Arun Shourie
This is the first of a two part article by Sri Arun Shourie (former editor of the Indian Express, Magsaysay award winner and presently Minister for Disinvestment) published in the Sunday on 31st Jan 1993.
Of course, he said, Hindus who became Muslims must be taken back into the Hindu fold. Otherwise our numbers will keep dwindling -- we used to be around 600 million by the reckoning of Ferishta, the oldest Muslim historian, now we are just 200 million. "And then", he continued, "every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more."
That is the new darling of the communists and secularists, Swami Vivekananda, answering questions put to him by the editor of Prabuddha Bharat. Not only what he goes on to say but the word he uses for the converts is bound to stick in the secularists� throat. "Again," says Swami Vivekananda continuing his reasons for accepting them back as Hindus, "the vast majority of Hindu perverts to Islam and Christianity are perverts by the sword, or the descendants of these. It would be obviously unfair to subject these to disabilities of any kind. As to the case of born aliens, did you say? Why, born aliens have been converted in the past by crowds, and the process is still going on..." (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume V, pages 233-4. In all subsequent references to these books, the number of the volume is given first followed by the page number.)
That is the trouble with rushing into the charge with a quotation or two, without immersing oneself in the thought and world view of the person. Not just the CPI and CPI(M), but a host of fellow-travellers, too, have suddenly alighted upon Swami Vivekananda as if he can be a handy instrument. They forget -- or at least would have us forget -- what they used to say about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda till the other day. If one were to just reproduce today what they used to allege about the relationship between the two, that would be enough to start a riot in Bengal. There are two other ways to weigh their sudden fondness for him.
The central premise of Swami Vivekananda�s entire life was that the essence of India lay in religion; that the religion of our people was the Hindu dharma; that this was not the just the lever by which India was to be reawakened, the truths the Hindu seers had uncovered were the goals to which that reawakened India had to be turned, and that these truths were that pearl of inestimable value which it was India�s mission to give to the world. Which red-blooded communist or secularist will own up to this credo? The other way to assess their quotation mongering is equally telling: before you launch on your hunt for serviceable quotation from the Swami, consider what he said on Islam. Considering that you suddenly find him to have been a man of such insight will you accept his views on that too?
The Swami on the Prophet
There is the embarrassment to start with that, unlike Jesus and the Gospels, the Swami never thought it worth his while to devote time to studying the Prophet�s life and teaching in any depth. When he recounts the life of the Prophet (see for instance, I. 481-3) it is in extremely simplistic terms: number of wives and all. His general view of the Prophet seems to be that the Prophet was an inspired but untrained yogi, and the Swami uses him as a warning. This is how he puts the matter in his treatise on Raja Yoga:
"The yogi says there is a great danger in stumbling upon this state. In a good many cases, there is the danger of the brain being deranged, and, as a rule, you will find that all those men, however great they were, who had stumbled upon this superconscious state without understanding it, groped in the dark, and generally had, along with their knowledge, some quaint superstition. They opened themselves to hallucinations. Mohammad claimed that the Angel Gabriel came to him in a cave one day and took him on the heavenly horse, Harak, and he visited the heavens. But with all that Mohammad spoke some wonderful truths. If you read the Koran, you find the most wonderful truths mixed with superstitions. How will you explain it? That man was inspired, no doubt, but that inspiration was, as it were, stumbled upon. He was not a trained yogi, and did not know the reason of what he was doing. Think of what the good Mohammad did to the world, and think of the great evil that has been done through his fanaticism! Think of the millions massacred through his teachings, mothers bereft of their children, children made orphans, whole countries destroyed, millions upon millions of people killed!... So we see this danger by studying the lives of great teachers like Mohammad and others. Yet we find, at the same time, that they were all inspired. Whenever a prophet got into the superconscious state by heightening his emotional nature, he brought away from it not only some truths, but some fanaticism also, some superstition which injured the world as much as the greatness of the teaching helped." (I. 184)
On The Book
The central claim of Islam, as of Christianity, is that it has been given The Book, that it alone has been given The Book, that therefore it alone possesses The Truth. That there was The Book- the Talmud, the Bible, the Koran- the Swami said had one effect; it helped the adherents to hold together. But apart from that the effect of The Book � whichever this happened to be � was baneful. Our communists will not find the Swami�s verdict palatable, not the least because the Swami�s words apply to them and the fetish they made of their Book just as sharply as to Islam etc.!
"One of the great advantages of a book," the Swami says, "is that it crystallises everything in tangible and convenient form, and is the handiest of all idols. Just put a book on an altar and everyone sees it; a good book, everyone reads. I am afraid I may be considered partial. But, in my opinion, books have produced more evil than good. They are accountable for many mischievous doctrines. Creeds all come from books, and books are alone responsible for the persecution and fanaticism in the world. Books in modern times are making liars everywhere. I am astonished at the number of liars abroad in every country." (IV. 44).
Moreover, the Jew, the Christian, the Muslim each has his own book. The Books are at variance. Each says his books alone are right. How is the contest to be settled? Surely it cannot be settled by using any of the Books themselves as the yardstick. It can only be settled by subjecting all of them to reason (I. 368, II. 335) -- the very procedure the faithful will not allow!
The Book itself is but a specific example: an instance of the claim to being the sole possessors of Truth. That is the central claim of every Semitic religion, of Islam most of all. Again I doubt if our communists will reproduce what he had to say about this claim, if for no other reason than because once again the words apply so very aptly to their own claim to being the sole possessors of The Revelation. Here it is:
"Therefore we at once see why there has been so much narrow-mindedness, the part always claiming to be the whole; the little, finite unit always laying claim to the infinite. Think of little sects, born within a few hundred years out of fallible human brains, making this arrogant claim of knowledge of the whole of God�s infinite truth! Think of the arrogance of it! If it shows anything, it is this, how vain human beings are. And it is no wonder that such claims have always failed, and, by the mercy of the Lord, are always destined to fail. In this line the Mohammedans were the best off; every step forward was made with the sword -- the Koran in the one hand and the sword in the other: �Take the Koran, or you must die; there is no alternative!� You know from history how phenomenal was their success; for six hundred years nothing could resist them, and then there came a time when they had to cry halt. So, will it be with other religions if they follow the same methods." (II. 369-70).
On Universal Brotherhood
The claim of Islam, as of every other Semitic religion right up to and including Marxism-Leninism, that it is the doctrine of Universal Brotherhood, the Swami punctures on this count: these religions talk of Universal Brotherhood even as they divide the world between believers and non-believers, not just consigning the latter to external damnation, but binding the believers to exterminate them altogether.
"The more selfish a man," says the Swami in words that the communists will certainly not quote, "the more immoral he is."
"And so also with the race. That race which is bound down to itself has been the most cruel and the most wicked in the whole world. There has not been a religion that has clung to this dualism more than that founded by the Prophet of Arabia, and there has not been a religion, which has shed so much blood and been so cruel to other men. In the Koran there is the doctrine that a man who does not believe these teachings should be killed; it is a mercy to kill him! And the surest way to get to heaven, where there are beautiful houris and all sorts of sense enjoyments, is by killing these unbelievers. Think of the bloodshed there has been in consequence of such beliefs!" (II. 352-2).
The consequence is inevitable. "Now", says the Swami, "we all shout like these drunken men, �Universal Brotherhood!� We are all equal, therefore let us make a sect.� As soon as you make a sect you protect against equality and equality is no more. Mohammedans talk of universal brotherhood, but what comes out of that in reality? Why, anybody who is not a Mohammedan will not be admitted into the brotherhood; he will more likely have his own throat cut. Christians talk of universal brotherhood; but anyone who is not a Christian must go to that place where he will be eternally barbecued." (II. 380).
On Iconoclasm
The scorn Islam has for idol worship and the enthusiasm it has for smashing idols and temples meets with more than scorn from the Swami. Pratika and Pratima have a deep meaning, the Swami explains again and again. They are aids to gathering our wayward minds, devices for imbuing ourselves with higher attributes -- over the ages the idols are endowed with these attributes through lore, and tradition, and association, and then by contemplating the idols and attributes we imbibe them. The iconoclasts don�t just miss the significance of the idol. They become idolators of the lowest kind themselves.
People -- Muslims no less than others- find it difficult to worship the Spirit as Spirit. They therefore revert to the same forms of worship one way or another. But not having been taught, and not having reflected on the true and higher significance of the idol or mental image, they get stuck at the lowest level, at worshipping the object "in itself but not as help to the vision" (Drishtisaukaryam) of God", so that it remains "at best only of the nature of ritualistic Karmas and cannot produce either Bhakti or Mukti." (See, for instance, III. 61, 362; VI. 59-60) Worship of saints, worship of their graves (all entirely forbidden by the Prophet) are examples that the Swami often gives of Islamic idolatry, as in the following typical passage:
"It is a curious phenomenon that there never was a religion started in this world with more antagonism... (to the worship of forms) than Mohammedanism... The Mohammedans can have neither painting nor sculpture, nor music... That would lead to formalism. The priest never faces his audience. If he did, they would make a distinction. This way there was none. And yet it was not two centuries after the Prophet�s death before saint worship (developed). Here is the toe of the saint! There is the skin of the saint! So it goes, Formal worship is one of the stages we have to pass through." (VI. 60)
In view of such reversions the Swami scoffs at the claims of Christians against pagans and of Muslims against idolators. He puts all of them at par, saying that they are all at the same preliminary stage all must pass through. Here is how he puts it:
"All over the world you will find images in some form or other. With some, it is in the form of a man, which is the best form... One sect thinks a certain form is the right sort of image, and another, thinks it is bad. The Christian thinks that when God came in the form of a dove it was alright, but if he comes in the form of a fish, as the Hindus say, it is very wrong and superstitious. The Jews think if an idol be made in the form of a chest with two angels sitting on it, and a book on it, it is all right, but if it is in the form of a man or a woman, it is awful. The Mohammedans think that when they pray, if they try to form a mental image of temple with the Caaba, the black stone in it, and turn towards the west, it is alright, but if you form the image in the shape of church it is idolatry. This is the defect of image worship, yet all these seem to be necessary stages." (IV. 44-5).
Central teaching and consequence
Islam is the religion of peace, we are told again and again. Sufis -- their thought, their music -- are presented to us as the hallmark of Islam. That is certainly not the reading of the one our communists and secularists suddenly find so quotable.
"Why religions should claim that they are not bound to abide by the standpoint of reason," Swami Vivekananda writes, "no one knows. If one does not take the standard of reason, there cannot be any true judgment, even in the case of religions. One religion may ordain something very hideous. For instance, the Mohammedan religion allows Mohammedans to kill all who are not of their religion. It is clearly stated in the Koran, �Kill the infidels if they do not become Mohammedans.� They must be put to fire and sword. Now if we tell a Mohammedan that this is wrong, he will naturally ask, "How do you know that? How do you know it is not good? My book says it is�. " (II. 335)
It is not only philosophic among them who have objected to this thrust of the teaching, the Swami says:
"The mother recognizes her child in any dress and knows him however disguised. Recognize all the great, spiritual men and women in every age and country, and see that they are not really at variance with one another. Wherever there has been actual religion -- this touch of the Divine, the soul coming in direct sense-contact with the Divine -- there has always been a broadening of the mind, which enables it to see the light everywhere. Now, some Mohammedans are the crudest in this respect, and the most sectarian. Their watchword is: �There is one God, and Mohammad is his Prophet.� Everything beyond that not only is bad, but must be destroyed forthwith: at a moment�s notice, every man or woman who does not exactly believe in that must be killed; everything that does not belong to this worship must be immediately broken; every book that teaches anything else must be burnt. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, for five hundred years blood ran all over the world. That is Mohammedanism! Nevertheless, among these Mohammedans, wherever there was a philosophic man, he was sure to protest against these cruelties. In that he showed the touch of the Divine and realized a fragment of the truth; he was not playing with his religion, he was talking, but spoke the truth direct like a man." (IV. 126).
Little seems to have come of the remonstrations of the philosophers however. For in Swami Vivekananda�s reading, the influence of Islam was determined by its central teaching -- to kill or be killed in the war to bring peace to the world.
The Hindu more than others, and the Hindu priests more than ordinary Hindus, Swami Vivekananda recounts, became the targets of slaughter:
"To the Mussulman, the Jews or the Christians are not objects of extreme detestation; they are, at the worst, men of little faith. But not so the Hindu. According to him, the Hindu is idolatrous, the hateful kafir; hence in this life he deserves to be butchered; and in the next, eternal hell is in store for him. The utmost the Mussulman kings could do as a favour to the priestly class -- the spiritual guides of these kafirs -- was to allow them somehow to pass their life silently and wait for the last moment. This was again, sometimes considered too much kindness! If the religious ardour of any king was a little more uncommon, there would immediately follow arrangements for a great yajna by way of kafir-slaughter." (IV. 446).
History accordingly turned gory with the coming of Islam to India, the Swami says:
"You know that the Hindu religion never persecutes. It is the land where all sects may live in peace and amity. The Mohammedans brought murder and slaughter in their train, but until their arrival, peace prevailed. Thus the Jains, who do not believe in a God and who regards such belief as a delusion, were tolerated, and still are there today. India sets the example of real strength that is meekness. Dash, pluck, fight, all these things are weakness." (V. 190).
Part II - Quotable Quotes
Sunday
January 31, 1993
Showing posts with label indian expres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indian expres. Show all posts
Sunday, May 25, 2008
"Arey Bhai, Masjid Hai Hi Kahaan�?"
Arun Shourie
"But why do you refer to it as a mosque at all? Where is the mosque, my friends, when the namaz is not performed? When for forty years idol worship is going on there, what kind of a mosque is it? That is just the temple of our dear Ram."
That is not L K Advani talking to V P Singh. It is V P Singh talking to several RSS leaders.
The elections had not yet been announced. V P Singh had traveled to Bombay to meet the RSS leaders. Persons I know intimately were present throughout the meeting, which was held at his request in Mr Ramnath Goenka's penthouse at Express Towers. V P Singh said then that as the structure was valued by the Muslims and the site was sacred to the Hindus, he was for Rajmohan Gandhi's proposal -- i.e., for shifting the mosque bricks to another site and constructing the temple at the site.
This is in essence what the VHP and the BJP came to espouse, with the improvement that the Hindus shall raise the funds to bear the entire cost of shifting the structure.
Later, too, I know from one of the senior most leaders of the BJP, one who measures every word he says, Kidar Nath Sahni, V P Singh used the exact expressions of the BJP leaders.
Later still -- and I know this directly from my friend Jaswant Singh, the BJP MP and today the Chairman of the Estimates Committee of Parliament - he used the very expressions to Jaswant Singh. To him V P Singh added that as the structure was a mandir in any case, why "demolish" it?
"Where is the need for demolition?" V P Singh had asked, "One shove and it will crumble. If each of you were to carry just one brick home, there will be nothing left there."
The Formula
Nor was there any change in the ensuing months. I know -- again from persons who were directly involved that V P Singh did not just endorse the three-point formula which was worked out, he actively participated in devising it.
Under it the entire property -- i.e. the structure and the land -- was to be acquired by the government. The structure was termed Part A, and the land around it Parts B and C, for reasons we shall just see.
As for Part A, the Supreme Court was to be asked to determine the character of the structure.' Till the determination was handed down, VHP etc., though continuing their movement, would not touch the structure. The lands around the structure were divided into two parts - and only because the method of acquiring them had to be different. The lands around the structure which were owned privately had to be acquired under the Land Acquisition Act. In normal circumstances to acquire these, notices of up to two years would have to be given. The notices were dispensable in emergencies, but even then it was necessary to give notices of three weeks or so. This latter is what was to be done in the case of this land.
The rest of the land was Nazul land. This the Government could, and therefore would, acquire immediately.
The lands had some structures on them -- a temple, a dharmashala, an office, etc. It was decided that for the time being the government would keep these intact.
The lands per se were to be made over to the VHP, etc., and they were to commence construction from the spot where the shilanyas had been done last November.
It was then noticed that actually the entire land could be acquired by Government under a special ordinance. There was therefore no reason to hand over the Nazul land one day and the privately owned land three weeks later. It was all to be done in one go.
All this was worked out between V P Singh and others between Monday, October 15, and Thursday, October 18.
George Fernandes met Bhaurao Deoras and Atal Behari Vajpayee on the night of Thursday, October 18, and confirmed the arrangement. As did P Upendra. V P Singh confirmed it on Friday, around 11 am.
At 3 pm that day two minister, Madhu Dandavate and Subodh Kant Sahay, met Moropant Pingle, the RSS strong man overseeing the VHP, and reconfirmed the arrangement. Pingle expressed the VHP's reservation: it would accept the formula, but it would not give up its right to continue its movement for shifting the mosque, he said; however, he agreed, it would not disturb the structure for the time being in any way.
Then came a stormy meeting of Muslim leaders with V P Singh. And so around 5 pm V P Singh let it be known that he had changed his mind. What was the "disputed structure became the "disputed land". And all lands, the titles to which were in dispute before the Allahabad High Court were now to be taken to be covered by the expression "disputed land".
As nothing was to be done to disturb what was "disputed", this change meant that nothing could be commenced anywhere, not even at the spot where the shilanyas had been done.
"But once Government acquires the land," the law officer of the Government explained to him, "all disputes about its titles would end. There is thus no reason for going back on what has been agreed -- about commencing construction."
"Then I won't acquire the land," said V P Singh.
The Ordinance
That night however came the Ordinance. It did not make the distinction which had been agreed to originally between the structure and the land. Government did not spell out what exactly was to be referred to the Supreme Court. And there was nothing about transferring anything to the VHP. Even so, the Ordinance had at least acquired the land.
The VHP was furious. It felt it had been taken for a ride, not just by government but the mediators, among whom were two I know and work with intimately. But the impression was given on behalf of Government the next morning, on Saturday that is, that the Ordinance had been just the first step, that the rest would follow within the next two or three days. Moderate leaders, L K Advani and Vajpayee, therefore declared that while the Ordinance was a small step, it was a small step forward.
The initial reactions of the Muslim leaders too were of cautious relief: they had been in what was being negotiated; they did not reject what was announce; they said the details would be studied.
Even on Saturday therefore, the original arrangement was alive.
But by Sunday recriminations had started among the Muslim leaders: you have agreed to a step which will become precedent for taking over waqf properties anywhere and everywhere, charged some about the others.
The hard liners prevailed. And so the Muslim leaders warned V P Singh, if you allow any construction even in the plot in which the shilanyas had been done, the Muslims will spurn you the same way they spurned Rajiv last year.
And it became clear too that Mulayam Singh, who had already outdone V P Singh in chatting up the Muslims, might seize upon the Ordinance as opportunity. It wasn't just that he could, by halting the rathyatra, undo on the ground whatever might have been agreed to in Delhi. It was that a word from him that V P Singh had caved in to "Hindu fundamentalists" would erase the image which V P Singh had been so assiduously cultivating all this while.
The CPM stepped in too, in minatory tones.
These things and nothing else were the spur to the "secularism" which burst upon everyone so suddenly on Monday, and of which we have heard so much in the last five days.
Secularism has not been upheld. It has been given a body blow. The one and only inference which will be drawn from the fact that a Prime Minister of India went back on what he had himself helped put together, and thereafter even withdrew the Ordinance which had been issued in the name of the President of India, and that he did all this because of pressure from secularists like Imam Bukhari, the only moral that will be drawn from this is that Hindus too should raise Bukharis among them.
Not just secularism, the authority of the State has been dealt a body blow. And in the long run no one will be harmed as much by such weakening of the State as the minorities.
The Tragedy of it
I am not so much on what all this reveals about V P Singh: no one has to labour much on that these days, he is doing all the revealing himself day and night. I am on the tragedy of it for our society, and for the Muslims in particular.
Throughout the last few decades the rational course for all citizens has been to work together to strengthen the institutions, in the proper functioning of which alone the security and prosperity of all lies. But section after section has been led to believe by the thekedars in it that its security and prosperity lies in fortifying itself as a group separate from the others. And at each turn the lay members of it have been led to believe that this leader or that -- Mrs Gandhi one day, Bahuguna the next -- was the one and only available guarantor of their security and prosperity.
The real reason behind this has been simply that that leader has won over the thekedars by the customary devices, that the interests not of the poor Muslim masses were secure in the hands of that leader but that the interests of those thekedars had been taken care of by him.
That has been the real reason. But the poor Muslims have been made to fall for the contrived superficials: the achkan with a Lakhnavi or Hyderabadi cut, the cap of this cut rather than that, the person's demeanour at Iftaar parties, the smattering of Urdu in the person's speeches. They have been led to fall for surface promises -- "The Minorities Commission shall be given Constitutional status," "There shall be special financial institutions for the minorities."
It is not only that so many of these promises have been hollow - what is the poor Muslim weaver, his trade being swamped as that of any other weaver by the rush of technology, or the poor Muslim boy toiling away over a carpet like any other poor boy, going to get from the conferment of constitutional status on the Minorities Commission? It is that many of these sops will worsen the lot of the Muslims: Just set up separate financial institutions for them and see the attitudes of managers in ordinary banks towards Muslim clients.
But because a leader has held out such baubles, the Muslim masses have been enticed by their thekedars to repose faith in him.
Of course, the leaders and the thekedars are not the only ones who have contributed to this. The pseudo-secularists have done even more. They have not cared to study the details of any controversy that has arisen � be it Shah Bano or Rushdie's book or the affair on hand. The hand slogan and the smear have been all for them. But these have been let loose ferociously. Every rational solution has thus been drowned.
And the very thing they said they were out to prevent -- Hindu reaction -- has been enflamed.
V P Singh taunts the BJP leaders today, asserting that they embarked on the rathyatra for electoral purposes. Assume they did.
But what is portentous is not the rath they launched. What is portentous is the tumultuous response it evoked. Today no one stokes that reaction more the sudden secularists, V P Singh and Mulayam Singh.
And the poor Muslims are led to believe by the thekedars among them, by the pseudo-secularists, and of course by the two of them that these two are their protectors!
The Indian Express
October 25, 1990
"But why do you refer to it as a mosque at all? Where is the mosque, my friends, when the namaz is not performed? When for forty years idol worship is going on there, what kind of a mosque is it? That is just the temple of our dear Ram."
That is not L K Advani talking to V P Singh. It is V P Singh talking to several RSS leaders.
The elections had not yet been announced. V P Singh had traveled to Bombay to meet the RSS leaders. Persons I know intimately were present throughout the meeting, which was held at his request in Mr Ramnath Goenka's penthouse at Express Towers. V P Singh said then that as the structure was valued by the Muslims and the site was sacred to the Hindus, he was for Rajmohan Gandhi's proposal -- i.e., for shifting the mosque bricks to another site and constructing the temple at the site.
This is in essence what the VHP and the BJP came to espouse, with the improvement that the Hindus shall raise the funds to bear the entire cost of shifting the structure.
Later, too, I know from one of the senior most leaders of the BJP, one who measures every word he says, Kidar Nath Sahni, V P Singh used the exact expressions of the BJP leaders.
Later still -- and I know this directly from my friend Jaswant Singh, the BJP MP and today the Chairman of the Estimates Committee of Parliament - he used the very expressions to Jaswant Singh. To him V P Singh added that as the structure was a mandir in any case, why "demolish" it?
"Where is the need for demolition?" V P Singh had asked, "One shove and it will crumble. If each of you were to carry just one brick home, there will be nothing left there."
The Formula
Nor was there any change in the ensuing months. I know -- again from persons who were directly involved that V P Singh did not just endorse the three-point formula which was worked out, he actively participated in devising it.
Under it the entire property -- i.e. the structure and the land -- was to be acquired by the government. The structure was termed Part A, and the land around it Parts B and C, for reasons we shall just see.
As for Part A, the Supreme Court was to be asked to determine the character of the structure.' Till the determination was handed down, VHP etc., though continuing their movement, would not touch the structure. The lands around the structure were divided into two parts - and only because the method of acquiring them had to be different. The lands around the structure which were owned privately had to be acquired under the Land Acquisition Act. In normal circumstances to acquire these, notices of up to two years would have to be given. The notices were dispensable in emergencies, but even then it was necessary to give notices of three weeks or so. This latter is what was to be done in the case of this land.
The rest of the land was Nazul land. This the Government could, and therefore would, acquire immediately.
The lands had some structures on them -- a temple, a dharmashala, an office, etc. It was decided that for the time being the government would keep these intact.
The lands per se were to be made over to the VHP, etc., and they were to commence construction from the spot where the shilanyas had been done last November.
It was then noticed that actually the entire land could be acquired by Government under a special ordinance. There was therefore no reason to hand over the Nazul land one day and the privately owned land three weeks later. It was all to be done in one go.
All this was worked out between V P Singh and others between Monday, October 15, and Thursday, October 18.
George Fernandes met Bhaurao Deoras and Atal Behari Vajpayee on the night of Thursday, October 18, and confirmed the arrangement. As did P Upendra. V P Singh confirmed it on Friday, around 11 am.
At 3 pm that day two minister, Madhu Dandavate and Subodh Kant Sahay, met Moropant Pingle, the RSS strong man overseeing the VHP, and reconfirmed the arrangement. Pingle expressed the VHP's reservation: it would accept the formula, but it would not give up its right to continue its movement for shifting the mosque, he said; however, he agreed, it would not disturb the structure for the time being in any way.
Then came a stormy meeting of Muslim leaders with V P Singh. And so around 5 pm V P Singh let it be known that he had changed his mind. What was the "disputed structure became the "disputed land". And all lands, the titles to which were in dispute before the Allahabad High Court were now to be taken to be covered by the expression "disputed land".
As nothing was to be done to disturb what was "disputed", this change meant that nothing could be commenced anywhere, not even at the spot where the shilanyas had been done.
"But once Government acquires the land," the law officer of the Government explained to him, "all disputes about its titles would end. There is thus no reason for going back on what has been agreed -- about commencing construction."
"Then I won't acquire the land," said V P Singh.
The Ordinance
That night however came the Ordinance. It did not make the distinction which had been agreed to originally between the structure and the land. Government did not spell out what exactly was to be referred to the Supreme Court. And there was nothing about transferring anything to the VHP. Even so, the Ordinance had at least acquired the land.
The VHP was furious. It felt it had been taken for a ride, not just by government but the mediators, among whom were two I know and work with intimately. But the impression was given on behalf of Government the next morning, on Saturday that is, that the Ordinance had been just the first step, that the rest would follow within the next two or three days. Moderate leaders, L K Advani and Vajpayee, therefore declared that while the Ordinance was a small step, it was a small step forward.
The initial reactions of the Muslim leaders too were of cautious relief: they had been in what was being negotiated; they did not reject what was announce; they said the details would be studied.
Even on Saturday therefore, the original arrangement was alive.
But by Sunday recriminations had started among the Muslim leaders: you have agreed to a step which will become precedent for taking over waqf properties anywhere and everywhere, charged some about the others.
The hard liners prevailed. And so the Muslim leaders warned V P Singh, if you allow any construction even in the plot in which the shilanyas had been done, the Muslims will spurn you the same way they spurned Rajiv last year.
And it became clear too that Mulayam Singh, who had already outdone V P Singh in chatting up the Muslims, might seize upon the Ordinance as opportunity. It wasn't just that he could, by halting the rathyatra, undo on the ground whatever might have been agreed to in Delhi. It was that a word from him that V P Singh had caved in to "Hindu fundamentalists" would erase the image which V P Singh had been so assiduously cultivating all this while.
The CPM stepped in too, in minatory tones.
These things and nothing else were the spur to the "secularism" which burst upon everyone so suddenly on Monday, and of which we have heard so much in the last five days.
Secularism has not been upheld. It has been given a body blow. The one and only inference which will be drawn from the fact that a Prime Minister of India went back on what he had himself helped put together, and thereafter even withdrew the Ordinance which had been issued in the name of the President of India, and that he did all this because of pressure from secularists like Imam Bukhari, the only moral that will be drawn from this is that Hindus too should raise Bukharis among them.
Not just secularism, the authority of the State has been dealt a body blow. And in the long run no one will be harmed as much by such weakening of the State as the minorities.
The Tragedy of it
I am not so much on what all this reveals about V P Singh: no one has to labour much on that these days, he is doing all the revealing himself day and night. I am on the tragedy of it for our society, and for the Muslims in particular.
Throughout the last few decades the rational course for all citizens has been to work together to strengthen the institutions, in the proper functioning of which alone the security and prosperity of all lies. But section after section has been led to believe by the thekedars in it that its security and prosperity lies in fortifying itself as a group separate from the others. And at each turn the lay members of it have been led to believe that this leader or that -- Mrs Gandhi one day, Bahuguna the next -- was the one and only available guarantor of their security and prosperity.
The real reason behind this has been simply that that leader has won over the thekedars by the customary devices, that the interests not of the poor Muslim masses were secure in the hands of that leader but that the interests of those thekedars had been taken care of by him.
That has been the real reason. But the poor Muslims have been made to fall for the contrived superficials: the achkan with a Lakhnavi or Hyderabadi cut, the cap of this cut rather than that, the person's demeanour at Iftaar parties, the smattering of Urdu in the person's speeches. They have been led to fall for surface promises -- "The Minorities Commission shall be given Constitutional status," "There shall be special financial institutions for the minorities."
It is not only that so many of these promises have been hollow - what is the poor Muslim weaver, his trade being swamped as that of any other weaver by the rush of technology, or the poor Muslim boy toiling away over a carpet like any other poor boy, going to get from the conferment of constitutional status on the Minorities Commission? It is that many of these sops will worsen the lot of the Muslims: Just set up separate financial institutions for them and see the attitudes of managers in ordinary banks towards Muslim clients.
But because a leader has held out such baubles, the Muslim masses have been enticed by their thekedars to repose faith in him.
Of course, the leaders and the thekedars are not the only ones who have contributed to this. The pseudo-secularists have done even more. They have not cared to study the details of any controversy that has arisen � be it Shah Bano or Rushdie's book or the affair on hand. The hand slogan and the smear have been all for them. But these have been let loose ferociously. Every rational solution has thus been drowned.
And the very thing they said they were out to prevent -- Hindu reaction -- has been enflamed.
V P Singh taunts the BJP leaders today, asserting that they embarked on the rathyatra for electoral purposes. Assume they did.
But what is portentous is not the rath they launched. What is portentous is the tumultuous response it evoked. Today no one stokes that reaction more the sudden secularists, V P Singh and Mulayam Singh.
And the poor Muslims are led to believe by the thekedars among them, by the pseudo-secularists, and of course by the two of them that these two are their protectors!
The Indian Express
October 25, 1990
Lethal Custodians
Arun Shourie
Things work at two levels in India, that of paper and that of fact. On paper, for instance, we have section 167 of the Indian Penal Code under which a public servant is to be hauled up for preparing a false document; we have section 192 of the same code under which the punishment for fabricating evidence that leads to conviction for murder is the same as for murder itself; indeed, on paper, we have the entire Criminal Procedure Code which provides safeguard after safeguard for the accused. On paper we have sections 25 to 27 of the Indian Evidence Act which state that no confession made to a police officer shall be used as proof against a person unless it has been made in the immediate presence of a magistrate. On paper we have Article 20(3) of the Constitution which decrees that no one can be compelled to testify against himself.
And if you read commentaries on these sections and Articles or the judgements in which they figure, you will find them becoming more and more liberal, more and more esoteric with each passing year.
That is what is on paper. In practice we have the police lockup. With the help of some of our correspondents, I have surveyed 45 police custody deaths that occurred during the last year in seven states and Delhi. Several states-even UP, and Bihar -- could not be covered for reasons to which I shall return in a moment. Even so the patterns are so uniform one death to another, from one state to another, that generalisations are possible.
First, the victims are invariably poor. You can decide for yourself whether this is so because the well-to-do do not commit crime in India; or, if they do, because they are not hauled in; or, if they are hauled in, because they are not interrogated vigorously (and in that too whether that is so because they confess more readily or because the police feel that vigour in such cases is liable to become public knowledge); or, finally, if they too are questioned just as vigorously as the poor, it is just that they are a hardier lot and can survive torture more cheerfully. In any event, the custody -- literally, the "guardianship", "care", "safe-keeping" of the police is fatal only for the poor.
Second, several of them seem to have been hauled in on no charge at all. Latoor Singh, a well respected Harijan of Hodal, the last Haryana township on the Delhi-Agra road, landed in police custody because he got into a heated argument with the SDM about the construction of a Harijan chaupal. Next, the police said, his body was found in a well. Outraged, the people gheraoed the police station. Police opened fire, killing two. Gangu, a Bawaria of villace Dehina in Mahendragarh district in Haryana was picked up, not because hee was wanted in a crime, but because the police could not locate the Bawaria they were looking for and thought that the Bawaria, sitting then at the village bus stand, must know where the other fellow is. That was on November 1, 1979. By November 5 he was dead. (His wife Misarli, who used to take him food every day, and was told on November 5 that Gangu had died, filed a private complaint, and sent letters to the Prime Minister, Home Minister etc., the usual lot. On January 23, two days before her complaint was to come up for hearing, a police party came to her house, dragged her out and shot her at point blank range). And so on.
Hauling a person in without "arresting" him and without registering a charge has become common practice in states such as Punjab and Haryana. The man is formally "arrested" and charges are registered only later when he has confessed to the crime under the customary methods. If he does not confess or if, through the thrashing, the police get convinced that he is indeed the wrong man or that he has learnt the lesson they wanted to teach him, he is let off with the warning that should he talk... Both Punjab and Haryana have institutionalised the more productive methods of interrogation by establishing a separate Criminal Interrogation Agency, an outfit of dregs specially skilled in the swadeshi methods of brutality.
Third, in the case of persons who were formally arrested and in whose case we have been able to obtain information about the charge, in the overwhelming number of cases the alleged crimes were puny -- theft (a goat in one case, copper wire in another), the casual complaint of another that the victim had occupied his land, ticket-less travel (believe it or not). In four cases the charge was serious: interrogation in relation to a murder in two cases, attempt to murder in one and murder in the fourth. But remember these are deaths in police custody. That means that in none of the cases was the guilt of anyone of them established, In each case the matter was still being investigated. Indeed, the hauling in of three of these four victims was the first step in the investigation.
Fourth, in seven of the 45 cases the bodies were so badly mauled, the evidence of external and internal injuries was so considerable that even the authorities had to eventually register cases of murder against policemen. Five were reported as having died from natural causes ("snake-bite", "heart failure on way to the hospital", "suddenly took ill", etc.) Five were said to have died for mysterious reasons (e.g., "found dead in lock-up"). All the others are said to have committed suicide.
Now, there are a few things to note about these accounts of suicide. If the police are to be believed, suicides almost invariably come in three forms -- the Victim jumps into a well, the victim jumps in front of a running bus (in Haryana the victims are, as in the case of the 59-year-old Rattan Singh of village Gumana, considerate enough to dive between the front and rear wheels of speeding buses so as to spare the drivers the liability that would be theirs if the victims were crushed by the front wheels of the vehicles) and third, the victim hangs himself by his lungi or his belt (the last in his lockup or, as in a case reported from Tamil Nadu, in the open courtyard of the police station).
Quite apart from the fact that even terminal patients, even those facing execution, do not commit suicide as readily as these victims accused of theft etc. seem to do, many of the police accounts of suicide are idiotic. Latoor Singh, to whose case I alluded earlier, is said to have committed suicide by jumping into a well when he went unescorted to ease himself in the fields. Now, why did he go unescorted into the fields when the police station itself has a lavatory which detainees use all the time? The police in Delhi cantonment started calling Emmanuel in to question him about a girl who had disappeared. They terrorised him into believing that he would be held responsible for her murder. Each time he was beaten severely and told to return the following evening. This went on every single day, every single day from March 27 to April 10, in this the capital of India. On April 11 he presented himself as usual at the police station. That evening he was found lying on a road, badgered and unconscious. He was rushed to one hospital and then to the other. But he died without regaining consciousness. The police version: suicide by taking poison. What about the beatings from March 27 to April 10? Why was his body bruised and badgered if all that had happened was that he had taken poison? And so on. (The girl Emmanuel was said to have murdered or kidnapped has since turned up).
So improbable are the accounts of suicide that in five of the cases in which the enraged people obtained new post mortems, deaths that had earlier been reported to have been by suicide were eventually proved to have been caused by external and internal injuries.
Next, what action was taken in the case of the deaths? In the seven cases where, under intense pressure from the public, murder was eventually proven, policemen have been suspended and murder charges have been framed against them. (As all the deaths occurred within the last year, one would not expect any conviction and none indeed has come). The customary procedure, however, is to assert first that no action is required as the case is obviously one of suicide or of death from natural causes; next, if public pressure is intense, to transfer a few policemen; if that too does not assuage public outrage, to suspend a policeman or two and then reinstate them (most often in another police station) after few months. In Gangu's case in Haryana, for instance, the inspector in charge of the CIA cell has been transferred to Chandigarh. In Emmanuel's case in Delhi, the sub-inspector and constable who were initially suspended in April have been reinstated and transferred to another police station within Delhi.
So much for the patterns in death. Now for five general points First, in no state are deaths in police custody examined systematically, not by the government, not by any civil rights organisation, not by the press. In no state is even information about them collected in a systematic manner. In each case, inquiries about the death are looked upon by the police and the civil administration as illegitimate encroachements into their private preserves. And this is why in spite of our efforts we could obtain little information about U.P. and Bihar.
Second, in each instance where an inquiry was ordered, it had to be wrested after intense pressure by the people.
Third, remember that even when torture does not result in death, its effects can be lethal. Three months ago in Delhi the local police successfully got two young boys to confess that they had murdered a third boy only to have the latter turn up soon after the case of murder was formally registered against the first two. (Contrast the formal provisions of section 192 of the IPC I cited earlier with the fact that all that has happened to the Station House Officer and two sub-inspectors who had shown such exemplary efficiency in proving murder is that they have been transferred to a neighbouring police station).
Fourth, contrast the helplessness of these victims and of those who subsequently take up their cause with the effectiveness with which the well-heeled and the influential are able to use the same sections of the Codes, of the Evidence Act and the same Article 20 of the Constitution to stall proceedings against themselves for decades.
Finally, note the strength of the police (which functions in these matters as quite the most effective trade union) and note its causes -- the almost total absence of civil rights organizations and the inability of the people to sustain their anger. How else would the police get away by merely transferring the guilty or reinstating them after a month or two?
How would you want me to end this survey -- with the plea that the formal provisions of law should be adhered to, with the plea to the police to be humane, with the plea to the public to keep their anger from subsiding with such unvarying certainty, with the plea that we build up strong civil rights organizations, with the plea that the press do its job better? Choose the one you think will bear fruit.
Indian Express
August 11, 1980
Things work at two levels in India, that of paper and that of fact. On paper, for instance, we have section 167 of the Indian Penal Code under which a public servant is to be hauled up for preparing a false document; we have section 192 of the same code under which the punishment for fabricating evidence that leads to conviction for murder is the same as for murder itself; indeed, on paper, we have the entire Criminal Procedure Code which provides safeguard after safeguard for the accused. On paper we have sections 25 to 27 of the Indian Evidence Act which state that no confession made to a police officer shall be used as proof against a person unless it has been made in the immediate presence of a magistrate. On paper we have Article 20(3) of the Constitution which decrees that no one can be compelled to testify against himself.
And if you read commentaries on these sections and Articles or the judgements in which they figure, you will find them becoming more and more liberal, more and more esoteric with each passing year.
That is what is on paper. In practice we have the police lockup. With the help of some of our correspondents, I have surveyed 45 police custody deaths that occurred during the last year in seven states and Delhi. Several states-even UP, and Bihar -- could not be covered for reasons to which I shall return in a moment. Even so the patterns are so uniform one death to another, from one state to another, that generalisations are possible.
First, the victims are invariably poor. You can decide for yourself whether this is so because the well-to-do do not commit crime in India; or, if they do, because they are not hauled in; or, if they are hauled in, because they are not interrogated vigorously (and in that too whether that is so because they confess more readily or because the police feel that vigour in such cases is liable to become public knowledge); or, finally, if they too are questioned just as vigorously as the poor, it is just that they are a hardier lot and can survive torture more cheerfully. In any event, the custody -- literally, the "guardianship", "care", "safe-keeping" of the police is fatal only for the poor.
Second, several of them seem to have been hauled in on no charge at all. Latoor Singh, a well respected Harijan of Hodal, the last Haryana township on the Delhi-Agra road, landed in police custody because he got into a heated argument with the SDM about the construction of a Harijan chaupal. Next, the police said, his body was found in a well. Outraged, the people gheraoed the police station. Police opened fire, killing two. Gangu, a Bawaria of villace Dehina in Mahendragarh district in Haryana was picked up, not because hee was wanted in a crime, but because the police could not locate the Bawaria they were looking for and thought that the Bawaria, sitting then at the village bus stand, must know where the other fellow is. That was on November 1, 1979. By November 5 he was dead. (His wife Misarli, who used to take him food every day, and was told on November 5 that Gangu had died, filed a private complaint, and sent letters to the Prime Minister, Home Minister etc., the usual lot. On January 23, two days before her complaint was to come up for hearing, a police party came to her house, dragged her out and shot her at point blank range). And so on.
Hauling a person in without "arresting" him and without registering a charge has become common practice in states such as Punjab and Haryana. The man is formally "arrested" and charges are registered only later when he has confessed to the crime under the customary methods. If he does not confess or if, through the thrashing, the police get convinced that he is indeed the wrong man or that he has learnt the lesson they wanted to teach him, he is let off with the warning that should he talk... Both Punjab and Haryana have institutionalised the more productive methods of interrogation by establishing a separate Criminal Interrogation Agency, an outfit of dregs specially skilled in the swadeshi methods of brutality.
Third, in the case of persons who were formally arrested and in whose case we have been able to obtain information about the charge, in the overwhelming number of cases the alleged crimes were puny -- theft (a goat in one case, copper wire in another), the casual complaint of another that the victim had occupied his land, ticket-less travel (believe it or not). In four cases the charge was serious: interrogation in relation to a murder in two cases, attempt to murder in one and murder in the fourth. But remember these are deaths in police custody. That means that in none of the cases was the guilt of anyone of them established, In each case the matter was still being investigated. Indeed, the hauling in of three of these four victims was the first step in the investigation.
Fourth, in seven of the 45 cases the bodies were so badly mauled, the evidence of external and internal injuries was so considerable that even the authorities had to eventually register cases of murder against policemen. Five were reported as having died from natural causes ("snake-bite", "heart failure on way to the hospital", "suddenly took ill", etc.) Five were said to have died for mysterious reasons (e.g., "found dead in lock-up"). All the others are said to have committed suicide.
Now, there are a few things to note about these accounts of suicide. If the police are to be believed, suicides almost invariably come in three forms -- the Victim jumps into a well, the victim jumps in front of a running bus (in Haryana the victims are, as in the case of the 59-year-old Rattan Singh of village Gumana, considerate enough to dive between the front and rear wheels of speeding buses so as to spare the drivers the liability that would be theirs if the victims were crushed by the front wheels of the vehicles) and third, the victim hangs himself by his lungi or his belt (the last in his lockup or, as in a case reported from Tamil Nadu, in the open courtyard of the police station).
Quite apart from the fact that even terminal patients, even those facing execution, do not commit suicide as readily as these victims accused of theft etc. seem to do, many of the police accounts of suicide are idiotic. Latoor Singh, to whose case I alluded earlier, is said to have committed suicide by jumping into a well when he went unescorted to ease himself in the fields. Now, why did he go unescorted into the fields when the police station itself has a lavatory which detainees use all the time? The police in Delhi cantonment started calling Emmanuel in to question him about a girl who had disappeared. They terrorised him into believing that he would be held responsible for her murder. Each time he was beaten severely and told to return the following evening. This went on every single day, every single day from March 27 to April 10, in this the capital of India. On April 11 he presented himself as usual at the police station. That evening he was found lying on a road, badgered and unconscious. He was rushed to one hospital and then to the other. But he died without regaining consciousness. The police version: suicide by taking poison. What about the beatings from March 27 to April 10? Why was his body bruised and badgered if all that had happened was that he had taken poison? And so on. (The girl Emmanuel was said to have murdered or kidnapped has since turned up).
So improbable are the accounts of suicide that in five of the cases in which the enraged people obtained new post mortems, deaths that had earlier been reported to have been by suicide were eventually proved to have been caused by external and internal injuries.
Next, what action was taken in the case of the deaths? In the seven cases where, under intense pressure from the public, murder was eventually proven, policemen have been suspended and murder charges have been framed against them. (As all the deaths occurred within the last year, one would not expect any conviction and none indeed has come). The customary procedure, however, is to assert first that no action is required as the case is obviously one of suicide or of death from natural causes; next, if public pressure is intense, to transfer a few policemen; if that too does not assuage public outrage, to suspend a policeman or two and then reinstate them (most often in another police station) after few months. In Gangu's case in Haryana, for instance, the inspector in charge of the CIA cell has been transferred to Chandigarh. In Emmanuel's case in Delhi, the sub-inspector and constable who were initially suspended in April have been reinstated and transferred to another police station within Delhi.
So much for the patterns in death. Now for five general points First, in no state are deaths in police custody examined systematically, not by the government, not by any civil rights organisation, not by the press. In no state is even information about them collected in a systematic manner. In each case, inquiries about the death are looked upon by the police and the civil administration as illegitimate encroachements into their private preserves. And this is why in spite of our efforts we could obtain little information about U.P. and Bihar.
Second, in each instance where an inquiry was ordered, it had to be wrested after intense pressure by the people.
Third, remember that even when torture does not result in death, its effects can be lethal. Three months ago in Delhi the local police successfully got two young boys to confess that they had murdered a third boy only to have the latter turn up soon after the case of murder was formally registered against the first two. (Contrast the formal provisions of section 192 of the IPC I cited earlier with the fact that all that has happened to the Station House Officer and two sub-inspectors who had shown such exemplary efficiency in proving murder is that they have been transferred to a neighbouring police station).
Fourth, contrast the helplessness of these victims and of those who subsequently take up their cause with the effectiveness with which the well-heeled and the influential are able to use the same sections of the Codes, of the Evidence Act and the same Article 20 of the Constitution to stall proceedings against themselves for decades.
Finally, note the strength of the police (which functions in these matters as quite the most effective trade union) and note its causes -- the almost total absence of civil rights organizations and the inability of the people to sustain their anger. How else would the police get away by merely transferring the guilty or reinstating them after a month or two?
How would you want me to end this survey -- with the plea that the formal provisions of law should be adhered to, with the plea to the police to be humane, with the plea to the public to keep their anger from subsiding with such unvarying certainty, with the plea that we build up strong civil rights organizations, with the plea that the press do its job better? Choose the one you think will bear fruit.
Indian Express
August 11, 1980
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