[Reader-list] Hindu article

[anupam chakravartty]

Dear Bipin,

The more you argue your ignorance becomes more prominent. It shows in your
arguments:

your idea of dealing with the communalisation of gujarat is the punishment
of the government officials who have been biased in bringing development.
what sort of punishment? suspension that can act as deterrent or public
lynching. will it ever bring the justice to the muslims who have selectively
implicated after voter lists were given to rioters across gujarat with a
free hand to chop them? if i were to jot down the number of people
prosecuted in this regard (in courts of gujarat to be communal), that would
go on and on. to be specific, the officials who act in a biased manner in
godhra municipality are elected. are you trying to say that for an *elected
*office of a municipality, you are going to punish them for being communal?
if that is the case, then elected leaders such as advani, kodnani,
modi should be punished first for their communal outlook not just in
governance but also creating communally sensitive atmosphere post babri
demolition. let me tell you, muslim leaders who participated in indian
democracy were never responsible for communal situation except for madani in
kerela.

secondly, i *never agreed that* *massive riots took place in chiman and
madhavsinh's time. (please do not ascribe what i havent said) *like what you
have cited that hindus were killed under their governance. let me tell in
past week, 40 persons were missing from vadodara area. if i were to go by
your line of argument, then it is modi who is responsible for these missing
persons. but no..that's not the point which i was trying to make. during
chimanbhai and madhavsinh's time, even if riots happened, state authorities
issued directions to the police to maintain the calm in the area. there
are written notices of these leaders that they appealed the people of
gujarat or whereever the riots occured to maintain communal harmony unlike
mr modi, who even now walks out of a TV show when faced with the question
about riots? what is this belligerence he tries to portray for his
wellwishers and critics if he was not involved in the riots? a leader of his
stature should have been able to answer how the hell 1200 people were
massacred selective, 1169 still missing? where is his answer?

gujaratis are peace loving people. but going to halol, talking to policemen
(yes there are honest ones too) and factory officials one can imagine, how
tribal communities such as rathwas, barias, solankis, chauhans were made
the sentinels to lead the mobs in Panchmahal districts, while biased
brahminical gentry sat planned the pogrom. halol's road were destroyed, 300
cars belonging to the General Motors were trashed with hockeys and sticks in
a matter of two days. i am not counting the human lives lost because then
you would go on that sectarian tangent. but yes for you, and only you let me
cite that 40 year old naseeb shaikh in delol village near halol lost 22
relatives and police hasnt even lodged section 302 complaint. they are still
considered missing.

if the specific hindu article is saying that muslims are treated in gujarat
as second class citizens, it may not be true for the whole community but for
many it is a reality and they have to live with it. a mere article cannot
change it for them. certainly they would like to forget 2002 because they
are also human beings. it is best for any person to forget his/her past so
that future can be secured. brooding over the past is not something that
"normal" people do, who need to work, fend for themselves and their
families.

However, certain communities especially vohras and sulaimanis did not get
affected as Ghanchee muslims after 2002. the reason being that especially
among the rioters, they consider ghanchees to be the later converts from
hinduism and tribal religions after the brief period of mughal rule. infact,
the creation of muslim areas started after 2002. for example, tandalja,
which also has cricketer irfan pathan's house now, has a sizeable muslim
population after the riots when hundreds of families were either force
to leave or out of sheer desperation from the so called hindu areas. similar
like to the case of kashmiri pandits.

i also fail to understand this statement of yours: "As you mentioned my
religion, which in your eye is Hindu, so the yours also. Are you not Hindu?
It would have been better you have mentioned our religion. THIS IS ALSO
NON-SECULAR STAND!!! But problem is that you people don't understand the
real secularism. As far as religion is concerned I believe only in
Human RELIGION or DHARMA. Whenever some form to be filled up and asked about
cast/religion, I am mentioning Human religion only. " and then you go on to
say: "In India, I think, who speak for or create show to speak for minority
is secular and who speak for majority is communal."

you also say that religion or dharma is complicated question. you know why
it becomes complicated? because there is a sustained effort among many from
all religions to assign reason as a faculty for understanding religion. but
religion that is the belief in something which is above or beyond you and
working towards a way of life governed by certain principles that doesnt
need reason as it by product. it needs what buddhists called prajna, which
is devoid of reason but continual focus on your love for that being for your
existence ( the meaning clearly doesnt reside in punishment). it is very
simple and essentially not complicated as you have stated.

i request you to think about why only discrimination against one particular
community gets highlighted while other crimes against religions or belief or
value system are overlooked. a certain bunch of hindus weilding swords with
bricks bearing a mythical gods name to build a temple doesnt define hindu
religion, or a another bunch wearing black clothes suppressing every other
desire to understand god in its pure form is not what you call religion.
they have been criticised -- be it in swat or kandhamal or gujarat or in
afghanistan or iraq or latin america or australia (when it comes to
destroying the rights of the aborgines, destroying a whole mountain called
burrup for petroleum exploration). it is nothing but insecurity, greed for
power and money, which drives them to act against a helpless and
the innocent. therefore it is under this context of secularism, we have to
understand why discriminatory policies of the state are dividing the people.


i feel your understanding of dharma or religion is very much in sync with
the liberal discourse, which wants to create a homogenised society. the
complicacies arise when the liberal discourse looks down upon the minority
(often also called marginal) discourses. these discourses can exist in any
religion especially if we cite the case of bauls or for kalandars, who for
the years have been religious and secular also but never have they felt like
merging with the modernist idea of secularism and homogenisation.

thanks anupam

On 6/9/09, Rakesh Iyer <rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Bipin jee
>
> Since you have mentioned religion and dharma, let me also state this:
>
> Religion and dharma are somewhat different.
>
> Religion is a fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed
> upon by a group of people. These set of beliefs concern the cause, nature,
> and purpose of the universe, and involve devotional and ritual observances.
> They also often contain a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
>
>
> Since people have to agree on a set of practices here, it does involve
> politics, at a fundamental level, irrespective of whether we accept it or
> not.
>
> Dharma on the other hand, is a sense of duty. Probably the BJP may not like
> it, but dharma can't be the exact word for Religion in Hindi. Moreover,
> unlike religion, dharma can be personal. I hope you would have seen the film
> Swades. In that film, Mohan Bhargava (Shahrukh Khan's character) believes
> it's his duty (or dharma) to actually do something for the country, to help
> the people in the village Charanpur.
>
> Even in the Mahabharata, Krishna reminds Arjun of his duty as a kshatriya
> before the war starts. Similarly, at different stages, the word dharma comes
> up to remind people of their duties in the same epic.
>
> Hence, religion may involve a bit of dharma. But dharma involving religion,
> I don't think so. Dharma at best will involve faith.
>
> True religion which you have defined is only faith, not religion in any
> sense. True faith only involves dharma and belief; true religion involves
> much more than that.
>
> Regards
>
> Rakesh
>