‘You really must meet Yugal-ji’, insisted my friend. We were at an activist meeting in Delhi . My friend indicated a middle-aged man, slimly-built with a broad, half-moon forehead, an unkempt beard and closely cropped graying hair, handing out leaflets to people filing into the lawn. He wore a thin cotton shirt and a simple, white handspun dhoti. ‘He’s a priest from Ayodhya and is in the thick of the battle against Hindutva.’
A man—a temple priest no less—taking on the Hindutva brigade at its very epicentre! I scrambled across the lawn to meet him. I simply had to hear his story. I introduced myself, and we got talking. I listened, humbled and stunned, as Yugal-ji began to tell me about himself, his life, his vision of and for the world, and, most especially, about his valiant struggle against communalism and institutionalized religion. By the time he had finished—two hours later—I had all but completely fallen in love with him.
Yugal-ji was born in 1954, in a village along the Indo-Nepalese border in Bihar ’s Sitamarhi district. His father, a poor peasant from the Yadav caste, insisted that his son must receive a decent education. He was sent to school, and then to college for Sanskrit studies, for which he shifted to Ayodhya, where he lived in an ashram and earned the coveted Shastri degree. There, sometime in the mid-seventies, he joined the RSS. ‘I was a young, energetic lad then, and loved playing games’ he reminisced. The local RSS shakha had devised a clever way of trapping young Hindu boys by organizing sports events. ‘That’s how I fell into their snare.’ He rapidly moved up the RSS hierarchy till he was appointed as a full-time pracharak in Barabanki, a town in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Impressed with his dedication to the Hindutva cause, he was appointed as the district organizer of the Hindu Jagran Manch, one of many RSS front organizations, and then, in 1983, as the Secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s unit in Faizabad district, where Ayodhya is located.
At this time, the BJP had not as yet become a virtually unchallengeable political force in Uttar Pradesh, although it was rapidly winning converts in an increasingly communally- surcharged atmosphere. But Hindutva, the ideology of Brahminical supremacism, was not represented simply by the BJP alone. Various forms of it, including some that appeared somewhat diluted, were shared by many Congress leaders and supporters. One of these was a certain self-styled Shankaracharya allied to the Congress who asked Yugal-ji to work with him in an outfit which had a single point agenda: to ‘restore’ the disputed Babri mosque structure in Ayodhya to the Hindus.
It was at around this time, when Hindutva forces had begun galvanizing Hindu opinion and communal hatred across the country in the name of ‘liberating’ the Babri Masjid—a project in which he was himself involved—that Yugal-ji began developing second thoughts about the outfits that he had for so long been closely associated with. ‘I discovered that these groups were all dominated by Brahmins, and that they cared nothing for the poor, for the so-called low castes. They actually stood for a vicious system of caste discrimination while slyly denying this in public for fear of alienating their oppressed caste supporters, whom they routinely employed to attack and kill Muslims,’ he said. ‘I found their understanding of religion bore little resemblance to that of my own people back in my village, where inter-communal relations had generally been peaceful. These outfits, and the hatred they were spewing in the name of religion, were actually becoming a major burden on my own little head.’ They presented themselves as saviours of all Hindus, but even the hardcore Brahmin Hindutva activists Yugal-ji knew made him eat from separate plates kept apart for ‘low’ caste people, like himself, if they invited them to their homes for a meal. ‘I came to realize that what these people were propagating in the name of religion was raw hatred, greed and caste supremacism,’ he said.
In 1986, Yugal-ji joined the Rachnatmak Samaj, a group of social activists headed by the late Nirmala Deshpande. He was put in charge of the group’s work in the Faizabad district. By this time, he had established himself in Ayodhya as the manager of a small temple-cum-monastery not far from the Babri Masjid. It was there—where he still lives—right in the middle of the Hindutva dragon’s den, that he began fearlessly protesting and mobilizing public opinion against the Hindutva forces. Obviously, this was no easy task, and the intrepid Yugal-ji had to face stiff opposition, including from priests in the literally hundreds of temples scattered across the town. Many of these, he claimed, were actually criminals, including murderers, who had donned saffron robes to pass off as ‘holy-men’. A day before the Babri Masjid was torn down, Hindu mobs besieged his office, located in his temple premises, and threatened to bomb it down.
In 2000 Yugal-ji met with noted social activist and winner of the Magsaysay Award, Sandeep Pandey, and also with the noted Arya Samaj leader, Swami Agnivesh, both of whom were in the forefront of the struggle against Hindutva and communalism. Inspired by their work, he set up a society, Ayodhya Ki Awaz (‘The Voice of Ayodhya’), to promote communal harmony and address the plight of the oppressed castes, whom he now came to regard as the principal victims, along with Muslims and Christians, of Brahminism parading in the guise of Hindutva. Today, this organization has some fifty members, mostly Muslim, Dalit and Backward Caste youth in Ayodhya and surrounding villages and towns.
Over the years, activists of Ayodhya ki Awaz have been closely engaged in struggles against communalism, particularly against Hindutva aggression. It brings out a Hindi monthly magazine, edited by Yugal-ji, and organizes regular meetings in villages, aiming particularly at Dalits and Backward Caste youth (who, Yugal-ji noted, are routinely used by Hindutva Brahminical forces as foot-soldiers to attack Muslims in what are euphemistically-termed ‘Hindu-Muslim riots’), using innovative means such as bhajans that evoke popular oppressed caste icons such as Kabir and Babasaheb Ambedkar. ‘We tell them that even if a grand Ram temple is built in Ayodhya, they won’t gain a thing from it. It will be controlled by Brahmin priests, who will make a living eating off the domations of the credulous. We tell them that they won’t find salvation in a temple of stone and mortar,’ he explained.
Over the years, Jugal-ji and his team (which now includes activists from different religious and caste backgrounds from across the country) have organized numerous sadbhavana yatras—rallies for communal harmony—the latest being last year, when they traveled all the way from Ayodhya to Ajmer, seat of the shrine of India’s most revered Sufi, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, stopping in towns all the way to address public gatherings.
I try and imagine myself in Yugal-ji’s place, fighting Hindutva (or any other form of fascism for that matter) while living in Ayodhya, right in the lion’s lair—I know this I couldn’t dare. I want to touch Yugal-ji’s feet in respect and awe, so overwhelmed am I by his sincerity and passion, but he restrains me and holds me back. He recounts the opposition that he has faced in the course of his crusade for communal harmony over the years. He tells me about his experiences as chief guest at a rally organized in Lucknow in 2006 by a group of oppressed caste activists of the Vishwa Shudra Mahasabha (the name having being deliberately chosen to counter the claims of the Brahmin Vishwa Hindu Parishad to speak for all ‘Hindus’). ‘I garlanded a picture of Ram, the Brahminical god-king, with shoes, because Ram, as the Ramayana says, lopped off the head of an innocent Shudra named Shambhukh for daring to violate the draconian law of caste,’ he goes on. For this, he was arrested and spent almost four months in prison, while enraged ‘upper’ caste men brutally assaulted the lawyers (both ‘low’ castes) who defended him.
Unfazed by the opposition he faced, Yugal-ji continued his battle against Brahminism even inside Ayodhya. Sometime in 2007, he took up the issue of a board in a public park in the town named after Tuslidas, author of the Ramayana, which was maintained out of government funds. The board had boldly declared: ‘A Brahmin, no matter how despicable his deeds, is worthy of being worshipped. A Shudra, no matter what good deeds he does, is ignoble.’ Enraged by the slogan, Yugal-ji sent a notice to the Commissioner and the Director of Parks, demanding that the board be taken down. ‘I wrote to them that 80 per cent of Indians, including myself, are so-called Shudras, and it was an insult to all of us. Tulsidas’ Ramayana, that preaches hatred for the Shudras, was an affront to our dignity. The slogan was also against the Constitution of India,’ he explains. If the board was not removed within a fortnight, he threatened that he and his supporters would tear it down themselves.
Buckling under pressure, the board was removed, but that did not settle matters. The local unit of the Sanatan Brahmin Samaj rose up in protest, organizing a demonstration and threatening to take revenge on Yugal-ji. A senior VHP leader even announced a sum of a lakh of rupees for Yugal-ji’s head.
I ask Yugal-ji to tell me his views about the Babri Masjid controversy that continues to rankle unsolved. ‘It was a mosque, no doubt,’ he insists. ‘There was no temple on the spot before. Indeed, Ram was not even worshipped in ancient times, the cult of Ram being a relatively new invention. So, there’s no question at all of the Mughal king Babar having destroyed a Ram temple and building a mosque in its place.’ Yugal-ji continues, ‘No one knows if Ram was ever born, or even if he was a historical figure at all. The Puranas claim he was born nine lakh years ago or so, but of course no recorded history exists from that period.’ But that is not all, he says. ‘As far as the Shudras, who form eighty per cent of India ’s population, are concerned, Ram is simply unworthy of worship. He worked to uphold the Brahminical social order and the degradation of the oppressed castes, though Brahmins and other so-called ‘upper’ castes, who live off the sweat and blood of the Shudras, might believe him to be divine.’
I am eager to learn what Yugal-ji believes to be the cure to the curse of communalism. ‘Ultimately’, he insists, ‘the only lasting solution is for human beings to identify themselves as just that—simply as humans. As long as we continue to regard ourselves as Hindus or Muslims or whatever, the menace of communalism can never be cured. We have to move towards a stage when identities are no longer premised or bracketed with religion. Our only identities should be that of being human. The final antidote to communalism is humanism’
Yugal-ji handles my irksome questions about his own religious faith somewhat indirectly and with tact, but I suspect that he is, like me, something of an agnostic. ‘You should be a good, compassionate person, and that is enough as far as I am concerned,’ he cryptically answers. ‘Righteous action, as the Buddha says, is what ultimately matters, not what caste you are born into, or what religious beliefs you profess or what name you call the Divine, if it does exists, by.’ He evokes Buddhist wisdom again: ‘The Buddha taught his companions not to blindly follow whatever he said. Rather, they should ponder on his words and accept them only if it appealed to their intelligence and conformed to their welfare and that of the majority, the bahujan.’
‘All institutionalized forms of religions place their scriptures above human intelligence and block human freedom and that is where the problem lies’, Yugal-ji goes on. ‘They soon become cages,’ he continues, ‘especially once they develop a system of priesthood, intermediaries or scholars who claim to have privileged access to the truth. Some might appear to be gilded cages or made of silver, but cages they remain. But it is the bird that flies in the open sky, using its own intelligence, that alone is truly happy.’
Yugal-ji can be contacted on ayodhyakiawaj@yahoo.com
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Print Media and Minority Images by Chandan Mitra
It is a general view among Muslims in India that the English-Language media does not project a true and positive picture of the community. They also believe that there is a bias in the international media against the Muslims in general. This, of course, is an over-simplified analysis of an otherwise complicated situation- portraying the image of Muslims as the largest religious minority in India, as well as that of a stereotyped monolithic community living in a Hindu-majority country. The reality is that the variation of the image of Indian Muslims projected by the Indian media varies vastly but the expectations are unfair in the given circumstances. My point of reference is the English language media–for the simple reason that, being an insider, I am closely aware of the reality and more of limitations.
Though I do not fully agree with the perception of Indian Muslims as far as their media image is concerned but I will not directly contest their perception, I would rather go into detail of the features of this psyche along with the problems of the media. For only this reason, I shall also speak from the stand-point of the Urdu press in India as it is only the Urdu press run by Muslims that has done more damage to the Muslim image in India than any other language media. In this analysis, I shall not include such Urdu newspapers as Pratap, Milap, and Hind Samachar as neither are they run by Muslim establishments, nor are their readership Muslim. Their professional concerns and editorial orientations are altogether different. The Urdu media, especially in north India -and more specifically Delhi -is negative and least interested in propagating and encouraging positive Muslim images in a plural society such as India . There is a perception among scholars—even Muslim readers—that Urdu newspapers are not interested in playing any role to make the Muslims a part of the social changes and modernization that is rapidly taking place in India . Ather Farouqui, sums this up aptly:
…the prospects remain that Urdu journalism will continue the traditional game of arousing Muslim sentiments through provocative writing, and render them susceptible to the influence of the communal leadership with which a good many Urdu journalists are themselves aligned due to their own ambitions for political prominence and professional clout…
It is also true that, other than Delhi, the English media and the media of regional languages (other than Hindi print media of north India as in north India it is a different story altogether with a much complicated political sociology) in respective regions see Muslims as part of regional culture and local politics. Except from north Indian Muslims, the Muslims of the entire country whose mother-tongue is other than Urdu or Hindi have fully assimilated themselves with the regional cultural ethos to the extent that they cannot be counted as one entity with the Muslims of northern India . Farouqui further says:
Without doubt the Muslims of South India and West Bengal never recognized Urdu as their language and a symbol of their religious identity. In the changed political milieu too even if Urdu was never their language and in the past they were greatly distanced from the Muslims of North India. Culturally north Indian Muslims always considered themselves different from Muslims in the rest of the country. They are also the victims of the pronounced sense of superiority. Cultural distance and the strong sense of superiority on the part of north Indian Muslims become a great hurdle in linking them with the South Indian Muslims. This factor also prevented the movement for Pakistan from reaching South India except for a few big cities such as Hyderabad . Migration to Pakistan from the South was limited precisely because of the hold of north Indian Muslims over the Muslim League particularly by the Ashraf (gentry). Linguistic and cultural conflicts have arisen there even after the formation of Pakistan thus, the subsequent establishment of Bangladesh and the remarkable rise of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). The strife in the refugee-dominated urban areas of Sindh province is an ample proof of this. Muslim politics in contemporary India are not particularly different from what they were in the past. The hold of north Indian Muslims on Muslim political campaigns even after independence has been strong. This prompted the presumption that the north Indian Muslim leadership would also be successful in the South. However the humiliating defeat of Syed Shahabuddin, a self-designated vocal spokesman of South Indian Muslims, in Bangalore during the 1989 general elections made the north Indian Muslims leadership acutely aware of its real standing in the South.
In northern India , not only the Muslims, but also the Hindus, are a unique socio-political phenomenon. Broadly speaking, north India is itself such a strange political phenomenon that understanding its psychology has never been easy, even for sociologists. The Hindu-Muslim context of north India is different from that of the rest of India . The imbroglio called Hindi versus Urdu is therefore not only the politics of language, but also has the gamut of political complexities at its forefront. The Urdu-Hindi controversy of the nineteenth century was the reflection of this politico cultural conundrum. Even today, the situation has not changed much. Howsoever complicated the reality may be because of its variations, in the eyes of the world, the images that are projected by the English media of India especially Delhi , are the images of India , irrespective of being Muslim or Hindu.
As far as Muslims are concerned, Muslim intellectuals in Delhi are deemed the sole representatives of the entire Muslim community for the simple reason that their being in Delhi gives the media easy access to them. To what extent are the Muslim intellectuals working in the universities and the retired bureaucrats active within the media circle genuinely concerned about the sociology of India Muslims, is a known fact? Very clearly, the members of the English speaking Muslim elite in Delhi have neither have an understanding of the problems of common Muslims, nor do they have any interest in the matter. This is perhaps the reason why the common educated Muslim is not only unfamiliar with these so-called intellectuals but, if they know of them, they even hate them.
To an extent, the Urdu newspapers of Delhi , working as a single entity, could be said to have an understanding of the north India Muslims’ psyche, but they have only played a negative role in their lives. As far as the electronic media is concerned, some Urdu TV channels use the spoken language and focus on the Muslim middle-class that is still almost negligible in proportion to the entire Muslim population. But these channels too give the way to misunderstanding about Muslims. As such, viewers of Urdu TV channels are mostly those who do not know English, it seems that there is no respite for common Muslims.
Despite being a single entity, the speed with which Urdu newspapers form north India, especially weekly newspapers of Delhi, are heading towards decay is rather on expected and anticipated lines. I shall not talk here about official circulation figures of Urdu newspapers that merely serve the purpose of the government to show that Urdu is flourishing. In the government files, of course, Urdu journalism is making steady progress simply because the government officials are assigned the role of issuing misleading statements highlighting the progress made in case of the promotion of Urdu, particularly by a certain central government organization namely National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language.
The question of the progress of Urdu journalism is concerned with the system of Urdu education in common schools with secular curricula. The issue of script has now arisen in the context of the dini madaris. If the children whose mother-tongue is Urdu get an opportunity to study Urdu within their school curricula, the entire sociology of the dini madaris will undergo a sea-change; it would mark their decisive decline. Until there is no arrangement for teaching Urdu in the secular curriculum, the population wanting to learn Urdu would remain confined to the dini madaris and the Urdu newspapers even though unwillingly, would print only what the madrasa-educated people would like to read. We all know what the madrasa-educated people want to read and we are also aware of how a person educated in religious institution views a pluralistic society, or how the religious person himself is viewed by the pluralistic society.
Unfortunately, after Partition, Urdu has not been included by the Congress leadership in the secular curriculum, especially in the north India states. Consequently, the madrasas kept growing. With the passage of time, they replaced school education among Muslims and established a parallel system dangerous to the nation but more for Muslims themselves. One reason for the survival and growth of the madrasas is the economic backwardness of the common Muslims. But when Muslim children did not go to school, both economic and social transformation stopped among Muslims. Without doubt, the increase in the number of madrasas is also an example of the failure of our national educational policy and constitutional obligation to treat Muslims at par in education too. Obviously, an economically backward section of society, such as the Muslims, cannot develop an educational system parallel to the state-sponsored educational apparatus. Sooner or later, society will have to provide Muslims with secular education at par with other religious groups, mainly Hindus, so that they are made part of mainstream education and occupy a common civic space. It is for us to think how to stop the growth and spread of the dini madaris, whose network comprises half-a-million madrasas with 50 million full–time students. (These are authentic and undisputed figures known to all, issued by the government, and which were not challenged.) We should also not forget that because of being religious educational institutions, madrasas are much more organized and influential than the secular-curriculum schools run by the government.
The English media in India is an elite media, an offshoot of the baggage of history. As a large majority of Muslims in India are economically deprived and do not live in big cities, there is a tendency in the English language media to ignore issues that concern Muslims. The English media, however, plays an important role in shaping perceptions in the minds of India as a whole. Although read by 2 or 3% (and really understood by hardly 1%) of the Indian population, the images that the English media builds and creates are reflected decisively in the international scene as well as within India . These images enhance a political balance. The English media provides the pan Indian picture for the regional language media unaware of north Indian languages, such as Hindi (which is already considered as biased as the Urdu media is overzealous in its presentation of Muslim issues). The English-language media is said to provide a common ground between these conflicting positions and is, in a certain sense, a moderator or a melting pot among the various sections of India . There are also allegations from Muslims against the English media that are true but the whole English media does not behave so irresponsibly.
It is true that the English media often picks up wrong Muslim voices that do not represent the community; this is counter productive. For example we have Shabana Azmi who always gets space because of being associated with Bollywood. She is easily accessible and knows the English idiom of discourse. But she does not represent anybody but herself, and due to the glamour element attached, her views get highlighted much more than those of various other more representative people. It is the responsibility of the media to search for the right voice and the media has certainly been lazy in that matter.
Certain stereotypes in the media also condition issues. For instance, there is a widespread misconception in the media about the role of the Dar-ul Uloom Deoband. The general feeling is that it is a place where one can get the ‘fundamentalist Muslims’ very easily. Certainly this perception is wrong but the Muslims did nothing to remove this misconception. They just blame the media but cannot request the ulema not to issue fatwas that makes a mockery of the entire community. After 11 September 2001, there has been a lot of coverage of Deoband and its activities, on assumed lines based moe on imagination than field work and visits to the prestigious Islamic university. To the great disappointment of correspondents from the electronic media who occasionally happen to visit Deoband, they found that Deoband was not what they had actually visualized.
But all said and done, one is at a loss to realize that if, half a million madrasas exist in India , where 50 million full time students are enrolled, it is naturally a matter of great concern. These 50 million students do not include the part-time student who attends the madrasas. There are lots of Muslim students who go to regular schools and attend the madrasas part-time to study the Koran and Islamic tenets. So instead of blaming Deoband we should suggest something that can enable the Muslim educational empowerment. I would not comment on the practical joke of the government which, in the name of the madrasa modernization scheme, proposed to spend Rs. 20 crore. A break-up of this money would show that on an average it comes to Rs.0.40 per student. One can easily understand the Congress’s logic or the whole logic of the modernization of madrasas scheme initiated by Rajiv Gandhi.
There are two strands in the media, particularly in the English media. One is patronizing, the other antagonistic. The patronizing strand recognizes that a wrong has been done to the Muslims, and one has to go out of the way to support them and advise them what they should and should not do. This strand is growing among a section of the Hindu intelligentsia and the media. There is another well-known antagonistic strand mainly propounded by Vinod Mehta that Muslims are a prisoner of these images. This strand does not reach out for any kind of dialogue or understanding and has certain stereotyped images of which everybody has become a prisoner.
Siddharth Varadrajan, a senior editor with The Hindu, was scathing in his criticism of the media for long. I do not think that there is a conscious communal basis, at least in the English media but I agree with the view that most of the people working with the English media, including Muslims do not know Muslim society at large. They know only the elite Muslims and at the most, the upper middle class Muslim strata. The bias, if any, is a product of ignorance. It is time for common Muslims to not get into the paranoid feeling that the media has been consciously seeking to victimize or portray them as villains in the Indian society. There are people with a communal viewpoint, who would not in acceptable parlance be called secular. Though they do have space in the English media, they belong to various communities (including Muslims). By and large, the media has tended to be responsible even in cases related to reporting on riots. The English-language media has persisted in trying to bring the guilty to book on a number of issues, —whether it was during the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre, in Maliana or Hashimpura or Meerut or Bhagalpur, or in 2002 Gujarat carnage. The reporting of the English press of these incidents shocked the entire nation. English press pursued these incidents relentlessly, and reporters have gone back to the spot on every anniversary of these riots to bring home the point that the guilty persons are running scot-free, and that the state has not taken any action to bring them to book. Siddharth Varadarajan is correct that there were lapses during the initial reporting because of newspaper reliance on the police version (which is often communally biased), the high financial cost of newsgathering, reliance on unprofessional stringers and the bias of the news desk. But, the media does thereafter take up in systematic manner cases of human rights violation, police atrocities, and the tardy process of inquiries.
I do not agree with the view that the media is insensitive to the issues of the Muslims. It has, in fact, been responsible and responsive – its extent is another issue. Instead of tarring the entire media with the same brush, one needs to differentiate and expand the space where there is a greater concern and sensitivity, rather than saying that the whole media is the same. The Muslim intelligentsia should not shut themselves out from the English media; rather, they have to enhance their space within it.
The painting of the images is not only in terms of terrorism or madrasas. There are other issues with wider social ramification that we must consider. Take the issue of the triple talaq in one sitting, for instance, on which reams have been written in the English media in the last ten or twelve years, ever since the Shah Bano issue. I am not saying that these should not be discussed, but the disproportionate amount of space and time that goes into the over-simplified analysis intensifies stereotypes. Most of the nonsense becomes possible because of publicity hungry ulema. We have to look beyond, rather than just point to improper riot reporting or inherent biases. We have to highlight issues that will bring about fundamental changes – issues of the Muslims’ socio-economic growth, progress and the educational empowerment and achievements. The reality is that issues that are not really germane to the genuine problems of the Muslim community get undue attention from the media as well as from Muslim writers, There are other issues that are of greater relevance. For example, how many Muslim students go to primary schools? What is the drop out ratio of Muslim students after secondary and senior secondary examinations? How many Muslims have been inducted into the police force at the level of sepoy and sub-Inspectors? How many are there in the administrative services examinations conducted by the subordinate staff selection commissions in the states? If the proportion of Muslims is low, why is it so? These are real issues that the Muslim themselves do not get to read or reflect upon, debate, or discuss.
If we discuss Muslim education, we discuss it only through the English medium which is just utopian. If we can discuss Muslim proportion in government services, we just talk of civil services, an impossible thing for first generation learners whether Hindus or Muslims. Needless to say that, this entire elite phenomenon will not work to improve the socio economic conditions of common Muslims in India . In the world of entertainment, there is a great deal of Muslim participation but again it is an elite phenomenon. I think that is where we are all collectively guilty: these issues do not get discussed.
Is there a bias that is causing the decline in Muslim representation in the government services? Why, for instance, has the Muslim middle-class, which was such a critical factor in the pre-Partition years, declined and dwindled in comparison to the Hindu middle class? Arguably, it is true that a very large section of the Muslim middle-class did migrate to Pakistan between 1947 and 1950, but why did it not grow? We never discussed the complexity of the issue that the Muslim middle-class voice is not really the voice of the entire Muslim community
The new Muslim middle class is also the new-born psychological version of the aristocratic Muslim elite of pre-partition India . In the Hindu community, the Hindu middle-class got education in state run schools where regional language and not English was the medium. Now the Hindu middle class dictates and determines the socio political agenda and sets the tone for dialogue and discourse at the international level too. These issues, I emphasize again, needs to be reflected in the media, debated, and discussed again and again. The media is the only forum for interaction and greater participation, both for intra-community dialogue within the Muslim community and inter-community dialogue between all communities that together can lead to a better, prosperous and cohesive India . The media has to correct itself, but we also have to look beyond as the myopic vision that we have at present will not solve the problem. The two communities have lived together for hundreds of years, and they will continue to live together. Biases have to be corrected – unfortunately, they have intensified. What do we do about that? I think that is what we have to focus on, and I hope that there will be more writers, more commentators, and more Muslims joining and contributing to the media. The media is today getting increasingly effective and powerful, and greater Muslim participation is needed in it.
Biases do exist every where. But just as there are biases, there are also people who go out of the way to try and correct them. These are both part of the fractured Indian reality that we should recognize, and try to widen the space, widen Muslim participation in the media, and have more people talking about real Muslim issues, going beyond those issues that unfortunately help intensify stereotypes.
Chandan Mitra is the Editor in chief of the widely circulated English daily 'The Pioneer' and he is also a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).He can be contacted at chandanmitra@hotmail.com.
(This article was included in the book edited by Ather Farouqui titled "Muslims and the Media Images:News versus Views" published by the Oxford University Press , India .)
Though I do not fully agree with the perception of Indian Muslims as far as their media image is concerned but I will not directly contest their perception, I would rather go into detail of the features of this psyche along with the problems of the media. For only this reason, I shall also speak from the stand-point of the Urdu press in India as it is only the Urdu press run by Muslims that has done more damage to the Muslim image in India than any other language media. In this analysis, I shall not include such Urdu newspapers as Pratap, Milap, and Hind Samachar as neither are they run by Muslim establishments, nor are their readership Muslim. Their professional concerns and editorial orientations are altogether different. The Urdu media, especially in north India -and more specifically Delhi -is negative and least interested in propagating and encouraging positive Muslim images in a plural society such as India . There is a perception among scholars—even Muslim readers—that Urdu newspapers are not interested in playing any role to make the Muslims a part of the social changes and modernization that is rapidly taking place in India . Ather Farouqui, sums this up aptly:
…the prospects remain that Urdu journalism will continue the traditional game of arousing Muslim sentiments through provocative writing, and render them susceptible to the influence of the communal leadership with which a good many Urdu journalists are themselves aligned due to their own ambitions for political prominence and professional clout…
It is also true that, other than Delhi, the English media and the media of regional languages (other than Hindi print media of north India as in north India it is a different story altogether with a much complicated political sociology) in respective regions see Muslims as part of regional culture and local politics. Except from north Indian Muslims, the Muslims of the entire country whose mother-tongue is other than Urdu or Hindi have fully assimilated themselves with the regional cultural ethos to the extent that they cannot be counted as one entity with the Muslims of northern India . Farouqui further says:
Without doubt the Muslims of South India and West Bengal never recognized Urdu as their language and a symbol of their religious identity. In the changed political milieu too even if Urdu was never their language and in the past they were greatly distanced from the Muslims of North India. Culturally north Indian Muslims always considered themselves different from Muslims in the rest of the country. They are also the victims of the pronounced sense of superiority. Cultural distance and the strong sense of superiority on the part of north Indian Muslims become a great hurdle in linking them with the South Indian Muslims. This factor also prevented the movement for Pakistan from reaching South India except for a few big cities such as Hyderabad . Migration to Pakistan from the South was limited precisely because of the hold of north Indian Muslims over the Muslim League particularly by the Ashraf (gentry). Linguistic and cultural conflicts have arisen there even after the formation of Pakistan thus, the subsequent establishment of Bangladesh and the remarkable rise of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). The strife in the refugee-dominated urban areas of Sindh province is an ample proof of this. Muslim politics in contemporary India are not particularly different from what they were in the past. The hold of north Indian Muslims on Muslim political campaigns even after independence has been strong. This prompted the presumption that the north Indian Muslim leadership would also be successful in the South. However the humiliating defeat of Syed Shahabuddin, a self-designated vocal spokesman of South Indian Muslims, in Bangalore during the 1989 general elections made the north Indian Muslims leadership acutely aware of its real standing in the South.
In northern India , not only the Muslims, but also the Hindus, are a unique socio-political phenomenon. Broadly speaking, north India is itself such a strange political phenomenon that understanding its psychology has never been easy, even for sociologists. The Hindu-Muslim context of north India is different from that of the rest of India . The imbroglio called Hindi versus Urdu is therefore not only the politics of language, but also has the gamut of political complexities at its forefront. The Urdu-Hindi controversy of the nineteenth century was the reflection of this politico cultural conundrum. Even today, the situation has not changed much. Howsoever complicated the reality may be because of its variations, in the eyes of the world, the images that are projected by the English media of India especially Delhi , are the images of India , irrespective of being Muslim or Hindu.
As far as Muslims are concerned, Muslim intellectuals in Delhi are deemed the sole representatives of the entire Muslim community for the simple reason that their being in Delhi gives the media easy access to them. To what extent are the Muslim intellectuals working in the universities and the retired bureaucrats active within the media circle genuinely concerned about the sociology of India Muslims, is a known fact? Very clearly, the members of the English speaking Muslim elite in Delhi have neither have an understanding of the problems of common Muslims, nor do they have any interest in the matter. This is perhaps the reason why the common educated Muslim is not only unfamiliar with these so-called intellectuals but, if they know of them, they even hate them.
To an extent, the Urdu newspapers of Delhi , working as a single entity, could be said to have an understanding of the north India Muslims’ psyche, but they have only played a negative role in their lives. As far as the electronic media is concerned, some Urdu TV channels use the spoken language and focus on the Muslim middle-class that is still almost negligible in proportion to the entire Muslim population. But these channels too give the way to misunderstanding about Muslims. As such, viewers of Urdu TV channels are mostly those who do not know English, it seems that there is no respite for common Muslims.
Despite being a single entity, the speed with which Urdu newspapers form north India, especially weekly newspapers of Delhi, are heading towards decay is rather on expected and anticipated lines. I shall not talk here about official circulation figures of Urdu newspapers that merely serve the purpose of the government to show that Urdu is flourishing. In the government files, of course, Urdu journalism is making steady progress simply because the government officials are assigned the role of issuing misleading statements highlighting the progress made in case of the promotion of Urdu, particularly by a certain central government organization namely National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language.
The question of the progress of Urdu journalism is concerned with the system of Urdu education in common schools with secular curricula. The issue of script has now arisen in the context of the dini madaris. If the children whose mother-tongue is Urdu get an opportunity to study Urdu within their school curricula, the entire sociology of the dini madaris will undergo a sea-change; it would mark their decisive decline. Until there is no arrangement for teaching Urdu in the secular curriculum, the population wanting to learn Urdu would remain confined to the dini madaris and the Urdu newspapers even though unwillingly, would print only what the madrasa-educated people would like to read. We all know what the madrasa-educated people want to read and we are also aware of how a person educated in religious institution views a pluralistic society, or how the religious person himself is viewed by the pluralistic society.
Unfortunately, after Partition, Urdu has not been included by the Congress leadership in the secular curriculum, especially in the north India states. Consequently, the madrasas kept growing. With the passage of time, they replaced school education among Muslims and established a parallel system dangerous to the nation but more for Muslims themselves. One reason for the survival and growth of the madrasas is the economic backwardness of the common Muslims. But when Muslim children did not go to school, both economic and social transformation stopped among Muslims. Without doubt, the increase in the number of madrasas is also an example of the failure of our national educational policy and constitutional obligation to treat Muslims at par in education too. Obviously, an economically backward section of society, such as the Muslims, cannot develop an educational system parallel to the state-sponsored educational apparatus. Sooner or later, society will have to provide Muslims with secular education at par with other religious groups, mainly Hindus, so that they are made part of mainstream education and occupy a common civic space. It is for us to think how to stop the growth and spread of the dini madaris, whose network comprises half-a-million madrasas with 50 million full–time students. (These are authentic and undisputed figures known to all, issued by the government, and which were not challenged.) We should also not forget that because of being religious educational institutions, madrasas are much more organized and influential than the secular-curriculum schools run by the government.
The English media in India is an elite media, an offshoot of the baggage of history. As a large majority of Muslims in India are economically deprived and do not live in big cities, there is a tendency in the English language media to ignore issues that concern Muslims. The English media, however, plays an important role in shaping perceptions in the minds of India as a whole. Although read by 2 or 3% (and really understood by hardly 1%) of the Indian population, the images that the English media builds and creates are reflected decisively in the international scene as well as within India . These images enhance a political balance. The English media provides the pan Indian picture for the regional language media unaware of north Indian languages, such as Hindi (which is already considered as biased as the Urdu media is overzealous in its presentation of Muslim issues). The English-language media is said to provide a common ground between these conflicting positions and is, in a certain sense, a moderator or a melting pot among the various sections of India . There are also allegations from Muslims against the English media that are true but the whole English media does not behave so irresponsibly.
It is true that the English media often picks up wrong Muslim voices that do not represent the community; this is counter productive. For example we have Shabana Azmi who always gets space because of being associated with Bollywood. She is easily accessible and knows the English idiom of discourse. But she does not represent anybody but herself, and due to the glamour element attached, her views get highlighted much more than those of various other more representative people. It is the responsibility of the media to search for the right voice and the media has certainly been lazy in that matter.
Certain stereotypes in the media also condition issues. For instance, there is a widespread misconception in the media about the role of the Dar-ul Uloom Deoband. The general feeling is that it is a place where one can get the ‘fundamentalist Muslims’ very easily. Certainly this perception is wrong but the Muslims did nothing to remove this misconception. They just blame the media but cannot request the ulema not to issue fatwas that makes a mockery of the entire community. After 11 September 2001, there has been a lot of coverage of Deoband and its activities, on assumed lines based moe on imagination than field work and visits to the prestigious Islamic university. To the great disappointment of correspondents from the electronic media who occasionally happen to visit Deoband, they found that Deoband was not what they had actually visualized.
But all said and done, one is at a loss to realize that if, half a million madrasas exist in India , where 50 million full time students are enrolled, it is naturally a matter of great concern. These 50 million students do not include the part-time student who attends the madrasas. There are lots of Muslim students who go to regular schools and attend the madrasas part-time to study the Koran and Islamic tenets. So instead of blaming Deoband we should suggest something that can enable the Muslim educational empowerment. I would not comment on the practical joke of the government which, in the name of the madrasa modernization scheme, proposed to spend Rs. 20 crore. A break-up of this money would show that on an average it comes to Rs.0.40 per student. One can easily understand the Congress’s logic or the whole logic of the modernization of madrasas scheme initiated by Rajiv Gandhi.
There are two strands in the media, particularly in the English media. One is patronizing, the other antagonistic. The patronizing strand recognizes that a wrong has been done to the Muslims, and one has to go out of the way to support them and advise them what they should and should not do. This strand is growing among a section of the Hindu intelligentsia and the media. There is another well-known antagonistic strand mainly propounded by Vinod Mehta that Muslims are a prisoner of these images. This strand does not reach out for any kind of dialogue or understanding and has certain stereotyped images of which everybody has become a prisoner.
Siddharth Varadrajan, a senior editor with The Hindu, was scathing in his criticism of the media for long. I do not think that there is a conscious communal basis, at least in the English media but I agree with the view that most of the people working with the English media, including Muslims do not know Muslim society at large. They know only the elite Muslims and at the most, the upper middle class Muslim strata. The bias, if any, is a product of ignorance. It is time for common Muslims to not get into the paranoid feeling that the media has been consciously seeking to victimize or portray them as villains in the Indian society. There are people with a communal viewpoint, who would not in acceptable parlance be called secular. Though they do have space in the English media, they belong to various communities (including Muslims). By and large, the media has tended to be responsible even in cases related to reporting on riots. The English-language media has persisted in trying to bring the guilty to book on a number of issues, —whether it was during the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre, in Maliana or Hashimpura or Meerut or Bhagalpur, or in 2002 Gujarat carnage. The reporting of the English press of these incidents shocked the entire nation. English press pursued these incidents relentlessly, and reporters have gone back to the spot on every anniversary of these riots to bring home the point that the guilty persons are running scot-free, and that the state has not taken any action to bring them to book. Siddharth Varadarajan is correct that there were lapses during the initial reporting because of newspaper reliance on the police version (which is often communally biased), the high financial cost of newsgathering, reliance on unprofessional stringers and the bias of the news desk. But, the media does thereafter take up in systematic manner cases of human rights violation, police atrocities, and the tardy process of inquiries.
I do not agree with the view that the media is insensitive to the issues of the Muslims. It has, in fact, been responsible and responsive – its extent is another issue. Instead of tarring the entire media with the same brush, one needs to differentiate and expand the space where there is a greater concern and sensitivity, rather than saying that the whole media is the same. The Muslim intelligentsia should not shut themselves out from the English media; rather, they have to enhance their space within it.
The painting of the images is not only in terms of terrorism or madrasas. There are other issues with wider social ramification that we must consider. Take the issue of the triple talaq in one sitting, for instance, on which reams have been written in the English media in the last ten or twelve years, ever since the Shah Bano issue. I am not saying that these should not be discussed, but the disproportionate amount of space and time that goes into the over-simplified analysis intensifies stereotypes. Most of the nonsense becomes possible because of publicity hungry ulema. We have to look beyond, rather than just point to improper riot reporting or inherent biases. We have to highlight issues that will bring about fundamental changes – issues of the Muslims’ socio-economic growth, progress and the educational empowerment and achievements. The reality is that issues that are not really germane to the genuine problems of the Muslim community get undue attention from the media as well as from Muslim writers, There are other issues that are of greater relevance. For example, how many Muslim students go to primary schools? What is the drop out ratio of Muslim students after secondary and senior secondary examinations? How many Muslims have been inducted into the police force at the level of sepoy and sub-Inspectors? How many are there in the administrative services examinations conducted by the subordinate staff selection commissions in the states? If the proportion of Muslims is low, why is it so? These are real issues that the Muslim themselves do not get to read or reflect upon, debate, or discuss.
If we discuss Muslim education, we discuss it only through the English medium which is just utopian. If we can discuss Muslim proportion in government services, we just talk of civil services, an impossible thing for first generation learners whether Hindus or Muslims. Needless to say that, this entire elite phenomenon will not work to improve the socio economic conditions of common Muslims in India . In the world of entertainment, there is a great deal of Muslim participation but again it is an elite phenomenon. I think that is where we are all collectively guilty: these issues do not get discussed.
Is there a bias that is causing the decline in Muslim representation in the government services? Why, for instance, has the Muslim middle-class, which was such a critical factor in the pre-Partition years, declined and dwindled in comparison to the Hindu middle class? Arguably, it is true that a very large section of the Muslim middle-class did migrate to Pakistan between 1947 and 1950, but why did it not grow? We never discussed the complexity of the issue that the Muslim middle-class voice is not really the voice of the entire Muslim community
The new Muslim middle class is also the new-born psychological version of the aristocratic Muslim elite of pre-partition India . In the Hindu community, the Hindu middle-class got education in state run schools where regional language and not English was the medium. Now the Hindu middle class dictates and determines the socio political agenda and sets the tone for dialogue and discourse at the international level too. These issues, I emphasize again, needs to be reflected in the media, debated, and discussed again and again. The media is the only forum for interaction and greater participation, both for intra-community dialogue within the Muslim community and inter-community dialogue between all communities that together can lead to a better, prosperous and cohesive India . The media has to correct itself, but we also have to look beyond as the myopic vision that we have at present will not solve the problem. The two communities have lived together for hundreds of years, and they will continue to live together. Biases have to be corrected – unfortunately, they have intensified. What do we do about that? I think that is what we have to focus on, and I hope that there will be more writers, more commentators, and more Muslims joining and contributing to the media. The media is today getting increasingly effective and powerful, and greater Muslim participation is needed in it.
Biases do exist every where. But just as there are biases, there are also people who go out of the way to try and correct them. These are both part of the fractured Indian reality that we should recognize, and try to widen the space, widen Muslim participation in the media, and have more people talking about real Muslim issues, going beyond those issues that unfortunately help intensify stereotypes.
Chandan Mitra is the Editor in chief of the widely circulated English daily 'The Pioneer' and he is also a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).He can be contacted at chandanmitra@hotmail.com.
(This article was included in the book edited by Ather Farouqui titled "Muslims and the Media Images:News versus Views" published by the Oxford University Press , India .)
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Editorial: EPW Economic & Political Weekly on Unravelling Hindutva Terrorism
Unravelling Hindutva Terrorism :
Communal prejudices have compromised our battle against terrorism.
When the bombs went off at Malegaon in September 2006, killing about 40 people and injuring many more who had gathered for the Friday afternoon prayer at a local mosque, the first arrests were of Muslim men who were supposed to belong to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The police claimed to have cracked the case. Less than a year later, in May 2007, when a similar bomb exploded in Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid killing nine people, the police claimed that these were "sophisticated" bombs detonated via a cellphone located in Bangladesh and the main culprit was supposed to be a Muslim man affiliated to the Harkat-ul-Jehad al-Islami (HuJI). The police arrested some random young Muslims from the city and tortured them into confessing their "guilt". Six months later, when another bomb went off on the eve of the last Friday of Ramazan, in the Ajmer shrine in Rajasthan, it was again blamed on "jehadi terrorists".
It has taken the courageous, if simple, act by Hemant Karkare, the anti-terrorism squad chief of Maharashtra police, of following the available leads to show the linkages between the Malegaon bomb blasts and Hindutva-linked groups. Without this one single act, all these linkages would, perhaps, have remained hidden behind the lies and half-truths dished out by our security establishment. As is well known now, a group called Abhinav Bharat organised this attack. This group includes some religious figures as well as a serving officer of the Indian Army. There have been other clear instances of Hindutva groups involved in bomb making in Nanded, Kanpur, Bhopal and Goa. Most of these are linked to the Bajrang Dal, which is a front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). There is now a clear linkage between the RSS and its fronts and personnel and a series of bomb blasts. This is apart from the evidence, much stronger, which links this redoubtable organisation, to scores of communal killings, the Gujarat riots of 2002 being the last of its "big" examples.
If terror derived from religious fundamentalism has one headquarter in India, it is the
RSS. Their younger siblings, the Islamic, Sikh or Christian fundamentalists, though dangerous in their own ways, cannot match the organisational network, financial muscle or political legitimacy that the RSS – its affiliates and personnel – possess. After all, India’s principal opposition party is a 100% subsidiary of the RSS and it is the shrill communal politics of this "family" which has created that political climate where any terrorist act could be, despite all evidence, linked to Muslims.
Nevertheless, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism among Muslim communities is a serious issue. It has dangerous consequences, not just for its regressive social and political effects on the Muslims themselves, and needs to be fought with vigour. Islamic fundamentalism has also incubated and nurtured terrorist organisations and initiated violent acts, not just in India but also all over the world. None of this can be denied nor can the guard against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism be lowered.
However, it is now amply clear that our security agencies, government institutions and ministries, specially the home ministry, are deeply compromised by communal prejudice. In each of the cases highlighted above, and in many more, the prima facie evidence, both forensic and circumstantial, pointed to the involvement of Hindutva groups. Yet, unmindful of all evidence, they refused to follow open, clear leads pointing to Hindutva groups, but rather went around building fairy tales about Islamic terrorism’s involvement, picking up random Muslim men (and some women), torturing them till they accepted their "guilt" and finally claiming success in the case. As late as January this year, when the Hindutva terror link to Malegaon had been firmly established, and the Rajasthan police were already questioning the accused of the Ajmer blasts for their links to the Mecca Masjid bombs, the Hyderabad police was merrily arresting Muslims who, they claimed, were linked to the Mecca Masjid blast of 2007. The complicity of the Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh police in the murder of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, or the killing of Ishrat Jehan and her friends is now clearly established. There is also prima facie evidence of communal prejudice and wrongdoing in police action in cases like the Batla House encounter in Delhi. Unfortunately, the list of cases where communal prejudice by the police and security establishment is evident is so long that it can fill volumes.
While there has been some effort to recognise and address caste and gender prejudices and discriminations, there has been a certain cussedness about not accepting and redressing the discrimination and prejudice against religious minorities, particularly the Muslims. The present United Progressive Alliance government has taken some commendable steps to address this issue, primarily through reports of the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Misra Commission. These have opened up space to discuss the structural discrimination and prejudice against Muslims in India as well as the measures needed to redress this. It is also true that the criminal link between Hindutva groups and bomb blasts has come to the fore under this regime. Nevertheless,
this is not sufficient; urgent steps are needed to disinfect our security establishment of the communal virus. Whether the present Home Minister P Chidambaram can measure up to this task, and whether the Congress Party can find the political will to take on Hindutva inside the administration and state structures, is an open question.
Communal prejudices have compromised our battle against terrorism.
When the bombs went off at Malegaon in September 2006, killing about 40 people and injuring many more who had gathered for the Friday afternoon prayer at a local mosque, the first arrests were of Muslim men who were supposed to belong to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The police claimed to have cracked the case. Less than a year later, in May 2007, when a similar bomb exploded in Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid killing nine people, the police claimed that these were "sophisticated" bombs detonated via a cellphone located in Bangladesh and the main culprit was supposed to be a Muslim man affiliated to the Harkat-ul-Jehad al-Islami (HuJI). The police arrested some random young Muslims from the city and tortured them into confessing their "guilt". Six months later, when another bomb went off on the eve of the last Friday of Ramazan, in the Ajmer shrine in Rajasthan, it was again blamed on "jehadi terrorists".
It has taken the courageous, if simple, act by Hemant Karkare, the anti-terrorism squad chief of Maharashtra police, of following the available leads to show the linkages between the Malegaon bomb blasts and Hindutva-linked groups. Without this one single act, all these linkages would, perhaps, have remained hidden behind the lies and half-truths dished out by our security establishment. As is well known now, a group called Abhinav Bharat organised this attack. This group includes some religious figures as well as a serving officer of the Indian Army. There have been other clear instances of Hindutva groups involved in bomb making in Nanded, Kanpur, Bhopal and Goa. Most of these are linked to the Bajrang Dal, which is a front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). There is now a clear linkage between the RSS and its fronts and personnel and a series of bomb blasts. This is apart from the evidence, much stronger, which links this redoubtable organisation, to scores of communal killings, the Gujarat riots of 2002 being the last of its "big" examples.
If terror derived from religious fundamentalism has one headquarter in India, it is the
RSS. Their younger siblings, the Islamic, Sikh or Christian fundamentalists, though dangerous in their own ways, cannot match the organisational network, financial muscle or political legitimacy that the RSS – its affiliates and personnel – possess. After all, India’s principal opposition party is a 100% subsidiary of the RSS and it is the shrill communal politics of this "family" which has created that political climate where any terrorist act could be, despite all evidence, linked to Muslims.
Nevertheless, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism among Muslim communities is a serious issue. It has dangerous consequences, not just for its regressive social and political effects on the Muslims themselves, and needs to be fought with vigour. Islamic fundamentalism has also incubated and nurtured terrorist organisations and initiated violent acts, not just in India but also all over the world. None of this can be denied nor can the guard against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism be lowered.
However, it is now amply clear that our security agencies, government institutions and ministries, specially the home ministry, are deeply compromised by communal prejudice. In each of the cases highlighted above, and in many more, the prima facie evidence, both forensic and circumstantial, pointed to the involvement of Hindutva groups. Yet, unmindful of all evidence, they refused to follow open, clear leads pointing to Hindutva groups, but rather went around building fairy tales about Islamic terrorism’s involvement, picking up random Muslim men (and some women), torturing them till they accepted their "guilt" and finally claiming success in the case. As late as January this year, when the Hindutva terror link to Malegaon had been firmly established, and the Rajasthan police were already questioning the accused of the Ajmer blasts for their links to the Mecca Masjid bombs, the Hyderabad police was merrily arresting Muslims who, they claimed, were linked to the Mecca Masjid blast of 2007. The complicity of the Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh police in the murder of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, or the killing of Ishrat Jehan and her friends is now clearly established. There is also prima facie evidence of communal prejudice and wrongdoing in police action in cases like the Batla House encounter in Delhi. Unfortunately, the list of cases where communal prejudice by the police and security establishment is evident is so long that it can fill volumes.
While there has been some effort to recognise and address caste and gender prejudices and discriminations, there has been a certain cussedness about not accepting and redressing the discrimination and prejudice against religious minorities, particularly the Muslims. The present United Progressive Alliance government has taken some commendable steps to address this issue, primarily through reports of the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Misra Commission. These have opened up space to discuss the structural discrimination and prejudice against Muslims in India as well as the measures needed to redress this. It is also true that the criminal link between Hindutva groups and bomb blasts has come to the fore under this regime. Nevertheless,
this is not sufficient; urgent steps are needed to disinfect our security establishment of the communal virus. Whether the present Home Minister P Chidambaram can measure up to this task, and whether the Congress Party can find the political will to take on Hindutva inside the administration and state structures, is an open question.
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