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Magazine
Naming the guilty
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By nurturing their separate constituencies in a spirit of mutual competition and alienation, religious leaders have promoted total ignorance about each other among religious communities. It is this vacuum that agents of communal mischief exploit to the subversion of our national destiny, say Rev. VALSON THAMPU and SWAMI AGNIVESH.
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All-round progress and empowerment should be the priority of minorities to prevent them from being stigmatised.
AT the secondary level, the opposition parties must be held responsible for the continuation of the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. No matter how loudly they might protest, the fact remains that they have not put their whole weight behind arresting this communal madness. Did they not fight like demons and coerce the Gujarat Government to revoke its decision to allow its employees to join the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)? Nothing comparable has been attempted so far in the present instance and one wonders why. Every life lost in, and every new wound inflicted on Gujarat stains their forehead too with the blood of the innocents. It is not only Vajpayee who is failing through his calculated or compulsive indecision. His bewildered inaction is complemented by the ineffectiveness of the opposition parties, especially the Congress (I). The tragedy of India today is that she is fallen between these two stools.
At a tertiary level, the Muslim leaders have much to answer for. To see this part of our story in the right perspective, a brief recap of the Godhra carnage is necessary. The Muslims in Godhra (approximately 40 per cent of the population) are largely of the Ganchi tribe, marked by near-total illiteracy and crass poverty. Their social image is amply indicated by the fact that they are deemed a "criminal" tribe. Godhra itself is virtually divided into two segments. The Hindu dominated section is popularly known as "Hindustan" and the Muslim-dominated section is nicknamed "Pakistan". The railway station is right in the midst of the Muslim settlement and virtually all the vendors on the platform are Muslims, which makes it possible for a huge mob to assemble at short notice. We were told by independent sources in Godhra that the so-called kar sevaks would order tea from the Muslim vendors and force them to shout "Jai Shri Ram" before serving the tea. Those who refused to oblige would be roughed up. This is part of the background to the tragic event that claimed the life of 57 kar sevaks on February 27.
Two aspects of this situation merit our attention. The first is the provocative conduct of the kar sevaks, which the Muslims could not have mended. The second is the crass under-development of the Muslims in Godhra, which they could have done something about. The time is come for the minorities in general and Muslims in particular to realise that the perpetuation of their socio-economic under-development is a greater danger to them than even the brutality of the Sangh Parivar. The socio-economic backwardness of the minorities aids and abets the Parivar agenda to stigmatise and stereotype them. In this the Muslims oblige the Parivar more than any other religious community. Undoubtedly, it is on account of their retrograde and antediluvian leaders that the Muslim community is in such a sorry state today. The Muslim leadership, both of the religious and the political varieties, appear to be keener to control than to empower their fellow Muslims. Egalitarian slogans and myths apart, no society anywhere in the world values human life equally. The lives of the rich and the powerful are cherished and protected a great deal more than that of the poor and the socially worthless. Hundreds die in train and level crossing accidents in this country without causing any heartburn anywhere. But 160 air passengers being held hostage for a week created paranoia in this country. That is a reality that should not be overlooked. For Muslim leaders to remain unmindful of the image of their community at this point in time is simply suicidal. We would argue that the all-round progress and empowerment of the Muslim community should be a priority for Muslim leaders.
What struck us all through the time we spent in the camps in Godhra, Vadodara and Ahmedabad, was the crass poverty of the affected people. It is partly because they are so poor and under-developed that their heart-rending stories and miserable plight do not move those in administration to ameliorate their suffering. The quake, in contrast, made the nation melt into compassion because it affected the rich more than the poor. One wonders if the underdevelopment of the Muslims was not one of the reasons for the initial decision of the Modi Government to sanction different amounts of compensation for Hindus and Muslims.
Arguably, the underdevelopment of the Muslims in Godhra was a key factor in the train tragedy there that catalysed the State-wide carnage thereafter. Another aspect needs to be considered in tandem with this. Muslim spokesmen at every meeting on the subject that we have attended in the last one month have been quick to argue that Islam is a religion of peace and that according to the Quran, killing a person is tantamount to killing the whole of the human race and, likewise, saving a person is as meritorious as saving the whole of humankind. That is all very well, but the question that needs to be answered is what happens to all these noble sentiments at the practical level? Were the Muslims in Godhra, who would have laid down their lives to defend the Quran like their brethren elsewhere, aware of this tenet? Did this make any material difference to them when they were provoked? Admittedly, this one verse could have averted the Gujarat holocaust. But did the Muslims of Godhra care for the Quran when they were put to the test? And if they did not, were they Muslims at that point? Who is a Muslim, and who is not?
This total dichotomy between the noble values of a religion and the practical choices and ways of its followers is a serious issue and it is this that characterises the disjunction between Hindutva and Hinduism. A Ram-bhakt, on his way to the sacred city of Ayodhya, presumably to build a temple for Lord Ram, a resplendent embodiment of dharma, has no qualms in conducting himself in an obnoxious and adharmic way. How does it come about that the presumed followers of a religion that teaches that the whole world is one family (vasudaiva kutumbakam) are so easily persuaded that eliminating people of other faiths is a religious service and the best way to honour their god?
Religious leaders, not less than the storm troopers of the Sangh Parivar, have to answer for the triumph of hate and cruelty in the religious sphere camouflaged as religious fervour. By nurturing their separate constituencies in a spirit of mutual competition and alienation, they have promoted total ignorance about each other among religious communities. It is this vacuum that the agents of communal mischief exploit to their advantage and to the subversion of our national destiny. Tragic and traumatic events like Godhra and the communal carnage thereafter must compel us to see through the scope for infinite mischief latent in all this. As a people we need to insist that those who play with human lives in the name of God, ideology or religion are the enemies of God and people alike. Those who disturb the peace must be seen as the enemies of development, which is what they really are. Gujarat will take years to recover from the economic setback it has suffered in the hands of the Modi-dispensation and the VHP-Bajrang Dal marauders.
In the ultimate analysis, every one of us is responsible. One is reminded of the response of Acharya Vinobha Bhave to the question posed to him by a journalist after the assassination of Gandhiji: "Who killed the Mahatma?" After a moment of silent reflection Vinobhaji replied, "I. I have killed him." The profound truth that this great seer was making was that all of us play a role, through our omissions and commissions, in allowing a murderous state of affairs to come about. We may not be party to aggressive advocacies like wiping out the communities we happen to dislike. But as long as we create the impression that the stains of disastrous governance can be washed away with the waters of communal passion and vote banks can be formatted on tracks of hate and negativity, we are a party, overly or covertly, to the tragedy of Gujarat and the many tragedies that are sure to follow, unless we change our outlook.
The marauders and murderers who roamed about the streets of Gujarat and killed Muslims in their hundreds derive their encouragement and legitimacy from the subjective endorsement we extend to partisan and communal sentiments. The growing rapidity with which rational discourses on matters pertaining to religion disintegrate into hard and defensive feelings of distrust and hostility should be a cause for alarm for all those who care for justice and fair-play in public life. The gradual drying up of the wellspring of our compassion for those who seem to be different from us must be deemed a symptom of our national bankruptcy. Ram Rajya cannot be created by filling this land with Ram temples, certainly not by building them with a view to inflicting humiliation on another religious community. Ram Rajya should be built on the foundation of truth, social justice and brotherhood: on the spiritual robustness of loving and celebrating differences and diversities. The alternative is to imitate the Taliban in hijacking Gujarat to the dark ages.
(Concluded)
The first part of this article appeared in the Hindu Sunday Magazine on April 21, 2002.
Swami Agnivesh is a noted social activist and the national president of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front.
Rev. Valson Thampu is a distinguished writer and a peace activist. He is a faculty member of St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and an ordained minister of the Church of North India.
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