Author: Pandita Indrani
Publication: www.caribvoice.org
Date: April, 2002
URL: http://www.caribvoice.org/Opinions/Indrani/hindumoslem.html
The western media are fed by large
global news agencies whose agendas transcend national loyalties to espouse
multinational concerns. And dead Hindus and Moslems in India, or dead Africans
in Africa are only newsworthy if the spin will promote the foreign policies
of western governments. India is a land of complex diversities - once a
leader in the non-aligned movement, but today a follower in the globalization
race. India's social institutions have been torn apart, first by the Moslem
invaders and later by the British. The British entrenched the caste system
in India's socio-political life such that it strengthened caste differentiations
rather than reducing them. Every government since Independence has failed
to correct this for fear of unsettling vote banks.
The Indian constitution divides
its nation on the basis of religion, giving minority status and benefits
to all religions that are not classified as "Hindu," and to groups that
are in the lower socio-economic scale within the Hindu classification.
At present Moslems and Christians are classified as minorities along with
those castes that were at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. The
Indian constitution classifies Jains, Buddhist and Sikhs as Hindus since
they have come from the same womb. Today these groups wish to declare themselves
as independent religions, thereby giving them minority status and access
to affirmative action benefits. The Ramakrishna Mission tried to get minority
status some years ago but the courts denied them the same. Other Hindu
groups have been making a similar call for independent status too. The
caste and minority classifications of Indian society are institutions that
need reform in order to carry the Indian society forward. These are millstones
for post-modern India.
Against this background lies much
of motivation that drives the Hindu-Moslem-Christian conflicts in India.
The Godhra incident that started the present Hindu-Moslem conflicts occurred
when a Moslem mob of over 2,000, burnt alive, several Hindus in a train
that had stopped at that station. There was an instant backlash by Hindus.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad openly requested, in the Press, that Moslem organizations
condemn the attack but not one of them did so.
It is always unfortunate when the
innocent become victims of the anger and hatred of leaders, especially
in the name of religion. It is equally unfortunate that this was allowed
to occur because the Hindu and Moslem intelligentsia remained silent. No
Moslem body condemned the attack on the Hindus, just as they failed to
condemn the attack on America on 9/11/01, opting instead to openly declare
allegiance to a Pan-Islamic ideology and identity that transcended their
Indian nationality and identity. The Communist intelligentsia stereotyped
all Hindus as aggressors and all Moslems and minorities as victims. Such
broad generalizations paint an inaccurate picture of India's complex realities.
When Hindus destroyed the Babri
structure (an unused, I stress, unused, dilapidated mosque that, Hindus
say, was built on a Ram mandir destroyed by the Moslem invaders in earlier
history) and sought to rebuild the part that is their functional mandir,
there were a number of bombings as a backlash against Hindus across India.
The world remained silent and the Hindu and Moslem intelligentsia remained
silent. The unscrupulous politicians convinced Moslems that the unused
Babri structure was indeed a functional mosque which it is not. When the
genocide of Hindus started in Bangladesh in the last couple months, the
world remained silent and the Hindu intelligentsia remained silent. Some
Moslem journalists spoke out and were persecuted for doing so. Hindu numbers
have dropped dramatically in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kashmir but the world
and the Hindu intelligentsia remained silent. The murder of outstanding
Hindus in India goes unnoticed and uncommented upon in India. The headquarters
of one the largest Hindu organizations was bombed in Madras a few years
back. And these are just incidents that I am randomly recalling from my
visits to India.
Many Hindus see the Godhra incident
as the last straw. Some see the need for a firewall against the sustained
and well-organized offensives being waged against Hindus on political and
religious grounds. The militancy of Hindu groups is a reaction to these
offensives. It would be wrong to associate this type of militancy, which
is a reaction to aggressors, with the militancy that marks aggressors on
a peaceful people. I unequivocally condemn the attacks by Hindus on innocent
people in the current backlash as I unequivocally condemn the aggression
of militant Islam and militant Christianity on innocent Hindus in India.
It is a great shame when the innocent, children and women are raped, burnt
alive, tortured and so on in the name of religion.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad is a firewall
against aggression on Hindus. And it is in this context that one needs
to read what is happening now. Christian and Moslem bodies have been aggressively
working with the American government to deny any legitimacy to militant
Hinduism. Having read the Indian scene you may agree with me that militancy
is going to rise in India as Hindus rise up to defend the handsomely funded
and well designed pogroms against them. We may wish for peace, but it is
not going to come as long as the aggressor is pointing a gun at your head
and your back is against the wall.
The rich Islamic world is using
American technology and public relations know-how to market itself globally.
Islamic governments, through their foreign policies, fund American academia
and others around the world to institutionalize Islamic studies in their
education system. This is not an attempt at disseminating innocent religious
perspectives but an attempt at controlling academia and the dissemination
of knowledge and information. And they are doing a pretty fine job. America,
Britain and most of the European countries may call themselves secular
but they promote a Christian agenda along with their foreign policies.
India calls itself secular and, in the process, seeks to deny its Hindu
culture and religion as defining its national ethos. So Hindus have no
governmental infrastructure, as Islam or Christianity, to defend their
religion and culture in any part of the world. Nepal, nominally a Hindu
kingdom, has failed miserably.
So, who speaks for the Hindus, who
takes up their causes? Well the Hindu intelligentsia has failed to do so
and there is no governmental infrastructure for doing so. The Hindu people
are among the most misunderstood in the world. They cannot be viewed through
the Judeo-Christian lens.
It is my projection that Hindus
are going to become like the Jews - scattered over the globe, and having
to fight for some space that they may call their own. While the Americans
will support the Jews (because of their economic might within America)
Hindus will never get the support of Christian countries like America and
Britain nor the Islamic countries for obvious reasons. It is about the
weak and the strong. The Tibetans became a celebrated "American and movie
star" cause only when they lost their homeland. In the process of losing
their country, the world remained silent and the Hindu intelligentsia remained
silent.
The challenge before us is how to
live in harmony amidst our diversity. You will no doubt agree with me that
Hindus are among the best that have mastered this art of living in harmony
with others. Conflicts originating out of the struggle for harmony in diversity
are expected to heighten as the global village gets smaller and neo-colonialism
takes another avatar in globalization, and refugees migrate in large blocs
to societies that are different to the countries of their birth. We cannot
sit in the west and prescribe for peoples in the East, whose societies
and ways of life are being destabilized by western and imperialistic religious,
economic and technological initiatives without having walked in their
shoes. We need to be more vociferous in condemning crimes against humanity
and not wait until the last minute to do so. I, too, would like peace but
I am not going to close my eyes and pray for it; I will pray for peace
with my eyes wide open all the better to see with.