A Note

NDTV released a video on 30 July 2016 which posed this question. The video shows how "gau rakshaks", always associated with one or other Hindutva outfit, forcibly stop those who are transporting cattle and snatch away the cattle. The animals are taken to one or other cow shelters owned by the same cabal and are released only when substantial sums of money are paid.

This money is for “maintenance” and cannot be called fines as no illegal activity is involved. What comes through is that the shelters may also sell the seized cattle, which never were their property, in the first place.

 While the NDTV video focuses on the money making activities of the gau rakshak phenomenon, there are other things that we must consider. All the victims of the gau rakshaks are Muslims or Dalits, and always there is physical violence against them in addition to the robbing of their cattle. This must be seen as a strategy to instill fear in the minds of Muslims and Dalits who are of course going about their lawful business. Right and wrong are thus defined not by the laws of the land but by the gau rakshaks, whose actions are not whimsical but a calculated strategy to tell Muslims and Dalits that they are not equal citizens but subordinate species.

In the name of cow protection Muslims and Dalits are attacked. Neither a Muslim not a Dalit is prevented by religion from cutting up and eating "cow and its progeny". The gau rakshaks, who represent a particularly virulent strain of Hindutva, seem to work on the warped reasoning that those who are free to handle cow's flesh must do that and nothing else.

It is forgotten that Muslims and Dalits in many parts of the country are 1 aware of the civil laws against cow slaughter and have every reason to abide by these laws. The Hindutva fanatics, however, go by their life-long identification of Muslims and Dalits as cow eaters. By assuming always that Muslims and Dalits break the laws of the land, they manufacture the justification for taking the law in their own hands.

(This piece was originally published in Mainstream weekly and is being re-published on permission by the author)
 

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The same source reproduces the form, originally circulated in Urdu, thus: “I, son/daughter of …, confirm that my book/magazine titled …, which has been approved for bulk purchase by NCPUL’s monetary assistance scheme, does not contain anything against the policies of the government of India or the interest of the nation, does not cause disharmony of any sort between different classes of the country, and is not monetarily supported by any government or non-government institution.”

Urdu is one of the twenty-two “scheduled languages” of the country. It is the language of vastly more Indians than, for instance, Bodo or Santali or Sindhi. Historically, there is no doubt that it is an Indian language. Whenever people have suggested that it is a “foreign” language, I have responded with two questions. First, was Urdu born in Hindostan or in Arabia or Peru or China? Second, where except in the sub-continent is it spoken? I know it for a fact that, despite commonalities in semantics, no one in Jeddah or Tehran can follow sentences spoken in Urdu. This is because syntactically it is little different from Hindi, or from what is still called Hindustani, or from the Hindavi of Amir Khusro’s time.

To my knowledge, neither the ministry of human resource development nor any other arm of government has imposed a similar condition on any of the other twenty-one “scheduled languages”. Clearly, Urdu has been singled out because of its association with Islam. Going further, because Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, it is stupidly assumed to be the language of “pro-Pakistan” people in India. This stupidity is a fundamental part of the ideology of the Sangh Parivar, which now rules over India. And these worthies see Pakistan not as just a neighbour but as an “enemy nation”.

This explains the main clause of the declaration demanded, “does not contain anything against the interest of the nation.” It is assumed that those who write in Urdu, given that they are chiefly Muslims and given that Pakistan is an “Islamic republic”, are by definition (in the currently popular expression) “anti-national”: specifically, they are Pakistani spies or agents.

The fear of “anything against the policies of the government of India” is, in a democracy, laughable but also sinister. It takes away the right of free speech, one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. It is the consideration which governed the actions of the sarkari censors during the Emergency of 1975-77, when fundamental rights were suspended.

But this leads also to the question: Are we a democracy any more?

(Likely to be published in 'Mainstream' weekly)

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