Kashi, Mathura Mosques, Your Private Grief, Not The World’s Concern

Kashi, Mathura Mosques, Your Private Grief, Not The World’s Concern

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

Muslims who are out to transform Gyanvapi, Kashi, and the Shahi Masjid, Mathura, into issues exactly on a scale which the other side wants, must pause to glance at the cover of the May 20 issue of The Economist. It shows Narendra Modi airborne in an electric three wheeler.

“India’s Moment” in bold font dominates the cover. Below the heading, in smaller font, are words of doubt: “Will Modi blow it?”

Your wails about the two mosques may rend the skies, but they are unlikely to veer the world from its main preoccupation. A new world order is being shaped. As this process gets under way, India is in a very sweet spot. No country in the world is being wooed as assiduously. Foreign Minister, S. Jaishankar has found his touch. He has corrected the tilt which has enhanced India’s value in the emerging post Ukraine world order.

The omens are bad for Muslims who have pitched their tents just at this moment around the mosques. The world is riveted on how the global cookie will crumble. The Economist, which is the mouthpiece for western capitalism, is all starry eyed: “India is likely to be the world’s fastest growing world economy this year.” Where do the two minority places of worship figure in this hoopla?

The lavish barrage of expectations being showered is not for love of India alone. The world “will have recognized, if it has not already, that the rise of China was a unique event; the Indian-growth will be world changing.”

By way of caution, the magazine has given sufficient play to the political, social decay which Modi must arrest before India goes full throttle on the straight. The main message of Hindutva, says The Economist, is “that Hindus must unite to face the danger.” which may “sound absurd in a country with an unassailable preponderance of Hindus.”

“But the urgency and the cry against a narrative of a Hindu Reconquista after centuries of Muslim and European rule over mother India is irresistible for many.”

The Gyanvapi and Shahi Masjid enthusiasts must note two points in the paragraph. Hindu “reconquista” is being invoked reminiscent of the Christian reconquest in Spain, against a religious category Muslims. That far the image fits India like a glove. But along with Muslims are listed a people who inhabit a territory, Europe. Surely, Europeans too have a religion. French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing opposed Turkey’s entry into Europe because “Turkey is Muslim and European civilization is Christian.”

Do not blame The Economist. This is an established western sleight of hands. During the Bosnian war, “Serbs and Croats” were in conflict with “Bosnian Muslims” – two ethnic entities in conflict with a religious category. Elaborating on Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholics would open up faultlines within the Christian universe as the conflict in Northern Ireland does.

For those protecting the parapets at Kashi and Mathura mosques, it may be useful to know the opposing side. And it is the multitudes on the “opposing side” who are swaying in a mystical trance with their “beens” (snake charmer’s flute), trying to mesmerize Mother India. When India wakes up, it will be “their” bulwark against China.

The word “reconquista” used by the magazine is loaded. It resonates with the return of Christian power in Andalusia. The termination of Muslim rule in Spain which lasted a 800 years, bears minimal resemblance to the Muslim predicament in the Indian subcontinent, but the authors of Hindutva may derive inspiration by the way Jews and Muslims were harassed, harried, tortured during the Inquisition which followed the return of Christian rule in Spain.

Inquisition was harsher on the Jews who found hospitality in the Muslim Kingdom of Morocco and later also in the Ottoman Empire. The Jew’s gratitude to the Moroccan king lasted generations. I have seen King Hassan II’s photographs dominate the drawing rooms of Sephardic Jews in Jerusalem.

What should interest Gyanvapi and Shahi Masjid enthusiasts is the story of one of the world’s most magnificent mosques that I have ever seen. Poet Iqbal’s visit to the monument yielded a masterpiece the opening line of which sums up the metaphysical, civilizational perspective. He sees the great monument of Cordoba (Masjid e-Qarduba in Urdu) as:

“Silsilaye roz o shub

Asl e mamat o hayat”

(A continuity with interchangeability from day to night, a metaphor for life and death.)

Reverting to the two mosques: these are bad times for being reasonable and yet it is tempting to coax something from Rudyard Kipling:

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…..”

The Sachar Committee report in 2005 showed the abysmal drop of the Muslim on every social indicator, but even that report was not as hurtful as the reality today is. It had not shown Muslims as battered and bruised. When a people arc down and out how do you tell them that the mosques are medieval relics of conquest and Kashi and Mathura are like Mecca and Medina to the Hindus. Mathura “nagari”, not the mosque, is where Maulana Hasrat Mohani longed to die in “Krishna’s embrace”.

Wali Dakhini wrote:

“Koocha e yaar aen Kaashi hai

Jogia dil wahan ka vaasi hai”

(The lane where my beloved lives is exactly like Kashi

The yogi of my heart has taken up residence there.)

This is no time to remind a wounded people about Wali. Although the irony is that Wali’s mazar outside Ahmadabad’s main police station was razed by the February 2002 rioters who probably did not even know who lay buried there. No, this is no time to tell them anything, not even the fact that the issue has been raised now precisely in preparation for the elections in 2024 and the RSS centenary in 2025. It is an invitation to Muslims to dig their heels in. The BJP will then polarize.

Also, be warned on another count. The Economist has already told you: a pity but your tragedies are not in the world’s ken.

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Why Is India’s Successful 1971 Sri Lanka Intervention, A Forgotten Story?

Why Is India’s Successful 1971 Sri Lanka Intervention, A Forgotten Story?

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

The adage, plagiarized from Dryden, which I apply to journalists, came back to me when I settled down to write a column on the mass upsurge in Sri Lanka. A journalist by this system of belief is “everything by starts and nothing long.” It may puncture the self esteem of journalists who carry gravitas on their sleeves, but I am quite content with the definition.

In April 1971, known only to a small group, an Indian Frigate sailed to guard the Sri Lankan coastline against “foreign” reinforcements to help the JVP or Sri Lankan National Liberation Front which had virtually taken over the island. Umesh Mathur was one of the eight pilots to man six helicopters, needed desperately by the island to ferry ammunition to areas where insurgency was intense.

Anuradhpura, the Buddhist heritage site in the middle of the island was sending messages of desperation to the Indian Force control room in the Galle Face hotel where I had also checked in. In those days Colombo had two premiere hotels, Galle Face and Taprobane in the Colombo fort.

I am kicking myself for having forgotten the name of the Indian Brigadier, leading the Indian contingent. I tried but no General I know, including the ones who served in the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka seemed to remember the occasion when India saved the island. There were other army officers to help the Brigadier draw up a list of military hardware and details of a contingent to train 5,000 troops. The Brigadier was a kindly man and he quickly spotted a greenhorn of a reporter from The Statesman, a newspaper revered by the army top brass. He understood that I was on assignment to cover the insurgency but was confined to the hotel because of a strict 24/7 curfew with shoot at sight orders.

He had put his finger on the button. I was worried as hell. My first foreign assignment, if covered well, would boost my senior’s confidence in me and more such assignments would follow. Remember, I am talking of days when there was considerable fairness in journalism. Should I flop, I shall be treated like the thoroughbred who sat down on the Straight. Shot.

To dispel my gloom, appeared the figure of the cheerful Mangalorian Brigadier approaching me from the far end of the verandah. “In 15 minutes a helicopter is taking off for Anuradhpura” he said. “It’s a two seater and he will fly you”, pointing to the pilot. It was like manna from heaven.

The pilot, Umesh Mathur, tall and fit, was good company because, in the absence of conversation because of earplugs to muffle cockpit noise, he kept pointing out interesting locations below – police stations under JVP control for instance.

In about 45 minutes, we were hovering over Anuradhpura where heavy showers obstructed vision. Suddenly, there is a loud report, like a balloon bursting. The helicopter begins to hurtle down. There is a brisk manoevre on Mathur’s part. He has tilted the rotors to cushion the air. I say my last prayer just in case it helps. The helicopter came down not with a crash but a thud. It had sunk in the slush created by heavy rains. We have survived. But the suspense is not over. How near are we to the insurgents. Mathur makes radio contact. Within minutes a IAF helicopter is hovering overhead. The Calcutta (Kolkata) edition of The Statesman, trained never to lose balance, lost it in this instance. The page one headline across three columns was:

“A Copter Crash and I Was in Insurgent Country.”

It was then called Ceylon where the drama began on April 5. When it erupted it had all the trimmings of an international whodunit. Détente was going badly for the Americans. Stand up comedians in Washington had their own take: détente was like going to a wife swapping party and returning home alone. Ceylon was not central to the competition between the two super powers.

The US President in 1971 was Richard Nixon. He was busy with bigger things, creating a Beijing, Washington, Moscow triangular power balances. In totally different circumstances, is that not what the West is attempting now: to distance Beijing from Moscow because their “friendship without limits” is the West’s nightmare.

The JVP cadres in the late teens and 20s, fell back for training on an unexpected source; North Korea. They had built up a cultural centre in Colombo, which was larger than many embassies. On April 5 boys and girls tutored in North Korean cells, among others, their ranks swelled by an assortment of bandwagon revolutionaries, graduates and semi educated unemployed peasants armed with shotguns, bombs, pistols attached police stations across the country. They captured 91 of the 250 police stations. Rail and telelinks were disrupted. That night the insurgents controlled one fourth of the country.

Why then did the JVP not succeed? As often happens in such underground operations, not all the conspirators are of the same stern stuff. There is always a Judas. In this instance, a group of insurgents, instructed to attack the Wellawaya police station, jumped the gun and launched an attack one day earlier than the scheduled date – April 4. This alerted the police.

Prime Minister Srimavo Bandaranaike informed a shocked cabinet that the insurgents had a plan to assassinate her or, preferably, kidnap her. At 11 pm, about 50 insurgents were to assemble at Temple Tree, the Prime Minister’s residence, storm it and assassinate the PM or kidnap her. This operation was to coincide with the attacks on the police station.

Among the first diplomats to be asked for instant help was the Indian High Commissioner, Y.K. Puri, the last of the ICS breed. An offer of troops in Brigade strength was shouted down by the opposition. Indian troops in such large numbers would be resented by the people.

The JVP’s ire was, it turned out, directed against “Western imperialism, Indian expansionism and Soviet revisionism. Youth upsurge of diverse hues was the flavor of the season from Paris to Patna those years.

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Sri Lanka Outcome: America Returns To South Asia

Sri Lanka Outcome: America Returns To South Asia

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

 

Whatever the aspiration of the protesters in Sri Lanka, the chaos they created has caused the messiah to appear in the form of the IMF. For the IMF to be effective, it needed a government it could vibe with. That there could not have been a better choice for the job of Prime Minister than Ranil Wickremesinghe because clear as daylight the moment he was sworn in.

“Ranil Wickremesinghe’s appointment and the quick formation of an inclusive government are first steps in addressing the crisis and promoting stability. We encourage meaningful progress at the IMF and long term solutions that meet the needs of all Sri Lanka.”

This instant approval of RW is by US Ambassador Julie Chung.

She knows RW as someone who has always been supportive of American presence in Sri Lanka in every shape and form. He clashed with President Srisena who was not inclined to sign the Status of Forces agreement exactly as the Americans wanted. There can be no better candidate for such abject surrender than someone as politically weak as RW. His UNP was decimated in the last elections and he did not win a single seat.

“This is farcical democracy with the military on the roads and people under curfew” wrote Activist Social Scientist, Darini Rajasingham Senanayake.

Rajasinghe is a little excessive, but RW’s appointment has been greeted with dismay across the board. For political oxygen he was seen prostrating before hawkish Sinhala clergy who would bless the US presence to eliminate Chinese presence from the island. China is on their wrong side because of Tibet. This wing of the clergy is also happy with India for having created the Union Territory of Ladakh by bifurcating Kashmir. There were celebrations in their Viharas when the Union territory was created.

This is all part of the comeback that the US is staging in South Asia after the excruciatingly painful debacle in Afghanistan in August. Even that may not have been such a humiliating retreat in retrospect. President Vladimir Putin’s adviser, Valery Fadeyev told me as much in the course of an hour long zoom interview last week. Who knows, he said, the US may have simply transferred power to the Taleban.

Sometimes political shifts alter geography as well. After 1947 Indian diplomacy, to a large extent, consisted in neutralizing Pakistan everywhere. With the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, the geography of South Asia changed. India become a large country surrounded by small ones. These countries, in concert, began to balance power by flourishing a Chinese card in their pocket. It was to neutralize this card that Atal Behari Vajpayee, as External Affairs Minister, made what he thought would be an epoch making visit to China in 1979. Den Xiaoping had other priorities: he had just launched his four modernizations in 1978. A somewhat charged up Deng decided to “teach Vietnam a lesson” in 1979, same year as Vajpayee’s visit.

The visit was something of a disaster. Later, several Prime Ministers, including Vajpayee visited Beijing. Bilateral relations were up and down but the border, viewed from two different perspectives, remained insoluble.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91 provided the US with is Sole Super Power moment. Manmohan Singh’s economic reform 1991 onwards brought India in line with the US on many issues. It is forgotten that Narendra Modi’s arrival in Gujarat on 7 October, 2001 to take over from Keshu Bhai, coincided with the US fireworks in Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden. It electrified Hindutva.

Islamophobia was the flavor of the season when the Godhara disaster leading to an anti Muslim pogrom of February 2002 happened. There was perfect harmony between the Bush-Blair Islamophobia and our communalism. Intelligence agencies kissed each other and became chums sharing or creating data on terrorists.

The US began to look in weak health after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. What magnified American decline was the corresponding rise of China. With diligence and with Chinese help, Vladimir Putin build Russia up into a power which it is today.

China-Russia declaration of “friendship without limits”, set the cat among the pigeon, in the Western camp. Just about this time came the humiliating images from Afghanistan.

The American century was a pipedream. The US was in retreat. Even steady camp followers like India began to cultivate other options. Yes, we were in the Quad but then what is this exclusive Anglo Saxon club called AAKUS? How reliable is the US?

India’s balanced votes in the UN on Ukraine are clear indications of diminishing faith in a policy of relying too much on one power.

The image of a tennis racket comes to mind to understand how New Delhi may have felt when the US left Afghanistan. Imagine the wiring of the racket as Afghanistan where once the American presence gave New Delhi comfort. Taleb-Pakistan nexus was the Indian nightmare.

Post American departure, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Russia are all peering into Afghanistan. India is somewhere at the throat, joining the shaft to the rim or frame. The US has gone beyond two oceans. This altered Geography was disconcerting, a pressure on New Delhi to live in peace with neighbours, even the ones with border issues.

Pakistan is part of our internal politics, just as India is Pakistan’s. We need communal temperatures on tepid heat for the national mood to be boosted to a feverish pitch when required by, say, a Balakot. Remember Love Jihad, beef, hijab, stone pelting from mosques keeps the mood in a saffron hue. The national mood is galvanized only when communalism is tied to nationalism. In other word for big game hunting Kashmir and Pakistan are required as issues. Settlement of Kashmir or peace with Pakistan is not in our interest atleast until 2024.

So, we are relieved that the Americans are making a comeback in South Asia, first Pakistan, now Sri Lanka, next……… The people in these countries can stand in long queues till eternity because there is neither foods in the shops nor petrol in the pumps.

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Putin’s Adviser: Sanctions Hitting Europe More Because US Wants It Weakened

Putin’s Adviser: Sanctions Hitting Europe More Because US Wants It Weakened

                                                                              Saeed Naqvi         

“Complete surrender of the Ukrainian armed forces is the only formula for peace”, Advisor to President Putin, Valery Fadeev said in the course of an hour long conversation on zoom.

Is this not an invitation to the West to keep pumping advanced weapons and cash into the country so that Ukrainians can bleed Russia “exactly as the US bled you in Afghanistan?” Fadeev thought the comparison with Afghanistan was erroneous. “The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted 10 years. At the end all major equipment and weapons of Soviet army were taken back home. It was not a military decision; it was a political decision.” After a pause: “I think it was a wrong decision.”

You seem to suggest the Ukrainian war could last for years? Fadeev: “I didn’t say that this conflict can last for years. The conflict with the West can last for years, but this special operation in Ukraine will likely end soon.”

Fadeev said Putin had elevated his May 9, Victory Day speech, to a high plane with a purpose: Putin and Russian ruling elite are dismayed at the way West was trying to belittle and erase the memory of the sacrifice twenty six million Russians made without which the war with Hitler would have been lost.

Indeed, they were equating Nazism with the former Soviet Union, he said. “There is a very deep and harmful idea being promoted by the West: It compares Hitler’s Germany to Soviet Russia.” Fadeev added “And now see how these harmful ideas of the West have found a working laboratory in Ukraine.” His case is that “a part of the Ukrainian population was already poisoned with this idea and the other part, while turning its back on the Soviet Union, was developing an amnesia about our history. That Russian and the Ukrainian people fought against fascist Germany together.” The perplexing cocktail of Nazi nationalism led by Volodymyr Zelensky who happens to be a Jew taxes credulity. Equally puzzling is the fact that Israeli mercenaries are fighting alongside the Nazi nationalists in Mariupol and Azov steel plant.

When asked if a Canadian General and French officers were among those holed up in the steel plant, Fadeev said “I fully accept the importance of this question but cannot comment on French officers.” In recent days President Emmanuel Macron has been frequently talking with Putin. Is Macron nervous that revelations of French military participation in the war would affect the outcome of the elections to the National Assembly in June? France’s left parties have joined hands. If they win the majority in the House, Macron will be a Lame Duck President. How can Putin help Macron?

What is the mystery of the Azov steel plant in Mariupol? “I don’t see any big secret behind this. There is a huge concentration of Nazi nationalist forces, mainly the Azov battalion in the steel plant hiding in the Soviet time tunnels. These battalions are highly motivated. They study Nazi literature, follow fascist ideology and worship Hitler.”

There are two reasons why Azov battalion and its handful of Western advisers are not coming out of the steel plant: First, because they are hoping that mercenaries from third countries will come to their aid. Also, this battalion is afraid that they will have to face military war crimes tribunals.

Asked to respond to US Secretary of Defence, Gen. Lloyd Austin finally declaring US war aims, (We want to weaken Russia.) Fadeev said, “Putin had talked about exactly this at the Security Conference in Munich on February 10^th, 2007. He had said the West wants to weaken Russia. Austin’s statement was no revelation. In fact Putin’s mind moved on a different track. “In the 90 as well as in 2000s, Putin openly declared that he was ready to cooperate and integrate with Europe. He announced several far reaching economic projects. He even expressed Russia’s desire to be part of NATO. On all our proposals we received refusals from the West. They never understood that Russia has genuine security concerns.”

Fadeev said he himself had served in special rocket battalion. “The flight time of a ballistic missile from Kharkiv to Moscow is five minutes. And today the West is arming Ukraine to the teeth. Everyone blames the US military industrial complex being obsessed with the Russian enemy: but in reality the entire US ruling class sees us an enemy”.

On long time effects of the war Fadeev turned the tables. He said sanctions on Russia were actually hurting Europe more. “Weakening of Europe is in the interest of America.” Americans have been against European proposals for 30 years to build a European army outside NATO.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union the West had hoped that Russia would cease to exist as a great power. The reemergence of Russia with the help of friends who do not want Western hegemony, is unacceptable to the West. “In this geopolitical confrontation between China and the US, the Russian role will be critical for our friends.” Hence the US desire to contain Russia by igniting the Ukraine war.

Once the dust settles on the war, what will its effect be on the new international order?

“Pay attention to the fact that countries where 2/3rd of the population are not supporting sanctions on Russia despite heavy pressure from the West and the US on these countries. This is the clear divide between the West and the majority of the world and leaders of countries who have a memory of Colonial times and know how Western powers exploited them.” This will be the new post Ukraine war fault line.

He brushed off questions on President Putin’s health as “malicious rumours”.

The Ukraine story will certainly take a turn once the identity of senior Western officials, generals and mercenary groups at Azov steel are revealed over next few days. World War II yielded great escape stories. Entebbe operation by the Israelis still resonates. What plots are being hatched to extricate priceless Ukrainian assets from the steel plant? Screenplay writers are rubbing their hands.

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What Is At The Heart of Ukraine Story?

What Is At The Heart of Ukraine Story?

                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

On the eve of the Agincourt expedition in France, Shakespeare’s model King, Henry V, is advised by the Bishop of Ely “if that you France will win, then with Scotland first begin.” In other words, if China, marching ahead of the US is the biggest threat to western dominance, its friendship “without limits” with Russia increases the danger by geometrical progression. This must be terminated.

The rise of the Sino-Russia duet would have proceeded for some time more, but it coincided with “US in decline; US in decline” chant rising to a crescendo at disorienting decibel levels. This chant was maddening for a super power afflicted by nightmares of the messy departure from Afghanistan. Some rearguard action was needed to restore self esteem.

True 1,50,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border would be perceived a threat by all “right thinking” people who watch TV but how would they discern that the 24/7 media they watch has overnight become part of the West’s war effort?

German Naval Chief, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schonbach attending a seminar in New Delhi spoke from his heart: “What Putin wants from the West is a little respect which he probably deserves.” It is another matter that he had to resign.

One reaction to the German was from a pretty, pert lady. “Parade Vladimir Putin, XI Jinping, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson at a “swayamvara”, (the ancient Indian custom where princesses selected their partners) who would be garlanded by the maiden?” Boris Johnson, holding onto his job by the skin of his teeth because of Partygate? Joe Biden of Afghanistan and Kazakhstan fame, now trying to redeem himself in Ukraine? Vladimir Putin who has 80 percent support for the war. Above all, he lifted Russia from the debris of the Soviet Union and made it into the power it is today. Xi Jinping who supervises a system which lifted 400 million people out of poverty in 30 years? Who would the maiden garland?

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss who has posed Ukraine as a contest between democracy and autocracy must be in the blues today: her chant was discarded at the hurriedly called meeting in Germany by the Defense Consultative Group on Ukraine. US Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin clarified the picture: the West was not in the game to help Ukraine’s burgeoning democracy (Azov – Nazi battalion et al) against the “barbarian” in occupation of the Kremlin. “We want to weaken Russia” he said bluntly. There could be no clearer admission of the fact that this war is not about Ukraine. I wrote as much two months ago. Indeed, Ukraine is being plied with billions of dollars plus the most sophisticated weapons in the world to fight a proxy war so that the Anglo-Americans do not lose control of world power.

Thinkers and Statesmen of the old school like George Kennan and James Baker admired the Russian people for having brought about the “greatest bloodless” revolution in history. They were distressed that West, which had promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move east “even an inch”, was not keeping its word.

The so called “liberal” interventionists like Clinton brought Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic into NATO in 1999. Like there would be no tomorrow, in 2004 they gave NATO membership to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia. This was in the heady days before the western decline became official. The dates are interesting.

The Bucharest summit of NATO was attended by George W Bush on the one hand and Putin on the other like two sparring pugilists. Bush “lobbied like hell”, for Georgia and Ukraine to be brought into NATO. Putin said over his dead body. Putin’s red line was crossed. This was in April 2008.

In August 2008, Putin invaded Georgia. Why then this surprise over Ukraine? Mikhail Saakashvili holding a degree from Columbia and a favourite of US Under Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, became the handpicked President. He was given extensive TV time, but in vain. He projected himself as a darling of the West but eventually came a cropper in Georgia. Saakashvili’s rehabilitation in Ukraine was facilitated by President Petro Poroshenko who made him the Governor of Odessa. All because of a good word from Nuland. When Poroshenko was shown the door so was Saakashvili.

When Saakashvili’s conflict with Putin was in its early stages, the earth moved from under the US feet. On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed. This was the beginning of the “US in decline” chant which drives Biden mad to this day. Ukraine is his response. Rise and fall of empires is routine but the decline of America has been exceptionally painful because the sole super power moment ended with such abruptness. “Decline” must never be mistaken for “fall”, because the US remains the world’s most powerful country. “Decline” is relative but continuous; it debilitates US conduct in world affairs.

At that moment, when US neocons were sketching designs of the American century, full spectrum dominance, the chosen target to keep the Military Industrial complex in good humour became Islamic terrorism. The Soviet Union had condensed into modern Russia which the West had to celebrate as the success of democracy. But the visceral suspicion of Russia never went away. The visceral became real when Putin restored Russia to its present stature. Russia came in the way, first in Kosovo which after the 72 days bombing of Serbia, was carved out to be kept in European care. Various enclaves of Kosovo are protested by European troops. But Russia drove its tanks and occupied Pristina airport with the West flailing its arms.

Russians are responsible for the US reversals in Syria. Leaders like Tony Blair had warned Barrack Obama to keep a steady focus on Islamic terror. Deviating into conflict with Russia would complicate relations with Europe which, wartime bravado apart, is heavily dependent on Russian energy. And now, as the tide turns in the battlefield and the secrets of Mariupol are about to be revealed, nervous punters on both sides are keeping their fingers crossed.

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What Celebrations In Bleak Mood? Our Eid Milan On Hold

What Celebrations In Bleak Mood? Our Eid Milan On Hold

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

Bash me up for gender bias if you like, but during Ramzan, my three sisters fast and four brothers, myself being the eldest, pick up the blessings. This arbitrary division of labour has its traces in divergent schooling.

To keep the wolf from the door, the declining landlords of Awadh fell into deep thought about the next generation’s education. The family was divided down the middle on western education. The conservatives, with abiding family affiliations to the Congress party, insisted on Urdu education. They saw their role model, Jawaharlal Nehru as an Urdu speaking, sherwani wearing (a rose in the buttonhole) Awadhi, Kashmiri Pandit.

The progressives in the family, all communists, invoked Nehru’s other persona – a Fabian socialist with an open mind. Since, my mother’s casting vote was with the progressives, the brothers were admitted to the La Martiniere College, a finer school than which would be difficult to imagine. In consigning the two sisters, who were chronologically my immediate youngsters, to Taleem Gahe Niswaan (Lady’s College), my mother was not letting down her gender: her role models were women of enlightenment, Dr. Rasheed Jahan, Ismet Chugtai who by writing Angarey (embers) and Lehaf (quilt) had caused convulsions in the local clergy.

Boys were set on the path for careers; women would preserve traditions and look at the stars. By the time the third and youngest sister, came of age, my parents had changed their outlook. Naheed was sent to the some school as the boys.

The boys respected namaz and fasting on which our sisters were firm. For ourselves we had found an elegant escape route in our poets. In our region, Ghalib and Josh Malihabadi stoked the iconoclast in anyone who valued a life of the mind.

Ghalib said it for many of us:

Jaanta hoon sawab e ta’at o zohd

(I know the blessings of prayer and abstinence)

Par tabeeat idhar naheen aati

(But my heart is not in it)

Josh’s irreverence was elegant but of an order that would today warrant the appearance of lynch mobs at the clergy’s behest. It is a truth insufficiently repeated that there is not a single verse in Urdu where the mullah or the Islamic variant of the Salvation Army is praised: he is always the butt of derisive humour.

Not for a moment does irreverence mean opposition to the faith. It entailed a critical, even satirical contemplation of the faith’s self appointed intermediaries who were deemed to be of insufficient learning. The weaker the intellect the greater the tendency to deviate from fact and logic into miracle and magic. Aalim or the religious scholar was respected.

Even the most audacious poets never crossed certain red lines. An article of faith was:

“Ba khuda deewana baash-o-ba Mohammad hoshiyar.”

(Take liberties with God but be careful with Mohammad)

Just imagine how tolerant the court must have been where Chandrabhan Brahman crossed even this red line:

Panja dar panja e khuda daram

Munche parwa-e-Mustafa daram)

(My hand clasps the hand of God;

Why should I worry about the Prophet?)

Irreverence was an attitude to be sustained with some delicacy. Even an agnostic like Ghalib was cautious during the period of fasting. He snatches a “morsel of bread” here and a gulp of water there, as he admits in his letters. His furtive forays into food during Ramzan must have influenced our behaviour too particularly in large joint families. The 50 percent who did not fast wore expressions of austerity for the benefit of those who did. The ranks of the “rozedars” (ones who fasted) were inflated by women and cousins who had avoided “English schools” for reasons mentioned at the outset. Schooling, even within the same family, conditioned levels of religiosity.

Cosmopolitan schooling ruptured traditionalism but it did not induce indifference to traditions which had a world to commend them. In fact Urdu culture was itself inherently urbane and cosmopolitan. A great deal of Urdu culture depended on the cultural derivatives of religion. Mir Anees, Nazeer Akbarabadi and Mohsin Kakorvi were the staple of this culture just as Tulsidas, and Malik Mohammad Jaisi were a part of it.

Just as Socrates misguided the youth of Athens, Ghalib did generations of Urdu poetry lovers, among whom was my maternal uncle, Saiyid Mohammad Mehdi, a gentleman to boot, erudite and a card carrying member of the communist party in his youth. Towards the end he did not mind The God That Failed, Arthur Koestler’s disappointment with the creed, as a book in my modest collection.

A Persian quatrain I picked from his circle of friends has remained with me as a whimsical calendar:

“Ba har hafta, faaqa,

Ba har maah, qae,

Ba har saal mus-hil,

Ba har roz mae”

(Weekly fast, monthly ‘kunjal’ or vomit, yearly purgation and daily wine)

I have always wondered if this comes from the same school of Persian etiquette as Omar Khayyam’s code for drinking?

Gar baada khuri to ba khiradmandaan khur

(Drink only with persons of intellect…..etcetera.

In the course of a litigation Ghalib famously informed a magistrate that I am “half a Muslim” because “I drink wine but do not eat pork.”

That would be a misleading yardstick to compare me with, but I suspect my wife and I are conscientious hosts during Ramzan, making arrangements for saheri, the meal before the crack of dawn and “Iftar” the meal after the day’s fast.

With ritual regularity I maintain another practice: I visit Jama Masjid atleast for one saheri and iftar if possible with non Muslim friends. These expeditions show a diminishing success rate. Some years ago, Lord Meghnad Desai and the late Swami Agnivesh accompanied me for saheri to Karim’s in the old city. I had anticipated Swamiji’s inhibitions and carried with me home cooked vegetarian food which the management graciously served.

In recent years I have given up trying. This year we cancelled our Eid Milan celebrations. What celebrations in a mood so bleak? Yes, we shall “observe” Eid privately and ask our sisters to pray for better times.

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