[sacw] [ACT] sacw dispatch #2 (26 feb 00)

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Sat, 26 Feb 2000 03:07:34 -0800


South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2.
26 Feb 2000
___________________________________

#4.
The Daily Star
26 Feb 2000
BETWEEN THE LINES

Vajpayee's Laxman Rekha
By Kuldip Nayar

WHEN Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was Pakistan's Prime Minister in the
seventies, I asked him what his country's ethos was. He did not say
Islam. By then the 90-per cent Muslim Bangladesh had seceded from West
Pakistan. He argued that the very existence of Pakistan for 25 years
gave its ethos. 

It is debatable whether the mere length of time provides a country with
its ethos. I have no quarrel with those who believe so. But the
characteristic spirit, as of a people or institution, constitutes
ethos. It is an ideal, universal quality. I feel this is what is under
attack in India at present. Our ethos was firmed up when the country
was fighting its battle for independence. The national movement knew no
religion, no caste and no language. It was a war in which all
participated with one purpose:

to throw out the alien rulers. The ethos, the distinctive feature of
the struggle, was togetherness, the spirit of understanding. 

That was precisely the basis of our constitution which, among other
things, enunciated in the preamble: 

"Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship." Although
India, after partition, had some 82 per cent Hindus inhabiting it, yet
it did not declare itself a Hindu country. That was not the ethos. The
freedom movement kept religion separate from politics. So did the
constitution and the government under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. 

Some who did not believe in that ethos embarked on their agenda to
convert India into a theocratic state from the day the British left.
But Mahatma Gandhi's assassination at the hands of a Hindu fanatic gave
such a jolt to the nation that it asserted itself to regain the
territory which the communalists had usurped. Hindu chauvinists ran for
shelter. India heaved a sigh of relief for almost 45 years. For the
last decade the same people, who are opposed to the country's ethos,
have reappeared in the shape of different outfits at different places.
And they are trying to undo the country's sense of tolerance and its
composite culture. Liberty of thought and expression, which the
constitution guarantees, is their first target. The rumpus they have
created over the shooting of film Water is a warning given by them that
they _ and they alone _ are the custodians of Hindu culture or whatever
they interpret. (Home Minister L.K.Advani was a party to the permission
given to the film. He was reportedly against a close scrutiny of the
script.) 

How one wishes if the Hindu zealots would concentrate on the removal of
ills in the Hindu society, whether that of caste or that of widows'
death-like-living? But they are not interested in reforms. Their
purpose is to convert a secular state into a conformist society, with
their own interpretation of religion and their own narration of
history. What defeats them is the diversity of Hindu society, its real
strength. It is a sad comment on the working of the National Democratic
Alliance, which has 22 parties which do not believe in the BJP
ideology. But when the chips are down, the writ of the Sangh parivar
runs, not theirs. They have helplessly watched how some persons at
Varanasi got away after destroying the costly sets of the proposed
film. Again, even the socialist-inclined parties have seen how some
others at Delhi have got away with the withdrawal of two history
volumes relating to the freedom struggle. Some at the helm of affairs,
who were nowhere when the war for independence was fought, do not like
the credit given to those who participated in it. 

Chief Editor Gopal has rightly questioned the withdrawal of the two
volumes when he had authorised their publication. History cannot be
distorted to suit the wishes of ruling parties or personalities. But
Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi does not
appreciate the point. Nor do certain social forces which are trying to
change the ethos of India. 

Joshi and the Sangh parivar should realise that India's ethos is not
Hindutva. (In his bio-data, one of the qualifications he has listed is
his belief in Hindutva!) If some people at some place can be worked up
some time, as it happened when the Babri masjid was demolished, it does
not mean that they have forsaken tolerance for good. The heat generated
cools down quickly because people are basically accommodative and
secular. This was proved by the defeat of the BJP in UP and Madhya
Pradesh in the assembly elections, which were held in the wake of the
Babri mosque's demolition. 

Before the demolition, the Muslims too showed their repugnance to the
frenzied pitch they had been taken at the time of the Shah Banu case
where the Supreme Court intervened to grant the payment of maintenance
allowance to a divorcee. The government legislated to circumvent the
court's decision. Still once the emotions settled down the Muslim
community realised the futility of converting the maintenance issue
into a religious warfare. 

Communal poison, which has been dripping into Indian politics _ both
Hindus and Muslims are guilty _ is destroying India's ethos. Leaders of
different parties have taken communalism into the mainstream of Indian
politics. The result is that the roots of tolerance are weakening day
by day. 

Those believing in secularism should have worked in the field to
inculcate the attitude of keeping religion separate from politics. They
were na=EFve to think that the poison to communalism would disappear the
moment the country was free. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India's first
education minister, says in his book India Wins Freedom that once the
British left, the differences between the two communities would go. But
he realised after independence that the problem was not so simple. 

I visited Afghanistan in the sixties to meet Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,
the Frontier Gandhi. He said that when they were fighting for freedom
under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, they were confident that after
the departure of the British, the issues they would have to deal with
would be economic, not religious. He was shocked to learn that
Ahmedabad was the scene of communal frenzy. 

Had he been alive today, he would not have believed that Gujarat, the
BJP administered state, is the laboratory of the Sangh parivar. Whether
it is the question of conversion or that of membership of civil
servants of the RSS, the experiment is made in the state to see the
reaction in the rest of the country. The strategy is modified
accordingly. It is a pity that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the
only BJP liberal, has not done so. He at times makes you feel that what
BJP ideologue Govindacharya has said is correct: Vajpayee is only a
mukut (mask). 

Maybe, Vajpayee does not want to join issue with the RSs. When he said
that it was a cultural organisation, he probably indicated his Laxman
Rekha, beyond which he cannot go. What he does not realise is that the
RSS or his equivocal attitude clouds India's ethos of togetherness and
tolerance. Temporary advantage may be with communal parties. But the
nation is sure to return to its ethos _ and repudiate what some
political parties are doing to gain power or to sustain it.