Rahul. Naam toh suna hee hoga? Though he’s the namesake of many characters played by superstar Shah Rukh Khan, Rahul Kulkarni might not be a journalist many outside Maharashtra know. Others might be interested in knowing that this “television journalist” with ABP’s Marathi subsidiary ABP Majha was the one who had ‘broken’ the story that Rahul Gandhi was contesting elections from Osmanabad in the 2019 general election.

Seven years earlier, in 2012, Kulkarni had claimed he had influenced NCP supremo Sharad Pawar’s decision to not contest the parliamentary polls from the Madha parliamentary constituency and retire from electoral politics. These are just two of his many exclusives debunked as ‘fake news.’

Kulkarni was arrested by the Mumbai Police along with 10 others on April 15th “for misleading people with his false reportage that led to migrant workers gathering in Bandra on 14 April demanding to be sent back to their home towns.” The misleading report by Kulkarni had “played a part in the rumour mongering” that led to nearly 2,000 alleged migrant workers assembling in Bandra on April 14th despite a nationwide lockdown in the country.

An FIR was then lodged against Kulkarni, in this regard for misleading people with his false reportage. The police said that the video report was incorrect while arresting Kulkarni under various sections of the IPC and the Epidemic Act 1897.

After thousands of migrants gathered at a Mumbai’s Bandra railway station reportedly after hearing on TV that train services were being resumed, the TV Channel, ABP Majha had been issued a notice yesterday, for proceedings under NBSA regulations as well as criminal legal action under Indian Penal Code, 1860, for broadcasting fake news and inciting public disorder.

A day of detention later, Kulkarni was granted bail. He came out of the Bandra police station to go live on his channel claiming this was a victory for free speech, media’s right to tell the truth, etc. The fact that none of the charges against him have been dropped did not seem to matter.

Of course, people with much more serious misdemeanours and crimes to their record are sitting in positions of power having twisted the legal process, so it was not really surprising that Kulkarni got bail.

One would say he is lucky. Especially when you contrast this with how intellectuals/activists who questioned authorities were treated by the Devendra Fadnavis government? Readers may recall how the Pune city police had come under international scrutiny for arresting five activists — Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, and Gautam Navlakha — from different parts of the country for allegedly being ‘Maoist supporters,’ under what is now known as the Elgar Parishad case. Among the many who raised questions on the police’s high-handedness is the architect of the current alliance in power in Maharashtra and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar.

As early as December 2019 Pawar had termed the arrest of activists in the Elgar Parishad case “wrong” and “vengeful,” demanding a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under a retired judge to probe the Pune police action. He had called for the suspension of police officers involved with the arrests. “It is wrong to imprison the activists on the charge of sedition. Voicing extreme views is allowed in a democracy. The action of the Pune Police is wrong and vengeful. It is a misuse of power by the police commissioner and some of the officers. They had attacked the basic freedom of people and one cannot be a mute spectator to all this,” the Maratha satrap had said.

To come back to Kulkarni, who knows how this will pan out. The Narendra Modi government in the Centre might want to transfer this case too to the National Investigation Agency like the Bhima-Koregaon case and make it out to be that there is no case at all.

Fora like Broadcast Editors’ Association (BEA), the Mumbai Press Club have come out quick to denounce Kulkarni’s arrest and even demanded that all charges be dropped. This brings back memories of when the Anna movement had driven the UPA government up the wall in 2011. The media had almost unitedly pitted its might with the movement to question those in power. Interestingly this is only possible when the BJP is in Opposition. When the saffron party is power, apart from the few exceptions one can count on the fingers, most media is happy to crawl even when all that they are asked to do is bend.

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Monday’s attack has underlined, once again, how the current political climate emboldens perpetrators of violence against anyone not upper-caste Hindu. “It started with a series of ghastly lynchings of Muslims in the name of beef vigilantism. http://www.firstpost.com/india/una-alwar-and-delhi-cow-vigilantism-a-list-of-gau-rakshak-attacks-since-2015-dadri-lynching-3401302.html,” points out senior sociocultural historian Mukul Joshi who adds, “Militant vegetarianism, a manifestation of extreme otherising hate which saw offenders not only go scot free but actually being celebrated for their murder, violence and mayhem, has now given them a new-found brazenness.”

Though an imposition of Section 144 of the CrPC which prevents assembly of more than may have seen the return of an uneasy calm in the region this incident has sent shockwaves across Dalits in the country points out the late Dalit ideologue Ramakant Bansode. “This planned attack, executed with precision is driven by idea of squashing Dalit assertion. Brahminical upper castes conveniently forget how what they call ‘an anti-national celebration of British army’s victory’ is for us a mark of our fight for dignity as human beings.”

An obelisk installed at Koregaon soon after the 1818 battle to comemorate those who died fighting lists 49 East India Company soldiers, of these 22 names end with -nac (or -nak), then used exclusively by the Mahar community. This structure featured prominently on the Mahar Regiment’s crest until Indian Independence. “True it was built by the British but the obelisk is symbol to anyone who is in power or chooses to be, that they neglect the sizeable Dalit masses at their own peril,” beams Bansode.

This is the pride that gathers hundreds of Dalits, especially from the Mahar community on January 1^st at Koregaon-Bhima village in Shirur tehsil of Maharashtra’s Pune district every New Year. It commemorates the Battle of Koregaon where the braveheart Mahars helped the vastly outnumbered British East India Company forces defeat the Maratha army of Peshwa Bajirao II.

Even as community leaders addressed the gathering on January 1st, a few phones kept going off to ringtones (Diwani and even Pinga) from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani, much to their chagrin. “Historians and filmmakers have denied us our historical legacy as Dalits. Why use ringtones and popular cultural symbols which glorify Brahmin supremacism?” reprimanded one such leader, Siddharth Waghmare who had come all the way from Parbhani with 12 followers.

Later the pharmacy graduate and die-hard Priyanka Chopra fan (“Uske saamne Deepika toh bachchi hai”), privately admitted to having watched the film several times. “Twice in the theatre and several times on my phone. Though I hate the over-glamourised celebration of Brahminical supremacy, one has to give it to Bhansali for leaving you gripped,” says the self confessed movie buff. “Past the heavy sets, costumes and music, scenes that stayed with me are the disparaging derogation which the Bajirao Peshwa’s mother Radhabai, brother Chimmaji Appa and even wife Kashibai have for Mastani just because she was born to a Muslim mother. While the film shows her being referred to as Yavani, the more popular invective in those days was actually mlenchcha (impure barbarian). Thankfully unlike the Marathi black and white historicals of the late 40s and early 50s this word is not used to describe Muslims in Bajirao Mastani.”

Echoing this, historian Dr Vijay More, a PhD on the Koregaon-Bhima battle, explains, “Exaggerated notions of purity in the name of religion were created by Brahmins to not only stay high up in the pecking order but also exploit those below. What Narendra Modi’s and Donald Trump’s governments are now doing by spreading hatred and creating fertile ground for alienation and further recruitment to terror, upper caste Hindus have done for a millennia with hateful casteist exclusion. This is what drove people away from Hinduism in the first place.”

Placing it in historical perspective, he points out how Shivaji Maharaj recognised the valour of braveheart Mahars and ensured they fought shoulder to shoulder with him. “Successive Chatrapatis too continued this tradition till 1674 when the Brahmin Peshwas (Prime Ministers) began to grow in power, sidelining even the royal family itself.”

Casteist supremacism
According to him Brahminical notions of puritanical exclusion began to then grow and became a part of social norm. “Peshwa Bajirao I (1719-1740) could spread the Maratha kingdom across the subcontinent because of the contribution of the brave Mahars, but disaffection due to discrimination grew rapidly after his death when barbaric cruelties against Dalits were perpetrated.”

He insists this was the real reason some of the bravest sardars of the kingdom moved away from Pune, up North to create their own kingdoms (Gaikwads in Baroda, Shindes in Gwalior, Holkars in Indore and Bhosales in Nagpur),” underlines Dr More. “As discrimination turned to casteist persecution, the Mahar braves began to get alienated. The British knew this and exploited it breaking the back of the might Maratha empire which then collapsed under its own weight.”

Waghmare sums it up beautifully pointing in the direction of the battle memorial, “This Koregaon obelisk, not only commemorates the brave and victorious Mahar soldiers but is also a symbol of the community standing up and winning against casteism. Little wonder then that our messiah for dignity-based-equality Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar himself visited this place on January 1^st, 1927, creating a tradition we follow. For us this is not merely an obelisk. It is a dagger in the heart of casteist Hindus which we take pride in twisting every New Year.”

Like Dr More, he too believes that exclusion creates hard-to-forget hate. “Whether Students Islamic Movement of India in the early 2000, ISIS now or some of the more right-wing Muslim political outfits, the youth from these 1^st or 2^nd generation converts from Dalits form eager foot soldiers. This vicious cycle will only break when rationalist Hindus lobby long and hard enough to break the shackles of Manuwadi exclusion. Then they won’t need any ghar wapasi because who’ll want to leave?”

Hurtful exclusion
Over a 1,000 km away, another man is so angry and bitter with Hindu casteism that he’s just switched religions. 2015 didn’t end on a good note for Umrao Salodia, who now calls himself Umrao Khan after converting to Islam. Two New Years ago this chairman of Rajasthan Roadways Development Corporation quit alleging casteist discrimination on being passed over for promotion to chief secretary of the state.

The 1978 batch IAS officer says, “I felt being from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and a senior IAS officer, I’d be given a chance to work as chief secretary by the Vasundhara Raje government. I feel sad that the discrimination and victimisation I faced all these years as a Dalit, continued even at this level. I didn’t want to continue in a religion which robs me of my dignity with its casteist inequalities and hence converted to Islam.”

According to the senior bureaucrat much of the polarisation and hatred for Hindus comes from centuries of discrimination, “For hundreds of years, Indian society is structured around the rigid Hindu caste system. Though officially abolished in 1950, its legacy still continues. This hatred then comes back to haunt and hurt.”

Khan (Salodia) may have a point. Hindus constitute around 84% of India’s 1.2 billion. This large chunk, are still influenced by the concept of four main traditional castes, further divided into sub-castes and sects. Priests and academics who form the Brahmins; warriors, the Kshatriyas; traders or business community, the vaishyas and the working class the shudras/Dalits.

“Shudras have traditionally been made to to collect garbage, sweep streets, cremate dead and dispose human waste. Despite how essential their work is, they still fac prejudice and discrimination from upper-caste Hindus who don’t miss a single opportunity to humiliate them,” avers the bitter bureaucrat.

And yet there are those like rudra veena exponent Ustad Baha’ud’din Mohiuddin Dagar who feel that dwelling on the past bitterness is negative and does not yield anything. This 20th generation representative of the Dagar lineage (which traces its history back to Nayak Haridas Dagar of the 16th century) should know what Brahminical exclusion is all about.

“Our ancestor Baba Gopal Das was invited to the Mughal court to perform where impressed with his musical prowess the emperor offered a paan from his personal box,” recounts the musician. “Once he accepted the paan, his fellow Ramnami Pandits back in his village on the outskirts of Delhi said he’d been defiled and no penance could purify him to be acccepted. Left with no choice, this 8th generation representative of our gharana converted to Islam, and became Baba Imam Baksh in the mid-18th century.”

The family has since followed the festivals and tenets of both religions and goes to both temples and mosques alike. “Thinking of using religion to divide is petty. From childhood one has respected both religions. I think this approach can help one become both a better human being and hence a better musician.”

This musician’s strain finds resonance with Prakash Kapadia who wrote the screenplay for Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani. “We never set out to preach or give any sermon through the film. That is neither Bhansali Sir’s nor my style. If the message of humanity, acceptance and love is coming wrapped with the beautiful love story we told, that’s fabulous. It is a mark of how involved audiences are becoming with what is unfolding on the screen.”

He points out a line in the film where Deepika Padukone’s Mastani laments how symbolism has hijacked religion. “I had written: ‘One religion has taken saffron for its colour, the other green. But is it possible for us to separate these out of the rainbow?’”
And just like it plays out in real life, unfortunately the last bit had to be cut at the editing table on reel too. And so much is the pity…

Will the dagger continue to twist?
 

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But the BJP’s Islamophobic Mughal-hate was well established two years ago in September 2015 when it picked on Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to rewrite New Delhi’s history by renaming a road named after him. Like all things un-nuanced about the political right, Aurangzeb was made out to be the archetypal villain in the Hindu nationalist imagination — a cruel ruler who put a sword to people’s heads, offering them a choice between Islam and death, a tyrant who hated music and imposed jiziya (a religious tax on Hindus). The said road was renamed after late missile-man and President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, a Veena player who visited temples and someone the large Hindu majority could be brainwashed (given the Hindu supremacism = hyper-nationalism mood of the country) into contrasting with Aurangazeb as ‘a good Muslim.’

This Mughal-hate became further emphasised in October this year when Yogi Adityanath government removed Taj Mahal from Uttar Pradesh’s tourism list. Following outrage, his party MLA Sangeet Som, had said the monument was built by “traitors” and called it “a blot on Indian culture.” Wondering why people were worried that the Taj Mahal was removed from the list of historical places in the UP tourism booklet he had asked in a Meerut rally: “What history are we talking about? The man who built Taj Mahal imprisoned his father. He wanted to massacre Hindus. If this is history, then it is very unfortunate and we will change this history, I guarantee you.”

He was soon joined by BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao who chose to further add fuel to the fire by describing Mughal rule as “barbaric” and “a period of incomparable intolerance.” As if this were not enough, a BJP Upper House parliamentarian Vinay Katiyar went on to insist Shah Jahan destroyed a Hindu temple to build the monument. “The Taj Mahal is actually a Hindu temple that was known as Tejo Mahalaya. It was a Shiva temple demolished by Shah Jahan to build the Taj Mahal.”

While the BJP’s own not-so-bright track record can hardly hold up to the high standards of nuanced and enlightened tolerance and humanity its leaders espouse while holding the Mughals up to scrutiny, it is nobody’s case that the Mughal empire was not a feudal, aristocratic regime as was the case with several rulers of that contemporaneity. The selective picking up of Mughals to highlight for barbarism will not, for example, look further back into history to speak of Emperor Ashoka who is guilty of the largest genocide in the history of this subcontinent, if not the world.

But let’s get back to Gujarat which the Narendra Modi government wants us to believe is all that is there to India. Historically this state which enjoys a 1,200 km plus coastline has always thrived on trade and business. “The famed Gujarati love for pacifism is more practical than noble. They have truly been more worried about dhanda nee vaat than anything else making peace with whoever took over the region as rulers, even Mughals” laughs cultural historian Mukul Joshi.

After Emperor Akbar (1573-1605), captured Gujarat defeating Muzaffar Shah III of the Gujarat Sultanate in 1573 and was able to thwart an attempt by Muzaffar to regain the Sultanate in 1584, this subah (province) which generated a lot of revenue was governed by representatives appointed by the emperors in Delhi says, Joshi. “Akbar, for example, had appointed his foster brother Mirza Aziz Kokaltash as the viceroy who helped consolidate Mughal sway over the region. Kokaltash and his successors quelled revolts by nobles loyal to the former Sultanate during both Akbar’s and the reign of his successor Jehangir (1605-1627).”

Joshi points out how Jehangir’s permit to the British East India Company to establish factories in and around Surat saw the traders’ businesses boom. “When Shah Jahan (1627-1658) came to power his and his viceroys (Aurangzeb, Dara Shikoh and later Murad Bakhsh) took over the Kathiawar peninsula including Nawanagar. This region continued to prosper after Aurangzeb (1658-1707) ascended the Mughal throne. Traders from towns like Surat continued to support him in the hope that he would help maintain peace and trade did not suffer. Many of them were patrons to musicians, weavers and painters.”

He points out how the warrior king Shivaji decided to raise funds for his battles after a three-year siege by the Mughal governor of Deccan Shaista Khan, by raiding Surat. Joshi cites the accounts of captain in the British India Regiment James Grant Duff of January, 5th 1664, when Shivaji led the sack of Surat. “Remember that this was one of the wealthiest port cities in Mughal empire thanks to the sheer volumes of sea trade and apart from the few Muslim officials representing the Mughal empire Hindus formed the majority,” he says and adds, “The attack was both sudden and intense in both the violence and crushing injustices perpetrated. The locals had no chance or place to flee. For six days, the city was plundered of all its wealth, and most of its impressive mansions were burnt to cinder leaving a dense smoke cloud over Surat for nearly a week as the Marathas rode back with the loot to Shivaji’s capital, Raigad.”

In fact, Joshi points out how the petitions to Aurangazeb for exacting revenge and gathering back of the loot by the traders was led by a Hindu trader Virji Vora.

Despite some glaring exceptions (as was the case with most medieval empires across the world then) the Mughal empire too stood out for its tolerance, syncretism and cosmopolitanism. While singling out the Mughal era to demonise the reality of feudal and premodern India where Hindu rulers fought Hindu rulers; Muslim rulers fought Muslim rulers, often with help from Hindu lieutenants; and yes, Muslim rulers fought Hindu rulers too. “But this won’t play into the convenient bigoted narrative of a Hindu monolith standing up to a Muslim one. The British did it before. The BJP is doing it now,” says Joshi lamenting, “All it does is keep tearing up the syncretic core. One shudders to think what Frankenstein will unleash when all of it is gone.”

Only blinded by the idea of winning the Gujarat assembly elections, one is unsure either the PM Narendra Modi or his party even think of these things? 

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