The Sunak Factor Showcases Britain At Its Best Or Decline?

The Sunak Factor Showcases Britain At Its Best Or Decline?

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

Can Rishi Sunak be placed with Macaulay’s children? Thomas Babington Macaulay described these as “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion in morals and intellect.” Traces of Rishi, there?

Had Macaulay manifested himself by some miracle in the Calcutta of the 50s and 60s, he would have patted himself on the back. All English companies were in the safe hands of brown-Englishmen – boxwallahs they were called. But Macaulay would have gulped at the sight of his cultural progeny of colour elevated to the job his contemporary Benjamin Disraeli once occupied – that of Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Macaulay’s Minute for Education policy was circulated in 1835. As if on cue, Doon School, modeled on Eton, opened its dormitories for the first batch in 1935. This facilitated princes, civil servants, army top brass and sundry elites to recycle their progeny through Doon School, St. Stephen’s College (or its equivalents), and Cambridge or Oxford.

This recycling lasted barely two generation because a large part of this elite ran out of cash. It found it difficult to afford the Rs.10,000 required to put their wards through a Tripos at Cambridge. By the mid 70s, it was the turn of the scholarship elites from the Ivy League to take over top jobs in the economics sector. Rishi Sunak does not trace his ancestry to this earlier elite. His is more the aspirational tribe which did not have an elite base in India. This lot turned up not to recycle itself through famous universities. It did one better. It settled in places like South Hall, Birmingham, Leicester Rochdale, Leeds. The last named triggers a story I cannot resist telling. The story was told to me by Denis Healy, the best Prime Minister Britain never had. During an election in the 20s, the short list of three Labour candidates for Leeds South contained one M.A. Jinnah.

Healy peers at me from under the bushiest of eyebrows: “supposing Jinnah had been nominated and won, would the history of the subcontinent been different?”

Had Sunak’s ancestors, who left Gujranwala, now in Pakistan, come directly to Britain where would they have settled? It is difficult to map them because they left for Kenya before India was Partitioned. In a sense, Sunak is Idi Amin’s gift to Britain. Had the Ugandan dictator not set into motion a chain of migration from East Africa by first expelling them from his country in the 70s, Indians may still be in East Africa.

The planning by the Sunak family into the making of Rishi is exemplary. But let me first tell you a brief story of a planned life, destination clearly in view.

A young man of modest means sought accommodation near a Golf Course so that his daughter could join the nearby school. He and his daughter would then join the Golf Club, at whatever cost, beg, borrow or steal. By the time she is past her higher-secondary, ready for college, she will be an expert, if not a champion, golfer. This is high premium qualification for admission in the fanciest US colleges on his diligently drawn up list. The whole trajectory worked out.

In Sunak’s case the career was conceived and mapped with the best possible education as a stepping stone to networks, wealth and power. Stroud preparatory school, Southampton, Winchester College where he was head boy; Oxford, Stanford and the campus secret societies en route double distilling the elite network.

It is, ofcourse, misleading to place a person who became Prime Minister in double quick time in the same frame as those who achieved less. With a first from Oxford, when he entered Stanford as a Fulbright Scholar, he met Akshata Murthy, heiress to the multibillion dollar Infosys empire.

An unbroken first class record through the best possible schools and universities wedded to the wealthiest family in Britain quite clearly helped break the colour barrier. But it must never be forgotten in India, Kenya, Gujranwala, wherever they celebrate Sunak, that a practicing Hindu is made Prime Minister in a country which has its own proud Church. Britain is an Anglican monarchy, a Christian country but which, quite admirably, is socially and politically so secular as to find Sunak doubly kosher.

The hoopla surrounding the swearing in obscured the cardinal fact that he was “crowned” by an uncrowned king. Thus far Charles is king only by succession. He is yet to be crowned king at a ceremony where the Archbishop of Canterbury will confer on him the aura of which the crown is but a symbol.

In this perspective is it not possible to conceive a Hindu state which treats all its citizens, of diverse denominations, as equal? If you are so averse to the word “secularism”, change the dictionary and assign to Hinduism that meaning –– secularism.

The large hearted accommodation in this instance by Britain must be glorified, ofcourse, but do keep room for a thought: how far will this accommodation go without straining the fabric? A Prime Minister, Mayor of London, Ministers in cabinet, always from the colonies. Also, I have watched four cricketers of subcontinental origin play for the English test team and so much more. Some of it betrays a decline in quality, attitudes which probably come from resting on ones oars, a sort of ennui after satiety, a blasé shrug of the shoulders.

When I first entered the Sunday Times, the Best and the Brightest on Fleet Street were uniform, without exception, in their marital circumstance. They were all waiting for their divorces to come through; they all had mistresses who were quite visibly advanced in the family way. The only half way stable marriage was Phillip Knightley’s that too, because he was married to a Mangalorian who are tenacious keepers of the institution of marriage. It was this institution which I saw fray in my very first outing to England. Is this a pertinent variable to be looking at to grasp a country’s generosity which may also carry seeds of its decay?

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Great Chance For Kharge To Redesign Congress Architecture

Great Chance For Kharge To Redesign Congress Architecture

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

In a sense the wheel has come full circle. On March 14, 1998, Sonia Gandhi was made Congress President by a virtual coup manufactured against Sitaram Kesri by party stalwarts like Pranab Mukherjee, Jitendra Prasada, Sharad Pawar and a host of others. Kesri was locked up until Sonia formally replaced him. It was a clumsy, insulting operation.

It is a relief therefore that, after several gyrations, the Congress Party held its first election for President in 20 years. The remarkable feature of Mallikarjun Kharge’s elevation is this: he is the first Dalit President of the Congress and he came through a free and fair election. Shashi Tharoor, three times MP from Thiruvananthapuram, contributed to the credibility of the outcome by putting up a real fight giving notice that he was the preferred candidate of 11 percent of the 9915 strong electoral roll. In defeat, Tharoor’s stature in party has grown.

Some blame must be placed at the door of the Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for having devalued the stature of the Congress President by preferring not to be one. If there was an official Gandhi nominee for the job, it was Gehlot. But he found the Jaipur gaddi more alluring than Congress Presidentship. He chose to be a Chief Minister on a long leash rather than a Party President on a short one – so he imagines.

In a Congress dispensation, Party President is top job when the party is in the opposition. When in power, the President has often been the Prime Minister, a system discontinued after Sonia Gandhi, sensing her foreign origin might be raked up, shirked from Prime Ministership. Sushma Swaraj had given notice that she would have her hair shorn, should Sonia be seen anywhere near the Prime Ministerial chair.

Kharge will doubtless be watching the Pilgrim’s progress with as much interest as Meroli Shnigha the 10^th grade student from St. Joseph’s School Mulgumoodu, Tamil Nadu. Rahul had left Meroli wonderstruck by doing 10 pushups in seconds last year. The Tamil 10^th grader will watch with admiration Rahul’s physical fitness, endurance, stamina along the 3500 kms he proposes to traverse, preparatory to the 2024 general elections.

Kharge’s eye will be on the mass mobilization, upsurge, popularity and enrollments for the new party. The Gandhis with another serial loser, Sitaram Yechury as their Sancho Panza, were never able to resist the temptation of wanting to “revive” the Congress nationally and the CPM in Bengal.

The task at hand is to tone down your ego to a point where you become acceptable as coalition partners to leaders who are well entrenched in the regions. Coordinate with them for a role in the states; they coordinate with you for a role at the centre. This is the way a “salad bowl” coalition takes shape as opposed to a coalition patched up with chewing gum.

May I, Khargeji, do you a favour with utmost humility? I would like to loan you my pendrive loaded with the greatest political documentary I have seen in recent times. The Edge of Democracy focuses on an ideologically divided Brazil and how it is manipulated by the Corporates. Obama called Lula da Silva as the “most popular politician on earth.” Then what happened?

The documentary is timely because the final run-off on October 30 is between Lula and Bolsonaro who was Narendra Modi’s handpicked chief guest for the Republic Day three years ago. To this screening invite the Gandhis, your advisers, the Working Committee. The discussion after the screening will expose the Judases at your supper, the tweedledees who are in lock step with Corporate patrons of Tweedledum.

You are taking over the reins of one of the world’s oldest parties at a time when the Ukraine war has caused a complete reordering of the global distribution of power. A hegemony is yielding to a multipolar world, a situation to which Modi’s foreign office is adjusting nicely. But there is one proviso – the MEA’s heart is still with the US but its mind is with the ground realities.

Kharge’s cohorts will say: “but this is not what the media tells us.” Kharge is experienced enough to know that democracies worldwide have been subverted by big corporations who, one way or the other, control the media. These are the ventriloquists for whom the anchor is only a plausible town crier. Ofcourse there are notable exceptions like a handful of anchors in the NDTV.

This media gives you, the Congress, considerable attention because you have chosen to be tweedledee and are therefore no threat to the established order. Eversince Randeep Surjewala declared him a “janeudhari” Brahmin, Rahul has been visiting temples at the rate of knots, Priyanka too has been vigorously pasting her forehead with thick vermillion and dipping in holy waters with amphibian ease.

The siblings clearly hope that temple hopping will give them a slice of the Hindu vote which appears to be at the moment in the BJP’s thrall. The Aam Aadmi Party has done what the Koel does with her eggs. She lays them in the crow’s nest. AAP’s message to the Ram temple builder in Ayodhya is clever: you build the temple, we shall send our Hindu constituents on a pilgrimage gratis.

These are tricks. What Kharge must focus on is strategy. For a strategy to become kinetic you need a party and an election machine. By the time Rahul returns from his yatra all charged up, bristling with ideas Kharge must have a preliminary plan ready for party elections right down to the bloc level. This is after Rahul’s heart.

The coming elections are important, ofcourse, but will be a distraction if the optimism generated by Kharge’s election is not quickly harnessed to enervate a listless Congress by building it to its grassroots which will acquaint the Party President with bread and butter issues. Remember, a poor country must eventually settle on the left. In the course of redesigning a new architecture for the party, risks will have to be taken. Remember he who loses shall win.

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Stray Thoughts For Their Lordships As They Focus On Hijab

Stray Thoughts For Their Lordships As They Focus On Hijab

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

What does the controversy surrounding hijab have to do with the 1973 Yom Kippur war? Well, the quadrupling of oil prices by the Sheikhs of Araby caused an upheaval.

Hoardings in Arabic came up on Oxford Street. Rooms at Dorchester and Savoy were sold out to the Sheikhs who came to see the rain. The anti Christ had entered the citadel.

At the other end, petro dollars were attracting Indian labour, initially from Malabar in Kerala. These blue collar workers earned enough in a short time to be able to build in Kerala the garish “Dubai” houses which intruded on a traditionally simple skyline. Since the Kerala Muslims were among the first to turn up in quest of the GCC El Dorado, the resentment was tinged by inter religious jealousy.

Muslims being Muslim soon lost the edge which made them objects of ire. The more educated Hindus and Christians outshone them in white collar jobs.

That non Muslims registered greater success later did not erase the initial “Dubai house” resentment because the politician had by now incorporated it in his repertoire. This was a propitious time for a politician to prosper on religious antipathy. Gen. Zia ul Haq’s Nizam-e-Mustafa caused anxiety this side. The broad brush act of conversion in Meenakshipuram boosted divisions sky high.

At the other end in London, publishers were gauging the market for books of high salability. This is the time when exceptionally generous advances were made for books like Among The Believers, by V.S. Naipaul (1981) and Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988). Both expose Islam to satirical scrutiny.

Larger than life focus on Islam, assisted by the media and the book industry, gradually transformed it into Islamism. This very Islamism received a further boost with the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Since Ayatullah Khomeini projected himself as the leader of the Muslim world, there was deep consternation in Riyadh which considered itself the central pole of the Islamic world. It controlled Mecca and Medina, the two Holiest places. The “control” of the holy shrines had been opened up for questioning by a dramatic occupation of the Mecca mosques by a wing of Akhwan ul Muslimeen or the Muslim Brotherhood. This incident traumatized the Muslim world.

Occupation of the Mecca mosque and the Islamic revolution coincided. Both pronounced the institution of monarchy in Saudi Arabia as anti Islamic. With anxious alacrity the House of Saud declared themselves as “keepers of the holy shrines,” toning down the royalty.

Even so, a fierce competition ensued between Tehran and Riyadh on who was purveying true Islam. Since one of the items on the Ayatullahs agenda was to erase all traces of North Tehran fashion patronized by the Shah, the hijab acquired a very high priority. To this day all hotels in Tehran have a plaque at the entrance requesting women guests to “respect Iranian culture and wear a hijab in public places.”

The Arab Mullah was not going to allow the Ayatullahs to walk away with the trophy of Islamism and its manifestations like the hijab. It is difficult to explain to friends who have not travelled to Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus during the peaceful years of the Cold War that these cities once defined gracious living.

Why go that far back. I was seated with Ambassador Rajan Abhyankar, who knows Syria like the back of his hand, at a popular wayside schwarma joint in Damascus at the start of recent troubles when he suddenly spun around and pointed to three young women wearing white hijabs. “You see, this is the result of the Iranian revolution.”

Syria, after all, is the land of Comrade Michel Aflaq, founder of the Arab Ba’athism which took root in Syria and Iraq. In their aversion to Islamic ritual they were not very different from Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a generation earlier. It turns out that the thoughts of Hasan al Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Maududi, tilted towards Salafism, clearly had durability. After all Turkey’s first lady had to fight her way to wearing a hijab which the Kemalist culture resisted. Tayyip Erdogan is a Brother (Akhwan) in disguise.

The rapid expansion of the hijab is in direct proportion to televised Islamophobia which burst on the scene in 1991, the first post Soviet expedition called Operation Desert Storm. Peter Arnett of the CNN inaugurated from the terrace of Baghdad’s Al Rashied hotel a new era of global media. For the first time in history a war was brought live into our drawing rooms. One telecast divided the world into two antithetical sets of audiences – the victorious West and the Muslim world, humiliated and angry. This continued through the post 9/11 wars giving acceleration to be wearing of the hijab. The Indian media followed in their steps.

Missile strikes against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, launched on October 18, 2001 coincided with the arrival of Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad to take over as Chief Minister. The Ahmedabad pogrom of 2002 took place in the shadow of American fireworks. Hindu-Muslim ill will was apace with galloping Islamophobia globally.

The hijab in India is tangled in the threads mentioned above, but it is also an expression of choked anger against the perceived excesses of Hindutva against the world’s largest minority.

The minority factor aggravates the problem to an extent that their Lordships appear not to have noticed. The hijab protests in Iran are a self-confident assertion by women aware of their rich heritage. Girls of South Kannada and Udipi belong to a minority under unspeakable pressure.

There is no hijab problem in Pakistan or Bangladesh because the state neither opposes it nor has any urge to promote it.

Trust the late Khushwant Singh to have put his finger on the nub of the matter. The festive atmosphere of the India-Pakistan cricket match at Lahore in 2003 was enhanced by Pakistani women turning up in formidable fashion – dark glasses, tinted hair and blazing colours. The only lady in the VIP enclosure draped in the hijab happened to be Irfan Pathan’s mother.

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If US Has Its Way, Iran Protests Will Grow

If US Has Its Way, Iran Protests Will Grow

                                                                         Saeed Naqvi

The 22 year old Kurdish girl, Mehsa Amini’s death under suspicious circumstances at the hands of Iran’s “morality police” has raised a storm across the country beginning with her hometown in Kurdistan. What the police accused her of is somewhat unclear: she was wearing the hijab immodestly? Many Iranian women do. Was Amini unique because she was Kurdish, a region not in adoration of the regime in Tehran?

Iranian cinema, stifled because of the curbs, remains influential internally and abroad. This probably explains Oscar winning stars mobilized enough to chop off their hair in front of cameras with choreographic perfection. The infection reached the European Parliament in Strasbourg where lawmaker, Abiv al Sabanian pulled out a coiffeur’s pair of scissors and, before the Parliament in session, chopped off her hair as an act of protest. This is spreading in Iran mostly. The marvel is that the expansion of protest is despite internet restrictions imposed by the government to control the situation.

This serial chopping of hair does not necessarily diminish women’s hair style. In some ways it enhances it. Oscar winning stars and glamorous Parliamentarian would like to remain telegenic in the interest of their professions.

“Women have always taken more pains than men to adorn the outside of their head.” By contemporary yardsticks, sexism must have been rife in days when Joseph Addison wrote what we were taught as model essays. The great essayist would have asked, why are they making their hair shorter?

Shortening of hair would have invited a severe reprimand from Sharad Yadav: “par kati” (clipped wings) he would have snarled. Did Yadav’s opposition to “bobbed hair” for women correspond to the Ayatollah’s aesthetics? I fear there is a huge misunderstanding involved here.

Short hair may also be in fashion but Indian and Persian folklore and literature is replete with celebration of “hair upto the waist and lower down.”

“Jamuna mein kal nahakar usne jo baal baandhe,

Humne bhi apne jee mein kya kya khayal baandhe”

                                                                                  Mushafee

(After bathing in the Jamuna, she tied her hair in a bun

My heart also tied itself in thoughts I dare not utter)

A “par kati” cannot inspire that couplet nor the following lyrical composition in raga Behag:

“Lutt uljhi, suljhae ja balam;

Mehendi lagi hai.”

(Come, my love, untangle my hair;

My hands are wet with hena)

No room for short hair here.

Oddly, what is happening in Iran, is not a story of coiffeur and hair styling: it is about the hijab which, in Iran means a modest headcover. The Iranian hijab is much simpler – a dupatta or a scarf which makes for a perfect frame for faces leaping straight out of Persian poetry.

For an Indian journalist, the paradox is engaging: Muslim girls in South Kannada and Udipi districts of Karnataka were some months ago being told to discard the hijab while attending classes. The girls did not compromise. They were fighting for Azadi, their right to wear the hijab. Feminine modesty was not the issue. The question of identity was. A dress code was being imposed on a minority community under pressure. It dug its heels in giving no space to majoritarianism.

Look at the irony. Sauce for the goose in this case is not sauce for the gander. Iranian women are fighting for Azadi from the hijab. Before the revolution in 1979, North Tehran dictated fashions which even metropolitan Paris followed. For this lot – rest of the country in pockets too – the austerities imposed by the revolution altered life styles totally.

Many interests in and outside Iran are crouching in the slips for just such an opportunity. From the very outset, the regime has had to brush under the carpet a risky theological debate. In Islam, particularly among Shias, there is room for a second coming by the twelfth Imam to sort out the world’s chaos. An Islamic state cannot, therefore come into being before the arrival of the twelfth Imam. To cope with this situation, the institution of “Vali faqih” or intermediate Imam was created. Vali Faqih, in this concept is temporarily incharge, pending the arrival of the Imam. To be a transient entity at inception must carry its own insecurities.

Spiritual leaders like Saiyyid Ali Sistani in Najaf, believes the role of the clergy is to guide, not to govern. Between these positions there is sufficient space for splinter groups and external mischief makers.

Against this background, consider the United States which has been hostile to the regime eversince the Shah, their man in the Persian Gulf, was dethroned by the Mullahs. The US, uncomfortable with the unfavourable stalemate in Ukraine, nervous about European resolve in the war, (Italy is already receiving Russian gas) unsure of the compressional election in November, will certainly try to help the opposition in Iran. Indeed, it is doing so already along with Israel, which knows how to cover its tracks.

When the Economist speculates that the protests may well be the precursor to a regime change because of the “exhilarating bravery” of the women, Tehran better take note. If men join, “the removal of the vile system may no longer be inconceivable.”

Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was quite explicit that the US would transfer to the protesters, advanced variants of the information technology that was responsible for so much internal and regional mobilization in Syria.

James Glanz and John Markoff of the New York Times had reported well before the US involvement in Syria. “The Obama administration is leading global effort to deploy “shadow” internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down communications networks.”

The NYT reporters described “one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth floor shop in L street, Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs, looking like a garage band, are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype ‘internet in a suitcase’.” It was all in preparation of an elaborate “Liberation Technology Movement”.

 

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Caste And Communalism: Can RSS Change With Muslims Meeting Bhagwat?

 Caste And Communalism: Can RSS Change With Muslims Meeting Bhagwat?

                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

Bhaurao Deoras: Why should Muslims have any connection with Babar? He came from Central Asia?

Question: Even your forefathers came from Central Asia – Aryans came from Central Asia?

Deoras: There is some controversy about that. It is now being contradicted. There are so many books contradicting this.

Question: You mean Aryans did not come from anywhere?

Deoras: No we have not.

Question: So they just happened here, they simply sprouted here?

Deoras: yes. The term Aryans and Adivasis (irritated) what is all this. Britishers have created this…………. (full interview)

This is a randomly lifted fraction of a two hour long interview with Bhaurao Deoras, RSS ideologue. The interview took place in the organization’s headquarters, Keshav Kunj, Jhandewalan, in the winter of 1990. Since his elder brother, Balasaheb Deoras, the RSS Chief, was ailing, Bhaurao was the RSS’s most important voice.

Between this landmark conversation with the highest echelons of the RSS and the more recent meeting of five senior Muslim professionals with RSS Sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat, exactly 32 years have passed. These three decades define the spurt in communalism and casteism to this day.

Circumstances in 1990 were different. A series of communal riots had erupted in Aligarh, Moradabad, Ahmedabad and elsewhere after V.P. Singh, Prime Minister for a short spell, announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report granting 27 percent reservations in government jobs for Other Backward Castes (OBCs). This would increase the reservation quota for Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs to 50 percent.

The upper castes were on fire, quite literally. I remember how the attempted self immolation by Rajiv Goswami, a Delhi University student, at the AIIMS intersection accelerated the anti Mandal movement. This inevitably pitted the upper castes against lower castes. This division had been a social reality for hundreds of years. What was new after Mandal, was the aggressive use of caste in electoral politics. Massive employment of caste to wrest political power in, say, UP (which has historically been in the grip of Govind Bhallabh Pant, Kamalapati Tripathi, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, Bindeshwari Dube, Narain Dutt Tewari) invited a massive backlash.

At this juncture, Muslims, traditionally a Congress vote bank, began to feel uncomfortable with the Congress. There was a reason for this discomfort. Bruised by the JP moment and its subsequent ouster from Delhi by the Janata Party, the Congress began to change – it began to acquire a soft shade of saffron. Indira Gandhi fought the 1983 Jammu elections on an anti minority plank even though the minority in her focus were Sikhs agitating for a Punjabi Suba.

After her assassination in 1984, the unprecedented three-fourth majority with which Rajiv Gandhi was returned to power was not interpreted as a sympathy vote. Instead it was seen as “Hindu consolidation” against minority appeasement. How was this any different from the “consolidation” sought by the BJP?

Rajiv Gandhi first “appeased” Muslims by upturning the Shah Bano judgement and banning Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. The Hindu Right was up in arms. Gandhi rushed to announce Ram Rajya from Ayodhya, opened the locks of the Ram temple located in the Babari Majid. While permitting the brick laying ceremony for the Ram temple, Gandhi and his cohorts fell back on deception. They allowed “shilanyas” on land the Allahabad High Court had declared as disputed. They told Muslims a brazen lie that the High Court’s advice had not been violated.

Within minutes of the trickery, the VHP announced at a press conference that they had prevailed on Gandhi: Shilanyas had been done on exactly the land they demanded. This was the episode which caused Muslims to leave the Congress in droves. On December 6, 1992, when Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao slept through the day while the Babari Masjid was demolished, the Muslim exodus from the Congress was complete.

Between Mandal in 1989 and the Masjid in 1992, the Muslim ran helter skelter not knowing where to pitch his tent. In his panic he was lured by caste leaders like Mualyam Singh Yadav and Mayawati who, the Muslim learnt to his chagrin, worked to advance Yadav and Dalit interests only. (I am focusing on UP only to keep the narrative simple.) Since Partition, the Muslim felt secure in the Congress lap. But other than the odium of being “appeased”, he got what the Sachar Commission report revealed in 2005. On every development index he had fallen below the lowest rungs of the Hindu caste.

By turning to caste leaders, the Muslim for the first time intervened in what was essentially an intra Hindu tussle between the Savarnas and the Avarnas. Indeed by siding with the Avarnas or the lower castes the Muslim had for the first time tried to invert the caste pyramid, an affront not to be easily forgotten.

The RSS-BJP combine was going to take no chances. Hindu consolidation was the only way to ward off the threat permanently. This was possible by sprinkling saffron in the air – Love Jehad, beef lynchings, loudspeakers on mosques, ghar wapsi, high profile arrests of Muslims for alleged terrorism and suchlike issues kept the temperature communally charged. But that is not enough for mobilization on a scale which would win, say, 2024 elections. Communalism has to be tied to nationalism for nationwide mobilization. This would require Kashmir on a boil and conflictual relations with Pakistan. The theory is that the election results of 2019 may not have been possible without Balakot.

This is the perspective against which the RSS chief has opened his doors to a handful of Muslim professionals.

The earlier interview with Bhaurao Deoras was arranged by K.R. Malkani who reached out to me after reading my op-ed piece in the Indian Express after the 1982 Moradabad riots. The series of 30 short films on Composite culture affected progressives and the Hindu right equally. My book, Reflections of an Indian Muslim, which carried some of this, was released by Nikhil Chakravarty, a communist. Murli Manohar Joshi, RSS, was the Chief Guest.

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In the Aftermath of Moradabad Riots

In the Aftermath of Moradabad Riots

From Saeed Naqvi's book: “Reflections of an Indian Muslim” 1993

Whenever events like Moradabad take place some of my friends turn to me with sympathy which generally leaves me cold because I guess I am a minority in my own community for reasons more than one.

My credentials as a good Muslim are quite as suspect as Ghalib’s were. “I am a half Muslim”, he said when, in the course of a litigation, a magistrate asked him to declare his religion. “I drink but I do not eat pork”.

However, my children generally describe themselves as Muslims while filling up school admission forms, although I wonder why such questions should ever be asked. Before you hastily trace my attitude to my anglicized education let me dispel the notion straightaway. Yes, I did have my schooling in an Anglo-Indian institution of sorts in Lucknow, but the home in which I grew up was a  deeply religious one even though the likes of the Imam currently in the news would not have been allowed within miles of it.

My grandfather, like Dryden, always maintained that “Priests of all religious are the same”, but some he respected, even befriended for their scholarship and conversation. I remember sitting through many a theological discourse, with Maulana Nsair-ul-Millat holding court; among the participants was one Mr Gurtu, a Kashmiri Pandit.

A moulvi of little distinction was hired ostensibly to brush up my arithmetic but actually to put me through my first paces in ‘namaz’(prayer). His efforts at proselytization were supplemented by my mother’s; she augmented our meager library with biographies of the prophets and the great Imams.

I believe the moulvi left in some disgust because he complained that there was too much music in our house, which, he found distasteful even on Id day. Id was never Id without Babu Mahavir Prasad Srivastava. We changed into our new clothes and waited at the doorstep for Babuji. He would walk across the street from where we lived, clad in a black ‘achkan’ and Gandhi cap, meet my father, settle down to large helpings of ‘seewai’ (sweet noodles prepared traditionally on Id day) and then hand those days when two rupees a week was good pocket money. On Raksha Bandhan my mother would send out ‘rakhis’ to my father’s many friends.

There was a quaint little mosque in the compound of the house in our village, Mustafabad, near Rae Bareli. Since we visited the village only during school holidays, marriages, deaths and births, it was not difficult to maintain  a certain discipline and be seen in the mosque, at reasonable frequency, often only to please grandfather. He expressed his pleasure either by making additions to our paltry pocket money or taking us out on shikar, inspite of his old age. My grandfather was equally pleased when we agreed to accompany him to his friends on Holi or Diwali, the two festivals we continue to participate in to this day.

A very strong ingredient in our total make up was a tidy combination of Urbane Urdu culture and the more folksy Avadhi and Brijbhasha. I learnt very early in life and I am being persuaded ti unlearn since –that Urdu represented the flowering of a composite culture. My grandfather would fly into a rage at the cancard that it was a language of the Muslims. Why, the greatest Urdu prose writer was Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar and one of the greatest Urdu poets was Raghupati Sahai Firaq.

We were groomed into believing that Islam was the most, dynamic of religions but we found it equally easy to accept that it was Islam’s interaction with a grater civilization that resulted in Dara Shikoh, Rahim, Kabir, Amir Khusro, Raskhan, Nazir Akbarabadi, Ghalib, and Anis. Nowhere in the Muslim world is there a monument, like the Taj or Fatehpur Sikri.

 

Folks these days are ignorant of the 18th century poet Nazir Akbarabadi’s poem “kya kya likhoon main Krishna Kanhaiya Ka baal pan” (How should I write about the beautiful childhood of Lord Krishna) or Mohsin Kakorvi’s “Samte Kashi se chala janibe Mathura badal” “jab talak Brij mein Kanhaiya hai yeh Khulne ka nahin” (The clouds are moving ecstatically from Kashi to Mathura and the sky will remain covered with the beautiful clouds as long as there is Krishna in Brij). Is there anyone around willing to believe that these lines were written by a Muslim poet to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohammad?

In the region I was raised in, ‘Sohar’ was a song sung during a  woman’s confinement. My mother’s favourite sohar was “Allah Mian, hamre bhaiya ka diyo Nandlal” (Oh my Allah, give my brother a son like Lord Krishna).

You might wonder, as a good friend of mine does, what all this nostalgia has to do with “contemporary realities”.

Well, I guess I am no pandit but I do know a bit about “contemporary realities”. I know how partition ruptured the fabric, bits of which I still keep with me. I also know about the status reversal experienced by the Muslims in independent India, particularly with the decline of the feudal order. It was the self-confident Muslim feudal elite which found it easy to extend patronage to the beautiful aspects of Hindu culture: after all, Krishna Leela was preserved in its entirely in the Kathak style evolved in the Muslim courts.

With the decay of the feudal order, the lower middle class, always bigoted in every society, gained some upward mobility. It is upon this class that parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami feed and which forms the central nervous system of the sort of fundamentalism current in Paksitan or Iran. I also know of a certain pan-Islamic sentiment among the Muslims and I guess that Mr Deoras does not like it. I also remember having read reports  on the socio-economic basis of the riots, a communal Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and so on. All this and more I have been aware of for quite some time.

It must, therefore, be a considerable intellectual failure on my part that in spite of all this I am unable to disengage myself  from the folks who moulded me in my formative years. The credo they lived by is no longer part of the contemporary ethos.

Call it private grief, call it indifference, or both, but I find it, increasingly difficult to have a ready made response to Moradabad, Jamshedpur or Aligarh. And when friends turn to me with sympathy when such madness erupts, I feel a sort of numbness and have a strange feeling that they are addressing the wrong person.

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Dara Shikoh is Our Hero; Let Ram be Yours

Dara Shikoh is Our Hero; Let Ram be Yours

From Saeed Naqvi's book: “Reflections of an Indian Muslim” 1993

The entrance to Keshav Kunj, the four-storeyed office of the RSS in New Delhi, is past the most congested streets of Karol Bagh facing the Jhandewalan temple. It was on the first floor living room of this building where I met Mr Bhaurao Deoras, 75.

Mr Deoras joined the RSS soon after it was founded in 1925. Though H.S. Hedgewar was the spirit behind the founding of the organisation, it was M.S. Golwalkar who built the RSS as a nation-wide organisation of lathi-weilding, aggressive Hindus. His book ‘Bunch of Thoughts’ drew inspiration from Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

The RSS claims to have more than 18 lakh cadres and 37 front organisations, spread all over the country. Mr Balasaheb Deoras, the elder brother of Bhaurao Deoras, is the Sarsanghchalak of the pyramidical organizational structure.

Since Mr Balasaheb Deoras had been ailing for the past few months, Bhaurao emerged as the next important RSS leader who was primarily responsible for coordinating the RSS’s relations with the BJP and other political parties.

The two-hour-long interview was conducted in English and Hindi. The transcript has been edited for purposes of space, but what is being published is a verbatim record of the conversation of Mr Deoras is a man of strong opinions, even prejudices, but the lasting impression was of a powerful man whose mind is made up but who needs to acquaint himself with other points of view. And, he was aware of this need.

Naqvi: The communal riots on an unprecedented scale have broken out in various parts of the country. What role can the RSS play to control the situation? Is the situation out of control?

Deoras: Who are the people behind these communal riots? I am afraid that some political parties are playing a role. What I think is this. Mr V.P. Singh expected Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav to go with him. But ultimately Mr. Yadav went with Chandrashekhar. So, may be those who belong to the Janata Dal at present. Also Mr V.P. Singh has close contacts with the Imam. So there must be some political thinking behind this All of a sudden these riots have erupted. We have news that the Muslim pockets are having arms collecting arms and all that. I think the whole thing seems to have some plan and, ofcourse we shall have to meet this.

Naqvi: Well, the popular perception is that this is the BJP and RSS plan to enlarge the Hindu constituency.

Deoras: I do not think that there should be any misconception about the BJP. They do not have any such big cadre or any preparation like that. So many people are being arrested in Aligarh and Hyderabad. No RSS member or Swayam Sevaks have been arrested on this account. If RSS people had a hand or the BJP would have hatched this plot, I think a lot of them would have been arrested. I think people pay some money to the goonda elements and manage. But there is a reaction among the Hindus. If it goes on and on, then the Hindus begin to react. Until now, Muslims have been appeased because they have got a block-vote. Now, the Hindus are  reacting against this appeasement. No appeasement, but justice to all.

Naqvi: What would have happened to the mosque?

Deoras: No Muslim goes to say his namaz there. All things which are around the mosque are all connected with Hindu sentiments.

Naqvi: Do you believe that because of the communal tension the Hindu mass is getting consolidated on the Ayodhya platform and in favour of the BJP?

Deoras: That is an important factor.

Naqvi: In other words, the benefits of the communal tension are going to the BJP? And he who benefits must have a hand in communal tension.

Deoras: I think Advaniji, by his Rath Yatra and the speeches he has given throughout the country, not a word in his lectures he has spoken that is anti-Muslim stance.

Naqvi: But look at the slogans going on in Aligarh, in Hyderabad. You are aware of the poison of Ms Uma Bharati’s tapes. You know the kind of poison that is being spread is dividing the hearts and minds of the people. Are you going to sit back or avert another partition in the minds of the people?

Deoras: What about the speech Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav gave. I do not know about the Muslim leaders. The Babri Masjid Action Committee must have their tapes. They may be speaking. I do not know what is going on their minds.

Naqvi: Do the slogans contained in Ms Uma Bharati’s tapes offend you?

Deoras: I do not like it.

Naqvi: Therefore, you should stand up and condemn the provocative slogans.

Deoras: I do not like the meanings behind the slogans. At present, just as no Muslim will like to make a statement, I will also not like to either.

Naqvi: You are circumventing my question, Sir? Are you willing to issue a statement condemning the communal riots and condemn provocative slogans?

Deoras: Both Hindus and Muslims should condemn together. Muslims had come here. It was I who arranged the meeting of Mr Javed Habib and some other people with the VHP. And the first meeting took place and they decided to meet again so that there should be understanding.

Naqvi: To change the subject do you endorse the two-nation theory on the basis of which Pakistan was found?

Deoras: We never accepted it.

Naqvi: So it follows that you will not accept that Hindus and Muslims as two separate nations.

Deoras: We do not accept. It is one nation. From Kanyakumari to the Himalayas it is one nation.

Naqvi: You have not given up the agenda of  Akhand Bharat?

Deoras: We have not given up. If the time comes we shall do it. We shall ask the Muslims in Pakistan what have you gained? Muslims who went there from Bihar and UP – are they happy?

Naqvi: If you do not accept the two-nation theory then it follows that you accept the proposition that Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christians in India should all live together and prosper together. Since you are allergic to the term secular let us find another term-India’s composite culture.

Deoras: One culture – why do you say composite culture.

Naqvi: If you do not like the word “composite” also then as an adjustment I am willing to delete it. I said composite because various streams have contributed to Indian culture.

Deoras: Say Bharatiya culture.

Naqvi: OK, Bhartiya culture, Indian culture. There is a contradiction between your Akhand Bharat perspective and the Hindu Rashtra. Is there not a contradiction? Akhand Bharat is all embracing from Kanyakumari to the Himalayas, but Hindu Rashtra further sub-divides what we are left with.

Deoras: Nation and state are two different concepts. States have equal rights, equal citizenship – that is the concept of state. This nation is not created by British or anything. It is there from a long time, from Rama from Krishna, thousands of years ago. The whole country had that concept of Rama, the concept of Krishna, the concept of Mahabharata etc. Anywhere you will find the same thing. That is the binding thing. Culture was the binding factor throughout the country. There may be some different kings, different rulers in the last 1000 years or something like that the foreigners came and all that.

Naqvi: You have glided past a very important detail. Did we become independent after 200 years of British rule or have we become free after 1000 years of foreign rule?

Deoras: I do not think that in many parts in our country Muslims really think that they were the rulers. There have been some Afghans, Turks and all those who came and invaded the country.  They came and ruled the country.

Naqvi: They came and settled here.

Deoras: But they came and ruled and changed many of our people. Those who were Hindus-you may say down-trodden something like that-they changed their faith and they became Muslims. If they go back seven generations behind probably they may say that they belong to this caste-they were Rajputs, they were this and that. So, they themselves know that they are Hindus and only in the last two or three generations they have become Muslims. But somehow, may be Britishers fortified this feeling. Muslims living in this country at present feel that they were the rulers of this land. Why should they have any connection with Babar. He came from Central Asia.

Naqvi: Even your forefathers came from Central Asia-Aryans came from Central Asia?

Deoras: There is some controversy in this. That is now being contradicted. There are so many books contradicting this.

Naqvi: You mean Aryans did not come from anywhere?

Deoras: No we have not.

Naqvi: So they just happened here, they simply sprouted here?

Deoras: Yes. The term Aryans and Adivasis, what is all this. Britishers have created this. Arya means not a caste, Arya means noble. There are enough books with documents that we are the original people who have been living here. Aryan theory, Dravidian theory are all devised to break the Hindus.

Naqvi: Sir, if all the communities live and prosper together in India, then we constitute a threat to the basis of Pakistan. The success of Indian secularism is a threat to Pakistan which carne into being on the assumption that we can’t live together. Do you agree?

Deoras: I think Pakistan will go.

Naqvi: Let us go step by step (question is repeated)

Deoras: Bharat is alright. But as the things are going in Pakistan, they have defeated Ms. Benazir Bhutto. They are helping Khalistan elements in Punjab, the JKLF or whatever elements in Kashmir and all that. Unless this sort of government' at the top goes in Pakistan, I think no change is possible at present. This will have to be changed.

Naqvi: How do we change that?

Deoras: The Hindu leadership should come. I do not know what will happen in Bangladesh. Leadership may change. I think during this Ershad regime, I have got the latest report that 1100 temples have been destroyed. Hindus have come in Bengal. There are still Bengali Hindus.

I do not know when the elections are going to be held. Some Hindus in Bangladesh may fight elections. Very few of them will come. But suppose change comes in Bengal, tension will not be there and I think they can live in harmony. Then there is this poverty and other problems, and they may say that there is no use of remaining separate let us join together. And if that happens then I think the atmosphere may change. Sindhi people in Pakistan, and those who have gone from UP and Bihar. What have they gained? They are not liked there. So, if these movements gather strength and let us again work for one Bharat.

Naqvi: Sir, that is only possible if you and I live in harmony. But if we clash in Aligarh, Ahmedabad, Ayodhya then we are not a magnet. We are not attractive enough for them to imitate us. We are not setting the right example. On the contrary...

Deoras: Foreign powers are trying to create divisions and Muslims in major parts are playing into their hands. There has to be reform in Muslim society in India.

Naqvi: What about the Hindu society?

Deoras: There are regular movements of social reforms going on in Hindu society. But in the Muslim community, I do not find any movement. If somebody starts they are not liked by the community. They are being controlled by Mullahs.

Naqvi: Indian Muslims have a minority complex. Therefore, reform is even more difficult. The most backward Muslims in the world reside in India and by keeping them under pressure you are contributing to their backwardness.

Deoras: Who is keeping them backward?

Naqvi: We have got them involved in non-issues. You and I have all got them involved in Babri Masjid; they are involved in the Shah Bano case; they are supposed to be objecting to our relations with Israel. None of these are bread and butter issues. And you say they have been pampered. What have they got with all this so-called pampering.

Deoras: Due to the minority complex you allow them to do anything?

Naqvi: What is the advantage Muslims have derived since Independence. Look at their economic conditions, look at the job quotas. OK, they got the Muslim Women’s Bill, but has one Muslim woman gained in real terms?

Deoras: They get minority rights; special rights in the Constitution.

Naqvi: Please answer my question. What have the Muslims gained?

Deoras: To appease Muslims, they have got a Minority Commission.

Naqvi: This is precisely what I am saying. These are hollow, insubstantial gifts. An impression has been created by all governments that there is something special going for the Muslims. But in essence they have got nothing, no jobs, no education, no businesses.

Deoras: There is no difference between Hindus and Muslims as regards poverty. As for the question of jobs, if you are capable for that post you will get it. There should be no distinction. Now the government comes out with Mandal Commission and it has created so many divisions in the country itself.

Naqvi: Do you think the whole Ayodhya agitation has been able to cement some of the divisions in the Hindu society that have been created by the Mandal Commission.

Deoras: A little bit definitely. Ram is not the God only for forward castes. He is the God for the entire community.

Naqvi: We have not spoken of Kashmir. How can we hope to keep Kashmir if a perception is created all over the world that we treat our Muslims shabbily?

Deoras: Do you think the Kashmiri Hindus who have become migrants in Jammu can go back?

Naqvi: May be not, at this point. Again that Pakistan factor comes into play, Pakistani support for those elements who are creating the trouble. We have to handle the Pakistani factor by love and respect for each other in this country. Germanys were united because East Germans saw that life on the other side is better. Similarly, people in Bangladesh and Pakistan should say that life on the other side is better (many Pakistanis used to say this privately a few years ago). Now I feel embarrassed. I used to show off to my Pakistani friends-look at our composite culture, our freedom, our democracy. But look at the mess now. And you must take your share of the blame, Sir.

Deoras: There is no difference between Hindus and Muslims as regards poverty. Communalism is not the only factor. There are a lot of tensions among the Hindus also. We can work together to see that everybody, whether Muslim or Hindu, gets bread two times a day.

Naqvi: By your logic you are coming around to my view. Bring down the communal temperature, generate love and caring, not hatred. They are making bombs in every Mohalla, neighbourhood. This is what we are reducing our country to-a cottage industry of illicit arms.

Deoras: They are selling it. This is business.

Naqvi: Unless you give a call, this will only go on.

Deoras: Let us, you and I together, give the call to the country.

Naqvi: It is fine with me. Let’s shake hands on that. But please convince your rank and file that it is in Pakistan’s interest that Hindus and Muslims fight each other in this country. This is my entire thesis. During my visit to Aligarh I saw two bombs were dropped in a mosque and two similar type of bombs were dropped in a Hindu locality.

Deoras: Some Muslims must have dropped it.

Naqvi: I like the abruptness with which you have come to this conclusion. OK, but who are these Muslims?

Deoras: When something happens in Pakistan why should there be a reaction here. When Bhutto was hanged-(it has got nothing to do with us). There were demonstrations in Kashmir and trouble in all other places.

Naqvi: What has that got to do with Babar. You yourself agree that Pakistan was unnatural. Then you expect Indian Muslims and for that matter even Hindus to have an unnatural hatred towards Pakistanis.

Deoras: We need a great national reconciliation on the basis of understanding, good humour. All the Muslims who are getting elected to parliament and the assemblies belong to the fundamentalist variety. This is the problem.

Naqvi: Not all leaders, but yes, there is the problem of Muslim leadership. There is no doubt about it.

Deoras: Why don’t you try and create that leadership. Just like you. Why don’t you be a leader.

Naqvi: Zahid e Tang nazar ne mujhe kafir jaana: Aur Kafir yeh samajhta hai Mussalman hum main (The Kafir thinks I am a Muslim and the Mullah thinks I am a Kafir)

Deoras: (Laughs heartily) I have close contacts with the BJP. I do not know the exact figure but for kar sewa a number of Muslims have joined. What I am trying to say is we are ready to take Muslims with us. They can join the BJP.

Naqvi: You have also betrayed the same old attitude, the same complaint. Indian Muslims identity with Babar and Indonesian Muslims identify with Ram.

Deoras: It is important that Muslims identify with Ram as an Indian symbol.

Naqvi: I throw a challenge to you about this Ram and Babar comparison. I recite numerous couplets written by Muslim poets in praise of Ram and in praise of Krishna. I throw a challenge to you. You show me one line in praise of Babar written by a Muslim poet. If you show me one couplet I will change my faith. This Babar business is a canard. There are any number of Muslim rulers, poets, philosophers who contemplated Hinduism with great admiration, its philosophy, its aesthetic range. Someone like Dara Shikoh. Now Hindus must accept him as a hero. I am asking you. Is Dara Shikoh acceptable to you?

Deoras: He is a hero. But the Muslim community did not permit him to live.

Naqvi: I am taking you on record that Dara Shikoh is your model for a good Muslim and a model Indian.

Deoras: I have not read his whole life. But it is true. He was a fine gentleman. He translated the Upanishads. But remember he was not allowed to rule this land. The establishment was against him.

Naqvi: What is your last word for national reconciliation?

Deoras: At present, Ram mandir should be allowed to be built. We accept Dara Shikoh as an Indian hero; you accept Ram as part of our common cultural heritage.

Naqvi: Who can dispute that Rama is part of our cultural heritage. Our poets have written about him.

Deoras: Let the temple be built first. I will be the first person who will say let us forget the past.

Naqvi: Sir, if I get you right, what you are saying is that if the Ram mandir is allowed to be built then you will come out openly and say that let bygones be bygones. All the structures, monuments will remain intact exactly as they were in 1947 or 1950.

Deoras: I am ready to say once the construction of the Ram Temple takes place-It will take a long time-it will be one of the biggest temples. I know the demand of VHP is three sites-Mathura and Kashi Vishwanath.

Naqvi: You will prevail upon them to give up claim on the other two?

Deoras: I cannot say they will accept. But I will try. Let this Ram temple be built first and start national reconciliation. Let us not go to the government. Let us sit together and solve the problem.

Naqvi: For that you have to issue a whip to your cadres. Let there be peace.

Deoras: I promise you, we do not like what is going on.

Naqvi: You condemn the violence?

Deoras: Yes. of course. These riots create a bad image throughout the world. I do not like it. I want every Muslim to live here in peace. He has got equal rights. But just because he is a Muslim he should not demand something separate from others. Civil rights and other things, everything is common. They should mentally prepare for this. No special status. No minority preferences. They do not have one language. Urdu is not a Muslim language. It is a common language for so many people.

Naqvi: Do you think Urdu should be taught at school and encouraged in everyway?

Deoras: Of course. If people want they should be able to learn it. We are not saying all these cultural things should be thrown out.

Naqvi: Do you share the vision of a confederation covering Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka-without prejudice to their sovereignty.

Deoras: This is an excellent political concept. Just like Europe. Have something in common, build common bridges, common bridges with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Naqvi: This can happen only when there is peace in our country.

Deoras: Unless there is peace nothing can happen. Peace is the fundamental condition for solving all the problems of the country.

Naqvi: So you will use your influence asking your cadres to maintain peace?

Deoras: Yes, but you have to speak to Muslim society also.

Naqvi: Sir, you are also using Ram Janmbhoomi for political purposes.

Deoras: Everything will be alright. Let this temple be built. Let Muslims help us build it.

Naqvi: But the condition is peaceful settlement so that this temple to Ram is also a temple to peace.

Deoras: Peace should be there. It is important for Muslims to maintain peace. They rush to the government and political leaders. They have to live with Hindus, particularly the younger generation. They have to make some sentimental adjustment.

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