Tag: Hindutva Extremism

Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhigiri to Push Back Goondagiri

By Mahendra Ved

Specially invited to participate in Mahatma Gandhi’s birth centenary celebrations in 1969, ‘Frontier Gandhi’ Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan went on an indefinite fast to protest sectarian violence in Gujrat, till Prime Minister Indira Gandhi apologized on behalf of a distraught nation.

Not that communal violence has ebbed. Over 58 major communal riots are estimated to have occurred in 47 places since 1967. They have taken more collective and diabolical dimensions in recent years if you follow the aftermath of Indira’s 1984 assassination, Babri Masjid’s demolition in 1992, across Gujarat again in 2002, and many more.

Both the Gandhis would have strongly disapproved of this trend. If around today, they would have fasted to protest the numerous incidents of violence. While not always taking the form of a communal riot as understood in the last century, it nevertheless has political content and overtones that are concealed by authorities and overlooked by the mainstream media. But since a smartphone allows for pictures/clips these days, they get amplified on social media platforms. It doesn’t require great research or insight to see through these persistent trends.

Thus we had “Nathuram Godse Zindabad” trending in cyberspace to mark this year’s Gandhi anniversary. A “Gandhi look-alike” was displayed as Mahishasura, the demon, at a Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata, hosted by the Hindu Maha Sabha (HMS). Public outrage ensured that the asura got a new look; a wig was added, and the spectacles were removed.

This is precisely how the message is driven home — take a resolute, mischievous step forward, and then step back if things get hot.

Keeping silent on acts that encourage hatred is as bad as voicing support. The complicity is not veiled. For the fading HMS, the pandal episode could well be an attention-grabbing bid to remain in the public consciousness.

The HMS is known for its right-wing stance that is more radical than that of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the country’s current political dispensation. Interestingly, the latter’s proponents who point this difference out, on social media again, did not disapprove or distance themselves from the HMS’s Kolkata act. The organisation’s branches in parts of the country have set up Godse shrines in the recent past, till they gather protests or till the police booked those responsible.

The Union Government’s unwillingness to tackle fringe elements, and asking the state administrations to do the same, has facilitated their exponential rise. Their clout has grown. Their capacity and ability to create public disorder and take the law into their own hands assume newer, disconcerting forms daily.

Across the country, however, there is no dearth of such hotheads eager to leave their imprint and be noticed, even if for all the wrong reasons. To be sure, some of them are MPs and MLAs, even ministers.

Officially called “fringe elements” when criticized by the governments and rights bodies abroad, a motley crowd of ill-read, jobless, systematically filled with hatred people is being motivated to run riot. Not reining them in is fraught with serious consequences. The blame would lie not with the fringe players, but those who choose to let them thrive.

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These are but tips of the proverbial iceberg that those in power tacitly condone and even promote. In the given discourse among the urban middle classes that are gaining increasing strength and voice in the media, not surprisingly, children have begun to question the wisdom and the need of having the Mahatma’s photograph on currency notes.

The elders who ought to reason with the young are not doing their part. They are too squeamish to ween the latter away and are okay swimming with the ‘young’ tide. It’s the “khao-piyo-aish-karo” culture.

This attitude of the old and the young alike, history books warn, is precisely what promoted extreme right-wing ideas – fascism and Nazism — in the name of nationalism in Europe in the last century between the two World Wars. Significantly, among the afflicted are several countries that claim to practice liberal democracy and preach the same to others.

Parties propagating right-wing ideas are on the rise across Europe and as in Italy’s case, have captured power. The fascist leader Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter is a star in the party of Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. In France, Marin Le Pen has gathered more votes than before. In Germany, although not moved far-right, much of the good work that Angela Merkel did during her long years in office, is being undone. In distant Brazil, former president Luiz Inácio Lula is engaged in a see-saw electoral battle with the foul-mouth, army-backed President Jared Bolsonaro.

The wheels of history appear to have come full circle and there are legitimate worries if India is following the global trends. It is worrying because time was when India, despite being poor, provided the moral compass to the world in the last century. Non-violence was a noble goal, whether or not a people actively pursued it.

India’s concrete contribution – although in celluloid form — was facilitating the making of the film Gandhi. This is the fortieth anniversary of the film that revived global interest in Gandhi, and through him, India.

It was made in 1982. Part-financed by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), it had a distinct India stamp, even if it was produced and directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, a Briton to boot, with no commitment to non-violence. Indira Gandhi braved domestic protests from the filmmakers’ community that boasted numerous names with global standing. Even Gandhi was played by a Briton with part-Indian parentage.

Acknowledged as a classic, the film bagged Oscars and several other awards. Indira had taken risks, and India won. Pakistan, by contrast, made a film on its founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, in a copycat act, but failed to make an impact.

The intervening years have seen many films featuring Gandhi, some even critical of Gandhi, like Gandhi, My Father, on his deeply flawed relationship with his eldest son. But the theme of truth, love, non-violence, and communal harmony have been the same. Even Munnabhai’s “Gandhigiri” spread that universal message amidst laughter and entertainment.

The man and his message are intensely relevant to the present times. As India aspires to play the Vishwaguru, the global teacher, it needs to curb sniping at the Mahatma who has close proximity to what the world thinks India is and should be.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Weekly Update: Monarchy Walking Into Sunset? And Hindutva’s Self-Goal

By Mehnga Singh

The British Monarch, Her Majesty the Queen, a wonderful person because she never says anything beyond platitudes, almost always smiling, celebrated her 70th year on the British throne cutting ribbons and handing out ribbons, on the throne of the Commonwealth wheeling around the world cutting ribbons and wheezing around a few other countries , such as Canada and Australia, cutting ribbons. The 70-year Jubilee was a four-day affair with every world media showing some, all, or a bit of the four days. Music and hand waving, army march pass and street parties etc were all packed into the extended programme of celebrations. The Royal family glowed in the adulation. Even the baby royals were there to lap it up. Perhaps the leaders of many a country, must have been wondering, ‘Why can’t I have some of that’. Perhaps some will now organise a yearly jamboree of them being in power. Modiji next?

Everyone enjoyed it, except the thousands British who are anti Monarchists and want to turn Britain into a Republic. And those who are indifferent, but sulked in their front rooms as family members wanted to watch Her Majesty, while they wanted to watch football, or anything else, even Peppa Pig. And the failed exodus of thousands who had tried to escape but were returned from airports as flights were cancelled. They had to suffer watching four days of celebrations they were trying to get away from.

Or the many in the world, who remembered on these day the oppressions, atrocities and destructions visited on their communities by British colonialism in the name of the Royal family. For them, the scenes of HMQ and family smiling, while their cultures and nations are just about recovering from the poverty and near extinction, must have been a bit painful. Or as many saw HMQ and family sitting on gilded carriages, diamond studded tiaras and opulence built on treasures taken from their lands. Where are the crown jewels from, or the financial wealth of UK from?

Before colonialism, India reportedly had 25% of world’s wealth alone. In 1947, it was a country begging for food and development funds. That story is the same in many other parts of the world.

Still, as the Brits like reminding, they brought the railways to the countries. In this Jubilee year, countries should be grateful to the Empire and Royals for little mercies, so what if at the end they got poverty in return. But then how Russia got the Trans Siberian Rail, the longest railway, without British imperialism must be the eight wonder of the world.

However, Empires eventually fragment and end. Emperor Romulus Augustus is remembered for losing the mighty Roman Empire. Emperor Bahadur Shah lost the great Mughal dynasty. Both are known as losers. Queen Elizabeth 2nd, took power in 1952. By 2022, she has managed to lose almost the entire British Empire, the biggest Empire in the history of the world! Only the British can make the loss of an Empire as a triumphant victory! If Queen Victoria had extended the Empire to one where the sun never sets, Queen Elizabeth, has reduced the Empire to one where sun rises and sets at predictable times.

The Roman Empire lasted some 1400 years. The Mughals lasted a little over 300 years. From start to finish, the British Empire lasted a mere 200 years, largest and the shortest. There are many reasons for it. Many of those still exist within the British Royal family as Meghan will tell you.

The disintegration of the Empire hasn’t ended. The Commonwealth is a bit fed up with being told to be democratic but to accept the Queen as the non-elected permanent head. Many want to leave and others want rotating Presidents of Commonwealth. The Queen, they say will be the last one.

Within Britain itself, only 40% of the younger generation want to keep the Royalty. There are concerns that Royalty is seen as an anachronistic symbol of a brutal and oppressive past in British history. As the imperially drenched older generation ingrained with pomposity fades into the big sky, it seems increasingly possible the Monarchy too will fade as the last relic of an age, glorious to some, inglorious to others. It doesn’t matter how many song and dance shows are staged to make Royalty appear benign, its destructive shadow from the past lingers scattered around the world and its role in propping the class system in Britain remains. Sometimes soon that past will fade as did other empires. Unless David Icke is right, then we are in another realm.

Hindutva’s New Tava Missile

Hindutva is sometimes an aimless, groundless, mindless rocket that tends to whirr around from time to time spinning like a top falling off the edge and hitting an unsuspecting beetle beneath. It seems it has now entered that space between terracotta and chaotic neutrons where verbal travel is directionless.

No one really knows what Hindutva is, so its most fanatic adherents usually make it up as a sum of their prejudices, hates and mythical glory.

A couple have taken a pot shot at Prophet Mohammed now. Boom. It was easy beating up ordinary Muslims going about their daily business and even killing a few to end Kaliyug and revive a creationist past from 6,000 years ago when allegedly only ‘Hindus’ lived in Bharat in Dwapar Yug. The Muslim nations turned a blind eye calling it domestic issues and cultural idiosyncrasy, except Pakistan which has a few hundred of its own similar domestic issues as wannabe Mullahs beat up Shias, Christians or occasionally other communities.

The problem with Hindutva is that there is no word Hindu endogenous to the civilisation of South Asia. It is an exonym made popular by Islamic invaders as they settled in the region. Therefore Hinduism has no coherence, no philosophy, no central belief. Hindu was just a name for those who didn’t convert to Islam and Hinduism for everything that was not Abrahamic in South Asia. Then it was given a Royal stamp by British imperialist. Hindus as a category became part of census. All the very profound but different indigenous worldviews, philosophies and belief systems, such as Vedanta, Shaivism, Advaitism, Vaishnava, Carvakaism, Sankhya, Nyaya etc were packaged into one by the lazy British in a version of the usual, ‘they all look alike’.

It is difficult to develop a meaningful political ideology from an exonym or a category of convenience for the census. ‘Hindutva’ nevertheless was born to give Hinduism and Hindus an ideological identity. It is mostly an ‘anti everyone else’ ideology drawing boundaries. So hating those who don’t call themselves Hindus is part of it. They include Muslims, Christians, secularists and sometimes even Sikhs.

This time the ‘knock them down’ policy went a bit ballistic as the perpetrators hit the hypersonic missile button. Unfortunately the missile has boomerang engine.

Muslims tolerate many things, including blowing each other’s mosques, killing each other in the name of cleansing the faith, chopping heads of apostates. But attacking Prophet Mohammed suddenly unites them all. Outsiders sometimes fail to see this.

Salman Rushdie, still neurotically living and writers of Charlie Hebdo still drawing on State funds for protection should have cautioned the Hindutva forward charge brigade to know the boundaries of their favourite past time. Muslim nations stopped bombing each other (Yemen etc) and decided to stand up united for a few seconds. One by one they are lining to get an official apology from the Indian State.

At stake is $350 billion trade or part of it, a loss of goodwill from Middle East nations, and an opportunist take by Pakistan to fill in the job market that might emerge if Indian workers are sent packing home. Indian products are already being boycotted in some Middle East countries. India may have to quickly behead Nupur Sharma or at least give a humbling apology. It’s quite a feat having played some remarkable diplomatic dexterity around Ukraine only to land in a problem of its own making and attract the ire of 52 Muslim countries. It’s all in Modiji’s hands now. On the other hand the few seconds of ire may pass and pensioning off the two Generals of Hindutva might just do the trick.