As Indian as They Come

Swimming in the sea of India’s cultural complexity has taught me that I can no longer carry my agnosticism lightly.

That was Barkha Dutt of NDTV in an op-ed piece that appeared in the Hindustant Times http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1650016,0035.htm

in apparent response to Vir Sanghvi’s column which Offstumped had earlier blogged on.

First a note of admiration on Barkha that Offstumped respects her journalistic accomplishments in covering Kargil and terrorism in J&K. It is not often that comes along an opinion piece in the media from as serious minded a person as Barkha that calls for a point by point critique, and Offstumped is not one to shy away from such a challenge so here goes.This critique should be seen in the spirit of Rightful Enquiry and not a personal assault.

So we reproduce Barkha’s piece in full with embedded responses from Offstumped.

Swimming in the sea of India’s cultural complexity has taught me that I can no longer carry my agnosticism lightly.

Time has convinced me that my resistance to institutionalised religion is the defining character flaw of the progressive elite; a discordant note in an otherwise full-throated symphony; a disconnect so deep that sometimes people like me are just left watching from the sidelines at the tumultuous fight for India’s future; spectators, not participants, because we speak the language of disbelief. But there are times I am grateful that I am neither Hindu nor Muslim, but just a devout sceptic. Right now is one such. Despite the lonely corner non-believers like me inhabit, I am reasonably confident that the ordinary Indian is as mystified as I am by the hysterical debate that has consumed our media these past few weeks. The theme song — actually it was a duet — went something like this: Hindutva is simmering under the surface, waiting to leap out from the political grave into the warm embrace of a new life; and ‘moderate Muslims’ must speak, not just speak, they must shout, scream, holler, be heard, so that there is no ‘backlash’.

Offstumped Response: Wondering where this hysterical debate is being carried for few weeks now. Except for the piece by Sanghvi where he pretty much faulted Big Media for missing out on the big picture we have not seen a debate, let alone a hysterical one. Secondly this whole talk about moderate muslims had more to do with goings and comings within that community than anything else, the backlash if any was against the the Muslim Pandering Communalist Party of India (Muslimist) CPI-M, the Muslim Fundamentalist Shiasamajwadi Party (SP) and the soft Islamic National Congress (INC) so the whole premise of her piece is debatable.

Apparently, the horrific twin blasts at Varanasi have given all this the force of an emergency. If I were either Hindu or Muslim, I would be deeply insulted at the generalised and simplistic assumptions made about me, my intelligence and, most importantly, my faith. When Renuka Narayanan from this paper went on NDTV, on the evening of the blasts, and said “Varanasi is to Hinduism what Mecca is to Islam, this is the seat of Hinduism that has been attacked,” a slight shudder went down my spine.

Offstumped Response: A shudder down her spine, this coming from Barkha who braved the guns at Kargil. Makes one wonder to what extent political correctness has rendered spines jelly in our Media Establishment. Juxtapose Varanasi with Indian Parliament and seat of Hinduism with seat of Indian Democracy. Would a slight shudder go down your spine still. Indian Democracy is not the Parliament. Indian democracy is the spirit and commitment of all Indians to the Democratic way of conducting our Public Affairs. So an attack parliament would by no means be the end of Indian Democracy, why then the outrage, why then the stakes so high that we went nearly to war and nobody questioned the moral legitimacy of that move. That was because the Parliament was a symbol of our democracy and the highest one at that. When we set out to move our troops to the borders we made a loud and clear statement that our Symbols are as important as our spirit and dare not attack our symbols for in doing so you have attacked our spirit. So how can you question the moral righteousness of asserting that Varanasi is an important symbol of Hinduism and attack on it while not an attack on all Hindus was an attack on the spirit of tolerance of Hindus and expressing moral outrage at this attack is just. What kind of message are you sending if you shudder to acknowledge your Symbols and are incapable of expressing outrage when your symbols are under attack ?

The stakes seemed so high. Gujarat 2002, New Delhi 1984… have made us forever fearful. The fear isn’t entirely misplaced. Every terror attack, especially those targeted at the nerve-centres of faith, pushes us that much closer to the edge, to the precipice of polarisation.

Offstumped: Not sure where she is going with this one. The analogies are completely misplaced. Gujarat 2002 or New Delhi 1984 were not the result of Islamic Terrorism nor were they on nerve centres of faith. They were politically motivated carnages. Let us instead look at the history of terror attacks on nerve centes of faith. Akshardham did not result in riots. Ayodhya did not result in riots. Vaishno Devi did not result in riots. What the hell is she talking about. Barkha i am afraid has completely got her facts wrong and is making an argument that is not borne neither by facts nor by history. Terror Atacks on Nerve Centres of Faith in India have not pushed us to the precipice of polarisation. It is politics and especially that of Competitive Minorytism that has.

But the argument lapsed into absurdity when the politicians began talking. If the Varanasi blasts were a consequence of the UPA’s ‘minority appeasement’, then how does one explain the shadow of terror that tailed India during the NDA regime — from Kandahar to the Parliament attack?

Offstumped: We had already answered this one in the previous post and wont repeat it here. But let us take Barkha up on her analogy. Kandahar was a well planned act of terror of known terrorist groups with State sponsor (Taliban and Pakistan) which was executed in Kathmandu. So bad example. Let us take the Parliament Attack. It was a Fidayeen attack where the perpetrators knew the heavy security cover they were attacking and were fully aware that they would not escape alive. No amount of security or intelligence can prevent Fidayeen attacks or suicide bombings, Israel can stand testimony to that. So bad example again. The argument here is linked to the facts of the incident. A crude attack with low sophistication and obvious missteps with no intention of being caught or making a statement can only point to mischief of the worst kind that results from a heady combination of Communal Criminalization that is sheltered and patronized by Competitive Minorytism.

If the blasts were a result of this government being ‘soft on terror’, then how does one explain that there is no empirical difference in the level of violence today as compared to last year? And has a shrill BJP forgotten that Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s lasting legacy is the creation of a peace process with Pakistan and a peace initiative with Kashmiri separatists?

Offstumped: Again a result of muddled thinking. Barkha’s reasoning is clouded by her emotions. Soft on Terror has to do as much with the pronouncements of the Government as to do with its track record in the follow up after Terrorist events. Going out of way to repeal POTA and to burn midnight oil to replace it with a law against Communal Riots, beats as to what kind of a message it sends to those who are toying with Islamic Terrorism with no apparent territorial dispute as the motivating cause. It makes for a an extremely conducive environment. That is what we mean by Soft on Terror and not peace process with Pakistan or peace initiative in Kashmir. Attacks on Ayodhya, New Delhi on Diwali eve, IISC Bangalore and now Varanasi are clearly attacks with no apparent cause linked to Kashmir, for if it were so, there would be a loud and clear political statement. There were no loud and clear political statements just nameless organizations and faceless perpetrators. So bad analysis based on faulty assumptions. This is no longer about Kashmir, Barkha, its time you understooed it.

Bihar was proof that the NDA is a combative, shrewd political force that the UPA cannot afford to be complacent about. But surely, there was a lesson in it for the BJP as well — another state won not on the strength of religious mobilisation but on the promise of change. Even the complex caste arithmetic could not save a Lalu Prasad Yadav. Clearly identity politics could only travel this far, if governance and development were not equal companions on the journey. So no matter what the public opinion pundits write (and I suspect even the BJP’s master strategists may just have lifted the idea off the edit pages), I would argue that in the absence of an extraordinary event, religious identity is now more the ex-factor than a decisive, intangible X-factor. Hindutva, I think, has served its time and outlived its political utility.

Offstumped: Who in the devil cares about Hindutva here, except for you left of centre media demagogues. This is about National Security and the damage that has been done to it by Competitive Minorytism. Period. Please do not communalize our moral righteous indignation in standing up to our National Security and for questioning dubious policies of Competitive Minorytism. This has nothing to do with Hindutva.

All generalisations are a gamble, but I would take the risk and say that Middle India (as distinct from both the fundamentalists and the liberals) wants to travel down the Middle Path. The age of shrill rhetoric is over. Indians are increasingly impatient with extremism of any kind, in any faith — Hindu or Muslim. I’m pretty sure that the ordinary Hindu, angry as she may be about the assault in Varanasi, and before that in Ayodhya, will also find L.K. Advani’ rath yatra disingenuous and unnecessary, and he, a poor caricature of himself.

Offstumped: This is what makes the media completely lose all its credibility and moral balance. The Indian Express wrote the most meaningful editorial on the issue of Mr. Advanis latest expedition. Offstumped doesnt care much for this one and it is upto Mr. Advani to demonstrate the effectiveness of what he has undertaken and to demonstrate true leadership in his pronouncements and his conduct. But where in the devil does the media get off morally judging the rights of any political leader to freedom of speech. You could have a difference of opinion. When leftist leaders share the stage with Muslim clergy and communalize Indian foreign policy, we criticized them but we did not question the right of freedom of speech of the Left. We did question the wisdom and the responsibility of the Left to its exercise of this right but we did not arrogate ourselves the temerity to suggest whether it was disingenuous or unnecessary. Who in the devil is Barkha to sit in judgement on the necessity or lack of this move by Mr. Advani. What is particularly galling is when this yardstick howsoever flawed is applied selectively to the right and not to the left . How come this deafening silence when by this same yarrdstick the UPA’s own allies engage in disingenuous and unnecessary protestations against a State Guest and make poor caricatures of the host country.

I’m equally sure that if I were a Muslim in India today, I’d feel under siege claustrophobically caught between those who claim to speak on my behalf, and those who are demanding that I must speak up as a ‘moderate’. Lost in the cacophony of argument is clarity of exactly what we are asking them to speak up against. If it’s about politicians like Haji Yaqoob Qureshi, the minister in Uttar Pradesh who dared to declare a reward of Rs 51 crore for the Danish cartoonist’s head, each and every Muslim I have interviewed has condemned him and asked that he be removed from the state government. It’s a non-Muslim Chief Minister who continues to keep him in public office. It’s India’s party in power, the Congress, that continues to maintain a shameful silence on his utterances. The same Congress that uses textbook rules to secure a vindictive expulsion of Jaya Bachchan from Parliament is conveniently inert when it comes to Qureshi. And it’s the Marxists whose need to march with Mulayam has made them silently look the other way. So aren’t newspaper columnists framing the question incorrectly? Sure, there is a conspiracy of silence. But look who is not talking.

Offstumped: A cathartic moment as the Indian Media introspects. Barkha’s point is that the media has no business asking Muslims to speak up as Moderates. This can be interpreted in one of many ways. The first is who is the media to stereotype Muslims as extremists and moderates. Interesting point but carries no credibility because it is the same media that is guilty of stereotyping everyone else in India. The second way in which this can interpreted is why is the burden on Muslims alone to speak up ? Interesting again but not quite convincing. When Gujarat riots happened why was the burden on the majority Hindu community to atone for it. When Varanasi occurred why was the burden on the majority hindu community to show restraint. Why does the media repeatedly remind us that the majority of Hindus are tolerant. Well that is because if it was not for the majority of Hindus to make a statement loud and clear against these incidents or in favor of peace, the credibility of the minor few who claim to speak for the rest is demolished. The same general principle applies. The credibility of those who claim to speak on behalf of the community while holding positions of office which by their very nature represent that community, will not be demolished unless the community itself holds them in contempt of its beliefs and collective will.

Or is it the anti-Bush protests that we are alarmed by and object to? Apparently, the worry is that Indian Muslims are joining hands with the global Islamic community if they march against Bush and this heralds the ominous arrival of political Islam at our doorstep. But isn’t this a wildly insecure and hysterical reaction? First, the protests spoke for a fragment of Muslim opinion, and it would be presumptuous to assume that the protestors represented 14 million people. Second, so what if they don’t like Bush? Why isn’t their right to protest legitimate?

Offstumped: Muddled thinking and silly political correctness. First let us answer “wildly insecure“, and “hysterical reaction“. Barkha seems to have a semantics problem with Hysteria. She has no clue what the word means. Hysterical Reactions were Muslims in Lucknow going on a rampage and killing people in riots. Hysterical Reactions were Muslims in Hyderabad provoking violence and damaging commercial property of another community. Those were hysterical reactions, not well meaning editorial pieces by individual who at best know to protest by wielding their pens in the comfort of their chairs. As far as wildly insecure goes, give me a break. It is a matter of concern that a visit by Foreign Dignitary can trigger violence in India. We are not talking angry protests with a lot of lung power and burning of effigies, as despicable as it maybe it is still not violence targetting those who had not enjoined in your protest. When the violence targets others and results in loss of life and property it makes one situp and think, here is an issue that is not of creation by India, cannot be resolved by India and is not one that pits one Indian against another. But despite all of this, this issue is so emotional to some Indians that they can perpetrate violence against other Indians and still claim moral legitimacy to their right to protest. That is Political Islam at your doorstep, not a bunch of non-violent protestors showing up placards and patiently bearing the elements to make their point. Barkha has completely missed the point on this one.

This weekend, on We the People, a cross-section of Muslims made the same point — to oppose George Bush’s politics in Iraq is not the same thing as opposing a nuclear deal that’s clearly good for India. To lose that distinction is to question the patriotism of the Indian Muslim. This is not just a dangerous argument, but also a deeply offensive one.

Offstumped: First issue is opposition to George Bush’s politics in Iraq. Let us hear how and what is the rationale behind some Indian Muslim’s opposition here. Is it because these Indian Muslims oppose wars of all kinds and are peace loving. Mmmmm hard to believe that one because you would barely hear any protests on Palestinian violence in Israel or Chechenyan Terror in Russia. So clear all Wars are not made equal and some are more righteous than the other. So how then do these Indian Muslims frame their opposition to this one. Is it because it violates human rights and international law. Well applying the same yardstick the Ethnic Cleansing in Darfur by one Muslim Majority Community of another Minority Community should attract even far greater outrage, well try polling Darfur and most have not heard of it. SO what is it about Iraq that rankles. Is it how the attack on Iraq was an affront to Indian strategic interests, baloney we know there arent any at stake. So what is it about Iraq that rankles so much that it is ok to turn a blind eye to mass murders of the majority Shia and Minority Kurdish community (all btw Muslim) by the Sunni Minority Dictatorship. How come that was tolerable. It is baffling and illogical. The answer is plain and simple. George Bush has been stereotyped to be a persecutor of Global Islam, its a different story that his closest Arab Allies are Saudi Arabia which is custodian of organized Islam and UAE which is the salvation to scores of ordinary Indian Muslims from penury and poverty. So Barkha here is going out of her way to defend this rather silly and illogical moral position rather than ask some incisive questions like Why do these Muslims want to protest the Bush Visit ?

Mehbooba Mufti from Kashmir summed it up when she said the cause of an independent Kashmir had been championed by Islamic militants from as far as Sudan and Afghanistan, but never by an Indian Muslim outside the Valley. Are we becoming like the United States? Fearful of minorities? Alarmed at their assertion, superior and scornful about their conventions? Unable to see them as anything but the ‘Other’?

Offstumped: Mehbooba Muftis summary while noteworthy is also laughable as it works both ways. While it is admirable that Indian muslims did not support the Kashmir cause as they considered themselves Indians first and Muslims next. By this token she has taken a critical view of Foreign Muslims who supported Kashmir by viewing it from the prism of Global Islam. So by this same token I wonder what the Kurds of Iraq must be thinking. Here we are a muslim minority without a homeland sandwiched between turkey and Iraq in very much the same conditions as Kashmiris and persecuted by Saddam for decades, and now comes along Bush and for the first time in history Kurds have autonomy to shape their destiny and here are these Indian Muslims viewing this whole situation through the prism of Global Islam and protesting what has been the best thing that could have happened to us. Look at the irony of it. The rest of Barkha’s points are not worthy of comment, it is beneath Offstumped to even respond to this.

Finally, are media clichés the biggest disservice at a time like this? What or who do we mean by a Moderate Muslim? Mohammed Ali Jinnah was barely a believer, hardly followed the Quran, but created Pakistan. So who is ‘moderate’ enough for us, and who sets the benchmark?The day of the blasts, I got a call from a member of the Muslim Personal Law Board, scared and worried about a ‘backlash’, wanting to condemn the blasts on national television so that nobody misunderstood its response. The subtext is clear. Fifty-nine years after India was born, in a country where there are more Muslims than there are in Pakistan, we are still asking Muslims to wear their nationalism like an identity card. We are still asking for proof of loyalty. This is not their failure. It is ours.

Offstumped: I have just one response to this. 4000 and more years of Tolerance later, during which we saw Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Sikhims, Jainism, Buddhism survive in India, the left of centre media and political establishment is still asking Hindus to wear their tolerance like an identity card to demonstrate their political correctness and to prove their concern for religious minorities while questioning legitimate debate and hard questions. That is the failure here.

Barkha you have been badly badly Offstumped.

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