Communal Riots In Delhi: “Bhaiyya, Are All Of You Safe?”

Communal Riots In Delhi: “Bhaiyya, Are All Of You Safe?”

                                                                                           Saeed Naqvi

It is heart breaking to receive messages of concern from friends and relatives overseas whenever Hindu-Muslim riots break out. Most painful by far is the query from relatives in Pakistan:

“Bhaiyya, are all of you safe?”

The very transparent sincerity somehow comes across to me like Bergman’s reconstruction of a nightmare: faces of relatives, in a collage, jeering at me.

No deep Freudian interpretation is needed to decode this one. Until the 80s, cousins from Pakistan were regular visitors because they found the “colour” in our lives a relief from their lives, rich in other ways, but set against the monotone of faith. Once, after visiting relatives across the border, my brother Shanney, summed up his impressions succinctly: “nice place, but too full of Muslims.” This apt description found great traction with plagiarists who claimed it as their innovation.

In an age of inelegance, Shanney’s subtlety requires elaboration. In our Qasbah of Mustafabad near Rae Bareli, we grew up in a home where religion was important enough to warrant a mosque in the courtyard, but it did not come in the way of Pandit Brij Mohan Nath Kachar’s annual visits to deliver lectures, to a packed house of Mustafabadis on the battle of Karbala. In Lucknow, likewise, our Eid began with a fixed ritual: Babu Mahavir Prasad Srivastava (Babuji, we called him) placing a one rupee coin in each one of our hands by way of “Eidi”. As much of a fixture was the guest appearance of the Mahant of the nearby Mandir at my father’s celebration of Hazrat Ali’s birthday.

A story comes to mind which clarifies Shanney a little more. Poet Ali Sardar Jafri and I attended a most tasteful Holi organized by the late Nandita Judge at the Times of India bungalow on New Delhi’s Tilak Marg. The versatile Birju Maharaj sat on an elevated platform with a “dholak”. This greatest of Kathak dancers could, on his day, play an incredible range of musical instruments and sing all the “bandishes”, compositions centred around “Braj”, the terrain of Krishan’s dalliance with Radha and the gopis – the cultural core of the spectacle of Holi. It was precisely this which had inspired Raskhan and, in more recent times, Maulana Hasrat Mohani who wrote of his adoration for Krishna in Brajbhasha, Awadhi and Uudu. His Haj was incomplete without a visit to Barsana, the abode of Radha. These are only a few of the traditions which shaped our sensibilities, exactly the ones which found Jafari ‘Saab’ and me, riveted on Birju Maharaj’s “abhinay”, or mime of Krishna’s playfulness, Radha’s controlled spontaneity, rejecting and submitting at the same time. It was an alluring wonderland, its magic enhanced with the light sprinkling of colour and organic gulal.

“Let us organize Eid like this”, I blurted out. Jafri Saab glared at me. Suddenly I realized I had said something very stupid. Eid is a celebration of Abraham’s sacrifice – but it does not have a romantic, spectacular evolution over thousands of years of Holi, Deepawali or Dussehra. Shanney was fortunate to enjoy both traditions: the ones his cousins enjoy across the border and the other which leaves him joyous and free as a lark. These multicultural hues were alluring for our cousins.

Ofcourse, Kashmir came up in discussions to which, pat, came our formulation which we had, over time, come to believe in: “Indian secularism protects, among a billion others, the world’s third largest Muslim population. Every issue, particularly Kashmir, should be touched sensitively, keeping the overall edifice in mind.” How naïve we were.

“The overall edifice” had to crumble because of its faulty foundation but, over a considerable period, it was crumbling imperceptibly.

Even so our multicultural edifice was credible enough to hurry Gen. Zia ul Haq into promoting Nizam e Mustafa as a prophylactic against Indian secularism. His enthusiastic participation in the Afghan Mujahideen project had this important dimension: to wrench Pakistan away from South Asian multiculturalism. Under his auspices, Pakistan would seek salvation in a West Asian Islamic identity.

Just then Prime Minister V.P. Singh pushed a huge boulder into the pond. By dusting up the Mandal commission report reserving government jobs for a large number of Other Backward castes, he drastically reduced the size of the pie to be distributed among the upper castes. V.P. Singh was playing vote bank politics from a social justice platform.

This invited a sharp double fisted response from the upper caste party, the BJP. That is when the then BJP President, L.K. Advani set up the Ram Janmbhoomi and Babari Masjid conflict, custom made for Hindu-Muslim polarization – exactly the polarization which brought Atal Behari Vajpayee’s coalition government to power in 1996 and Narendra Modi in 2014. Modi’s hard anti Muslim plank has synchronized with the western world riding a rampaging Islamophobia. Even the February 2002 Gujarat pogrom was to some extent drowned out by the US air strikes in Afghanistan. The same hard line which brought Modi to power in 2014 earned him greater electoral dividends in 2019. But there remains an almighty fly in the ointment. Modi’s historic win is still based only on 38% of the vote. Remember, communalism whipped up by the Ayodhya movement neutralized casteism aggravated by V.P. Singh – but nowhere near saturation point from where an honest bid can be made for a Hindu Rashtra. Towards that end communalism has to be stepped up to a higher plane, possibly so high as to make the riots in North East Delhi look a trial run.

The descending darkness is disturbing but each one of us has to carry our cross in our own way, from our homes, our neighbourhoods, indeed our country. Is nostalgia misplaced in such circumstances? As a ten year old, I sang Kaifi Azmi’s “Naye Hindostaan mein hum nayi jannat banayenge.” (In new India we shall create a new paradise) at my uncle’s college in Rae Bareli on India’s first Republic Day.

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Disarray In Democratic Ranks: Has Modi Picked Two Term Trump?

Disarray In Democratic Ranks: Has Modi Picked Two Term Trump?

                                                                                           Saeed Naqvi

A tantalizing tweet or two can change the atmospherics, otherwise Narendra Modi may well be hosting a two term Trump in Ahmedabad next week. The race for the Democratic nomination to fight Trump is a melee at this stage which could help enhance Modi’s reputation as a gambler. It must be remembered, of course, there are nine months left for American elections. Much can change.

So far the Democratic race has similarities with the primaries which lead to a Hillary Clinton-Trump contest in 2016. Back then, what was in bad odour with the electorate was the Washington establishment. The two who reached out for the establishment’s jugular from two diametrically opposite ideological positions were Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. But the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had set its heart on Hillary Clinton as the party’s nominee for President. In doing so it overlooked a crucial detail: the national mood was against the Establishment and Clinton, more than most was the core of the Establishment.

We all know what happened. Since I was witness to the drama on that fateful night of the election results, let me reproduce bits of what I wrote:

“A dozen or so friends, who had assembled in Lucknow boy turned New Yorker, Nusrat Durrani's trendy DUMBO loft under the Brooklyn Bridge, did not have the heart to uncork champagne bottles because we were not sure which one of the Clinton supporters in the party might be offended. So champagne bottles stood on the table like a row of ponderous bishops.”

“Our adorable Jewish World Banker friend couldn’t bear to look at the screen. ‘I feel faint; I must leave.’  Another from the state department was on frantic long distance calls advising her family to prepare for the worst. A neighbour, banged frantically at the door, and barged in, beads of perspiration on her brow.  She could not bear to watch the results alone.  She needed to hold her neighbour’s hand.  It was all too unnerving, the earth was moving from beneath people's feet.”

Our very own Surjit Bhalla had dutifully alerted New Delhi: Trump’s victory would be the “end of western civilization.”

The reason I have indulged in this bit of nostalgia, even on the pain of being repetitious, is quite straightforward: the nomination race scripted by the DNC and the improvisations introduced en route could make November 2020 resemble its 2016 version when the party’s biased high command waylaid Sanders, ahead in the popularity stakes, by citing a 1962 law.

Now, in 2020, once again Sanders is ahead in the field. This should not surprise observers because the Sanders phenomena did not recede even after 2016. In fact a Fox New Poll in 2017, established his exceptional popularity. The poll showed Sanders +28 rating above all US politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. Trevor Timm of the Guardian, London, wrote:

“One would think with numbers like that, Democratic politicians would be falling all over themselves to be associated with Sanders, especially considering the party as a whole is more unpopular than the Republicans and even Donald Trump right now. Yet instead of embracing his message, the Establishment wing of the party continues to resist him at almost every turn.”

That was written in 2017. The situation remains unchanged. In fact there seems to be a greater urgency in Democratic ranks to stop Sanders than to stop Trump winning a second term. This priority has been explicitly spelt out by that superior pundit of American journalism, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. As early as November, 2019, he began to promote Michael Bloomberg, Billionaire and former New York Mayor, as the Democratic nominee. Friedman demonstrates impeccable manners by making a disclosure: Bloomberg philanthropies has contributed to the Museum Mrs. Friedman is building in Washington to promote reading and literacy. He agrees “capitalism is not working for enough people in America.” Having thus protected himself, Friedman eulogizes the billionaire aspirant in a column titled “Why I like Mike”.

What can anyone say if the NYT grants him his self-indulgence – and not just once. By the time the Democratic race for the nominee hots up in January, Friedman produces another Bloomberg boosting column. This time there is panic writ large all over him because Sanders is ahead in a field of six. If Senator Joe McCarthy were to reappear by some magical incantation, he would hold Friedman in a tight embrace for the columnist’s disdain for an “avowed socialist.” The Trump machine “will cast Sanders as Che Guevara – and it won’t even be that hard.”

Just consider the scale of the exaggeration: America’s best known columnist conjures up images of Che to scare Americans away from Sanders. The senator from Vermont has to be painted in lurid colours because he describes himself as Democratic Socialist, dedicated to a platform which seeks to reverse inequality. “Ours is a capitalist country” Friedman thumps his chest.

To make Donald Trump a one term President, Friedman and his ilk have located the sure-fire Democratic winner – Mike Bloomberg. This most favoured candidate crossed over from the Republican Party just the other day. Frisk and search operations against blacks and Hispanics was a racist nightmare during his terms as New York Mayor. Stories of his sexist misbehavior are legion. He shall be forgiven all his misdemeanor. His big bucks matter. He catapulted onto the stage for the eighth Democratic debate in Las Vegas without having gone through the normal process of primaries. He made a donation of $350 million to the NDC, has already splurged $400 million on ads. Who knows a billion may still be in the pipeline. American exceptionalism possibly bestows on aspiring candidates a choice: they can drudge their way to the nomination by mobilizing the people or, they can simply buy the nomination, off the shelf. In the end the likes of Friedman will probably enlighten us which way to the top is more Democratic?

Trump may well thump his pal on the back during the Motera stadium festivities: “you were clever endorsing me at Howdy Modi; the disarray in Democratic ranks will prove you right.”

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Illiberal, Identity Politics, Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, Galloping In Tandem

Illiberal, Identity Politics, Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, Galloping In Tandem

                                                                                           Saeed Naqvi

Was Shylock victim or villain? The question never arose when Geoffrey Kendal came to school in the 50s and 60s to perform Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice was a great favourite because it appealed to us at several levels. There was the continuing suspense on whether or not Shylock, Jewish money lender, would be able to exact the pound of flesh he had meanly inserted in the agreement, should the needy merchant, Antonio, fail to pay back the loan.

A pound of flesh closest to the heart was Shylock’s revenge: he had been insulted by the Christians; he had had his “Jewish gabardine” publicly spat upon. But Shylock’s grief reaches epic proportions when Christians inflict a nasty bit of “Love Jihad” on him: his daughter Jessica runs away with Lorenzo, a Christian. Worse, she runs away with his “ducats”, the currency those days. “O’ my daughter; O’ my ducats”. I cannot remember a courtroom with such nail biting suspense when Portia saves Antonio from Shylock’s blade.

Anti-Semitism, from much before Elizabethan times, remained a sentiment in two powerful strands. One was the direct Christian prejudice against Jews in Europe which climaxed with Hitler in Germany. The Islamic conquest of Spain in the 8^th century led to the flourishing of a composite culture in which Muslims, Christians and Jews contributed in equal measure. The Reconquista or the return of Christian rule in 1478 led to the Spanish Inquisitions which were harsher on Jews than on Muslims.

The basic conflict, whether in Northern Europe or in the Iberian Peninsula, was always between Christianity and Judaism, not the least because Christians blamed Jews for Christ’s death. What has puzzled me always is the deafening Jewish-Muslim acrimony. I shall never forget the day in the Royal Palace in Rabat, Morocco when I found myself seated in the office of Andre Azoulay, the late King Hasan’s principal adviser. He was the second most powerful man in the Kingdom. He was a Sephardic Jew like so many others in the country who held key posts. A mandatory annual event was the jamboree hosted by His Majesty for Sephardic Jews in the diaspora. This sentimental reunion was a continuation of a medieval tradition. When 50,000 Jews were expelled from Spain after the Reconquista, Morocco and other North African states had accorded the new “refugees”, extraordinary hospitality. Even after Jews from this part of the world had made their homes in Israel, they remembered how well Morocco had treated them. I have seen photographs of King Hasan dominate Sephardic drawing rooms in Jerusalem.

By the 80s the Jewish state and the international Jewry had become so powerful that even “reworking” Shakespeare became a legitimate intervention. Rather than discard the Merchant of Venice and select anyone of Shakespeare’s plays in 1989, Director Sir Peter Hall chose to tweak Shakespeare and impart rationalism to Shylock’s character. Dustin Hoffman virtually reimagined Shylock, toning down his usurious rate of interest, thereby enhancing the sympathy factor for the money lender. A sort of Christian ganging up against a hapless “professional” was played up. Shylock’s tragic end is ironically the heart of the play’s mirth.

The toning down of the Shakespearean prejudice against Jews was clearly a function of guilt on account of the excesses during the second war. The remarkable rise in anti-Semitism in recent decades by comparison leaves one aghast. Sympathy for Jews has given place to an awe for the Jewish state. The exceptional achievements of Jewish people will always shine through but individuals are being submerged in unwholesome Zionist excesses.

These excesses are being amplified by Donald Trump’s singularly one sided support for anything Benjamin Netanyahu demands. The general projection of both as heartless bullies automatically accelerates anti-Semitism. Take the Deal of the Century: only the duet and their closest groups were ecstatic. There will be a corresponding spike in ill will.

Do you think American campuses are falling over each other in adoration for Trump and his Buddy – after he signed an Executive Order aimed at combating anti-Semitism on college campuses.

“This is our message to universities: if you want to accept the federal dollars you get each year, you must reject anti-Semitism.” What must students do to become good boys entitled to federal funds? Abandon “Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel movement” which has been popular on campuses.

Jewish lobbies in Poland, for example, were bringing to bear their considerable clout on property transactions. Properties owned by Jews before the war were being successfully reclaimed by the old owners at throw away prices. When a Polish law sought to prevent these transactions, the State Department intervened. Officials in Washington would keep a watchful eye to protect Jewish interests. Imagine how Poles would respond to such interference.

Rise of anti-migrant, anti-Semitic leaders in Hungary, Germany, Austria, Poland, is a depressing list. By their behaviour the Trump-Netanyahu duet have only aggravated the situation.

At an international conference in Warsaw last year, Israeli Foreign Minister, Yisrael Katz accused the Polish leadership of anti-Semitism. His language was unbelievably coarse: “Poles suckle anti-Semitism from their mother’s milk.” How would this outburst have registered with Primetime TV viewers in Poland?

An undercurrent of anti-Semitism remains unnoticed because the global media is more willingly focused on Islamophobia. Is under reporting of anti-Semitic incidents a deterrent? The very first question Trump’s first press conference was by Jake Turx, newly minted White House correspondent for Ami magazine, an orthodox Jewish publication from Brooklyn. The question was on the recent surge of hate crimes against Jews. Trump completely misunderstood the question. He thought the young reporter was accusing the new President of anti-Semitism. Some tongue lashing followed. A startled Jake Turx sought to mollify Trump.

“You have Jewish grandchildren. You are their Zayed (Yiddish for grandfather).” The mist may have lifted that day, but Turx’s publication from that day is a useful guide to burgeoning anti-Semitism, of which the vicious knife attack in Monsey, New York, during Hanukkah celebrations last December has been among the minor incidents.

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Shootout At Jamia An Aberration: Movement Much Bigger

Shootout At Jamia An Aberration: Movement Much Bigger

                                                                      Saeed Naqvi

“Haqeeqat-e-Abadi” or the eternal truth of the nationwide protests will only be energized by the “Police Zindabad” shouting country pistol shooter who fired into a protest outside Jamia Millia Islamia, not far from the peaceful Shaheen Bagh that I had left behind just an hour ago. A row of policemen, arms folded, or leaning on their lathis must have been disappointed by the pistol-man’s poor marksmanship. He hit a student on his wrist. But expected TV channels went to town, which was the purpose.

Away from this nasty distraction (which only shows up the present regime for what is) a much bigger reality is unfolding, on an epic scale: the entire Indian opposition is being by-passed by the biggest protests since independence led by women, students and youth, ostensibly against the CAA, NRC and NPR but, as they gather momentum, the whole establishment.

History will record the Jamia Millia as the point of ignition for this avalanche which, in a sense, completes a circle. Three brilliant students, Dr. Zakir Hussain, Dr. Abid Hussain and Prof. Mohammad Mujeeb, met in Germany and decided to join Jamia Millia to enlarge the reservoir of Enlightened, Progressive Muslims in the national movements. In today’s BJP parlance they would be called the “tukde-tukde gang” or “urban naxals”. It would have been difficult to foist “Pakistan” on them because that country had not been formed then. In fact, opposition to the two-nation theory was an article of faith with this batch.

In that enlightened stream were Anwar Jamal Kidwai and Shahid Mehdi. Prof. Mushirul Hasan had seen the worst of Jamia as its pro Vice Chancellor, when he was beaten up by university goons linked to a Congress leader who was riled over Mushir’s stand on banning books. Rajiv Gandhi had banned Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. Mushir’s position was that books should be challenged, ignored but not banned. There must be something good in the system that Arjun Singh, as HRD Minister gave Mushir (by now elevated as Vice Chancellor) more freedom than any Vice Chancellor since has ever had. The result was a mushroom growth of Centres named after unlikely figures: Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Mir Anis Hall and Mir Taqi Mir hall, M F Hussain Art Gallery and so on. Who knows, the movement may put fresh life into all of this.

Mushir explained his Left trajectory in terms of Jamia’s origins as an institution of the enlightened against colonialism and Imperialism. Bringing about course corrections on that count (as has been attempted) ran the risk of being sucked into communal and identity politics. Peoples issue are overlooked. This is the dilemma of today’s liberals face: they cannot give up on capitalism (therefore Imperialism) even in its post globalization, post 2008 avatar. They often find themselves standing with the powerful establishments which redirect popular resentment against inequality, for instance, towards issues of immigration, ethnic identities. So you have Viktor Orban in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France, Nigel Farage in the UK and kindred souls elsewhere including Jair Bolsonaro, the Pinochet copycat in Brazil. Since Narendra Modi hand picked him to be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day Parade, it must be assumed that Modi probably nurses him as a model. This lot is clearly what the protests are arrayed against.

The eager-beavers looking for a suitable and urgent outcome have not noticed that the movement has already altered the scene. A movement that can provoke stalwarts of the BJP into such glorious absurdities, deserves a trophy. Law Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad. “Shaheen Bagh protest is offering a platform to tukde-tukde ganga. Delhi should have no place for such people.” Parvesh Sahib Singh, BJP MLA in Delhi, has gone one better. “What happened in Kashmir with Kashmiri pundits could happen in Delhi also. Lakhs of people enter Shaheen Bagh. They will enter houses, rape and kill our sisters and daughters.”

He sends a shiver down the spine with his threat. “If the BJP comes to power on February 11, you will not find a single protester within an hour. And within a month we will not spare a single mosque built on government land…..”

Anurag Thakur, minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, is even more inspiring: “Desh ke ghaddaron ko” (enemies of the nation) he exhorts, the crowd. On cue come the response “goli maro saalon ko” (shoot the bastards). This goes on for minutes. If a peaceful nationwide movement can drive the BJP to such reckless intemperance, it has clearly achieved a great deal. Above all, this shaky behaviour has been aggravated by the protests coming so soon after reversals in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and, God forbid, Delhi too? Amit Shah will not give up on his incantation of “revenge” politics easily.

Another great achievement of the protests has been the secularization of the Muslim ghetto. The docile, homebound Muslim woman has for the first time being seen in her public avatar, articulate, dignified, involved. The hijab and the bindi are mingling – an elegant sight.

This is not a simple phenomena. It is not without a sociological readjustment within the family and community. Across communities, it has promoted a new bonhomie. Batla House, Jamia Nagar and Jama Masjid are that much more accessible because sheer exposure of different communities in a common cause has helped remove cobwebs of an uninstitutionalized apartheid.

The opposition will never be in a position to take advantage so long as its national parties hold onto their respective obsessions – the Congress urge to revive nationally and the Communist urge to revive in Bengal. These aspirations will remain road blocks. Yes, Sonia Gandhi may be able to sing a nicer swan song if she could somehow revive the spirit of 2004 when the Left was not an anathema. That plus a commitment to federalism will work. Soft Saffron has no future.

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Reflection On Partition As Government Opens Wounds On Citizenship

Reflection On Partition As Government Opens Wounds On Citizenship

                                                                                           Saeed Naqvi

Since the word “Partition” has figured in the discourse on CAA, NCR, NPR the mind turns towards Maulana Azad, who was so fiercely opposed to the country’s division. By a coincidence, next month, February 22, happens to be the 61^st death anniversary of Maulana Azad. Exactly 30 years after that date those 30 precious pages of “India Wins Freedom” were taken out of the National Archives which the Maulana had kept away so that all his contemporaries were not around to face embarrassment from the exposures, if any, contained in those pages.

And there were embarrassments galore. The Intelligentsia and the ruling class was disinclined to give much credence to what the Maulana wrote. The absence of debate after the publication of the “complete” edition of “India Wins Freedom” in 1988 was deafening. Nor were threads picked up subsequently in the interest of history. For instance the Maulana’s assertion that, towards, the end of the negotiations with the British, Sardar Patel appeared to be more convinced of the two-nation theory than Jinnah, deserves to be noted. Rebut it, if need be. To avoid the brutalities which followed the announcement of the Partition plan, an idea was mooted to keep the British Army united.

As a temporary measure, it seemed a sensible idea. But to the Maulana’s surprise, most adamantly opposed to a United Army “even for a day” was the arch pacifist Rajendra Prasad. His opposition was conditioned by a fear that a United Army would remain an “unfinished” business of Partition. And who knows how long this “unfinished business” would linger. What if a United Army becomes a pressure point for reversing Partition? The eagerness to hold onto Partition is manifest in the behaviour of a long list of leaders. The Maulana describes in detail how Sardar Patel had convinced even Mahatma Gandhi that Partition was the best course under the circumstances.

Just as it is today, Assam was the key state in focus in 1946-47. The crucial role it is playing today in the CAA, NRC discourse is not surprising. Fired by sub nationalism and cultural pride, Chief Minister Gopinath Bordoloi enlisted Mahatma Gandhi’s support in rejecting the Cabinet Mission proposal yoking Assam with Bengal in what was described as zone C in the Mission’s plan. The country was to be stabilized under groups: A, B and C.

The Cabinet Mission’s was the last effort to keep India united. It was endorsed by the Congress on July 7, 1946. But two surprising events made Partition inevitable. One was Assam’s firm rejection of being grouped with Bengal. It feared then as it does now, of being inundated with migration. Second was the new Congress President, Jawaharlal Nehru’s fateful press conference in Mumbai on July 10. Nehru declared that all that had been agreed with the Cabinet Mission and Jinnah, would have to be ratified by a constituent assembly. This stipulation was not in the agreement. Little wonder Jinnah picked up the marbles and walked out of the game. Partition became inevitable.

The Maulana’s opposition to Partition was absolute. He was eloquent about the cultural commerce of over 1,100 years which he always described as his heritage. “We handed over our wealth to her (Bharat) and she unlocked for us the door of her own riches.” He was unambiguous: “Partition would be unadulterated Hindu Raj.” In the light of experience, was he wrong? Was Partition the Congress’s gift to the Hindu right? A Muslim country next door to be hated in perpetuity. An unresolved problem of Muslim majority Kashmir. A 200 million Muslim population – a lethal mix for dedicated Hindu Rashtra Bhakts – all under the canopy of global Islamophobia.

If Pakistan was so much against the interests of Muslims themselves as the Maulana never tired of saying, why should such a large section of Indian Muslims be swept away by its lure? The Maulana’s response to this query was unique:

“The answer is to be found in the attitude of certain communal extremists among the Hindus. When the Muslim League began to speak of Pakistan, they (Hindus) began to read into the scheme a sinister pan Islamic conspiracy. They opposed the idea out of the fear that it foreshadowed a combination of Indian Muslims with trans-Indian Muslim states. This fierce opposition acted as an incentive to the adherents of the League. With simple though untenable logic, they argued that if Hindus were so opposed to Pakistan, surely, it must be of benefit to Muslims. Reason was impossible in an atmosphere of emotional frenzy thus created.” Is the ogre of three Muslim majority states a continuation of the line the Maulana had spotted 75 years ago?

He was convinced that the “chapter of communal differences was a transient phase of Indian Life.” “Differences would persist just as opposition among political parties will continue but, it will be based not on religion but on economic and political issues.”

Nehru’s last interview with Arnold Michaelis in May, 1964, shortly before his death is revealing. First, he dismisses Jinnah almost as a non entity in the freedom struggle. “He was not in the fight for freedom.” In fact the Muslim League was set up by the British to “Divide us”. He said he, like Gandhiji and others, were opposed to Partition. “Then why did you accept Partition?” Michaelis asks. Nehru’s reply is cryptic.

“I decided it was better to part than to have constant trouble.” The trouble Nehru refers to was clearly the continuous bickering between the Congress and Muslim League in the interim government of 1946. Obviously Nehru was exasperated by the apparent incompatibilities in the interim government. While giving vent to his exasperation, did India’s first Prime Minister spare a thought for the minorities, primarily Muslims, 200 million at current reckoning who were riveted on him as their leader. Maulana Azad spelt out exactly what their fate would be. And surprising though it is, the Maulana was nowhere near Nehru’s charismatic hold on a community which learnt only in retrospect that they had been let down by the leader they adored.

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New Idea Of India: Secularism Of Common Aspirations Takes Shape

New Idea Of India: Secularism Of Common Aspirations Takes Shape

                                                                                           Saeed Naqvi

“Majrooh uthi hai mauje saba

Aasaar liye toofanon ke

Har qatra-e-shabnam bun jaaye

Ek mauj-e-rawan, kuchh door naheen”

(The morning breeze is deceptive; it is actually a storm in the making.

Who knows, even dew drops will acquire the power of torrents.)

Make allowance for poetic license, but the mood that the protest movement against CAA, NRC, NPR has maintained this past month would have thrilled the stalwarts of the Progressive Writers’ Movement of which Majrooh Sultanpuri and Faiz Ahmad Faiz were key figures. In fact Faiz’s poem “Hum Dekhenge”, has clearly become the movement’s signature song. By singing the Kannada version at the Bengaluru Town Hall, M.D. Pallavi may well have inaugurated a trend in cultural commerce. Faiz in Maithili, Bhojpuri has percolated down to villages and hamlets.

Since the movement has kept political parties at a distance, it is becoming possible for diverse elements of civil society to embrace it. Even the most conservative groups have accorded hospitality to Faiz. The dominant song at a social event of High Court judges, which I attended was “Hum Dekhenge”. No movement on this scale has so spontaneously spread across the length and breadth of the country.

That the unprovoked police attack on students huddled over their books at the Jamia Library ignited the agitation is common knowledge. How the videography and transmission of live visuals of the brutality disturbed the nation has a small story attached to it. It was entirely the imagination of Anwar Jamal Kidwai who, as Vice Chancellor, inaugurated the Institute of Mass Communications at Jamia in 1982. Bollywood, theatre, Doordarshan and countless of channels were all manned substantially by students trained at Jamia.

Since the Institute of Mass Com is the university’s flagship, students across the campus are familiar with its students and, by association, with videography. This explains the high quality footage of the events of Jamia which fired the nation’s imagination.

There has always existed a shade of uninstitutionalized apartheid, a wariness in visiting colonies and ghettos across communal lines. Every year during Ramadan I face, not resistance, but a lazy reluctance from friends to visit Jama Masjid to share the festive atmosphere. I have so far failed. For one “sehri” or the meal at dawn after which the fasting begins, I personally ferried Swami Agnivesh and Lord Meghnad Desai.

At the other end of New Delhi, the image of Batla House near Jamia has been sketched on our minds by the electronic media as a combat zone where encounters take place. To correct that image, visit the nearby Shaheen Bagh today.

Breaking down the apartheid of the mind has been a singular achievement of the televised nationwide protests led by students and youth. Another stereotype the protests have shattered is an image of cloistered Indian women, those in hijab and the ones in more cosmopolitan gear. Indeed, a heartwarming fact has been the leadership provided by women – articulate, dignified and focused. Standing upright for the National anthem mornings and evenings at Shaheen Bagh, and reading the preamble to the constitution like they had erstwhile read a religious texts – all of this is exhilarating, particularly after a depressing 2019.

The secularism this movement promises has on its visage a refreshing sincerity, compared to the stale, withered tokenism of recent decades. The secularism of a common struggle and aspirations is what India’s first war of independence had set into motion in 1857. With the British in control, the freedom movement never quite rediscovered that élan. Post Partition, a pall hung over the practice of secularism – a situation promoted and exploited by politicians. The current youth movement transcends gender, community, caste and language. It is defined by its simplicity, absence of pretense, and hypocrisy. It stands out like a lotus in a pond of murky politics.

The lotus must retain its pristine purity. The movement must remain aloof from the discredited political formations. Only then will it gather momentum. The critical mass will then grow. The movement’s demands, because they are honest, have already caused politicians to ponder. Look, how protection of democracy and the Constitution have become the centre piece of all discourse.

Since all social and economic strata are joining the movement, a resounding call for social justice is unlikely to invite a caste/class backlash. The movement will have to be sensitive to that call. Sectarian nationalism will have to slowly give way to what Tilak and Maulana Hasrat Mohani meant by “Swaraj” which embodied a notion of “sovereignty” which had a powerful anti imperial thrust. Since the initial tussle has been with a formation committed to a unitary system, the idea of federalism will automatically creep into a renewed idea of India as protests grow.

The Sangh Parivar must be baffled by the upsurge. The RSS-BJP combine completely mixed up religious fervour with communalism. Religious fervour was mollified once the Supreme Court permitted the construction of the Ram temple. In a sense, the bird that laid the saffron egg was dead.

The Modi-Shah duet are under all sorts of pressure. The Congress Chief Minister of Chattisgarh, Bhupesh Baghel has, in an interview to NDTV, set the cat among the pigeons: the contradictory statements on, say, the NRC are a function of a growing divide between Modi and Shah, he says. Uddhav Thackeray, meanwhile, has compared, police action in JNU and Jamia with the November 25, 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai. The BJP will, ofcourse, extract comfort from the opposition disarray. A coherent opposition is only possible if the Congress house ever acquires some order. This can only happen if the party leadership takes courage in its hands and holds elections to all key posts. A fixation on the Gandhi parivar will remain a huge road block to opposition unity. The opposition, sandwiched between a weakening BJP and a growing youth movement, will seek salvation in the regions. Federalism will be strengthened, which is just as well.

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After Soleimani: The Cost-Benefit For US, Israel, Saudi And Iran

                                                                                          Saeed Naqvi

When Donald Trump did not take even arch ally, the UK, into confidence when Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani was murdered, how prepared the US would have been for an expanded military engagement? The Iranian missile attacks on a range of US bases are a straightforward retaliation: bases from where attack on Soleimani was launched have been targeted. The conflict so far has been contained.

Ofcourse, the US is in readiness. Already, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is being readied, which will pose a few questions for New Delhi, exactly of the nature that Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar faced during Operation Desert Storm. Chandra Shekhar allowed US bombers to refuel on their way to Iraq.

Even as the post cold war world transited to the post 9/11 Islamophobia, New Delhi, by choice and circumstance, held firmly onto American coat tails, even putting up with an insult or two. Pakistan, and not India, was first incorporated into the global war on terror. US Ambassador Robert Blackwill was terse: “Your’s is an old regional quarrel with Pakistan; that country is partnering us in our global war on terror.” Only after December 13, 2001 attack on Indian Parliament, did New Delhi become a bonafide “victim of terror”. It was a strange triangle: New Delhi and Islamabad were not on talking terms, but both were yoked in the US led war on terror.

This was the state of play when in April 2003, George W Bush was pushed into occupying Iraq by his neo-con drum beaters sketching designs of “full spectrum dominance” in the New American century. It was all very tempting when the Americans invited New Delhi to be their partners in Iraq which was now “theirs”. A section of South Block was having orgasms at the prospect. India was being invited to be an occupying power in Iraq’s Kurdish north. Atal Behari Vajpayee as Prime Minister put his foot down: it was a foolish idea.

The real author of the Iraq expedition, Vice President Dick Cheney choreographed his victory speech on April 9, 2003 to synchronize with the pulling down of Saddam Hussain’s statue at Baghdad’s Palestine Square. The celebrating Iraqis did not appear.

In desperation, Americans contacted Shia clerics like Muqtada Sadr. The cleric was an iconic figure in a Shia ghetto north of Baghdad named Saddam city. Muqtada Sadr it was who mobilized Shia’s to come out in celebration, beating Saddam’s photographs with chappals even as the marines pulled down the statue with cranes. In deference to this act, the occupying power renamed Saddam city as Sadr city.

This is how intimate the US’s relations have been with the mercurial cleric from the beginning of the occupation. These relations have fluctuated from mutual dependence to total hostility. A nationalist to the bones, Sadr would welcome help from someone like Qassem Soleimani but would be uncomfortable if Soleimani’s Iranian charisma overwhelmed his.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi was someone Defence Secretary Mark Esper consulted half an hour before the assassination. “I advised him against the decision” Mahdi revealed. But “half an hour” in the circumstances, was eternity. He could have alerted Soleimani’s convoy. Why did he not?

In the convoy was also Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis the Deputy Head of Hashd al Shaabi, or Iraq’s popular mobilization, which has the sanction of Grand Ayatullah Ali Sistani in Najaf. It reflect on American caprice that in 2005 Sistani was a figure of adoration in the US establishment. In March of that year Thomas Friedman of the New York Times had proposed the Nobel Peace Prize for Sistani in his column titled “A Nobel for Sistani”.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was clearly Soleimani’s eyes and ears in Iraq. But he was only the second in command of the Hashd. Where was the leader of the Hashd, Falih al Fayyadh? Last month he had made a surprise visit to Washington to meet Defence Secretary Esper, the very same person who alerted Prime Minister Mahdi about the action which killed Soleimani, Muhandis and a host of others.

The information obtained by Esper directly may have encouraged him to believe that the anti American line up in Iraq was a divided house. Even Muqtada Sadr’s visit to Riyadh some months ago would have been taken into this calculus.

The consequence is that the assassination-in-a hurry has united even disparate forces in Iran, Iraq and the larger West Asia. It left Europe dazed, Britain embarrassed and the rest of the world wondering as to what would happens next. The only country to have expressed support for the action is Israel. And Israel is on notice by the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. An attack on Hezbollah from any of the players, in the region or beyond, would be an invitation to Hezbollah to retaliate “massively” on Israel.

Incidentally, New Delhi has been in interaction with Falih al Fayyadh. He arranged for the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis to be affiliated with al Nahran Centre for Strategic Studies in Baghdad. Studies by IDSA will surely augment the pool South Block will require to shape a consistent policy.

Soleimani caused extreme discomfort to the US, Israel, Saudi combine not because he was plotting military actions. He was hated because by knitting together powerful proxies on the periphery of Israel and Saudi Arabia he had defeated the strategic faultline invented by US-Israeli strategists. Palestinian issue had lost salience gloated the new theorists. Sunni Shia was the new strategic faultline. With the inauguration of the Kuala Lampur summit of Islamic countries, and the winning lineup in West Asia, US and its allies look increasingly cornered and isolated. In this Soleimani had a decisive role as he did in defeating ISIS much to the chagrin of those who had begun to see terror groups as an asset to be relocated from one theatre of conflict to the other.

Once the dust settles, Soleimani in his death will be seen to have achieved something he strove for: US departure from Iraq. A US field commander’s letter leaked to Reuters suggests plans for an exit strategy.

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