Notes On the Great Indian Circus

by Khushwant Singh

  The record of Congress governments in the states ruled by it has also been abysmal. The cold-blooded shooting down of over 70 Muslim peasants in Hashimpura, anti-Muslim riots in Ahmedabad, in towns of Madhya Pradesh, and recently in Bhagalpur, give the lie to its secular credentials. All these made me decide that I would vote for any party except the Congress. My attitude is aptly summed up in couplet by a Delhi poet, Shuja Khawar:

  Kya rakkha hai is halqa ahbaad mein lekin, ham tum se na milney ki qasam khaye hooey hain. (There is not much left in my circle of friends, but I have sworn to have nothing to do with you.)

  It was more in the tradition of the Persian adage Hubbey Ali Nahin, Bugha-e-Muawiya— not for the love of Ali but the hatred of the murdered Muawiya—that I chose to support the BJP.

  One should not judge political parties by the labels they wear on their lapels nor by the high-sounding manifestos issued by them, but by their actions. Once again I hark back to the November 1984 killings. While Congress-I led goons were busy murdering and looting Sikhs, the only people who came to their rescue were members of the BJP and the RSS. Atal Bihari Vajpayee got up from his sick-bed to fight off goondas burning taxis belonging to the Sikhs. Sikh terrorists who hoped to set off a Hindu backlash against Sikhs by gunning down members of RSS at Ludhiana and Moga failed in their nefarious designs because the RSS refused to walk into their trap. Now which party can one honestly designate as secular and which communal?

  While members of my family and many friends mock me, greeting me with, ‘Jai Ram Ji Ki’ every morning in New Delhi, the option is limited to either from voting. My conscience is clear. Our first priority is to rid the country of Congress party rule. So I proposed Advani’s name and hope he will win with a thumping majority.

  We are all well aware that if communal hatred continues to spread the way it is spreading today, it will spell disaster for our country. There is still time for us to dispassionately examine its roots, study the dimensions it has acquired since we became independent, analyse the virus in its present form and work out antidotes that will prevent the virus from spreading further.

  First, we must somehow overcome our stereotype notions of communities other than our own. Till independence the communal problem meant only the Muslim problem. The non-Muslim had it deeply embedded in his mind that Muslims were bigots, fanatics and treacherous. We were brought up on tales of heroism of Prithviraj Chauhan, Maharana Pratap, Guru Gobind Singh and Chattrapati Shivaji. All our heroes were non-Muslims who had fought Muslims. Not one in our pantheon was Muslim. We were exposed to evidence of what Muslim conquerors had done: desecrated our temples, massacred our citizenry and imposed humiliating taxes on them. Although all this ended with British rule, we continued to harbour distrust against Muslims. The more liberal kept up a façade of friendship with some, but rarely did we learn to relax in their company and speak our minds. They were not a part of the Indian mainstream. Jinnah did not have to invent the two-nation theory; it was there for anyone who had the eyes to see. Muslims not only had a totally different religion, they could also be identified by their names. You could not differentiate a Hindu from a Sikh because Rajputs, Jats, Sikhs, Gurkhas, banias and others share common names; Muslims do not. They could also be identified by their distinct dress, their head gear, their diet and pattern of living. The British were quick to notice the distance between the communities, and as any other foreign power would have done, exploited it to its own advantage. As Maulana Mohammed Ali said, the British did not divide us and rule, we divided ourselves and they ruled.

  The communal massacres of 1946-47 and Partition created two illusions in our minds. We felt that the Muslims having got their Pakistan, those that remained—11-12 per cent of the population—would be easily integrated in the Indian mainstream. And somehow the experience of Gandhism in action would prevent communal riots from erupting. Unfortunately, both hopes proved illusory. It did not take very long for the communal virus to re-erupt in an even more virulent form and afflict most of the country—the entire Gangetic plain down to Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu were affected.

  A new post-Independence phenomenon was inter-caste riots. Violence against harijans had taken place earlier but on a very small scale which went unnoticed. On Independence, harijans had new hopes and aspirations and started clamouring for their rights. These were resisted by the caste Hindus. Riots broke out. They were entirely one-sided as harijans were unable to put up any resistance. Then we had Hindu factions fighting each other such as the Lingayats versus the Vokkaligas. In Tamil Nadu, inter-Brahmin rivalries erupted, Iyers versus Iyengars. In Gujarat there were the Patidars versus the Darbars; in the remote riverine trails where Phoolan Devi ruled, she being a Mallah, shot almost two dozen Yadavas. The most gruesome example of what India had come down to was the massacre at Nellie in Assam. There, over 3,000 men, women and children were slain in one long orgy of killing. Bangladesh refugees killed Bengalis and Assamese, Assamese and Bengalis killed each other, tribals killed non-tribals, Muslims killed Hindus and Christians, and Christians killed Hindus. In short, it was just about everyone killing everyone else. Everyone’s hand was raised against his neighbour.

  It will be evident that the basic reason for communal tension in our habitat is the suicidal rate at which our population has increased making us woefully short of land, housing, and means of livelihood. The terrible congestion in our cities—the jhopadpattis and the thousands who sleep cheek-by-jowl on pavements—in such conditions, tensions build up at the slightest provocation, temples are frayed and explode into violence. Instead of going for the person against whom you have a grievance, it is easier to gang up with members of your own community, form language groups and go for those who are not.

  Added to these are economic motives which have assumed sinister proportions. The Moradabad riots were triggered by Punjabi immigrants wanting to break the Muslim monopoly over the brassware industry. It was the same in Jalgaon and Bhiwandi (Maharashtra) where outsiders, largely Sindhi and Punjabi Hindus, destroyed Muslim weavers in order to grab their business. In Haryana the Hindu backlash against Sikh terrorism in Punjab was directed against the Sikh shopkeepers of Panipat, Karnal and Yamunanagar. In riot-prone Hyderabad, Hindu mobs went for Muslim property including a Khadi Bhandar because the owner of the building was a Muslim.

  A factor which may add to our problems is the rapidly increasing numbers of the educated unemployed. They are the single largest group behind terrorism in Punjab. At times it is directed against Hindus; more often it is against the well-to-do. Looting banks, robbing the rich, are their real motives, raising Khalistani and anti-Hindu slogans are only a façade.

  The scenario is grim and getting grimmer day by day. What can be done about it?

  First, we have to learn to live with it. The experience of the last 42 years should have taught us that we cannot wish communalism away; the best we can do is to contain it within manageable limits. We have tried many methods of defusing communal tensions. The most popular remains the traditional approach derisively described as the Ram Raheem or the Allah-Ishwar teyrey nam approach, preaching that all religions emphasize love between humans. It worked when we had people like Mahatma Gandhi around because he symbolized in his own person the spirit of Allah and Ishwar. It works no more. C. Rajagopalachari used to say that God was our best policeman. It is true that a truly religious man has no hatred in him. But such men have become a rarity; while those who display their religiosity by emphasizing differences between religions have become a common phenomenon.

  It is most important that men and women in vital State positions such as Presidents, prime ministers, chief ministers, governors and the like must not make public exhibitions of their religiosity. It should be remembered that Mahatma Gandhi who conducted daily prayers where he was, did not go into temples—and the last time he went to a place of worship was at the tomb of Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki to pray for forgiveness for damage done to the shrine by Hindu goondas. Jawaharlal Nehru never we
nt to temples, mosques or gurudwaras. Thereafter Mrs Gandhi and most of her appointees started exploiting religious sentiment for political purposes. Bhoomi Poojans, ardas and keettans are performed at public functions. Balram Jakhar was himself kicked on the forehead by a sadhu sitting on top of a tree. All kinds of godmen, astrologers, swamis and charlatans in saffron robes give advice to our leaders.

  The misuse of official media, All India Radio and Doordarshan for propagating religion has done immense harm by putting the clock of scientific progress backwards. I attribute much of the blame for the resurgence of Hindu fundamentalism to serials on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

  The practice of religion must be restricted to places of worship and not imposed on others through use of loudspeakers, processions and holding samagams in public parks.

  When we are face to face with communal passions, what are the preventive and punitive methods we should adopt? The most important preventive method is to strengthen our intelligence. This has become a cliché but it is very important. Our Intelligence has been so poor that we hardly get a warning ahead of time that communal passions are building up and that steps should be taken to defuse them. It is only after somebody has been stabbed or some houses burnt down that the police, as the newspaper clichés go, swing into action.

  We must also restructure our police force. We should adopt the simple principle that the minority communities should be over-represented. If it is a Muslim area the police should be largely Hindu. If it is a Hindu area the police should be largely Muslim. This is necessary because it restores confidence in the minorities as it is the fear of the minority that you have to try to assuage. Care should be taken to see that sub-inspectors certainly belong to minority communities because they are the most important police officers who deal with the actual situation in any particular area.

  When a riot really breaks out what should we do? I have the following suggestions to make:

  First, wherever a riot breaks out, the police officer-in-charge should automatically be suspended, because the break-down of the law enforcing machinery is clear evidence of dereliction of duty; it is the police officer’s duty to know that tension was building up and he should have taken steps to defuse it. After a new police officer is put in charge, the entire administration of that particular locality should be placed in his hands. We must learn to trust the police much more than we do now. It is for them, along with the district magistrate or whoever it is, to impose curfew in the area and take whatever steps they want, to contain violence.

  We must also provide for summary trials of mischief-makers. Perpetrators of communal riots are seldom brought to court. Rarely are communal killers punished, because nobody is willing to give evidence against them. Provisions should be made for summary trials on the spot, where the incidents have taken place and the magistrate should be empowered to impose collective fines on the area and to order public flogging of the people he feels were responsible.

  The Illustrated Weekly of India,

  26 November 1989

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  Mandal Mess

  Many years ago I was invited to sit on a board to select applicants for the post of Information Officer. At the time there was only one vacancy which had to be filled immediately. We interviewed six applicants including a young lady of a scheduled caste from South India. She had graduated from an American University, hence it could be assumed that she came from an affluent family. She was, however, blissfully unaware of what was going on in the world as she admitted that she did not read newspapers. To make things simple for her, I asked her if she knew the name of the chief minister of Kashmir. She smiled sweetly and shook her head to indicate that she did not. To make it even simpler I asked her if the name Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah (he was then CM of Jammu and Kashmir) meant anything to her. Once again she shook her head and replied, ‘I have not studied Islamic history.’

  After the interviews were over, the chairman asked us to approve of the name of the lady for the post. ‘We have no option. A scheduled-caste candidate has to be recommended and she is the only one we have’, he said with an air of finality. He did not explain why we had to go through the exercise of interviewing six candidates when all that was required of us was to affix our thumb impressions on her selection. However, we dutifully did so. What kind of information the lady was able to disseminate to people who came to seek knowledge from her, leaves little room for imagination.

  I am still not clear of the exact implications of accepting the recommendations of the Mandal Commission. What is quite clear is that all major political parties have accepted the report and the supporters of the National Front government cannot be blamed for having accorded them legal sanction. It is also quite clear that besides religion, caste and tribe, consideration will be given to economic status inasmuch as families earning less than Rs 10,000 per year (the figure may be revised upwards) will be given similar preferences for being deprived. Motives for doing so are to undo wrongs done to the out-castes and under-privileged over the centuries. What we have to guard against is that in our attempts to do so we do not perpetuate the caste structure and ignore merit of the deserving. I fear that not enough attention was paid to these aspects of the problem and the public response to the steps contemplated. Hence we find ourselves in the midst of a civil strife based on caste differences. Instead of a national consensus on the best means to provide equality of opportunity to those who are unable to compete, we are up against a dogged resistance to any change in the wretched status quo.

  The Hindustan Times, 8 September 1990

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  Looking for the Right Words

  I was asked by the Hindi Service of the BBC to comment on the new prime minister and his Cabinet. My Hindi is not very good. I desperately tried to find Hindi equivalents for ‘consensus’, ‘coterie’, ‘lacklustre’ and ‘without political base’. Ultimately, I used the English words along the Hindi synonyms suggested to me. That pretty well summed up my reactions to our new rulers. It was not an honest meeting of minds but an agreement arrived at because the more powerful claimants to the crown were eager to keep each other out and thought the best way of doing so was to accept Narasimha Rao—pro tem—for the time being. At this political juncture, India needs a younger man with charisma and demoniac drive to haul the country out of the morass it is in. Personally, I would have chosen Madhavrao Scindia, Sharad Pawar or Arjun Singh. Or if someone non-controversial from outside the party could be inducted, I would have opted for Dr Karan Singh. Narasimha Rao has none of the lustre of his predecessors. That might have proved an asset if he had picked a team which inspired confidence in the people. As it is, quite a few of his colleagues are without any political base and would not win a municipal by-election in their own hometowns. Some are notorious opportunists who will jump on any bus that will take them to the ministerial depot. And there are quite a few whose chief qualification has been to hang around seats of power.

  However, the scenario is not entirely bleak. There is the welcome induction of Dr Manmohan Singh, a notable non-political person with a formidable reputation as an economist. There is Chidambaram, the brightest of the younger set. After his performance at the Eighth Lok Sabha, he deserved being upgraded. What surprised me most was the omission of equally able men available to the prime minister. On top of my list of missing persons is Ram Niwas Mirdha, as cultured a politician and administrator as I have known: soft-spoken, self-effacing and committed to his party and country. Among the new entrants there is Mani Shankar Aiyar—erudite, nimble-minded, a good speaker and as bright as they come. He could prove a match for anyone in the opposition benches. It also surprises me that prime ministers do not tap the talents of industrialist MPs like K.K. Birla who are available to them. Surely they know more about industry and commerce than others who pick up their knowledge from textbooks. Such men can be trusted not to take decisions that would enhance their personal fortunes.

  I must confess that my critical reaction to Narasimha Rao’s
induction as prime minister was coloured by my aversion to superstition. How can anyone who subscribes to auspicious and inauspicious hours (Rahu Kalam) and consorts with the saffron-clad charlatan Chandraswamy be expected to take the country into the twenty-first Century?

  The Hindustan Times, 29 June 1991

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  Mathura Was Not Ayodhya

  Violence makes good copy for media persons; success in maintaining law and order does not. That is why the desecration of a mosque in Ayodhya and its aftermath—pulling down of Hindu and Sikh temples in Muslim countries as well as England—received wide coverage whereas firmness shown at Janmashtami celebrations in Mathura which passed off peacefully drew very little attention: It proved the adage, no news is good news.

  There are lessons to be learnt from the way peace was preserved in Mathura. The situation was fast building up to the kind that was allowed to be built up on the eve of the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Fortunately some patriotic-minded and far-sighted leaders of the BJP like Atal Bihari Vajpayee realized that the consequences of allowing another Ayodhya kind of vandalism would be disastrous for the country and distanced themselves from plans to damage the mosque at Mathura.