The violent attack upon a completely peaceful seminar at Ramjas College is unprecedented, not for the behaviour of the RSS affiliated student body, which is to be expected, given their long-standing attraction to violence and intimidation. It is unprecedented for the shameless impunity afforded them by the police, who allowed peaceful people to be assaulted with stones, a lady lecturer attacked and held under gherao for nearly 5 hours, with a chair being hurled at her, and numerous students and journalists manhandled, assaulted and abused.

The police is duty bound and empowered to take action, including arrest, in the case of cognisable offences such as rioting and causing injury. They could have acted on the spot, instead of which they allowed the criminal activity to go on for hours, treating the miscreants smilingly like mischievous children.

How can police officers stand by and treat rioters with kid gloves while peaceful citizens are being assaulted? Are they the hirelings of the Sangh Parivar?

The basic point is that there was no, repeat no, provocation by the participants of the seminar. They were merely speaking or listening. How can a Union government minister talk of this college becoming an anti-India hub? Has he investigated what slogans were raised?

This is an utterly irresponsible statement and shows the tendency of high officials of this government to justify violence in the name of their version of nationalism. Is it their job to encourage hooliganism? Did they see the agenda of the seminar and know in advance what was going to be said and discussed?

The ABVP today is not what it was some decades ago. When I was a teacher at Ramjas (1974-94) I remember ABVP boys attending my classes in Soviet history – perhaps they thought they would get a non-propagandist view of a heavily ideologised  past. I am also reminded of a seminar in early 1988 on the Tamas serial at which they invited me to speak. I did not do so, but my friend Purushottam Agrawal did speak, that too in the company of the East Delhi BJP MP and student leaders of the ABVP.

Agrawal gave a stirring rebuttal of their objections to the serial, but was respectfully listened to. Today he would be assaulted for what he said. Thereafter, in the face of many threats, we organised a meeting on Tamas in Ramjas, the story of which may be read here.

At the very least the ABVP boys those days showed a basic respect for their teachers. I can also say that during the course of the Ramjas struggle (1981-83) over the victimisation of Sita Ram Mali by the college administration, many of them changed their values spontaneously, without any prompting from us. I have never propagated any ideology to my students, aside from the value I place upon ahimsa and a respect for human life.

Today's ABVP has discarded the most basic values of respect for their teachers, some of whom are being abused and targeted by name. Is it part of Indian culture to assault and abuse your teachers, including lady teachers, all the while shouting Bharat Mata  ki jai? This is no longer the Bharatiya Janata Party, it is Modi's Janata Party. May God help Bharat.

Persons with objectionable ideas have the right to speak, whether or not we like those ideas. Under no circumstance should they be liable to violent assault. If people do not like certain ideas they are at liberty to question and even condemn the speakers. Under what law are they permitted to violently attack speakers and members of the audience? Is there some law under which you can commit violent crime by saying you are 'nationalists'? Is your so-called patriotism a permit to violate the law?

The Sanghi's were infuriated that students protested against this disruption by taking out a peaceful rally inside the campus. The rally also called for freedom ('azaadi') of speech and assembly – which slogan was deliberately misinterpreted as referring to secessionism. Now doctored videos are being circulated. The very use of the Hindi word for freedom has now been criminalised. Is the entire country and the use of language to be policed by the RSS? Will the home minister and the Delhi police commissioner kindly give us a dictionary of words and phrases acceptable to His Highness, the Sarsangchaalak?

How can police officers stand by and treat rioters with kid gloves while peaceful citizens are being assaulted? Are they the hirelings of the Sangh Parivar? Did they take an oath of office in the name of the Indian Constitution or to the government of the day? Every moment that a police official looks the other way when a criminal act takes place before his or her eyes contains the germ of fascist tyranny.

This is what happened in Ramjas College. I witnessed some of it on Tuesday February 21, when I was due to speak (at 3 pm) on the theme of the civic response to the massacre of 1984. I could not deliver my lecture because rioting was in full swing when I arrived on the campus. I have seen this kind of scenario many times when I was a Ramjas teacher. Stones were being thrown, glass shattered, abuses hurled. None of these activities could have taken place without instructions from the higher political controllers of the Sangh. Their activists are assured of soft handling – they know they can indulge in criminal activity and get away with it.

These are crimes against the law, and in a broader sense they signify an assault on our minds by activists of a totalitarian project. These persons wish to enforce their beliefs upon us, and to use political power as a cover for violent activity. It is our duty as citizens to protect our constitutional rights. More such attacks are to be expected unless we protest vigorously. We all belong to Ramjas.

A letter by a Ramjas student to a teacher: 
(Date: Thursday, February 23, 2017, 10:07 AM)
 
I have not been able to sleep at night… The incidents, the violent scenes in the college were on a loop in my mind. They have all videographed us and hv given us rape threats and acid attack threats. They are constantly trying to instill fear in us… But we will not back down! We'll be out on the streets… protesting today as well…amidst their violence…their abuses…their threats! We won't let this fire to die down. The beauty of this movement of resistance by Ramjas was that neutral students who dont associate with any student organization or political ideology have also joined in numbers against the ABVP hooliganism. And they were able to rationally engage with what was going around in the campus. And they were with us… And they became "US"… And it was not a left vs right struggle… as was out in the media.. It was Ramjas against ABVP goondaism. It was silence doing it's magic against violence.  We were peacefully sitting near canteen… fearful of the uncertainty looming around…

Questions of what next and who next… terrified us… traumatised us… as we saw friends getting beaten up… thrashed and manhandled by ABVP goondas…Our silence was hurting them… Our songs of resistance were pricking them… They came up with the national flag… and hurled abuses… chanted ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. We were silent. Although we were numerically less… Our silent mode of protest affected them so badly that they sporadically attacked us from different sides… trying to batter our strength. Although it was disappointing for a lot of us to silently sit there while they provoked us and we couldn't hit them back…  But still from the way we've carried out our protest yesterday… I've realized that sometimes silence works wonders! And it hit them at the right spot. As we were struggling inside … Our friends outside the gate were carrying out the protest that we were not allowed to carry out… They were beaten up… But they didn't back down! We will not back down… The social media is flooded with their violence… first hand accounts of what happened. We are brutally exposing abvp… And will continue to do so. And hopefully this is the beginning of something DU has never seen or felt before! 

(Dilip Simeon's blog).
 
 

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"The disinterestedly wise ought to desire the holding together of all being" (Bhagwadgita, III 25)

 
"…When the national anthem is played it is imperative for everyone to show honour and respect. It would instil a sense of committed patriotism and nationalism…Time has come for people to realise that the national anthem is a symbol of constitutional patriotism… people must feel they live in a nation and this wallowing individually perceived notion of freedom must go…people must feel this is my country, my motherland. [emphasis added] …
 
"From the aforesaid, it is clear as crystal that it is the sacred obligation of every citizen to abide by the ideals engrafted in the Constitution. And one such ideal is to show respect for the National Anthem and the National Flag. Be it stated, a time has come, the citizens of the country must realize that they live in a nation and are duty bound to show respect to National Anthem which is the symbol of the Constitutional Patriotism and inherent national quality. It does not allow any different notion or the perception of individual rights, that have individually thought of have no space. The idea is constitutionally impermissible"
 
— From the SC order on the national anthem dated Nov 30, 2016
 
We Indian citizens are hereby informed that notions of 'individually perceived' rights of the individual have no space and the very idea is tantamount to 'wallowing', and is 'impermissible'. (How else can the rights of an individual be perceived otherwise than by an individual?). Moreover we are told what we must feel; that our obligation to abide by constitutional ideals is 'sacred'. Whatever the expectations the learned judges who passed this order hold of us, there are also expectations that we citizens hold of our judges. Primary amongst these is that they remain restrained in their speech; and are seen to be aware of the philosophical ramifications of judicial utterances. Many citizens including the highest political leaders may not be so aware and often speak in haste. But when it comes to judges, we expect that they will be cautious and restrained: the exercise of wisdom is the fundamental requirement of judges, even though this is a quality that may only be perceived, not measured. 
 
Also read: Sabyasachi Bhattacharya – Antinomies of Nationalism and  Rabindranath Tagore 
 
'Sacred' is a word that adheres to religion. Are we required by law to a) be religious, and b) shift allegiance from Almighty God to the Nation? Should not the wise amongst us educate citizens as to the complex and indefinable aspect of nationalism, which seems to have emerged as the modern form of prayer? Would the learned judges deem Rabindranath Tagore, the very man who composed the national anthem, to be a nationalist?
Here's what Tagore said of nationalism: With the growth of nationalism, man has become the greatest menace to man. Therefore the continual presence of panic goads that very nationalism into ever-increasing menace. Here is Tagore's 4-part essay on Nationalism (1917). Among the many scholarly debates about nationalism, aside from the aforesaid remarks by Tagore, is the one initiated by BR Ambedkar in his Thoughts on Pakistan (1940, 1945. See in particular, Chapter 2). 
 
Be that as it may, there are some who hold (and I am among them) that the nation-state has become a god-substitute for a godless age. Insofar as the Eternal Creator could scarcely be imagined to seek a dwelling place in a sliver of ground on an insignificant planet, nationalism is a dishonest form of atheism. Religious persons worship God, not nations. The deification of the Nation has turned into the nationalisation of God, and we cannot be forced into a blind acceptance of this substitution. This is not about affinity – love for one's culture or home is natural (although not inevitable). Love for the nation, howsoever defined, ought not to be, and cannot be transformed by diktat into enforced affinity. You cannot dictate my feelings, for the simple reason that love and friendship must be spontaneous to be real. If you order me to feel some emotion under pain of punishment, how can you be sure that my expressions are genuine? As Gandhi said in Hind Swaraj (p 60), 'what is granted under fear can be retained only as long as the fear lasts.'

Constitutional patriotism requires the citizen to be law-abiding and faithful to the norms of the constitution. It does not oblige us to accept unjust laws – were this the case there would have been no national movement in India. The constitution protects religious freedom, but it does not require us to be religious in any way – I am free to be an atheist or agnostic. Nor can it be reduced to such shallow forms of adherence as standing to attention. Sometimes it is not the criticism of specific judgements but the speech of the Bench that undermines the status of the Court. I am sorry to say this judgement is evocative not of wisdom but thoughtlessness. So help me God.

(From Dilip Simeon's Blog).
 

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Remember your humanity and rebel! – Slogan on the walls of Paris, May 1968
 
Indignation is a bad counselor – Leo Strauss, 1953
 
What you run away from runs after you – Rumanian proverb
 
This comment engages with the issues raised in the current debate about justice and nationalism. The agitation was sparked off by an event in JNU highlighting the plight of the Kashmiri people. I will begin with two names and a question which (to my mind) are as significant as the grievances of Kashmiris and non-Kashmiris about the Indian justice system. The two names are Mohammad Maqbool Sherwani (aged 19, died 1947); and Ravindra Mhatre (aged 48, died 1984).
The question concerns the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from their homes in the Valley. Why are they not a part of left-wing concerns about Kashmir? Sympathizers of Maoist revolutionary politics may consider four names – Francis Induwar (died 2009), Kenduka Arjun, (died 2010), Lucas Tete (died 2010) and Niyamat Ansari (died 2011). What happened to them and why did they die? These names and the question signify an experience of injustice. For that reason alone, they deserve the attention of the defenders of democracy. Now let us take a look at what is happening in Delhi
 
Police protection, Delhi version
 
The most striking image of the times we inhabit is the photograph of a young accused person being brutally assaulted in the premises of a prominent court in New Delhi. He was in the custody of the police, hence under the indirect protection of the court. His assailants were lawyers, who have bragged about their deeds, and are known for their proximity to senior leaders of the BJP. Most of them have not been charged for what is a clear offence under the IPC Sec 325.
 
Spokespersons of the ruling party routinely deploy the platitude that the law will take its course. Typical of its behaviour in matters such as the murder of Professor Kalburgi, they make a perfunctory disapproval of hooliganism, and then produce belligerent justifications for their violence. None of them show the slightest remorse or compunction for what even a village constable would recognise as a criminal offence.
 
We are being intimidated in broad daylight by persons who do not care a whit for reasoned speech – let alone the law. All we hear these days is a reminder of the heavy price we shall pay for opposing Modi, the Sangh and their ‘development agenda’. The Delhi police operate under the Union government, and was responsible for the raids on the JNU campus as well as the acts in the court premises. Some of its decisions have now been shown to have been taken on doctored evidence. The National Human Rights Commission has declared the assault on Kanhaiya to have been planned. The home minister’s utterances were akin to those of a con artist, so we need not be surprised by those of his followers. We may also assume that these acts have the approval of the Union Cabinet, and that we are now under the grip of a government that has no respect for the rule of law.

The situation will worsen, because the private army that controls the government is bent upon revising the foundational statutes of the Indian Republic. It also adheres to an ideology that justifies violence in the name of patriotism. Violent attacks, disruptions and dire threats by Hindutva-oriented vigilantes and legislators are occurring on a daily basis across India.
 
The situation will worsen, because the private army that controls the government is bent upon revising the foundational statutes of the Indian Republic. It also adheres to an ideology that justifies violence in the name of patriotism. Violent attacks, disruptions and dire threats by Hindutva-oriented vigilantes and legislators are occurring on a daily basis across India. The ruling party has shown itself to be no different from the Maoists whom it routinely condemns. But whereas the Maoists have proven incapable of capturing state power, the Hindutva ideologues believe they have done so. Let us see if the Indian public will endorse this belief.
 
This is serious enough to bear repeating: the government of India is enabling, condoning and encouraging vigilante violence and hooliganism. Controlled mobs now operate under state protection.
 
‘Anti -nationalism’ etc
 
Most of the slogans heard on the JNU campus expressed unobjectionable left-wing and feminist demands. However there were some that spoke of a long war for the break-up of the country. There were other calls that could be confusing to anyone not familiar with the term “oppressed nationalities” which has been part of communist vocabulary since 1917. So the current political agitation marks the intersection of many controversial themes, ranging from definitions of the nation to constitutional and legal matters.
 
Some bare facts need recapitulation. Some students attracted to Maoism and including those who believe in ‘self-determination’ for Kashmir, and were agitated over the execution of Afzal Guru, held an event to commemorate the latter. Denied permission due to objections from one student group, they used the good offices of the union, whose president belongs to the AISF, student wing of the moderate wing of the communist movement, the CPI. This is the party of the late Satyapal Dang, one of India’s staunchest secularists and fighters against terrorism in Punjab in the 1980’s and 90’s. (I wonder if our Home Minister has heard of him).
 
As the event unfolded some began shouting belligerent slogans – let us leave aside the question of who started it. As often happens, when ideologues wish to hurt each other by methods short of physical assault, they say things designed to cause maximum emotional pain. Both sides – the ultra-nationalists and those rooting for ‘self-determination’ proceeded to do this.  Some persons alleged to be outsiders also shouted the objectionable slogans referred to above.
 
The ultra-nationalists used their contacts in the central government to facilitate police intervention. Some of them now regret the consequences of what has ballooned into a nasty confrontation. I appreciate the fact that the three ABVP office-bearers who resigned from their posts disagreed with the habit of painting all left-wing students with the same brush. Similarly all people who object to slogans calling for the break-up of India also cannot be painted with the same brush. I too object to such a slogan – although I don’t think it calls for police action unless there is a direct incitement to violence. We know many people calling for and indulging in violence who seem to have no fear of police action.
 
Something similar took place at the Press Club, where persons who stand for Kashmiri self-determination used the good offices of a lecturer who booked the venue for them, but who does not share their political vision. He is now been targeted – along with three other retired teachers from DU – for collusion with so-called anti-national elements.
 
In both cases, persons of democratic persuasion were used to facilitate expressions of extreme beliefs. As far as I can tell, they had no idea of what was about to transpire, and their own statements at these gatherings were attempts at lowering the pitch and calming the atmosphere. A kind of verbal ‘guerilla action’ was undertaken by some radical activists who – it would appear – were unconcerned with the repercussions. They did not care that people who do not support their politics, but helped them because of their commitment to free expression, would be paying the price.

The slogan that Kashmiris have a right to self-determination implies that the identity of Kashmiris is self-evident. The moment the identity of Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs, Ladakh’s Buddhists and Jammu’s Dogras, Gujars and Bakerwals, is brought into the argument, the presumptive nature of unilateral definitions becomes evident. Who is included in, and who is excluded from the ‘self’, and why? Is it all very clear to us, or does it deserve a discussion?
 
To use well-meaning people for your purposes via subterfuge can bear terrible consequences. It is unfair to those well-meaning people, and typifies the belief that the end justifies the means. Some of us are so consumed by anger that we feel justified in doing this, but it is not an ethical course of action, and brings your politics into disrepute. It is similar to what happened in Kandhamal in 2008, when the Maoist party murdered the VHP’s Swami Laxmanananda and left the common people to face the communal violence unleashed by the Sanghis, who blamed ‘the Christians’ for the murder.
 
In the spiral of violence unfolding in so-called insurgent districts, the state utilises the opportunity provided it by extremists to suppress opposition from all quarters. It targets all democratic protest for being anti-national, seditious, etc.  This is what is happening now in India’s capital. Unscrupulous TV anchors are adding fuel to the fires of ‘patriotic’ indignation – some of them behaving as flag-bearers for a hysterical version of nationalism. As an SC bench said recently, ‘moderation is a forgotten word today in all spheres of life’.  
 
Self-determination and violence
 
There is also the tangled issue of ‘self-determination’, a term many people use as if it were an axiom. It is not. The idea of democracy is linked to the concept of identity. ‘Demos’ is the term for ‘the people’ in ‘the rule of the people’. The slogan of ‘self-determination’ carries the implicit presupposition that we know who “the people” are before we speak of their right to ‘self-determination’.
 
Ideologically defined boundaries of the ‘self’ are presupposed in the practice of democracy. This issue is related to the birth of the nation-state and the notion of sovereignty. Let me add here that the multiplication of sovereignties is not a solution to the violation of human rights, nor should it be conflated unquestioningly with the concept of democracy. In some cases it might worsen the situation.
 
Identity is a matter of power, interest and definition. For example, the slogan that Kashmiris have a right to self-determination implies that the identity of Kashmiris is self-evident. The moment the identity of Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs, Ladakh’s Buddhists and Jammu’s Dogras, Gujars and Bakerwals, is brought into the argument, the presumptive nature of unilateral definitions becomes evident.  Who is included in, and who is excluded from the ‘self’, and why? Is it all very clear to us, or does it deserve a discussion?
 
Given that this agitation has highlighted the plight of the Kashmiri people, let us examine some facts that tend to get left of out leftist concerns. Some amongst us remain aggrieved by the execution of Maqbool Butt on February 11, 1984. They need to remember the kidnapping and murder of the Indian consular official Ravindra Mhatre, in Birmingham, on February 6 the same year. It does not behoove a state to make vengeful decisions, but it does not help matters if we forget significant facts. We may also mention in passing the names of BJP politician Tikka Lal Taploo, Judge NK Ganjoo (who had tried Maqbool Butt); and journalist, PN Bhat – all three murdered in late 1989 by warriors of Kashmiri self-determination.
 
I have often reiterated my belief that the question of violence is – or should be – the crux of political debate. Militarism has emerged as the ground shared by enemies. The militarist appropriation of martyrdom is a deeply patriarchal gesture. Violence is a never-ending spiral. The best metaphor for violence is a black hole – the place that swallows up everything in its vicinity.
 
Once again, therefore, I will remind all ardent supporters of political causes that violence feeds on itself. Apart from their other numerous ‘actions’, the Maoists murdered two policemen who were in their custody, both of them tribals – Francis Induwar (beheaded in 2009) and Lucas Tete (shot in 2010). Kenduka Arjun, secretary of the Chasi Muliya Adivasi Sangh in Orissa, was murdered by Maoists in 2010. They also beat to death Niyamat Ansari, a NREGA activist, in front of his family in 2011. I will not go into the implications of the derailment of the Jnaneswari Express in 2010, which cost 148 lives.
 
On communal issues, let us remember Taslima Nasrin, the author who defended religious minorities in Bangladesh, and was hounded out of Kolkata in 2007 by fanatics who browbeat the Left Front government. Perpetually under threat, she finally had to leave India. On the price paid for dissent, let us remember TP Chandrashekharan, a dissident CPI (M) leader in Kerala murdered in 2012 for setting up an alternative left group. A week ago, on February 15, an RSS cadre named Sujith was murdered inside his house in front of his parents. The accused in both these cases belong to the CPI (M).  There are many more examples, cutting across party lines. Whatever we might think of our political opponents, do not such actions undermine democracy? Do they not indicate that we live in a dangerously authoritarian culture?
 
As regards Afzal Guru, like many others, I too felt that the trial process and submission of evidence raised several disturbing questions; that life imprisonment would have been a fairer sentence, and that he should not have been executed. I was severely perturbed by the phrase ‘collective conscience of the nation’ appearing in a court judgment sentencing a man to death. I wrote about this well before the execution, and about the death sentence, which I oppose in principle, whether it is handed out by judges or revolutionaries, sanghis or jehadis. People have every right to criticise judgments without being accused of contempt – have not the ultra-nationalists also criticised judgments they did not like? Such criticism should be couched in temperate language, but we remain within our rights to make it.
 
The Pandit issue
 
Going on from this, doesn’t the plight of Kashmir’s Pandits also deserve consideration in a debate about Kashmir? At the time of their enforced exodus from the Valley, concerns were expressed by some human rights activists and leftists. On the whole however, the so-named ‘left and democratic’ bloc has remained silent about that enormity.  I do not believe the ‘Jagmohan did it' theory on this although I am aware of Jagmohan’s role in Sanjay Gandhi’s slum-clearing activism during the Emergency. A great deal of evidence has been supplied by those who experienced the exodus – evidence that needs serious debate, not outright rejection.
 
All Kashmiri Muslims cannot be blamed for the plight of the Pandits, or for desiring their exodus. But neither are all Hindus supporters of Hindutva. Acknowledgement of injustice is the first and essential step towards reconciliation – this is as true for the Valley’s Pandit population as it is for its Muslims. Activists for human rights should also note the presence of a large number of migrant labourers in the Valley – numbers of whom have been victims of terrorist acts.

I will remind all ardent supporters of political causes that violence feeds on itself. Apart from their other numerous ‘actions’, the Maoists murdered two policemen who were in their custody, both of them tribals – Francis Induwar (beheaded in 2009) and Lucas Tete (shot in 2010)… On the price paid for dissent, let us remember TP Chandrashekharan, a dissident CPI (M) leader in Kerala murdered in 2012 for setting up an alternative left group. The accused… belong to the CPI (M). 
 
Be that as it may, conflicting views on what caused the Pandits to depart need an airing, not silence. Why have the victims of the largest (the number could be 3 lakhs) communally-driven migration in independent India’s history been the target of barely-concealed animus from leftists? Kashmiri’s have undergone terrible suffering ever since militancy began, and they include Pandits as well as Muslims, residents of the Jammu region as well as those of the Valley; Kashmiri speaking people as well as others.
 
Apologists for the status quo ask us to stop talking about caste-based discrimination – as if it will go away by pretending it does not exist. The same attitude has been exhibited by many of us with regard to Kashmiri Pandits – as if we can get rid of a mountain of pain and injustice by looking the other way. If we stand for giving voice to suffering humanity, we must stand for all the victims of oppression in the Valley, regardless of their faith. If we stand for free expression and dissent we must ask why the Pandits have been treated with indifference and worse, by leftists (given some honourable exceptions). Failure to conjoin the plight of the Pandits with all other victims of insurgency and state repression is a betrayal of our humanity and weakens our political integrity. Furthermore, it drives victims to other kinds of extremism, or to cynicism and despair. Why should we abandon good causes to bad politicians?
 
Defending democracy and the constitution
 
Indian politics has entered a phase of extreme danger – from the standpoint of the laboring citizens who need democracy the most. It is disturbing to see a section of India’s ruling class seeking to bypass and undermine constitutional rule by validating a politics of hatred and intimidation. Hindu Rashtra and Akhand Hindustan are mutually contradictory ideals: if you want one you will automatically rule out the other. The relentless tirade against Muslims, Christians and Communists by the Sangh Parivar will produce the contrary of what they wish for (or say they do). The theories of Savarkar, Hedgewar and Golwalkar are recipes for India’s disintegration. Extremism feeds on itself by appearing in different forms.
 
Whatever be its flaws, the Indian Constitution is the best consensual statute upon which to base a defence of democracy. Revolutionaries should consider the possibility that a section of the Indian ruling class is already bent upon doing away with democracy. So rather than a violent revolution to overthrow the constitution, we need a non-violent mass awakening to defend and implement it. But that will require serious re-thinking on socialist politics. Since the ongoing student movement is committed to defending the freedom of thought, there should be no problem with this.
 
The current student movement in JNU has received welcome support from students and academics all over India and the world, in addition to the support of many political parties. It can make a difference to Indian politics, but politics is too important to be left to specialists of revolution. Authoritarianism and hatred of dissent may be witnessed across the political spectrum – right, left and ‘marketist’. It would be best if students made up their own minds about political issues, and inaugurated an open dialogue with society. Incidentally, the term ‘revolution’ means the completion of a circle. If you want transformation, close the circle and get out of it. The only answer to extremism is moderation, truthful speech and non-violence. Jai Ho.
 
The above article was first published by labour historian and public intellectual Dilip Simeon and posted on his Blog. [Dilip Simeon’s Blog]
 

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"The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence"

Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf.

The history of India over the past century unfolds like a chronicle of civil war. India was partitioned, the segment re-partitioned. "Internal enemies" were identified and massacres unleashed. No solutions were found. Today, communal myths possess nuclear bombs. There are lines of control everywhere – in villages, cities and in hearts. Barbed wire, iron gates and security guards abound. Flagpoles of religious places compete with each other for height. Society is awash with fear. Thanks to the guardians of "identity", outraged sentiment seems to be on the rampage – battling over cricket pitches, books, films and paintings.

Humanity possesses a natural tendency for remembrance and its transmission. For those interested in ideals of progress history is a laboratory of social theory. It is also the terrain of Identity, a category that sits uneasily with human equality, and has taken millions of lives. History as the maidservant of a cause undermines its own disciplinary procedures. No history is free of tendency, and historians’ convictions undoubtedly affect their output. However, just as the Euclidian point is essential to geometry, the search for truth has to remain an ideal, even if an unattainable one, for history.

This is a painful commitment, because historical materials defy dogma. None of us like our beliefs being challenged. Gandhians do not want to be reminded of the repercussions of the Khilafat movement or the Congress’ attitude to the 1946 naval mutiny. Communists are defensive about the stance of the CPI in 1942 and the Adhikari resolution supporting Partition. Admirers of Savarkar do not advertise the fact that he assisted the British war effort, was not averse to Mahasabha participation in the Muslim League ministry of NWFP in 1943, and was a main accused in the Gandhi murder trial. The Pakistan Ideology Act restrains Pakistani historians from questioning the two-nation theory or writing a non-tendentious account of Jinnah’s career. The RSS might not like to be reminded that in May 1947 the Akhil Rajya Hindu Sabha under J&K RSS chief Prem Nath Dogra, passed a resolution on Kashmir stating that "a Hindu state should not join secular India". Or that Sardar Patel accused RSS men of celebrating Gandhi’s assassination. Trotskyists don’t dwell on Bolshevik military action against the Kronstadt sailors in 1921, Stalinists don’t remember state terror and mock trials in the USSR. Nazi apologists don’t recall the Holocaust and Zionists suffer amnesia about the terror unleashed by the Haganah and Stern gangs in 1948. Japanese historians are defensive about the massacres in Nanking and Shanghai and some day Chinese historians will forget that China waged war on Vietnam in 1979 in tandem with the USA.

For some ideologues, the past is a saga of victory and defeat. The fear of ambivalence is characteristic of them and in their hands, history is pure polemic. Savarkar’s speech to the Hindu Mahasabha in 1942 described 17th century India as being "a veritable Pakistan", with "Hindustan being wiped out", and the 18th century witnessing the march of Hinduism. This anachronism is repeated in a Pakistani textbook of 1982, which teaches that in the 16th century, "`Hindustan’ disappeared and was absorbed in ‘Pakistan’". The distortions extend to contemporary analysis. Time summed up the history of the 20th century as a victory of "free minds and free markets over fascism and communism" (December 31, 1999). Along with Clinton’s essay it misrepresents the Allied victory in World War II as an American one, ignoring the role of the Red Army and the fact that the USSR lost over twenty million dead, compared to less than 3 lakh Americans. This is History as the paean of megalomania. I do not believe that all viewpoints are equally biased, or that history provides no lessons. From the welter of partiality, we may glean truths and hope – but only if our profession is motivated by respect for human experience, and not just "Hindu" or "Muslim" experience. The historian has to be an iconoclast or risk becoming a propagandist.

In an attempted refutation of Bharat Bhushan’s article The Other Italian Connection (HT Feb 18), K.R. Malkani (Feb 23) states that the RSS was founded before Moonje visited Italy, that its heroes were Indians, and that Gandhi also met Mussolini. Here is an example of history as polemic. It was the militaristic mind-set of fascism, not its specific heroes that inspired Moonje. All ultra-rightists had their own "national" heroes. Mussolini seized power in 1922, and his impact was evident by the time the RSS was founded in 1925. And whereas Moonje was greatly impressed by Mussolini, Gandhi told the latter that his state was "a house of cards", and took a dim view of the man – "his eyes are never still". Moonje’s trip was not an innocuous replica of Gandhi’s.

Defending the recent withdrawal of the ICHR volumes, government protagonists aver that the authors reduced Gandhi to a footnote. It is ironic that persons sympathetic to the politics of Gandhi’s assassin repeatedly take refuge behind Gandhi’s memory. Let us address the issue differently. Gandhi was a proponent of ahimsa. Hinduttva’s proponents believe that Hindus are too pacific – even cowardly, and need to become militant. Their heroes are those whom they identify as warriors. Their constant evocation of wounded sentiment as a justification for "direct action", prompt us to ask the government to clarify its position on violence. Should sentiment be elevated to a level superior to the needs of civic order and criminal justice? Is it surprising that a retired CBI director is so fond of the Bajrang Dal, an organisation known more for muscle than mind? That a former union minister encouraged the intimidation of a film unit? That the vandalisation of the BCCI office was condoned by a Chief Minister who saw no reason for a police case? Is it their case that Naxalite violence is wrong but violence unleashed by outraged sentiment is acceptable? Do they have the courage to say so explicitly?

The assault on the mind is the most dangerous feature of the current situation. Mushirul Hasan was attacked for suggesting that the ban on Satanic Verses be lifted. (A prominent Congressman incited that campaign). Asghar Engineer is beaten up for questioning the Syedna’s powers. Whatever happened to the rights of minorities within minorities? Demands are voiced – rather belatedly – for a ban on Dante’s Inferno. Film screenings are disrupted. Literary commentaries on the Granth Sahib result in threats of excommunication. (How brave our militants are!). And when we need a discussion on the rule of law, we indulge instead in literary criticism, film appreciation etc. Surely the point ought to be whether bad authors and filmmakers have a right to remain alive, with their bones intact. Whether the government can ensure a peaceful resolution of conflicts or if musclemen may run amuck because they have high connections. Gandhi rendered Hindus nirvirya and napunsak, said Godse. I beg to differ.

Gandhi had greater physical courage than most politicians in his time – and not many of today’s luminaries would venture forth without protection after three attempts at assassination. His ahimsa was a name for restraint, without which no society may survive and no institutions gather strength. Let us stop flaunting our boringly delicate sentiments, and address the deliberate inculcation of revenge and hatred. Those who care about human survival can see their future in the mirror of history.

(This article are fisrt publish in The Hindustan Times.)

Archived from Communalism Combat, April 2000. Year 7  No, 58, Editor's Choice

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Aremarkable feature of the political values of south Asian elites has been their contempt for the legal and
ethical underpinnings of the institutions of governance. They have been able to combine this with skilful public relations, but the consequences are difficult to hide. Sri Lanka is in the throes of civil war, Pakistan broke up in 1971 and is gripped by a prolonged political and financial crisis, Bangladesh continues to suffer from economic disparities, political flux and environmental disasters. A close examination of each situation will reveal an incapacity or unwillingness on the part of the privileged classes of the post–colonial period to adhere to democratic proprieties such as respect for the rule of law, the freedom of speech and association, the tolerance of dissent. Thanks to the Gandhian legacy of non–violence, and the grass–roots mass organisation of the Congress, India was able to stave off this degeneration for a little longer than its neighbours.

Over the past two decades however, it has become clear that sections of the Indian middle classes, bureaucracy and political leadership, have thrown scruple to the winds in the mad scramble to accumulate power, money and patronage. The criminalisation of politics, the shameless misuse of public office for personal or partisan gain, the incompetence of ministers, the manipulation of legal processes, caste and communal biases in administration — all these phenomena have contributed to the decline in public standards. The social groups responsible for this denounce "endemic corruption" — by which they mean financial embezzlement. But they ignore and even contribute to the dismantling of India’s democratic institutions by the politics of communal hatred. (The Congress contributed to this by making concessions to communalists in the Shah Bano case and over Babri Masjid, by allowing some of its leaders to get away with murder in the aftermath of the 1984 massacre and by presiding over the Bombay riots of 1993). This politics undermines the principle of equality of all citizens before the law, by suggesting that some citizens are more "Indian", more patriotic than others, by virtue of their identity. By justifying violence against communally defined "enemies of the Nation", it upholds that most iniquitous of Brahmanical values — the notion that crime and punishment be graded according to the status of the wrong–doer, rather than the nature of the crime. It attempts to spread bias and prejudice in the judiciary and dereliction of duty in the bureaucracy.

Most of all, it seeks to undermine the most basic of these institutions, viz, that of citizenship, without which the idea of democracy becomes meaningless. Certain constitutions pretend to be democratic, but their application of provisions which discriminate between persons on grounds of race (as in South Africa under apartheid), or community (as in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan), negates the very spirit of democracy namely, human equality. It needs to be stated quite plainly that communal politics is akin to apartheid in this respect, and with the latest outcry against the "foreign" origins of Sonia Gandhi, the communalists have come even closer to it. There is no such thing as "reverse racism". Racism is discrimination based on ethnicity and race, whatever be the origin, skin colour and ethnic identity of the person or group being discriminated against. If there is one thing in common between apartheid, communalism, fascism and racism, it is the practice and culture of authoritarianism, in the realm both of party and state. The Congress leadership ought to seriously reflect on the decline of democratic values in its organisational functioning and among its rank and file. It also ought to make amends for its failure to implement the law of the land when the communalists were defying section 153 IPC in the matter of instigating communal hatred, for protecting the likes of H.K.L. Bhagat and Sajjan Kumar, and for allowing Salman Khurshid to dabble in the politics of Jamia Millia Islamia when a section of students were targeting Professor Mushirul Hasan on the Rushdie issue.

Despite its appeasement of communal forces however, (a charge which could be laid at the leftists’ door as well), the Congress retains a popular mass organisation and a constitution committed to secularism and democracy. It also has a nation–wide structure, unlike most of the opponents of the BJP/RSS. For this reason, it is seen by the latter as their most potent enemy. For their part, the current rulers of India have demonstrated their complete disrespect for legal and constitutional proprieties in their short spell of power. The Supreme Court’s annulment of Thackeray’s voting rights has yet to be implemented. The Masjid demolition case has been stalled by the Home Ministry headed by a chief accused — a clear case of conflict of interest, which ought to have made the BJP desist from appointing Advani to the post. After the vandalisation of the BCCI office in Mumbai, chief minister Joshi publicly announced that there was no need for prosecution, since "everything is all right". The murder of a leprosy doctor by a man known to be close to the Bajrang Dal prompted the Home Minister of India to give that organisation a certificate of good conduct before any investigations had been carried out. A big song and dance is being raised by the RSS about "conversions", despite the fact that the Constitution gives all citizens the right to practice a religion of their choice. It is evident that the extreme right wing end of the political spectrum believes most fervently in the doctrine of the end justifying the means. They think nothing of instigating the cruelest of human passions, regardless of the impact this will have on the polity. When they are out of power, they mobilise themselves to conduct violent communal out–breaks, destroy mosques, etc. In power, they enable their front organisations to run amuck, as has happened in Gujarat, UP and Orissa, and gain control over the education system, the police and paramilitary. (Something stated years ago by the Home ministry under Sardar Patel, which banned the RSS on February 4, 1948, for contributing to the climate of violence which took Mahatma Gandhi’s life).

The most recent manifestation of the right–wing onslaught on citizenship has been the attack on Sonia Gandhi for being Italian. Questions are being aired about the rights of similarly placed persons in Italy or the USA, questions which are pathetic in their whining ascription of all virtue to "the West". Rather than be proud of the fact that the Indian Constitution is more consistently democratic than the constitutions of Italy and the USA, our dollar–worshipping middle classes want our system to take a step backwards. They make a racket out of their much vaunted commitment to "tradition", but tradition has it that a bahu takes on the identity of her husband. They make high–sounding noises about the national interest, conveniently forgetting that the national interest requires that the Constitution and the rule of law be upheld.

Confronted with the incontrovertible fact that Sonia is a citizen and that all citizens are eligible to stand for Parliament, the Pawar–Sangma–Tariq trio have resorted to outright racism. They demand that the constitution be amended in a most reactionary manner to discriminate between Indian citizens on ground of place of birth. From this position to the idea that religions born outside India ought to have no place here, is but one short step. It is the same state of mind that produced Hedgewar’s theories, along with those of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. The trio say that citizens under 18 aren’t allowed to vote, so there is a precedent for discrimination. How clever! Age barriers to voting evaporate with the passage of time — at what stage will these patriots allow Sonia to stand for election? (That is the only point at issue, because we do not elect Prime Ministers, only MPs). Neither on ground of tradition nor of law do the RSS/BJP, Pawar, Mulayam etc., have a leg to stand on.

The political vacuity and unscrupulousness of our political elite is once again on display. A discriminatory amendment to the Constitution may be found violative of its basic structure, and could be struck down. The fact that this issue has been raised will give rise to racist propaganda during the elections, which would arguably be a violation of section 153 IPC. Opposition to the Congress, or to its leadership could have been based on criticisms of its past record, its style of functioning today and its programme. Criticisms of Sonia could have focussed on her lack of political experience, understanding of Indian society or on similar issues. Pawar could simply have said that he wanted to be the Prime Minister. But to attack a bona–fide citizen for being born outside India is symptomatic of ideological bankruptcy. This bankruptcy will be manifested in their incitement of that ancient sentiment, the hatred of the Outsider, of the person or group which looks different. For decades the communalists have made political capital out of this sentiment. (It is significant that such ideas have been lurking within senior ranks of the Congress organisation — something more for its leadership to think about, apart from the violent behaviour of its cadres during the period of Sonia’s resignation). India shall soon be witness to a vicious election campaign with nothing to support it but xenophobia. I am reminded of a tired old proverb — "Empty vessels make most noise." How true.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999. Year 6  No. 54, Opinion

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