Looking for Answers

I just don’t know how we can stop incidents like this, which are so sad, so ugly and so disturbing

That was Javed Akhtar in conversation with DNA http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1018320&catid=19 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Varanasi. Now interestingly Mr. Akhtar rushed to Varanasi along with Teesta Setalvad and Swami Agnivesh. More on that later.

But first Mr. Akhtar’s comments. Javed Akhtar comes across usually as a balanced and rational individual, his politics maybe left leaning but one can have a mature and meaningful dialogue with him. Offstumped also respects him for his compositions. But that is not what this is all about. This is about the substance of Mr. Akhtar’s comments. This goes right back to the op-ed piece by Barkha which Offstumped critique where she took up the cudgels for people like Mr. Akhtar saying why should people like Mr. Akhtar stand up and against the fundamentalist fringe in the Muslim community. We wll now see from Mr. Akhtar’s comments why indeed Barkha is badly Offstumped, and so is I must say Mr. Akhtar unfortunately.

So here goes Mr. Akhtar’s comments in full with embedded responses from Offstumped.

When the Varanasi terrorist outrage took place, my immediate reaction was to call my friends Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand to discuss what should be done. We decided to go to Varanasi. Swami Agnivesh was already going there. I have great respect for him and his work and felt honoured that once when he came to Mumbai he chose to stay with us although he has a considerable following in Mumbai. So we went together by train to Varanasi.

Offstumped: well good intentions for a start. One can tell a man’s politics from the company he keeps, but that is not the focus of debate here so we will let this one pass.

If the terrorists who committed this crime were hoping to communalise the issue, they failed totally.

Offstumped: Hmm this is something we dont get here. What do you mean by “Terrorists tried to Communalize the issue“. What issue are Terrorists trying to Communalize ? Their bomb attack ! What do you mean by try to communalize, so Terrorist Bomb Attacks will now have to be classified as secular and communal. “Most Terrorist Bomb Attacks are by their very nature secular but some vested Terrorists often try to communalize their attacks and we must resist them and insist that all Terrorism remain secular“ Beats me what Mr. Akhtar is trying to convery here. And did they fail totally, I dont think so, I dont think they failed, they succeeded, by creating fear, by demonstrating how weak and porous the security infrastructure is in India and by also demonstrating that they can strike with impunity at the holiest of our sights and get away without any consequences.

The vested political interests also miserably failed to take any political mileage out of this gruesome tragedy.

Offstumped: Hmm this is where things start getting interesting. “Vested Political Interests“ wonder who he is referring to here, we will know soon, read on.

The Sankatmochan temple is quite unique, it is almost 400 years old. For years, Bismillah Khan has played shehnai in this temple. When I visited Sankatmochan temple I felt it is the symbol of all that is beautiful about our Indian values. I also met the local media and students and saw many were busy organising rallies against communalising the issue.

Offstumped: Some notable observations from Mr. Akhtar but the closing comment beats me again, what is this communalizing the issue. Let us face it folks, why cant we have the freedom and maturity in this country to have an open honest discussion and learn to call a spade a spade. Why not say that there were many students busy organizing rallies to emphasize the point that while suspected Islamic Terrorists attacked the holiest of Hindu Sites, we Hindus and Muslims remain united in our resolve to resist and fight Islamic Terrorism. Why not just call it what it is rather than deflect the subject to irrelevant non-issues with wishy washy cliches like “communalizing the issue“. Enough, we have heard enough of this cliche.

After the darshan in the temple we took out a procession in which along with others, Christian priests, Muslim maulvis and Hindus pujaris took part. They all condemned the incident in the strongest possible terms. I then went to the home of the Mahant Veer Bhadra Mishra of the Sankatmochan temple. He is a remarkable person; besides being the Mahant of this historical temple, he is a professor of Water Resource Management in Banaras Hindu University. He is extremely cultured and a person of enormous character, someone who knows his mind. The Mahant told me, “Jo hua, bahut bura hua.” But he also told me that people in Varanasi are different and no one will succeed in dividing them on communal lines. He said certain politicians came to the temple after the incident. “I told them, this is the house of God, you can conduct puja, you can offer archana, you can sing bhajans , but if you have come to play politics, this is no place for you.” The politicians, he says, then went to the car park and sat on dharna. The Mahant informed them that this was too close to the temple. “I will not allow you to desecrate God’s house, I will not allow you to use this place for your politics of hate,” he told them. I touched the feet of this great man when I left, something I rarely do.

Offstumped: No temple is a place for politics and by that very same breath no place of worship of any other religion is a place for politics, Offstumped would like to see Mr. Akhtar reflect that more often.

I am the eternal optimist. I feel somewhere Indians have understood that they are being taken for a ride by vested interests, especially in UP.

Offstumped: This has me stumped. not offstumped but legstumped. By this one comment Mr. Akhtar is coming across to me as someone with barely any respect for the intellect of the average Indian, as he implies that it took the average Indian this long to figure this one out, which brings into question how come the same average Indian in election after election has shown no mercy in booting out non-performing governments and conveyed in unambiguous terms that he/she cannot be taken for a ride. Now the comment on UP would have led one to believe that Mr. Akhtar was perhaps referring to the criminal elements in Mulayam Singh Government, the political mobilization of Muslims on Global Islamic causes and the more recent violence on account of the Cartoon protests and the ridiculous fatwa. Well read on.

It is no coincidence that LK Advani has decided to go on a yatra. Please note, not a rath yatra. Advani is a clever politician, he knows the negative connotations the term rath yatra has acquired because of him.

Offstumped: Instead he picks on Advani. LK Advani must be ruing the day he talked about Jinnah for he has now become the favorite punching bag of every oddball left of centre advocate. When you have nothing else to voice your opinion against pick on Advani. But something more is troubling here. When you selectively apply political criticism and dont come across as being fair and balanced, your credibility in questioning the legitimacy of Mr. Advani’s political activities becomes rather weak. Also if you feel his Yatra is illegal call it so, if it is unconstitutional call it so, if you dont agree with it fight it on the political front but dont try to delegitimise it on some abstract moral plane which is neither nor balanced.

But people have become wiser, they understand why such things like the Varanasi incident are happening, what is the motive behind them. Was it the terrorists’ aim to take some lives and destroy property? No, it was much more. We are the world’s fourth largest economy, we are moving in a different direction but some people are trying to derail our progress and development, and to achieve this they want to communalise society by creating a schism between communities. But as I said, people see through this and through the machinations of unscrupulous politicians who want to use such incidents for their short-term political gains at the cost of national interest.

Offstumped: Let us get one thing straight and clear here. Questions about Competitive Minorytism and Muslim Pandering both at the Centre and in UP are Legitimate and Germane Political Debate as they have serious implications on how Tax Payer money gets spent, how the Constitution is subverted to patronise one community at the expense of the other and how institutions of governance have been compromised to manipulate one community for political advantage. This is a legitimate Political Debate. You cannot attempt to delegitimise by invoking the bogey of communalism and somehow claim that line of argument is in National Interest. This Nation will be well served when there is enougn maturity in our public domain to have honest and open debate in calling a spade a spade. This Nation will always be compromised and weakened when debate is avoided under the pretext of national integration. The Nation will neither be integrated nor safer and minority communities will continue to be Ghettoised.

The BJP, I regret to say, has treated this gruesome tragedy as an opportunity, as a lucky break. Advani sees in it a chance to rehabilitate himself and rejuvenate his party. When I said this on a television show all the people present there clapped to show their agreement.

Offstumped: Well this is where Mr. Akhtar’s credibility nose dives. In this whole commentary not one word about the SP, the Left Parties and the Congress and their machinations, none whatsoever and you just single out the BJP and Advani.

Today people can distinguish between a terrorist and the minority community person who lives next to you. The people of Varanasi have shown such sensitivity.

Offstumped: Mr. Akhtar you insult with these remarks. Not just today but the people of India have always distinguished between a terrorist and a minority community person. Never has a terrorist attack in India spawned communal riots. Give me one instance. I can recount all the major terrorist attacks of last decade, not one of them resulted in Indians confusing their minority neighbours for a terrorist be it Akshardham, be it Indian Parliament, be it Ayodhya, be it New Delhi, be it Kandahar, be it Bangalore, be it all those numerous train blasts, the list is long and painful. But none of them ever resulted in a communal riot. How dare you try to make this remark and attempt to elevate yourself to a higher moral plane by doing so.

I just don’t know how we can stop incidents like this, which are so sad, so ugly and so disturbing. The government has to come down on terrorist networks with a very heavy hand. This, along with the attitude we saw in Varanasi will ensure that the terrorists’ expectations are thwarted and there will be no domino effect.

Offstumped: Terrorism in India has never had a domino effect. It has had a subversive effect in weakneing the internal security infrastructure, observance of human rights and of course economic development but never a domino effect as far as social relations between communities are concerned. The one community which has however suffered socially on account are the Kahsmiri Pandits who unfortuantely dont figure in Mr. Akhtar’s scheme of things. I have not seen or heard him take up cudgels on their behalf in what has been ethnic cleansing of the worst kind in the Valley. Again unnecessary homilies on what are already home truths.

In Varanasi, I was asked what message I had for the people. I said that Varanasi has over the centuries given us sanskar, dharm. It has been the fount of spiritualism. What message can I possibly give to Varanasi? On the contrary, I am carrying a message from Varanasi for India, that united we stand, divided we fall. We must not give in; if we stand united against terrorism, it is destined to die its own death.

Offstumped: Good but not enough. Terrorism will not die its own death unless we recognize it for what it is. If it is Left sponsored terrorism in Bihar, AP or Chattisgarh or Jharkhand or Islamic Terrorism in AP, Karnataka and elsewhere or Pakistan Sponsored Terrrorism in Kashmir. We must recognize it for it is and devise Institutional Mechanisms be it military, economic or social to strike at its roots, standing United is Necessary but is Insufficient, we need to do much more than that to win our war on terror.

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