very mohalla after a gap of 22 years, in November 1984. It was the scene of some of the worst anti-Sikh pogroms and the mobs here were at their frothing worst. I was hidden this time behind Swami Agnivesh, but for whose saffron robes possibly all of us ‘secularists’ of the Nagrik Ekta Manch would have been lynched right there.

And as I stood there and stared into the ‘eye of hatred’, I knew there must have been many in that mob who would have sat with me under the shamiana two decades ago, allowing our collective consciousness to be transformed by those extraordinary musical evenings. And I thought of my truly visionary Maharashtrian neighbour and how all his efforts at promoting Ganesh Utsavs as a ‘cultural-been wasted at the altar of fundamentalism.

These are not idle reflections. Ganesha is relentlessly acquiring the distinction of being the most contentious icon of this self-torturing sub-continent. This season, in Madras, the ruling DMK government rightly took a firm decision to restrict the route along which the Ganesh procession would be allowed. Despite protests, dharnas, fasts, stone-throwing and threats of self-immolation, the government stood firm and, to its credit, made it the most incident-free Ganesh festival in the city in the past ten years. It only exposes the real role of local civic and administrative bodies in these situations. They hold the key to organized peace or its opposite, organized violence. All it takes is a demonstration of political will to foil mischievous intent.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi even went to the extent of stating that Ganesh “is not a tamil god”. This was, of course, treading on thin ground for it invited the retort that neither are Rama or Krishna or, for that matter, Allah and Christ, Tamil gods. It took the Madras High Court to diffuse the heat when chief justice K. A. Swami and justice A. R. Lakshmanan wanted to know “when Vinayaka had entered Tamil Nadu?” during the course of the Vinayaka idols procession case.

Though everyone knows that the “procession” with idols is just 13 years old, there is now a concerted plan to make it appear to be some ancient custom. More tellingly, the attempt is to foist a notion of antiquity and sanctity to the route the procession would take. With a sense of finality, the Madras High Court ruled on October 1 1996 that while there is a right to take out a procession per se as part of “religious belief, there is no absolute right as part of that belief on any fixed route, which is subject to prevailing conditions of convenience, traffic and logistics of the metropolis.”

The Vinayaka Chaturthi Central Committee, Madras, has decided to move the Supreme Court against this ruling and has resolved to continue performing poojas and not take idols for immersion till a ruling from the Apex Court. It only means more days of continuing attrition and the slow spread of communal poison in the name of religious practice.

Interestingly, contention is not new to Ganesha. The history of Ganesha is the history of a tribal totem becoming a mainstream go. However, the multiple names of this deity – Ganesha, Ganapati, Vinayaka, Ganadhipa, Gajanana, Lambodara, Ekadanta Vighneshwar, Vakratunda – also betoken the multiple stories of his origin, each one a saga of social conflict. For long centuries, this half-animal, half-persons deity who constitutes a socio-religious device through which primitive animism was absorbed by mainstream Vedic religion has been in the eye of a storm.

In fact scholar historians like D.D. Kosambi have much to say about the origin of this god of initiations and mysteries. A product of what seems like some ancient genetic cloning – the transplanting of lravata’s head on the body of Parvati’s child – is really the signal of a much larger social cloning, the integration of tribalism within brahminism. Kosambi even hints at Ganesha being a victim of Hindu syncretism, the deity as a mechanism created for the acculturation of newly absorbed deities and practices into the mainstream. It marks an epoch of replacement of group exclusivities with group unity.

Another interpretation (D e b I p r a s a d Chattopadhyaya) sees the Ganesh festival as essentially a female ritual appropriated by the male. Conventionally, Ganesh Chaturthi begins from the fourth day of the month of Bhadra. In many peasant communities, Ganesha simply stood for the New Moon of the sowing season. Once installed, he is quietly sidelined, leaving the ritual to take a feminine character – Gauri, a bundle of plants, with her representative, a virgin. Plants collected by women are placed on a diagram strewn with turmeric powder. Married women are served vermillion – ‘ mangala Gauri. It is a fertility rite, Gauri being the goddest of harvest, and the entire process of drawing and invoking images symbolizes the death and resurrection seasons.

At another level, Ganapati represents some of the early contradictions between Shaivites and Vaishnavites within the Hindu pantheon. For example Ganesha becomes Ekadanta (one toothed) because of the other being chopped off by Parashurama, an incarnation of Vishnu, and the most aggressive champion of Brahmin supremacy in our scriptures, whose parashu’ (axe) is constantly wreaking havoc on non-brahmins.

As per another story of his origin, Ganesha belongs to aboriginal (rakshasa) stock, being born of a rakshasa couple

Malini and Gajasura. As an off-spring of Parvati, he is said to have been constructed out of the scruff of her body. As an off-spring of Shiva, he is formed out of mud. Whichever way you look at Ganesha, his origin lies in a troubled social discourse which has yet to be resolved satisfactorily.

The Griha Sutras and Yagnavalkya Sutras of roughly around the 5th century profess much fear of Ganesha as a trouble-maker, as vighna (obstacle) personified. From there to his emergence as the custodian of goodwill and success is an anthropomorphic transformation which completely glosses over the myriad contradictions of this origin.

However, what is interesting for us today is how the same Ganesha figure is emerging as a controversial vehicle for a rather forced splinting together of the fractured shaivite and vaishnavite limbs of the pan-Hindu collective. In the past roughly 15 years, we have seen in Bombay, Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Madras a curious pantheon of made-to-order Ganeshas: a 25’ Ganesha tearing open his chest, in the manner of Hanuman, to reveal Rama-Sita-Lakshmana; a 40’ Ganesha holding the earth in his bore’s tusks the manner of Vishnu’s Varaha-avatar; Ganesha like Vamana; Ganesha like Vamana; Ganesha like Krishana dancing on the serpent Kaliya; and just to round it up, even a Ganesha with ten arms like Devi, riding a lion and destroying Manisha.

While all this certainly represents cleverness, it also represents a certain desperation on the part of fundamentalist organizations spearheading this artificial grafting to unite a base that has no potential for such a unity. In fact, we may increasingly find in the coming years a reverting to a more mono-cultural image of the Vettri Vinayaka or Veer Vinayak which is bound to get more and more gigantic and domineering as it spreads the message of aggrandizement not auspiciousness.

In Madras, this year, a 30’ tall Vinayaka murthi has been constructed in a narrow lane; the poojas are over; only now they realize that they overshot their ambition, for there is no way they can move such a tall structure out of that street without snapping electricity, telephone and TV cables along the way, cutting down a few trees and even pruning a few balconies. Hopefully a few such goofs will return Ganapatibappa to his normal benign size and the festival in his name will stop being a synonym for resurgent fanaticism.

(The writer was, in 1996, the Arts Editor, The Economic Times)

O GANESHA! – Part 1

September 2, 2019

Communalism Combat published this two part cover story on the Ganesh festival in October 1996. We bring this to our readers during the ten day Ganesh festivities in Maharashtra, two decades later

We’ve always had a Ganapati at my mother’s place, started because my grandmother wanted it. For me as a youngster, the excitement was that of a social event stretched over 10 days… decorating the mandap, making chaklis and modaks for people who dropped in; the pooja who dropped in; the pooja part incidental.

Then, as a I grew older, observing the yearly ritual, I began to think how strange it was that though we bring Ganapati home for 10 days, and do all this around him we don’t actually look at Ganapati but the decorations, the dance we do around him, the food that is cooked, etc.

This thought in mind was confirmed when I visited other Ganapatis at Dadar and Lalbaug, the traditional areas. There were huge Ganapatis but the conversation point for people who visited was, apart from the size, centered around the film hoardings on display, the scale and extent of light and flower decorations and the surrounding mandap themes, whether it was a swan or army jawaans flanking Ganapati!

I found it exciting to explore this aspect through visits to various Ganapatis all over Bombay and actually experience how people feel about Ganapati and relate to this festival, especially in traditional areas where the celebrations are so important. Why do people throng there, visiting mandap after mandap all over the city?

After my exposure to Kalipooja in Calcutta some years later, with this experience of the Ganapati festival behind me, I realist that for these mad thronging crowds traveling all night, queuing up just to glimpse a deity or participate, all this wholesale participation was a source of recreation, to enable them to come out and be part of a massive community event, travel around at all hours, something that they would otherwise never do.

This festival extended from being a religious or social event to a cultural occasion: plays were staged, films shown, beautiful music performances heard and competitions held. Theatre activities were also held. All these were opportunities for local talent – not necessarily great actors or actresses – to come forward and display their talent before a community audience.

Artists and stage decorators found an occasion to contribute their talent: brilliant ideas of local technology are innovatively applied in stage decoration, in lighting. The way lights and colours are used are perhaps very gaudy but fascinatingly worthy of study.

Have you noticed the themes that emerge from Ganapati mandaps?

They are often social or political and are an interesting expression through popular art. Every time we’ve had wars, the Indo-China war, (1965), the Indo-Pak war (1975) all the Ganapati mandaps in those years sat (or stood) with a background of the Himalayas – and though Ganapati was spared – jawaans engaged in scenes of combat stood around while Nehruji also figured. Even here, the Ganapati though central was small, incidental.

In the eighties, the Shiv Sena and the BJP systematically appropriated this, an occasion which reflected the popular expression of ordinary people to further their ideology and to brainwash people: the SS-controlled mandaps which portray the Marathas (pitted against the Moghuls) and those of the BJP, which show dominant images of Ram and Sita, serve their respective ideologies well.

These, and some other aspects that have emerged in recent years I find very disturbing. The long queues outside the Siddhivinayaka (another “avatar” of Ganesh) temple round the year when people seek a divine boon or blessing, for example, have nothing to do with this celebratory cultural event which also has its positive sides. That is just plain andhashradha (blind faith) linked closely with a general growth in religious consciousness. That is, for me, upsetting.

We all know that the Ganapati festival as we see it in its sarvajanik (community) from, particularly the aspect of its public immersion preceded by a huge procession, was started by Lokmanya Tilak as a way of mobilising people against the British, (leave aside the fact that it was also conceived or perceived in competition with the moharram procession), but today this same politicization has taken a distinctly communal turn.

The ten days of Ganapati celebration are used by certain parties who have taken control of all the Ganesh mandaps in the city, to brainwash people… they use theatre, skits, plays and films, songs to further their agenda. And because it is a Hindu festival, in Maharashtra it is obviously the Shiv Sena and the BJP who are the pudharis (the leaders). And, when we say they use the festival to further their agenda, don’t we know how dangerous that agenda is?

During the communal riots in Bombay in 1992-93, the mahaartis were used to mobilize ostensibly against Muslim namaazis. Even now, this tension is still there just below the surface, people are trying too cope with it individually but these parties don’t want to allow people to forget and are actively creating further tensions.

Ganesh, greenbucks ….

More than 9,000 mandals in Bombay are engaged in local organizing and celebrations according to official figures. For Maharashtra, the figure in 35,000.

In an interview given to The Times of India the president of the Brihanmumbai Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Samiti’s co-ordination committee, Arun Chaphekar gave total figures, staggering in their entirety, of money collections made on occasion of the 10-day long annual festival. He said that all the mandals together collect around Rs.25 crores from the people. Besides this, the collections from banners, advertisements and donations is approximately Rs. 125 crores.

According to Chaphekar, there are five Ganapati mandals that have a budget of Rs. 25 lakhs each, about 100 mandals spend close to Rs. 10 lakhs each. In his opinion, the big mandals spend 20 per cent for the decoration, 10 per cent for lighting and 5 per cent for the idol. The rest, is spent on cultural programmes.

Explaining that immense business is also generated during the period, Chaphekar claim also was that the authorities impose hefty taxes on some of the items used for the pooja like the janvi (sacred thread), fruits, coconut and beetle leaves. Whatever money remains from the annual collections, is put aside into fixed deposits for the mandal’s future functions.

All in all a huge some of money is handled by mandals and in this age of political non-absolutes, when political parties dominate the sarvajanik Ganeshotsav scene, a possible case can be made for scrutiny: funds collected in the name of the Lord should surely not grease political palms?

…and the de-greening of Bombay

The Bombay High Court ruling that limited loudspeakers around the Ganapati mandals to 11.30 p.m. afforded a measure of victory to the green lobby that has been attempting to raise consciousness and impose regulation at the high noise-levels generated during the 10-day celebrations that far exceed the permitted decibel limits under the Environment Protection Act, 1986.

“The EPA does not permit noises above 45 decibles at night in residential areas, but loudspeaker noises are within the 80 to 100 decible range,” pointed out Y. T. Oke from the anti-noise pollution committee. The petition was filed jointly by this organization with the Bombay Environment Action Group (BEAG) and the Association of Medical Consultants (AMC).

While Chaphekar of the Ganeshotsav samiti reacted by asking why the green lobby was focusing on religious festivals when other sources of noise pollution, including that generated by vehicular traffic, was not sought to be controlled, Oke clarified that it was not any particular festival that was the “target” – last year, similar legal action was sought to be taken at the time of the Navratri festival (nine days of dancing the raas-garba culminating in Dussehra) but by the time they attempted to do so, loudspeaker licenses had already been granted.

(If these were the figures in 1996, what would they be now?

Then the money aspect, crude commercialization, has also crept in Ganapati has become a front for huge money collection (see box). So not only does the political brainwashing go on, there are select political parties behind the festival Bombay who are in complete control of all the mandaps, and they will use it, each year, as a front to collect funds for the next elections.

Do you remember the “Vardhadada’s” Ganapati at Matunga? A criminal and a don who sought social respectability began to be seen as a Robin Hood figure through this massive Ganapati that he instituted, replete with lavish lights and decorations. It was the trend started by Vardha, after which all these other “sponsored” Ganapatis started. The local political heavweight of simply a deity sponsored by Gwalior or Dinesh suitings!

The whole charm of a community event, the original sarvajanik Ganapati festival, made possible through painstaking collections of small and voluntary individual contributions, is gone. The element of faith and worship, individual and collective, has been replaced by the crudeness of a purely commercial activity.

How many people actually think of poor Ganapati? The fact that he is such a cute God, as an art form, the Ashtavinayaka, he is beautiful. As an artist I call him cute, children take to him, he eats ladoos and modaks, he’s half-elephant, half-human, he has a perculiar vahaan (vehicle of transport, the rat): everything to awaken the curious. And the endless chain of Ganapati stories on which so many children have fantasised.

Where has the Ganapati got lost in all this?

(As told to Communalism Combat; Shakuntala Kulkarni is a well-known artist)

Also Read
O GANESHA! – Part 2

Rumours & Fear of Exclusion allegedly drive Assam woman to suicide, family finds name included in NRC

August 31, 2019

On the day of publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) a woman identified as Sayera Khatun allegedly committed suicide by drowning herself in a well.

Sayera Khatun

The 45 year old woman was a resident of in Dulabari 1 village, located near of Tezpur. Her husband Mohammed Samser Ali is a tailor. According to the family, Sayera was allegedly misinformed that her name would be excluded as she was a D Voter. Distressed and panic struck by this she flung herself into a well and died at about 8:30 AM.

But, when her son went to the Nagrik Seva Kendra (NSK) at around 10 AM, they discovered that her name had been included in the final NRC. Not just her, the names of all her family members have also been included in the NRC. This therefore appears to be a case where a poisonous concoction of fear, uncertainty and misinformation claimed an innocent woman’s life.

The body was sent for an autopsy and even now the family is in an acute state of shock. CJP volunteer motivator Major (Retd) Mubarak Ali is with them providing support and solace at this difficult time.

The final NRC was published this morning and people could start checking their names online and at NSKs from 10 AM onwards. According to the NRC authority 3,11,21,004 people were found eligible for inclusion in Final NRC and 19,06,657 were excluded from the list.

Also Read
Woman kills herself over unconfirmed news of exclusion from NRC list: Tezpur, Assam

Suicide survivor counselled by CJP finds name included in NRC

August 31, 2019

A suicide survivor who CJP had counselled and assisted during the application process, has now been included in the final NRC. In March 2019, Hasan Ali, a resident on Hans Chara village, had tried to take his own life after his name was excluded from the NRC final draft. Ali was saved when his friends cut the rope he had used to hang himself from a tree.

Back then CJP volunteers had rushed to the spot within 30 minutes and since then we have have not only offered him assistance with the NRC process, but have also been counselling him not to lose hope. CJP volunteers also coordinated with the local NSK to promptly resolve the matter.
On August 31, 2019 when the final NRC was published, CJP volunteer Mohammed Faruk Ahmed was with him and this is what Hasan Ali had to say:

Brief background of the case
Ali had filed his application in 2015 and was shocked to discover that his name was missing from the list. When he complained to the NRC Authority he was told that he had not submitted any application. But Ali promptly produced not only a receipt, but also the Application Registration Number (ARN).

He sent a complaint letter to the NSK where he had filed his application. That’s when it was discovered that his application had been placed with D Voters documents by accident and this is why his paperwork was never processed.

The NRC authority accepted its mistake and promised to fix the problem. The Deputy Commissioner of Morigaon directed the circle officer and CRCR to immediately rectify the issue. But no progress was made and a frustrated Ali tried to hang himself on March 8. Luckily he had a lot of friends who genuinely cared about him. CJP is humbled to be a part of Hasan’s journey and genuinely happy for him.

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JNU Registrar Asks for Romila Thapar’s CV To “Evaluate” Her Work

Economy Shredded, Childhoods Ruined

According to the recent figures by Central Statistics Office, the growth rate of India has fallen to 5%. For this duration, last year, the rate was recorded at 8%. The automobile sector of the country is in shambles.

My First Lessons in Diversity, the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at Mangalore college

What next for those left out of the NRC?

Background

Related:

O GANESHA! – Part 2

Communalism Combat published this two part cover story on the Ganesh festival in October 1996. We bring this to our readers during the ten day Ganesh festivities in Maharashtra, two decades later

O GANESHA! – Part 1

Communalism Combat published this two part cover story on the Ganesh festival in October 1996. We bring this to our readers during the ten day Ganesh festivities in Maharashtra, two decades later

Rumours & Fear of Exclusion allegedly drive Assam woman to suicide, family finds name included in NRC

Suicide survivor counselled by CJP finds name included in NRC

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