R Umamaheshwari
ANY and every report one reads in mainstream media these days, or on social media Youtube channels, seems like a case of a bad phlegm that just refuses to clear. That ‘phlegm’, that is now infecting common people in different states of the country is the ‘Hindu-(against)-Muslim phlegm. It is first injected into the system (brains and gradually onto lungs and hearts) of people who consume social media posts like the food they consume (walking to and from workplaces, in between lunch breaks, or at work, or at leisure), in trains, trams, metros, just about anywhere and everywhere.
While phlegmatic diseases do have cures and can be cured, this particular ‘phlegm’ is just acerbated by hate-mongering media and the political rulers today (at the Centre, to be specific) just love it to infect more and more common people so that they may continue to rule in the name of religion. And cultural hegemony. These thoughts I write in the immediate context of an attack at Pahalgam (the whole truth of which, just like in the case of Pulwama some years ago) may or may not come out down the years, if truth (beyond the killing) were at all the case in point.
While my heart goes out to the victims, innocent and absolutely unsuspecting of a holiday turning into a mourning ground, my heart also goes out to the dreaded victims (as innocent, as unsuspecting) – mostly poor, of the Gujarat carnage many, many years ago; even as it goes out to the unsuspecting and equally innocent and very poor Akhlaq Khan killed on a mere suspicion some years ago (in the context of Beef); so also my heart goes out to the numerous unsuspecting victims of many religion-oriented killings in Palestine and elsewhere.
My heart goes out, actually, to all those who have been at different times, victims of the politics of religion and religious hatred. But I also want to point out that why is it, that the term ‘terrorist’, a legacy from colonialism and imperialism (in those times, the colonial rulers deemed even our freedom fighters as ‘terrorists’) is always linked to one particular community and not the others? How is it that if the killers are from a dominant religion (‘Hindu’ in this case), they are not ‘terrorists’? For, what is terrorism, other than terrorising people using violence and abusive behaviour in the name of a country, or religion or any other ideology?
How is it that the tourists only remembered to narrate the story of being asked for their religious identity (in this case, obviously, ‘Hindu’) before being shot (in itself so obvious a trope that it is itself intriguing) and not the story / narrative of the poor pony operator, a Muslim (Syed Adil Hussain Shah), which only appeared in mainstream media news (print, as far as I am concerned) two days later? And why is it that the trope of being killed for being ‘Hindu’ appeared so loud, that even in a town like Shimla, today, thousands marched in protest holding placards that said, ‘Hindu lives matter’ and ‘Stop killing Hindus’?
Why is it that when Akhlaq Khan had died and many like him in many other cases of riots where Muslims were targeted and killed, these people did not hold placards that read ‘Stop killing Human Beings in the name of religion’? My heart and head are full of questions. Every life is important, human, non-human on the earth. When will we rid ourselves of the phlegm that is eating at our interiors?
Not long ago, I saw a SUV vehicle speeding past (in Shimla) which had a message behind that read, ‘HINDU’ and was disturbed by it. Why was that messaging so important to the owner of the vehicle? In yet another poster that I saw in Hyderabad on a recent visit, you had a political figure in a locality whose poster read, ‘Kattar Hindu’ and where, during the procession on Shivaji’s birth anniversary, they played very disturbing songs aimed at violence against Muslims. Thanks to someone perhaps calling up the police, the songs stopped playing, after a while. Why are people consuming the hatred being fed to them, without a single question?
In an ideal world, should it not be such, that in a case where innocent people were killed (of whichever caste, creed, gender, religion), people should actually be out in unison to protect the minorities, knowing that any violent act done by violent people will immediately be seen as a violent act by an entire community, no matter how illogical that sounds?
Why is it that the killings by Hindu vigilantes does not filter through in the same manner – that is, if one Hindu vigilante kills Muslims or Christians (as has happened in many places) – not every Hindu is seen as a terrorist? Then there is also the question of the timing of this attack; days after the Vance’s visit, days before the elections in Bihar, and so on. And days after the Supreme Court put a hold on the Waqf Bill, among other events and political games.
The ultimate victims are people who digest these narratives (and come out protesting and think that Hinduism itself is in danger), as well as the Minorities, who are, in any case, terrorised mentally, considering the developments in the last one year, so that they are wondering if they truly belong here or are living one day to the next in fear and forced to come out with statements to prove their citizenship, hoping that Constitutional democracy will protect them.
I write as someone who would want Allah and Jesus and Buddha and Mahavira and all the gods and goddesses that are, and all the non-gods of the earth to be, secure, in their own spaces (physical as well as), in hearts and souls of people who believe in them. Logically, if you believe in one, there is no reason not to believe in the other truth(s). Truth is also many-sided.
Would there be life if there weren’t the five elements? When diversity is the core of life on planet Earth, how long will it take for people to understand the diverse contexts in which religious ideas came to be, and to accept these diverse contexts, historically, which caused certain kinds of god-concepts to be born?
How long before they understand the sheer havoc caused by politics over religious ideas (that did not spare even a single religious idea in the world, barring the idea of a few indigenous communities across the world, who do not seem to matter, in any case, in today’s context)? How long before they understand that the very notion of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ can shift and transform based on political contexts in each country? That violence perpetrated against any community weakened by their numbers is equally sad? That in each case, it is the innocents and unsuspecting that are sacrificed? And that each death is then proclaimed as a reason for further oppression by the powerful against the meek? This has been the story of human civilisations across times. Yet, we remain there, and yet, we claim to be in the 21st century of technological advancement and ‘progress’.
The mainstream media, instead of forcibly inserting identities (we shall never know the truth of these, in any case) while rightfully condemning violence (if they condemn every violence universally, instead of selective representation of one kind of it), needs to be extra cautious in a country already polarised.
What else to write, than to end with the thoughts of a medieval Sufi minstrel, Bulle Shah (having seen similar tropes used in his times by the rulers and powerful):
Rab rab karde buddhe ho gaye
Mullan pandat saare
Rab da khoj khura na labeya, sajde kar kar hare
Rabb te tere andar vasda vicch kuran ishaare
Bulle shah rabb ohnun lafsi jehda apne nafs nu maare…
Teachers (mullas and pandits) have grown old chanting god’s names, having prostrated in vain; god is within you, so says the Quran; Bulle Shah, only that person may find god who has killed his (her) ‘I’/ Self / Ego….
People like Bulle Shah and many others (Sufis, Christian mystics, and others) in history, who believed in god as love, and love as god, have graced human history since ages. Yet, messengers of peace, love, friendship and compassion are yet to find space in mainstream divisive politics. The only thing one can do is to remember not to forget the messengers nor the message, despite the killings of whichever community finds itself the victim of persecution and blind prejudice.
C. Counter Currents
