What is our critique of secular practice or our struggle against communalism?
What is our critique of secular practice or our struggle against communalism?
Scribbling in Dark Times-3
Subhash Gatade
We are also becoming aware - post 2002 riots - how the state has slowly abdicated the role of providing relief and rehabilitation to riot affected people and victims of communal violence and the vacuum has been filled by different community organisations. And this one witnessed not only in Gujarat but even in a state like Assam - ruled by the Congress consecutively for three terms- when there was violence in BTAD areas. According to a journalist most of the relief camps set up for the internally displaced people were run either by Jamaat-e-Islami or Jamiat-Ulema-i-Hind making the victims and other affected people more amenable to their agendas.
But what does one think about the community leadership - the dominant politics there - which is undemocratic to say the least. In fact, one can cite many examples which go to show the growing disjunction between the leadership and the Muslim masses which is neither ready to take up issues of internal divisions, asymmetries nor does it want to move beyond 'community interests' while taking highly problematic stands on various issues of concern. e.g. Neither it has bothered to take up the issue of rights of Muslim women nor it has ever acknowledged the issue of discrimination based on caste in the community. Despite the existence of a nascent Pasmanda (backward) Muslim movement in the community it is yet to acknowledge its significance. Much on the lines of Pakistan, which happens to be the only country in the world which has declared 'Ahmadiyas/Qadianis' as unIslamic, one witnesses similar forces on the ascendance in the community here as well.
It has also exhibited its myopic nature by not coming clean on anti-human actions undertaken by Islamist groups/formations elsewhere. May it be activities of Boko Haram or for that matter the war crimes committed by Jamat-e-Islami in neighbouring Bangladesh during its war of liberation, it has either maintained ambivalence or went out unashamedly supporting them. Recently when one Sunni scholar - grandson of Ali of Nadwa - called upon Sunnis of India to join the Jihad undertaken by Baghdadi in Iraq and Syria, who has declared establishment of Islamic Khalifate, there were no voices of condemnation here.
It is high time that we move beyond the bind in which we find ourselves on various 'sensitive' sounding issues. While we should fight against deprivations of the Muslim masses we should not remain silent over depradations of its leadership. Our fight against targeting of Muslims in general and Muslim youth in particular should not mean that we remain silent when some Popular Front issues diktats to Muslim women to wear this or that dress or has no qualms in attacking a Professor and cutting his hand just for the fact that the question he put in a question paper 'hurt their sentiments'.
3. What is our critique of secular practice or our struggle against communalism?
Today, as we look back, it clearly indicates the lack of a social foundation for secularism. Question arises why more than sixty years after we embarked on a secular path, it has remained so weak.
It can be observed that here the emphasis has always been on maintaining secularity of the state and forgetting or neglecting the important aspect of secularisation of society. Perhaps it has to do with the emphasis of the progressive/transformative movements on political-economic struggles and their neglect of intervention in social-cultural arena.
One discovers that forces like RSS/Jamaat-e-Islami or other status quoist or reactionary organisations have been very clear about their 'anti-secular' agenda which they tried to bolster through intervention in culture in a startegic manner. They tried to enhance their 'religious viewpoint' by institutionalising it through n number of affiliated organisations. May it be the formation of schools or hospitals or organisations catering to diverse sections of society they tried to fashion society in their own image. It is not for nothing that RSS describes itself not as 'organisation in society' but 'organisation of society'. ( Samaj me Sangathan nahin, Samaj ka Sangathan ) Prof K N Pannikar writes that RSS's educational work started in the 40s itself and today they have 70,000 schools - from Ekal Vidyalayas to Saraswati Shishu Mandir - spread all over the country. These activities have helped them 'in transforming the cultural consciousness of the people from the secular to the religious' ( P 169, History as a Site of Struggle, Three Essays Collective ) According to him
'This is qualitatively different effort from that of the secular forces who mainly focus on cultural intervention, the impact of which is limited and transient. The difference between cultural intervention and intervention in culture distinguishes the cultural engagement of the communal and the secular and their relative success'. (do)
Secondly, the secular movement, has always emphasised what Harsh Mander has described in his recent article (Learning from Ambedkar, http://kafila.org/2014/08/23/learning-from-babasaheb-harsh-mander/#more-23461 ) an image of India which has been 'through most of its long history, a diverse, pluralist and tolerant civilization – the land of Buddha, Kabir and Nanak, of Ashoka, Akbar and Gandhi. ' as a counter to a narrow, intolerant, exclucivist, monolithic interpretation of Indian culture done by the Hindutva right, which Romila Thapar describes 'as the right-wing Semitisation of Hinduism'. It has celebrated the existing culture here which has provided space and freedom for every major faith to flourish, where 'persecuted faiths have received refuge' and 'where heterodox and sceptical traditions thrived alongside spiritual and mystical traditions'.
Basing itself on this understanding it has tried to interrogate, question and challenge Hindutva Supremacist forces. But this understanding as anyone can notice seems to be a partial description of our society which invisibilises the stark reality of caste - the hierarchial division of society - an integral part of Indian social fabric based on the age old doctrine of exclusion legitimised and sanctified by the Brahminical ideology. This sociological blindness towards such an age-old structure has impacted its task of secularization.
VI.
What no one seemed to notice . . . was the ever widening gap. . . between the government and the people.
The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. . . . It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway . . . and kept us so busy with continuous changes and “crises” and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the “national enemies,” without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. . . .
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that . . . one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. . . . You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. . . .
But the one great shocking occasion . . . never comes. . . . That’s the difficulty.
Milton Mayer, (They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1938-45 University of Chicago Press, 1955), writing about the Nazi takeover of Germany
There could be many such questions which demand answers. For example, till date not much attention has been paid to the parallel growth of nationalism and communalism in this part of South Asia. One also needs to revisit the anti-colonial struggle more critically, as one discovers that although it was fought invoking the idea of the nascent nation, at every crucial step, it tried to silence the voices of oppressed already present here.
There is a Sanskrit Subhashitam which says 'Wade wade jayate Tatwabodha' (As the debate progresses, we can reach a better understanding). One sincerely hopes that we will emerge from the meeting with new clarity, new resolve and new enthusiasm to fight demons of the present.
As we mentioned in the beginning these are really dark times. But we should never forget that humanity has faced darker times than we have been witness to today. And despite occasional setbacks it has always moved ahead, surged ahead.
Everybody knows that people who hold reins of power today have no qualms in glorifying Hitler or discussing achievements of Nazism in their documents or telling the outside world that they take inspiration from such experiments. Perhaps they need to be also reminded that how all such experiments in ‘Aryan Supremacy’ accompanied by ethnic cleansing of the ‘others’ ended and how all those Fuhrers and Duces were thrown into the dustbin of history.
Indian people also await similar juncture.
It depends upon all of us who are committed to a better life for humanity – better justice, better peace and better progress. It also depends upon how we strategise so that similar emancipatory moment arrives here at the earliest.
END.
Scribbling in Dark Times-1
What is a sine qua non of democracy?
( Revised version of presentation at All India Consultative meeting of Progressive Organisations and Individuals, organised by Karnataka Kaumu Sauhardu Vedike
