[Reader-list] AMCHI MUMBAI’ – ‘OUR MUMBAI’ by Lalita Ramdas

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All,

Here is a text by Lalita Ramdas reflecting on the events in Bombay,  
which I found salutary for its sanity, and wanted to share with  
eveyone on this list. Unfortunately, the voices calling insanely for  
yet another Indo-Pak armed confrontation, that could escalate into  
war, have not yet died down. And neither the governments of India,  
nor of Pakistan are helping things cool down by their competitive  
grandstanding on the global stage. It is just as ridiculous for the  
President of Pakistan to deny that the attacks on Bombay had no links  
to Pakistan, as it is for the Indian foreign minister to demand that  
Pakistan hand over a list of people including ex-militants from the  
now totally irrelevant Khalistan movement as a response to the Bombay  
attacks. Both governments are evading a historic opportunity to take  
concrete and meaningful measures to conduct a joint investigation  
into the kind of terrorism that ordinary people in both countries  
suffer from. Unfortunately, the situation is worsened by the  
continuing attrition of strident war talk by some television channels  
and their irresponsible anchors in both India and in Pakistan. At  
such times, we need more sane voices like what Lalita Ramdas  
represents, on both sides of the India-Pakistan border.

regards,

Shuddha



`AMCHI MUMBAI’ – ‘OUR MUMBAI’ -  Many questions, some lessons,
  Lalita Ramdas – Village Bhaimala - Dec 2008	
	
“Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the  
citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double- 
edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the  
mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the  
blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have  
no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, [who] infused with  
fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights  
unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done.  
And I am Julius Caesar.”     William Shakespere
***********************************************************************

My mother tells me that at the age of three my favourite past time  
was to be taken for a walk to the Gateway of India from Dhanraj Mahal  
where we lived during the war years. Occasionally she would take me  
into the Taj for a pastry and to talk to some of the Navy Uncles in  
their white uniforms because I was missing Papa who was out at sea..  
Some sixty five years later – settled in this village of Bhaimala in  
Alibag Taluka – the magic of approaching the familiar skyline of the  
Gateway and the Taj hotel by boat from Mandwa is still very special –  
no matter how many times we have made that crossing. I wondered if  
those boys who landed on the night  of the 26th, had ever seen the  
magic of Mumbai from seaward during the day – and if they had a  
moment of doubt at what they had set out to demolish.

Ah Bombay, we had seen the best of times, and today we are seeing the  
worst of times – not just for Mumbai, India and Indians, but for our  
neighbours, especially for the people of Pakistan – who,like us, are  
victims of the legacy of colonization and a bitter partition which  
gave us our independence.  Bombay has been the port city which has  
been home to the  Indian Navy for the longest time, and as  daughter  
and  wife of two navy persons [both of whom rose to head the service  
as the first and the eleventh  Navy Chiefs,] , Mumbai was my city  
too. I wept tears of disbelief, anguish and anger as I watched the  
images of the wanton attack on so many symbols of our growing up  
years in South Bombay. I too shared the pride and relief of  many as  
the commandos and police finally ended the siege; and I too  mourned  
the tragic loss of innocent lives from all walks of life. Such a  
waste and for little apparent gain.

Today we are seeing a new group of Mumbaikers on the streets – coming  
from the class that has typically kept aloof from activism and any  
political involvement. This is a good thing in many ways, it is  
important that people feel strongly enough to get out and make their  
voices heard. as they  cry out `Enough is Enough’. It is important  
also to understand what has changed this time and what it is that  
they are saying enough to.

Yes we the people DO need to raise our voices to protest – but let us  
be clear about what we are protesting for and against. Yes we the  
people have a right to demand that the state be responsible for our  
security and that politicians be held accountable. And yes, let us  
never forget that this right of demanding accountability and  
protesting its absence is one that is fundamental to every citizen in  
this democracy – regardless of our religion, language, caste or  
community, our social or economic status or our political  
affiliations. This has been guaranteed to us by the Constitution of  
India.

In the last few days I have read with mixed feelings a wide range of  
emails and news items from across the country as also watched the  
invariably dramatized images and analyses in the electronic media..  
It is impossible not to be affected one way or other. I have also  
received several phone calls from friends – several of them Muslim –  
worried about what is happening, feeling the pressure to stand up and  
be counted among the `patriotic’ Indians; a pressure that we non- 
Muslims do not have to face.

One of the most disturbing mails in my inbox today was entitled `We  
Need Leaders like this’ – an account extolling recent actions by John  
Howard the former Australian PM, as he lashed out at Muslims in  
Australia in an effort to pre-empt `Islamic terror’ in his country.   
And  at the end of the harangue he tells them that they either accept  
the laws and customs of the land or avail of the Right to Leave. We  
are asked to circulate this widely – with the message that this is  
what needs to be done in India too. The implications are chilling and  
it took time to sink in . In a sense it was not surprising – the slow  
communalization of Indian society has been taking place insidiously  
over decades. Only now is it being stated so explicitly. While the  
right wing have consciously pushed this agenda, the others who flaunt  
their secular credentials  have also virtually allowed this sub-text  
to go unchallenged.. It seems that the People of India will need to  
ask ourselves what kind of society we really want and the answers  
might be very different depending on who we are, where we live, how  
we live, and if we feel we belong.

The Extract below, from a piece by Suddhabrata Sengupta in a Punjabi  
website called WICHAAR, sums up the problem succinctly.
“While the agents of the attack in Bombay may have been genuinely  
motivated by their own twisted understanding of Islam, they have  
demonstrated that they have no hesitation in putting millions of  
Indian Muslims in harms way by exposing them to the risk of a long  
drawn out of spiral of retaliation. We need to underscore that they  
killed 40 innocent, unarmed Muslims (roughly 20 % of the current  
total casualty figures of 179) while they unleashed their brutal  
force on Bombay. The terrorists who authored their deaths cannot by  
any stretch of imagination be seen as partisans or friends of Islam.  
They are the enemy of us all, and especially of those amongst us who  
happen to be Muslims, for they jeopardize the safety and security of  
all Muslims in India by unleashing yet another wave of suspicion and  
prejudice against ordinary Muslims.”
In the course of a long and thought provoking piece which he calls  
the DEBRIS OF TERROR, Sengupta also speaks of the ironies and also  
the utter senselessness of this attack:

““No redemptive, just, honourable or worthwhile politically  
transformatory objectives can be met, or even invoked, by attacking a  
mass transit railway station, a restaurant, a hotel or a hospital.  
The holding of hostages in a centre of worship and comfort for  
travellers cannot and does not challenge any form of the state  
oppression anywhere.

By helping to unleash calls for war, by eliminating (unwittingly  
perhaps) those that have been investigating the links between fringe  
far right groups and home grown terror, by provoking once again the  
demand for stronger and more lethal legislation for preventive  
detention (in the form of a revived or resuscitated POTA), these  
terrorists have done statist and authoritarian politics in India its  
biggest favour.”

And it is for these reasons that it is so critical in the present  
context that we as responsible citizens of India, exercise both  
reason and restraint, before we impetuously demand carpet bombing of  
Pakistan;  self righteously refuse to pay taxes, contemptuously  
dismiss those who advocate people to people contact with our  
neighbours, and in the same breath, accuse Indian Muslims of being in  
some way the fifth columnists in our midst who have to demonstrate  
their patriotism and loyalty at every moment.

Over the years, through the course of my own work with human rights,  
peace, justice and environment, it is increasingly clear that the  
issue of loyalty or disloyalty , patriotism or lack of it, comes in  
many forms and is to be found at many levels. Patriotism is certainly  
not the exclusive preserve of one class or one community. We would do  
well to scrutinise the actions and allegiances of many who call  
themselves nationalists, who demand and have control over wealth and  
privilege; but who do not hesitate to plunder our forests, take over  
our fields and homes for private profit, displace millions from their  
homes, and then scream for financial help when the markets drop!

A TIME TO ASK THE DIFFICULT QUESTIONS………………..

Yes – it is highly likely that today’s military establishment in  
Pakistan has encouraged and trained terrorists , but will going to  
war solve the core issues between us? Three wars down the road we are  
no closer to solving many of the intractable issues between us,  
including Kashmir.- so what should the road ahead look like?

Is the phenomenon of terrorism peculiar to Islam alone? Should we be  
going back in time and history to look at guerilla movements and the  
use of force by the State? Struggles for self-determination? What  
have been the common factors that have led people to take up armed  
struggle? What about those millions of decent god fearing Muslims who  
have no truck with terror, terrorism or Jihad – except in its real  
interpretation of a struggle within each individual..

Perhaps the phrase `enough is enough’ should be applied more  
rigorously to our own track record of violence – often genocidal -  
across the sub-continent – starting with partition.

  The birth of Bangladesh was rooted in a basic ethnic and linguistic  
division among Muslims of East and West Pakistan……The Tamils and  
Sinhalas are locked in ethnic battles in a predominantly Buddhist  
country; Nepal has struggled long with violence and poverty but has  
also replaced  Monarchy with a Maoist government in a predominantly  
Hindu country.

For many of us personally the carnage and bloodshed of 1984 following  
the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, when thousands of  
innocent Sikhs were slaughtered by their `Hindu’ neighbours as the  
state stood by and watched, was a kind of  wake up call. But 1984  
also brought out the best in a whole generation of young and old  
citizens of the capital who dropped their work and their studies and  
came together in a spontaneous movement called Nagrik Ekta Manch   
where hundreds of us worked days and nights  to record the gruesome  
catalogue of barbarity which we never thought we would see in our  
lifetime. We testified in commissions, we filed petitions – but the  
guilty were never brought to book. Never again we vowed would we  
permit  state complicity in the killing of thousands of innocents .

And then came the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 –  
perpetrated by one set of politicians while the  others who ran the  
state stood by and watched. To do nothing is to acquiesce? The Mumbai  
blasts and killings in 1992 – 93 were almost predictable. Who can sit  
in judgement or foretell the consequences of the  anger  that could  
have taken roots in  - 1984 and 1992 – especially when the Guilty  
were never punished?

And then it happened again to the Muslims in Gujarat in 2002; And we  
still did not take to the streets to protest and the architects of  
that genocide are today’s rulers and favoured corporate destination..
Beyond community and religion there is more to remember in this vast  
and ancient land where there are few records and no one cares to  
recount  the atrocities and injustice that  have been visited upon  
the dalits and the tribals over time immemorial by the genteel,  
cultured upper castes in this Incredible India of ours; This  
continues in the India Shining of the 21st Century.

How can we continue to accept the sheer ferocity and violence and  
torture indulged in by various formations of para military  on the  
people of the North East, and Kashmir to this day.  Can they really  
be expected to love us?

And have any of us at any time ever questioned what is being  
perpetrated on our own people by the state in the name of Salwa Judum  
to fight the Maoists or Naxals – who are also protesting injustice,  
oppression and years of neglect and corruption ?

So when we now come out to raise our voices – let us remember to  
protest first of all the many things we need to put right in our own  
politics, our social evils, our corruption, our inability [or  
unwillingness?] to provide the basic needs for nearly 50% of our  
people. These are the real factors that underlie violence.

I ask myself over and over again as I see the pictures of  the lone  
terrorist to be caught alive, what drives them to such acts – is this  
the ultimate indictment of our failure as a people and a state, to  
create meaningful work and opportunities for youth across the region?

So before we spread more suspicion and prejudice, let us stop and  
think – what really needs to be done. Perhaps we need to raise our  
voices in favour of continuing to dialogue  with Pakistan and its  
admittedly weak and fledgling elected civilian government?  Thanks to  
the tireless efforts of Track II and Track III efforts over a couple  
of decades, today we have a constituency within Pakistan that wants  
friendship with India and vice versa. Certainl this helped in  
creating a basis and demand for democracy across the border. Any  
senseless action at this time can be catastrophic – especially since  
we are both nuclear states. So can we bear in mind that we are not  
against Pakistan but against the elements there who instigate and  
promote terrorists – and yes the pressure on them should be tough and  
relentless.

Today it is imperative that we work together to say NO to War  
Mongering – on the basis that this action against an innocent Indian  
state gives us the right to attack Pakistan.

It is also imperative that we fight our instinct for Islamophobia – a  
readiness to say we understand everything about the motives and  
drives of the terrorists by pointing to their `Muslim’ identity – and  
the other myth that the Quran sanctions violence against non- 
believers – and that is how we explain the roots of the attacks in  
Mumbai..

SEEKING SOLUTIONS

If we are serious about addressing terror then the only way is for us  
in both India and Pakistan – and the rest of the region – to reach  
out, work with each other – to confront, to challenge, and to  
mobilize the power of people to defeat the forces of violence and  
terror be they state or non-state actors.

For a start, in India – let us demand an immediate review and  
implementation of the various Commissions of Enquiry on the Police  
Force and their Status and Role. If this can be spearheaded from  
across the country – it will be difficult for the politician to  
postpone it any more. The issue of auditing political party funds and  
the present electoral process is another key area which has led to  
many vitiations of all norms.

Perhaps it is also a moment when we need to be looking in very  
different directions to find ways of working together with our  
neighbours – be it Pak India problems, or with Bangla desh or Sri  
Lanka. In this era where the concerns of Climate Change and Global  
warming are upper most among the potential threats to peoples and  
geographic regions around the world – maybe we can look at creative  
ways to engage with each other on ecology, on our shared maritime and  
marine reserves, on coastal questions, and water.There are so many  
pressing problems for which collective solutions need to be found –  
and there is nothing like working together on mutual problems to  
develop a better understanding of each others strengths and  
weaknesses. Finally, with India being the Big Brother in this region  
– there is a bigger onus of responsibility on us to take the  
constructive initiatives.
It will soon be Id - a time for celebration and introspection – may  
it also be a time to work for Peace. In closing I want to share with  
you the comments of  Bharathi, who has worked in our village home for  
over 15 years . After watching the endless TV channels and their  
often sensational projection and coverage of the agony of Mumbai –  
she turned to me and said simply and with no doubt in her voice “Bai  
– Athank tho Athank hai na? Wo kaisa Hindu ya Mussalman ho saktha? ‘  
Surely Terror is  terror ? – how can it  be Hindu terror or Muslim  
terror?”
In her simple view of the world – there is a deep and profound sense  
of both tolerance and respect for humanity. Over the years she who  
never knew of a world outside her own village reality, has grown to  
love and welcome into our home our Pakistani son-in-law and members  
of his family; our Sri Lankan nephew in law; my two Muslim sisters –  
married to my brother and cousin respectively; my niece and her  
English husband; and most recently our  African-American son-in-law.  
She has interacted and understands the issues affecting  the tribal  
and dalit activists with whom yet another son-law works. And she  
treats them all with the same smiling warmth and dignity. To me she  
embodies all that is valuable and enduring in this sub-continent and  
for which I am eternally grateful because at the end of the day, this  
is what sustains and nurtures our weary spirits and will, Inshallah,  
take us into a different tomorrow..

			Lalita Ramdas from Bhaimala Village, Alibag – across the harbour  
from Mumbai, today Sunday Dec 7 2008