04-11-2008, 04:57 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Our deceitful progressives
Saradindu Mukherji
Does anybody remember Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, who was assassinated on September 14, 1989, in Srinagar? Not many! That marked the beginning of the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from their homeland. Did his family get justice? Similarly, justice has eluded the relatives of Taranath Sen, murdered in Bangladesh on December 15, 2007, for protesting the take-over of a Hindu cremation ground by local Muslims.
At another level, the much talked and written about judgement in the Bilkis Bano case is an occasion to reaffirm our trust in the capacity of the Indian system to mete out condign punishment to the guilty and restore peoples' faith and trust in our investigative agencies. But is our system conditioned by the exigencies of the political culture?
All of us are encouraged to cry ourselves hoarse over the fate of Palestinians, but anyone who expresses legitimate sympathy for Hindu refugees from Bangladesh and the internally displaced Pandits from our Kashmir Valley will be promptly blacklisted. It is this selective concern in India that goes against all canons of law and justice. Before analysing the basic causes of this malaise, it is essential to look for the inter-relationship between the politics of violence and the concept of rule of law.
While the pioneers of modern India like Raja Rammohun Roy stressed rational thinking and modern education, and strove for a level playing field for all Indians under the then colonial dispensation, his contemporaries like the Wahaabis and the Faraizis (considered to be 'progressive' in the leftist 'intellectual' discourse) were harking back to the primordial through violent means. Much of the organised and faith-based violence that has caused colossal mayhem and destruction of cultures, both in the past and in the contemporary world, are embedded in this ideology of unremitting hatred and intolerance of the 'other'. Hence 'communalisation of state and society' and the subversion of the 'rule of law' are endemic in these religio-political cultures.
Even before Raja Rammohun Roy, the Cornwallis Code (1793) was the first conscious attempt in modern times to de-communalise the state and a bold step to establish the rule of law in India. That explains as to how Raja Rammohun Roy could boldly protest the racist abuse hurled at him by an English official and escape forced conversion or imprisonment which would have been his fate had he done the same in Murshid Quli Khan's time.
Jihad-friendly liberal-progressive campaigners who blame 'majoritarian' politics in India for the growing communal divide, and thereby suppress the truth about those who have an unbroken record of creating that original divide and ever-widening the gulf which first appeared with the Arab invasion of Sindh, are, in fact, doing a great disservice to society. Smaller minorities like the Jews and the Zoroastrians have never complained of persecution in India. Most such campaigners, it would appear, are yet to hear about the legacy of thousand years of Islamic rule in India, about the origins of Pakistan, and other activities that stretch from New York to Bali, London to Hyderabad, and Madrid to New Delhi.
Here are some startling facts. Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal informed the Rajya Sabha in May 2007 about the community wise break-up of casualties in communal violence. During January-April 2007, there were 255 incidents of communal violence in which 18 Hindus and 13 Muslims were killed. Among those injured, there were 370 Hindus, 246 Muslims and 51 Christians. During January-April 2006, there were 265 such incidents in which 61 people were killed, among them 28 Hindus and 31 Muslims. There were 425 Hindus, 279 Muslims and 34 Christians among those injured. During all of 2006, there were 779 incidents of communal violence in which 64 Hindus and 67 Muslims were killed.
Simple arithmetic and the most rudimentary logical reasoning do not establish the thesis of the minority community's perpetual victimhood, the deadly grip of the monstrous majority and the 'organised violence' and the 'pogroms' they continue to inflict. On the contrary, it proves otherwise. That the Muslims, despite being a minority in most parts of India, and the Hindus being a brute majority, the casualty figures are almost even. Since this does not suit our 'secularists', these figures do not exist for them.
Propagandists relentlessly talk of "macabre preparation" by Hindus to commit violence against Muslims, but they ignore the fact that their campaign is not based on credible empirical data. In the process, they continue to inflict severe damage on the very nature of the Indian state, the system of governance and the ethos of the majority community. They also brush under the carpet the sustained preparation that has gone into the elimination of polytheists from Muslim majority parts of the world and the desecration of thousands of temples in our country over a millennia and what is happening to Hindu temples in Malaysia. Would they care to provide us with the state of Hindu temples in the Kashmir Valley and the number of devotees who visit them regularly for puja?
Moreover, how do they explain the systematic religio-ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir valley? Or, how the members of the 'majority' community of India, who happened to be in a minority in a Muslim majority State of India, were turned into refugees in their own land? Just think of an entire community of four lakh men, women and children being driven out of its ancestral homeland. Can the Pandits ever return to their homeland? Will they ever be restored their homesteads and the orchards that they were forced sell at throwaway prices in the most frightening circumstances? Has anyone ever looked into the community's declining numbers? Bilkis Bano has got justice, and rightly so. But will the Hindus of Kashmir Valley ever get justice?
As India's political class continues to be blatantly partial in its pursuit of Muslim votes, and the spurious and propagandist state-funded social science research centres and a biased media remain mired in negationism for reasons that need not be stated, justice will continue to elude millions of people. They will continue to suffer more and more, not only in India but also in Malaysia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Since nothing meaningful has ever been done by anybody, should we conclude that certain categories of suffering are beyond the reach of the Indian system? Can these dedicated campaigners, who systematically denigrate Hindus and take undue advantage of their infinite patience and tolerance but scrupulously rationalise, justify and cover up every act of jihadi terror, claim that victims of Islamism in India have got justice a la Bilkis Bano?
Â
-- The writer teaches history at Delhi University
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...t&counter_img=3<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Saradindu Mukherji
Does anybody remember Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, who was assassinated on September 14, 1989, in Srinagar? Not many! That marked the beginning of the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from their homeland. Did his family get justice? Similarly, justice has eluded the relatives of Taranath Sen, murdered in Bangladesh on December 15, 2007, for protesting the take-over of a Hindu cremation ground by local Muslims.
At another level, the much talked and written about judgement in the Bilkis Bano case is an occasion to reaffirm our trust in the capacity of the Indian system to mete out condign punishment to the guilty and restore peoples' faith and trust in our investigative agencies. But is our system conditioned by the exigencies of the political culture?
All of us are encouraged to cry ourselves hoarse over the fate of Palestinians, but anyone who expresses legitimate sympathy for Hindu refugees from Bangladesh and the internally displaced Pandits from our Kashmir Valley will be promptly blacklisted. It is this selective concern in India that goes against all canons of law and justice. Before analysing the basic causes of this malaise, it is essential to look for the inter-relationship between the politics of violence and the concept of rule of law.
While the pioneers of modern India like Raja Rammohun Roy stressed rational thinking and modern education, and strove for a level playing field for all Indians under the then colonial dispensation, his contemporaries like the Wahaabis and the Faraizis (considered to be 'progressive' in the leftist 'intellectual' discourse) were harking back to the primordial through violent means. Much of the organised and faith-based violence that has caused colossal mayhem and destruction of cultures, both in the past and in the contemporary world, are embedded in this ideology of unremitting hatred and intolerance of the 'other'. Hence 'communalisation of state and society' and the subversion of the 'rule of law' are endemic in these religio-political cultures.
Even before Raja Rammohun Roy, the Cornwallis Code (1793) was the first conscious attempt in modern times to de-communalise the state and a bold step to establish the rule of law in India. That explains as to how Raja Rammohun Roy could boldly protest the racist abuse hurled at him by an English official and escape forced conversion or imprisonment which would have been his fate had he done the same in Murshid Quli Khan's time.
Jihad-friendly liberal-progressive campaigners who blame 'majoritarian' politics in India for the growing communal divide, and thereby suppress the truth about those who have an unbroken record of creating that original divide and ever-widening the gulf which first appeared with the Arab invasion of Sindh, are, in fact, doing a great disservice to society. Smaller minorities like the Jews and the Zoroastrians have never complained of persecution in India. Most such campaigners, it would appear, are yet to hear about the legacy of thousand years of Islamic rule in India, about the origins of Pakistan, and other activities that stretch from New York to Bali, London to Hyderabad, and Madrid to New Delhi.
Here are some startling facts. Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal informed the Rajya Sabha in May 2007 about the community wise break-up of casualties in communal violence. During January-April 2007, there were 255 incidents of communal violence in which 18 Hindus and 13 Muslims were killed. Among those injured, there were 370 Hindus, 246 Muslims and 51 Christians. During January-April 2006, there were 265 such incidents in which 61 people were killed, among them 28 Hindus and 31 Muslims. There were 425 Hindus, 279 Muslims and 34 Christians among those injured. During all of 2006, there were 779 incidents of communal violence in which 64 Hindus and 67 Muslims were killed.
Simple arithmetic and the most rudimentary logical reasoning do not establish the thesis of the minority community's perpetual victimhood, the deadly grip of the monstrous majority and the 'organised violence' and the 'pogroms' they continue to inflict. On the contrary, it proves otherwise. That the Muslims, despite being a minority in most parts of India, and the Hindus being a brute majority, the casualty figures are almost even. Since this does not suit our 'secularists', these figures do not exist for them.
Propagandists relentlessly talk of "macabre preparation" by Hindus to commit violence against Muslims, but they ignore the fact that their campaign is not based on credible empirical data. In the process, they continue to inflict severe damage on the very nature of the Indian state, the system of governance and the ethos of the majority community. They also brush under the carpet the sustained preparation that has gone into the elimination of polytheists from Muslim majority parts of the world and the desecration of thousands of temples in our country over a millennia and what is happening to Hindu temples in Malaysia. Would they care to provide us with the state of Hindu temples in the Kashmir Valley and the number of devotees who visit them regularly for puja?
Moreover, how do they explain the systematic religio-ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir valley? Or, how the members of the 'majority' community of India, who happened to be in a minority in a Muslim majority State of India, were turned into refugees in their own land? Just think of an entire community of four lakh men, women and children being driven out of its ancestral homeland. Can the Pandits ever return to their homeland? Will they ever be restored their homesteads and the orchards that they were forced sell at throwaway prices in the most frightening circumstances? Has anyone ever looked into the community's declining numbers? Bilkis Bano has got justice, and rightly so. But will the Hindus of Kashmir Valley ever get justice?
As India's political class continues to be blatantly partial in its pursuit of Muslim votes, and the spurious and propagandist state-funded social science research centres and a biased media remain mired in negationism for reasons that need not be stated, justice will continue to elude millions of people. They will continue to suffer more and more, not only in India but also in Malaysia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Since nothing meaningful has ever been done by anybody, should we conclude that certain categories of suffering are beyond the reach of the Indian system? Can these dedicated campaigners, who systematically denigrate Hindus and take undue advantage of their infinite patience and tolerance but scrupulously rationalise, justify and cover up every act of jihadi terror, claim that victims of Islamism in India have got justice a la Bilkis Bano?
Â
-- The writer teaches history at Delhi University
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...t&counter_img=3<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->