Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 21, 2004
Maybe, we have become too inured
by predictable images of a dharna. Maybe, our measure of outrage
has become unnecessarily conditioned by explosive images of
Falujah and Palestine. Or, maybe,
the battering ram of aggressive rationalism has pulverised our faith
in institutions that personify faith and tradition
Whatever the reality, the sight
of the BJP brass trooping out of Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday night
and sitting impassively on a dais in Patel Chowk on Saturday failed
to convey the magnitude of the occasion. To the uninitiated, they
could well have been demanding the inclusion of Maithili into the
VIIIth Schedule or pressing for compensation to the victims of Bihar's
rampaging gangs.
The issue is not the choreography
of dignified protest in a made-in-media society. The real issue,
to my mind, is the bewildering lack of mass outrage to a cynical
assault on one of India's premier Hindu institutions.
Let us accept grim reality for whatever
it is worth. The Shankaracharya of Kanchi, a powerful symbol of the
sanatan dharma, was arrested on the night of Diwali and charged with
murder. He was produced in court the next day, dubbed an "undeserving
criminal" by the Public Prosecutor and remanded in police custody.
He was allowed no privileges and lodged in an ordinary jail. When
he returned to court three days later, he was mocked for his aversion to
rahukalam and his unwillingness to sign documents.
As devotees recoiled in horror,
police sources fed a hungry media with "evidence" of his mendacity. He
was accused of facilitating cash payments to supari killers, of being
in telephonic contact with goons and even of plotting an escape by
helicopter to Nepal. The junior Shankaracharya was said to have demanded
a CBI probe and, with hints of a monastic coup, it was said that
his brother had turned approver.
It now transpires that very little
of these grave charges can be substantiated. In fact, the police
have not even submitted their preliminary evidence to court. You
would have imagined that the authorities would have proceeded against a
person as revered as the Shankaracharya on the strength of watertight
evidence. But no, they arrested and humiliated him on suspicion.
The reasons lie in the vagaries
of Dravidian politics, particularly the competitive inclination to invoke
anti-Brahmin sentiment. Regardless of what happens in the trial,
the anti-Hindus have proceeded on the assumption that there is no
worthwhile Hindu sentiment. A Hindu nation, divided along caste,
regional and denominational lines, it is believed, will stomach any
indignity.
Judging from the muted response
to the arrest, the secularists may well be right. There is disquiet
that the Shankaracharya was treated shabbily and there is pain that
a premier Hindu institution has been brought into disrepute. But
equally, there is astonishing passivity. The Shankaracharya of Puri may
claim that the assault on his Kanchi counterpart is a "blow to the existence
and ideology of Hindus" but the average Hindu still believes this is an
overstatement. Hindus have ceased to react as Hindus. Yet, Hindus have
not ceased to believe and conduct themselves as Hindus in their private
lives. It is just that they have abdicated the public space to secularists
and organised minorities.
It is an abdication that has happened
by default. The claimants to the Hindu public space have erroneously
focussed on the traditional institutions of the faith. Unfortunately,
institutions like the Kanchi mutt have become identified with a narrow
Brahmanical order.
In being wedded to orthodoxy, they
have never had the temperament to be defenders of the faith.
The popular energies of Hinduism
have traditionally vested in the little traditions, epitomised by the living
Gods. It is these sects, headed by the charismatic individuals who
we see on the Astha channel and on God TV, who are keeping popular
Hinduism alive. To be effective, Hindu politics has to connect with
this evangelical Hindu energy.
What we witnessed last week is either
a wake-up call to Hindus or proof that we can be kicked around with
impunity. The lessons are up to us.
