Bajrang Dal's threat to Hindus

The extreme right-wing group Bajrang Dal's threat to Hindus who may wish to attend church on Christmas Day in Assam's Barak Valley is a self-destructive diktat emanating from hard Hindutva. It's a clear threat not just to communal harmony but also an assault on Hinduism, which is an open religion that for millennium has been known to respect variety, plurality and diversity and for its acceptance of all other faiths. The likes of the Bajrang Dal do not justice to the beliefs of its own faith that has been able to assert itself globally without threatening any other faith. Regardless of such threats materializing to pose a danger to ordinary people who have been accustomed to celebrating the special days of all faiths, the truth is they serve only to tear the fabric of harmony prevailing in most parts of India. Fringe elements tend to be pockets of religious bigotry and communalism, but their voluble presence presents an image that brings about an avoidable perception across the world that India is a hotbed of Hindu communalism. All governments need to rein in on such divisive forces or at least reassure people that they will not come to any harm if they follow the simple but eloquent practice of enjoying all festivals, whether it be Diwali, Eid or Christmas.

Chandan Kumar Nath,

Sorbhog.

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Letters to the Editor - Sentinelassam - The Sentinel Assam

Decades ago, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the great Hindutva revolutionary, opined that should Hindus come to unite, then Congress leaders will be forced to wear their Janeu over their coats. That is, the Congress leaders will be forced to display their Hindu credentials overtly in order to retain their Hindu voters. Veer Savarkar said that for Congress but it largely holds true for every other non-Islamic political party as well, such as the Samajwadi Party and others.

Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday declared that Shri Ram belongs to his party and he and his party men are Ram Bhakts. He also said that he will be visiting Ayodhya soon with his family. I had also arranged lights on the banks of river Saryu and sound system at the Bhajan Sthal for the worship of Lord Rama, he added.

Amusingly enough, it is a total departure from what the Samajwadi Party was preaching in its heydays. One wonders how Mulayam Singh Yadav must be feeling at this moment. At the height of his power, as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, he felt emboldened enough to order firing upon Karsevaks during the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement resulting in the death of innumerable Ram Bhakts.

Now, fortunes have turned around so greatly that Mulayams own son has to go around saying that he and his party members are Ram Bhakts. To be clear, Mulayam Singh Yadav had said tha he had regrets but defended his order that led to the death of the Ram Bhakts. And his defense was atrocious. He had said, I regret giving orders to shoot kar sevaks at Ayodhya. My decision to order firing at kar sevaks was to save Muslim minorities. This decision was needed to keep the faith of Muslims in this country intact.

Last year in February, Republic TV had revealed in a sting that the Karsevaks were denied proper funeral rites and were buried instead of being cremated as per Hindu rituals. The official government figure was 16 but the actual number was in the hundreds. It was one of the worst cases of human rights violations in Independent India. And now, Mulayam Singh Yadavs son claims that he and his party members are Ram Bhakts too.

Samajwadi Party under Mulayam Singh Yadav left no stones unturned to mock Shri Ram and his devotees. In fact, the slogan of the SP-BSP alliance for the UP Assembly Elections in 1993, a year after the demolition of the disputed structure at Ram Janmabhoomi, was Mile Mulayam Kanshi Ram, Hawa Ho Gaye Jai Shri Ram. Such conduct had earned Mulayam Singh Yadav the sobriquet Mullah Mulayam.

Akhilesh Yadav, during his tenure as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, carried on with the party legacy of antagonising Ram Bhakts. In 2013, he banned the 84-kosi Parikramah after Azam Khan issued a strong statement following a meeting between VHP leaders and the father-son duo of Mulayam and Akhilesh. The VHP was quite visibly upset.

That now Mulayams son Akhilesh has turned around and declared himself a Ram Bhakt only goes on to show the tectonic shift Indian politics has undergone. The rise of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah has ensured that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to continue to rule politically while disrespecting Hindu sentiments. The Congress party was the first to undergo such a transformation. Now, it appears regional parties are following suit.

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It is 2020 and Mullah Mulayams son Akhilesh has turned Ram Bhakt: Read Samajwadi Partys history of insulting Hindu sentiments - OpIndia

In Delhi, the RSS launched Ekta Abhiyan in the same year as an outreach to non-Sikh Hindus to counter the deep psychological divide the Congress was creating. Various programmes were launched, including seminar and cultural events, highlighting the sacrifices and contributions of Sikh gurus to nation-building and protection of Dharma.

Traumatic 1984

The year proved to be the most testing and traumatic in the history of India and for the Sikhs. An emboldened Bhindranwale had taken over Sri Harmandir Sahib. Indira Gandhi who had nurtured him and turned mostly a blind eye to Khalistani terrorists periodically massacring Punjabis both non-Sikh Hindus and Hindus, now decided to send the army into Harmandir Sahib or the Golden Temple. Operation Blue Star became a humiliating trauma to the Sikhs an eternal wound.

The year 1984 also saw parallel activities by the RSS.

In 1984, the Punjab Kalyan Forum organised a conference Punjab Today. General J S Aruora, the liberator of Bangladesh, openly declared in the conference that Khalistan was futile fantasy. Dr Mann Singh, another prominent Sikh and a retired principal of Amritsar medical college, denounced the separation between Sikhs and Hindus and stated categorically that the Sikhs were a part of the Hindu community and their duty was to protect India.

These initiatives posed a challenge to the core Khalistan-separatist ideology and terrorists and the divisive manoeuvring of Nehruvian dynast politics. The RSS also launched Punjab Peedit Sahayata Samiti which worked in terrorism-hit rural Punjab.

It distributed relief measures to the families of terror victims. They helped them with their livelihoods and sponsored the education of the children of the affected families. In the cities of Amritsar, Ferozepur, Batala etc, swayamsevaks donated 109 bottles of blood to 300 people wounded by Pakistan-sponsored Khalistan terrorists. They also provided the hospitals taking care of terror victims Rs 70,000 worth life-saving medicines.

All these steps naturally made RSS the target.

After Operation Blue Star, the RSS got involved in a series of activities to alleviate the pain experienced by the nation on account of the action on the Golden Temple.

Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal of the RSS while expressing its deep anguish at the sad course of events making the Army action inevitable in Punjab to flush out the terrorists from the Golden Temple Complex identified with clinical precision, "the low-level political rivalry indulged in by the ruling Congress (l) and the Akali Dal and factional fighting within both the parties" for the spiralling down of the situation into murderous events.

Expressing great distress to all our countrymen, more so to the devout Sikhs the RSS exhorted all our countrymen in general and Swayamsevaks in particular to come forward to restore the pristine glory of our Darbar Sahib through all possible means including Kar Seva''.

That year, for the sanghs Guru Puja programmes in most places, the prominent Sikhs even if they had differences with the RSS were invited. Kushwant Singh, the wel- known RSS baiter, was invited to preside over the Guru Puja at Chennai, where Singh to his credit declared that none could doubt the patriotic fervour of the RSS . In Delhi, the veteran Sikh scholar Padma Sri Dr Attar Singh presided over the Guru Puja of the RSS. He said:

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Punjab Of The 1980s: Nehruvian Laboratory Versus Healing Hindutva - Swarajya

Sukhbir Badal addressing a press conference at Chandigarh after core committee meeting

CHANDIGARH, PunjabThe Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) today stated that BJP-led centre government is repeating Congress blunders of divide and rule by dividing Sikhs and Hindus in Punjab and asked its former ally to shun this exercise. Akali Dal also repeatedly placed national unity above everything in the resolution passed during its core committee meeting held on Thursday.

Do not repeat Congress blunders of divide and rule. Do nothing that weakens national unity or disturbs the peace and communal harmony for which Punjabis, especially the SAD, have made supreme sacrifices, says a Resolution of the Core Committee of the party.

The resolutionexpressed deep concern and anxiety over ominous signs of a deep conspiracy to divide Hindus and Sikhs and farmers and traders.

This is an anti-national conspiracy and the SAD will fight against it with all the resources at its disposal. Farmers agitation is a peoples movement which is a totally peaceful, democratic and secular movement. This was visible in the all-round support to the Bharat Bandh lent by every section of society, said the party.

The party urged the Government of India not to take any reckless or repressive steps that might deepen festering emotional wounds in the farmers minds and weaken the sacred cause of peace and communal harmony in India.

The meeting was presided over by SAD president Sukhbir Badal. Giving details of the meeting to the media, Harcharan Bains, Principal Advisor to Badal said that the SAD will observe the centenary of the party as Sangharsh Samarpan Divas for Sarbat da Bhala, with a focus on Kisan interests and justice for them.

He said, The SADwill fully safeguard peace and communal harmony in Punjab and the rest of the country at all costs and will exposeand defeatevery conspiracy against these ideals. The party is convinced that no progress in the countryis possible without Peace, communal harmony and national unity, said Bains, adding thatunfortunatelysome people are not happy over this prevailing peace and harmony.

Asking the government not to be stubborn or stand on prestige against the annadata of the country, the SAD resolution asked If the government is willing to change every clause of the old Acts, then why is it standing on prestige to revoke them After all, if you are conceding all demands of the farmers, why not put it all in the new Act and end the debate once and for all?

The party said, The deep-rooted conspiracy is being hatched to paint the movement of the patriotic farmers in communal and separatist colours. The movement is not only peaceful and democratic but also totally secular and nationalist and patriotic. The sons of a large number of the agitators are right now defending the borders of the country against China and Pakistan. They come from families that have shed blood in the defense of the country in all the wars including 1948, 1965, 1971, the Kargil war, and now in Galwan in Ladakh. Only a few days ago, the young son of the farmers from Taran Taran sacrificed his life fighting the Pakistani attempts at the intrusion on the LoC in Kashmir.

The party which remained in alliance with the saffron party for 28 years without any gap, alleged that the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is playing a traitorous role to weaken the movement in secret alliance with the Government of India. He kept holding secret meetings with those in power at the center and his only input has been to try and cause divisions. Strangely, the CM of a predominantly agricultural state has no word of advice for the center as Captain telling the farmers only to be responsible, it said.

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BJP repeating Congress blunders of dividing Sikhs and Hindus in Punjab: Akali Dal - Sikh24 News & Updates

India is still in the middle of a pandemic, every day we read of more deaths, people who were attacked by the virus are going to live with neurotic disorders/kidney/ heart/liver maladies, the bottomless trough of deprivation into which the sudden lockdown drove millions of migrant workers has neither been recognised nor dealt with, lakhs of farmers agitate for access to minimum subsistence, and India is in the middle of economic decline. Yet huge sums of money are going to be spent on the spatial remaking of history, from temples to Parliament.

The scale and the costs of the project of spatial reordering are enormous. The mind boggles. Emerald green, verdant lawns, impressive broad avenues, the sweep of architectural magnificence that extends from the national museum to Janpath via the archives, and above all our beloved and majestic Parliament will either be demolished or replaced. A major part of our history is going to be demolished and replaced.

The new structures and spaces will bear no history and embody no collective memory. They will not speak to us of battles lost by the colonial power and won by the freedom struggle, of citizens demonstrations and protest movements against government policies, of political fasts, of celebrations, of family picnics and memories of romantic meetings on the lawns of the Central Vista. They will symbolise only the overweening desire for personal glory of a ruling class that wants us to forget our democratic past, howsoever flawed the past might have been.

The irony of history is that most ruling classes, intoxicated by power, forget that this phase will pass. Shelleys evocative poem Ozymandias, which most of us learnt by heart in school, tells a story of the pathetic remains of a statue of a former king. Upon the pedestal of the statue was carved: My name is Ozymandias King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Years down the line nothing remains of the boastful king. Round the decay/Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away. But people in power seldom think, so hallucinogenic is absolute power. All they want to do is to imprint history with their names. For this, they write a new history for a new country in new spatial forms. They want to obliterate other histories that might tell a different story of men and women who secured and exercised power.

What we remember

Can there be a new history that replaces an old one? History is not a leather shoe that has grown old and needs to be replaced. History is a vibrant battlefield of ideas and memories that persist into the indefinite future. Some memories overlap and some clash. We remember all, for history is plural. When we remember our post-independence history, what is it that we remember? At the midnight hour which heralded the advent of independence, Jawaharlal Nehru gave his tryst with destinys speech in the central hall of the Constituent Assembly, now Parliament. The address delivered in his usual elegant style and incomparable language is one of the most famous speeches in the world. His words exuded a sense of excitement and hope as he welcomed Indias independence for which generations had aspired and fought for.

Also read: When the Supreme Courts Vista of the Law is Clouded By Great Expectations

But Nehru was also painfully aware that independence had come to us bathed in blood. Partition was the price that India had to pay for freedom. The dark underbelly of independence was the violence that erupted even before the tricolour replaced the flag of the Empire. And Pandit Nehru was there, in the killing fields of Punjab and Delhi, persuading people to desist from violence, assuring Muslims of their safety, and appealing to Muslims who had left for Pakistan to come back. The deadly spiral of violence eluded the grasp of the interim Prime Minister of independent India, but he was there among his own people.

On the night of August 25 in a small town of Sheikhupura near Lahore which had a population of 10,000 Muslims and ten 10,000 Sikhs and Hindus, a massive battle exploded between communities. Twenty-four hours later several thousand people, mainly Sikh and Hindu, had been murdered in a frenzy of stabbing, shooting, beating and burning. Parts of the town were on fire. No attempt was made to quell the violence. A journalist wrote that Sikhs were afraid to go to the hospital and preferred to shelter in the Gurudwara without basic facilities.

The sight was appalling, hands and feet of men and women had been cut off and their forearms were reduced to black putrescent fly-covered stumps. Babies and children had been cut and slashed. When Nehru visited a few days later he found himself sick with horror at the sight; the stink of blood and burnt flesh was inescapable. He wrote to Mountbatten in deep depression, I suppose I am not directly responsible for what is taking place in the PunjabBut in any event I cannot and do not wish to shed responsibility for my people. If I cannot discharge the responsibility effectively then I begin to doubt whether I have any business to be where I am.

Jawaharlal Nehru addresses the midnight session of the Constituent Assembly of India in New Delhi on August 15, 1947. Photo: Wikimedia commons

This was Nehru, a man who was alive to the needs of his people, who celebrated with them but also mourned with them. Above all he mourned for himself as a leader who could not control the designs of a malevolent fate that was tearing at the seams of a newly independent Republic. How can we forget this man who never failed to recognise his own flaws; a man who refused to tom-tom his achievements? Only a Nehru could have said to a political cartoonist, Shankar, dont spare me. Today political cartoonists are jailed for simple tongue-in-cheek comments. History tells us that there are a few leaders who simply cannot be marginalised either historically or spatially. Nor can they be appropriated. Nehru is one of them.

An obsession with the ancient

We have to learn from history, otherwise we will fall into the same traps as our forebears. Consider the focus on ancient India by the ruling dispensation. It has been stressed repeatedly that new structures of power will form the link between ancient and contemporary India. The thesis of the glories of ancient India holds proponents of the Hindu right in thrall. They do not recognise that they subscribe to a version of Indian history that has been manufactured by the colonialist.

British colonialism was unlike any other form of rule previously experienced by Indians. Pre-modern rulers taxed non-believers, even converted individuals to the religion of the group that was in power, but they seldom tried to regulate the personal lives of their subjects the way modern states seek to do. British colonialism, as a proto-modern state, set out to control not only the political and economic destiny of Indians, but also the way they thought about themselves, the way in which they interpreted their history and the present, and how they conceived of the future. They had a host of intellectuals to aid them in this task.

The idea that India is spiritual and child-like compared to the modern materialist West was first put forth by German Romantics in the 18th century. The 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Fredrik Hegel inherited from the German Romantics an attraction for the Orient. But he set out to demolish their assumptions. Accepting that chronologically, philosophy religion and art took root in the Orient that is in Persia, China, Egypt and India, he suggested that India has remained stationary and fixed. Stagnant was not the word he used, but this was the implication of his argument.

Also read: The Invisible Ghosts Who Walk Will Haunt India for Years to Come

After explorers, missionaries, traders and commercial companies conquered India, and as the exotic became the known, he suggested, it was clear that India had nothing to offer the world. Indias tradition is a matter of the past; it never reached the level of philosophy and science. That is genuinely and uniquely European achievement, which culminated in 19th century Germany, with presumably Hegel as its most distinguished spokesman.

Hegels opinion on Indian philosophy was shaped by two factors, his response to the Indologists he drew upon, and his profound ignorance about the great debates that accompanied the consolidation of the four sacred texts that constitute the Vedas. Philosophies, such as Carvaka, Samkhya, Buddhism and Jainism repudiated the moral authority of the Vedas. The Bhakti movement challenged Brahmanical authority. And Buddhist philosophers such as Nagarjuna in the second century C.E., gave to the world a sophisticated and rational philosophy.

A portrait of Hegel by Jakob Schlesinger.

But European Indologists/Orientalists isolated an abstract, metaphysical, and an upper-caste Hinduism from the welter of lived practices, and from struggles around caste discrimination. Purely on the basis of texts of ancient India, Hegel concluded that though India was the birthplace of philosophy, once philosophy left its shores and migrated to Greece, torpor followed. India has no philosophy. Hegel knew well that philosophy is the soul of any society; deny a country philosophy and you deny it history. For him the history of India is nothing but the pre-history of Europe. The necessary fate of Asiatic Empires is to be subjected to Europeans.

Though Hegel continued to be fascinated with Indian society till the end of his life, he was contemptuously dismissive of the India of his day. His thesis on the decline that followed ancient India legitimised the colonial project. India had to be saved from its own propensity towards collapse. It also motivated the attempts of Indian intellectuals and nationalists to return to a once glorious past. The culture of ancient India was the touchstone against which nationalists measured and evaluated their own country. The shadows of German Romantics and of Hegel who acclaimed a Golden Age of Hinduism and consequent regression, hover over us till today.

In retrospect, it is surprising that Indian intellectuals joined the Orientalist acclaim of a rich and sophisticated Vedic tradition without acknowledging its adverse impact upon society: the consolidation of Brahmanical superiority. Nor did they recognise the great debates in philosophy or the struggles against power. The textual tradition provided an anchor for the recovery of the collective self in the freedom struggle, but the self was deeply fractured.

Blunting the critical edges

The philosopher J.N. Mohanty tells us that the Vedas that developed around two thousand years B.C.E cover an entire range of subjects, but above all they represent an exemplary spirit of enquiry into the one being or ekam sat that underlies the diversity of empirical phenomenon, and into the origin of all things. The lesson in wisdom was challenged both by supporters and opponents of the philosophy. Within the school of Vedanta endless debates took place on the nature of the self. Outside the school critical traditions challenged the dominant themes of the Vedas.

Towards the end of the Upanisadic period was born Gautama the founder of Buddhism (560 BCE). The emergence of Buddhism was politically significant because the philosophy mounted a strong challenge to the superiority of the Brahmanical class, to ritualism, and to the caste system that had banished its own people to the margins of society. Indian intellectuals proceeded to appropriate Buddhism. Vivekananda in his famous address at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago suggested that Buddhism had completed the highly metaphysical task of the Vedanta. In a short period of time the Buddha came to be seen as the eighth avatar of Hinduism. The critical edge of Buddhism that provides an alternative to the high tradition had been blunted, somewhat alarmingly.

Also read: If We Really Want a New Parliament Building, it Should Reflect the Spirit of Democracy

The marginalisation of critical and rational philosophical schools both by the Indologists and the nationalists gives us cause for considerable thought. If a rational, materialistic, empiricist and sceptical philosophical school such as Carvaka had been given prominence in the forging of a Hindu tradition, perhaps India would have escaped being slotted into the spiritual versus materialist dichotomy. We have to accept that the stereotyping of Indian society as exotic and other-worldly based on the obsession with ancient India has not helped us forge an equitable future. India with all its material inequities, communalism, patriarchy and casteism has been slotted into a spiritual pigeonhole.

Till today Indian society fails to accept the enormity of material inequities, fascinated as it is with the metaphysical spirit. In short, the privileging of a highly metaphysical tradition as the public philosophy of India leads us away from social oppressions and power. It cannot help us to pinpoint power equations, or remedy inequities. It leads to the skewed political priorities of todays politics. Instead of securing to the Indian people their basic rights of freedom of expression and freedom from deprivation, the ruling class would rather concentrate on manufactured spaces that symbolise raw power. This is their conceit. It is bound to disappear. The new Lutyens Delhi ought to read Ozymandias.

Neera Chandhokeis former professor of political science, Delhi University.

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A New Central Vista, and the Political Conceit of the Ruling Classes - The Wire

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At the foundation stone-layingceremonyfor the countrys new Parliament building, PrimeMinister NarendraModi declared that in a vibrant democracy like India, there was room for differences, but not disconnect. This is a welcome acknowledgement of the Argumentative Indian who loves debate, who is curious about the world around them and is open to ideas, no matter where they may come from. This is because India is a truly crossroads culture, its present determined by a long history of engagement with other races and cultures.

This engagement may well have taken place through invasions, migrations, trade or evangelical missions,but these have led to a remarkably diverse and plural society blessed with an innate cosmopolitanism. There is no homogeneity among its people, neither of race nor religion, neither of language nor traditions. It is the shared historical experience, a mutual enrichment of cultures and an affinity born out of a deep attachment to the idea of Indiathat underlieits nationalism. In its most positive and dynamic articulations, this nationalism has been accommodative, not exclusionary. It is infused with a sense of common humanity.

This is the connect that hopefullyPMModiwasreferringto because without this awareness of common humanity, how is a connect possible when we disagree with each other, as we must sometimes? Those who seek identity through exclusion narrow their own space; those who seek uniformity end up in a barren aridity that dries up precisely what is sought to be preserved. For history shows that cultures flourish through mutual enrichment, ideas advance through debate, and what is more dangerous is not questions to which there are no answers, but answers which may not be questioned.

Also read: Farmers protest shows Modis politics is caught between Indias two middle classes

Political democracy has taken root in the Indian soil because the values it seeks to nurture are aligned with Indias own striving as an independent nation, a nation that has found its voice after centuries of whispered yearnings. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the genius of the Indian Constitution. It recognised that unity in a diverse country like India cannot be achieved through suppression of its myriad identities, but in these being transcended and celebrated in a shared sense of common citizenship.

It is only when that citizenship deviates from its basis in individual and inalienable rights that the assertions of narrower caste or community-based identities begin to be seen as the only way to prevent injustice and discrimination. Once this is acquiesced to in one case, how do youillegitimiseit in another? If one particular caste or community insists on a veto over whatever offends its sensitivities as a group, how do you deny this to another group? And there are so many different groups in India. Is this not a recipe for a million mutinies?

There is an expectation that a broader Hindu unity can be built on a Hindu-Muslim binary. But that ignores the fact that a Hindu is also deeply attached to his other identities, for example, as part of a language group, a membership of a caste group, a particular religious sect of the Hindu faith, perhaps a more modern professional group and perhaps as part of a vested economic or business group the list is endless. There is little likelihood ofone-nation one-languagebeing achieved in India. Even a hint that this might be the intent of a government in power triggers dangerous political reactions. To justify the grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, some of its champions argue that if the Christians can have their Vatican, the Muslims their Mecca, why should the Hindus not have their Ayodhya? Is that not limiting the very notion of Hinduism as a faith with no boundaries?

Also read: Saving India needs saving Indian federalism

PMModispoke of the Indian tradition oftalking and listening toeach other as part of our ability to connectas Indians. But this assumes a willingness to appreciate what the other is saying, otherwise this would be a dialogue of the deaf. We hear but we do not listen. And as soon as we begin to attach labels to our interlocutors, we are absolved of the need to listen to what they may be saying. If the protesting farmers are infiltrated by Khalistanis, Maoists andLeft-wing provocateurs, does the government need to listen? If some elements among our Muslim community are suspected of harbouring pro-Pakistan sympathies, should they be allowed to speak? If some writers and social activists are urban Naxals, should they not be prevented from speaking; better still, should they not be incarcerated?

There are any number of labels to choose from to prevent the talking and the listening. Labels preclude connecting. IfPMModireally wishes to celebrate India as a democracy, then he should stop this labelling exercise forthwith. The Minister of Commerce should not see hiddenLeftist hands behind the farmers agitation and thusbelittleit. This disconnects rather than opens the way for understanding what is driving their protests, braving the cold weather andpolice action.

India is too diverse a country to allow a monochromatic frame to be imposed on it. It is a landscape with multiple colours and shades in between. The way forward is to allow this profusion of colours to become even more varied, and more vibrant. Every label used to exclude this or that colour diminishes the whole. Labels prevent sharing and celebrating our diversity. They do not allow us to connect with each other. Let us forswear a government by label.

The author is former Foreign Secretary and Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research. Views are personal.

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In no other culture does faith play out in as colourful and traditional a fashion as in India. In our countrys places of worship, we find rich myths, ancient traditions, cultural touchstones and delicious food that are offered to the Gods and to humans. According to award-winning author and columnist Shoba Narayan, her newest book, Food and Faith: A Pilgrims Journey Through India (HarperCollins Publishers India) began as a food book before it morphed into one on faith.

Food & Faith explores this rich tapestry that is the hallmark of Indian culture. I was humbled and privileged to visit many temples and talk to priests and scholars. Through their stories and through my visits, I discovered how food and faith form a timeless and profound connection.

Hopping across the length and breadth of Indias many places of worship, Narayans new tome delves into the many ways food and belief are intertwined with our identities.

It is 11 am, and the granite floors and pillars offer cool respite from the heat outside. Devotees line up quietly, muttering prayers, hands clasped together fervently. It is a scene familiar to anyone who has visited a temple in India. Swishing saris, the smell of sandal and incense, topless Brahmin priests hurrying between idol and devotee, clanging bells, chanting men and women. For the faithful, Hindu temples inspire devotion, hope and a preternatural peace that descends in spite of the surrounding chaos, as if generations of muttered prayers have muted the soul into peaceful surrender.

The Krishna temple in Udupi is no different. It isnt very crowded on that June morning. My mother and I are pretty much left alone to pray in peace. We walk around the sanctum sanctorum many times and peer at the idol. No hustling priests, no crushing crowds, no furtive glances suggesting a small donation for closer access to the deity. It is just us in quiet communion with the lord.

In one corner, a group of ladies sit in a circle, singing Krishna songs and stringing garlands with lightning fingers. They have separated yellow marigolds from green tulsi leaves, jasmine from tuberose and each woman takes a flower or leaf to string together or alternately. Several string fragrant jasmine flowersJasminum sambac or what we call gundu-malli in South Indiain garlands. In the opposite corner, a visiting group spreads out their tanpuras and dholaks before commencing a spirited Krishna bhajan.

Near the temple tank, one of the hubs of activity, there are men in dhotis bathing, praying and performing rituals. One monk, clad in saffron robes, sits by himself, singing a bhajan that is remarkably soothing.

My mother and I sit leaning against the pillars, listening to bhajan mixing with folk song, breathing in incense mixing with the smells of jasmine and coconut, watching idly the run-off stream of milk and honey and holy water that is used to bathe the idol every morning. After a while, my mother repeats the phrase that countless others say after their communion with God.

Lets go eat.

Hinduism, like many great religions, is about feasting and fasting, praying and, it must be said, eating prasadam. The Udupi temple is part of the famed pilgrims triumvirate of Udupi-Sringeri- Dharmasthala, all of which serve very good food to thronging devotees. Udupis temple food is the best, the faithful tell me. We walk out and turn left to the feeding halls, my mother leading me with the expertise of having spent a lifetime visiting temples.

Indians are funny that way. The elderly in China play mah-jong. American senior citizens go on cruises and play golf. Europeans visit museums, tour wineries and dine at Michelin-star restaurants. Indian elders visit temples. Pilgrimages are a big part of their lives, as I see daily with my septuagenarian aunts and uncles, not to mention my mother. For her latest birthday, I offered my mother the choice between a two-week trip through Europe or a week through interior Maharashtra to visit one of the twelve jyotirlingam shrines to Lord Shiva. She chose Shiva over the Sistine Chapel.

Udupi is part of my mothers regular beat since the Mookambika Temple of Kollur (which happens to be our family deity) is in the same area. She has been visiting the temple twice annually for the past twenty years. En route to her devi, she usually stops to see Krishna.

So we hurry, mom and I, down the corridor, to the feeding area. The Brahmins are fed separately. Upstairs, my mother says.

I wince.

Let me just come right out and say it. Although I grew up in a devout Hindu family, I am uneasy about my religionabout all religions for that matterfor all the usual reasons. Faith gives solace, for sure, but it also inspires guilt. Religion brings people together, but also divides them. It gives peace and causes war; it hurts and heals. Since I come from a fairly traditional, devout, Tamil Brahmin family, I dont express my antipathy very much. Instead I disengage, to the extent that it is possible, in a religious family such as mine.

I follow my mother up the stairs to the separate area where we, as Brahmins, will be fed. What about in the eyes of God, all are equal?, I feel like asking my mother, but she is racing up the stairs.

The hall is huge, and people are sitting cross-legged on the floor. Young, good-looking boys exuding what my mother calls tejas, or radiance, stride through the hall carrying giant containers holding rice, rasam, vegetables, sweets and ghee. We take our places. Banana leaves are placed before us. Then a veritable feast with all the regional delicacies appears. There are spicy pakoras, sweet payasams, brinjal gojjus, jackfruit curry, several chutneys, kosambari salads and a mound of rice in the centre.

A priest walks down the corridor. With his fair skin and a bright red vermilion dot in the centre of his forehead, he looks resplendent in a purple silk dhoti. Behind him are a line of young ascetics. I stretch my upturned palm like the rest of the congregation. The chief priest pours a little holy water into my palm, which I assume is to wash my hand.

Drink it, my mother hisses.

So I do, wondering if the water is safe.

Govinda, says my neighbour, uttering one of the many names of Krishna, this one meaning the one who protects cows. Govinda, I repeat obediently.

Govinda is one of the names of Vishnu. The Vishnu names I know by heart are the twelve that my grandfather used to recite while doing his sandhya vandanam or evening prayer. They are: 1. Keshava: The one with long, matted locks. 2. Narayana: The one who gives refuge. 3. Madhava: The one who gives knowledge. 4. Govinda: The one who knows and cares for cows. 5. Vishnave: The protector in the Divine Trinity. 6. Madhusudhana: The killer of the demon Madhu.

7. Trivikrama: The one who lifted his legs so he could conquerthe three worldsheaven, earth and the underworld. 8. Vamana: An avatar of Vishnu. 9. Shridhara: The beautiful lord of love. 10. Rishikesha: The master of senses. 11. Padmanabha: The one whose navel is shaped like a lotus. 12. Damodhara: The one who had a cord tied around his waist as a child.

Each name has a story behind itof battles fought, demons subdued, benediction given, wisdom dispensed, compassion offered and devotees charmed.

The food is delicious. Barring the jackfruit curry, which must be an acquired taste, I polish it all up. Udupi is justly famous for its rasam, and this one doesnt disappointpiquant with a lovely spicy, lemony flavour. I take a second serving of the rasam, then a third.

A young boy comes and distributes Rs10 bills to all of us as dakshina or fee for eating the meal.

We end the meal as we began it: with holy water poured on our upturned palms.

After I returned from Udupi, I decided to do two things. Both involved denial. Once a fortnight, on Ekadashi (the eleventh day of the waxing and waning fortnight), I would fast. This meant not eating anything and drinking just water through the day. Oh, and napping a lot. I did this for a year regularly, and continue to do it intermittently.

The trick is to make religion an ally instead of rebelling against it. If fasting on Ekadashi gave me good karma, fine. But shedding a few pounds was a more immediate goal.

The second was to eat seasonally, which in todays world meant not eating certain foods, even though they were available in the supermarket because they were wrapped in polythene and were clearly imported from Thailand. Frankly, I am not sure of the benefits of seasonal eating. I am not even sure that the seasonal fruits and vegetables that I consciously choose taste better than the dragon fruit imported from Thailand, the New Zealand apples, Malta oranges or Washington cherries. But if such a practice is good enough for a community that gave rise to one of Hinduisms greatest philosophers and the creators of the iconic masala dosa, it is good enough for me.

So I persistedand still dowith my banana stems, young jackfruit, seasonal greens and tender peas, but only when they are in season, cheaply and abundantly available.

Let me see if this turns me into an enlightened soul. For now, Ill simply settle for a lightened body.

Extracted with permission from Food and Faith: A Pilgrims Journey Through India by Shoba Narayan published by HarperCollins Publishers India.

Continued here:

Hinduism, like many great religions, is about feasting and fasting, praying and eating prasadam - Cond Nast Traveller India

Former MP and Congress leader Vijayashanti, who is all set to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), questioned the selective silence of TRS on its friendship with MIM, particularly about MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisis comments on the Hindu community.

Municipal Minister K.T. Rama Rao has questioned why such hatred towards Muslims, referring to a party, but why is he not questioning his MIM friends on the unpalatable remarks made against Hindus by Mr. Owaisi, she asked in a statement here.

Why didnt Mr. KTR ask Mr. Owaisi why he hates Hindus so much, Ms. Vijayashanti asked while recalling Mr. Owaisis widely circulated statement that Muslims would bring Hindus to their population strength if they were given 15 minutes of freedom in the country. He made similar ridiculous comments on the Bhagyalakshmi temple under Charminar apart from insulting Hindus respect towards cows, she said.

The former MP pointed out that TRS leaders were very vocal about their friendship with the MIM but are now, trying to distance themselves from it for votes in the GHMC elections.

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KTR should also question Akbar on his hatred towards Hindus: Vijayashanti - The Hindu

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Love jihad is a figment of political imagination, but the power of its politics cant be underestimated. You thought Ram Rajya was the foundation stone of the Hindu Rashtra? Think again. It is actually the bending of Hindu minds around the ghosts of love jihad that will ultimately create the Hindu Rashtra.

Love jihad is slowly and steadily turning into the carrot that is leading the donkey towards the formation of a state where politics and religion merge, and the Hindu Rashtra will finally become a reality. Of course, those with even basic common sense can foresee that this will spell disaster for India. With popular acceptance of the concept, legitimised by discussions on television debates and social media, love jihad has turned into a Loch Ness monster that people are convinced exists but has rarely ever seen, which makes it all the more dreadful.

Also read: India needs more and more inter-faith marriages, and laws need to facilitate that

The anatomy of love jihad is fascinating. Since time immemorial, lands have been fought over, conquered, and won for the pride of a kingdom, community, or tribe. One piece of land has recently been won in our very own country from the Mughals the Ram Janmabhoomi. Thus, reinstating the pride and honour of Hindus of India. But there is apparently a new conquest taking place in the 21st century in Narendra Modis New India that most Right-wing Hindus have taken note of. The conquest of the Muslim man over the Hindu woman. And the man who cant stop noticing it is Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Muslim men are being accused of running a foreign funded jihadist ploy for a while now, where much like guerrilla warfare, charming Muslim men ambush and lure innocent Hindu women to fall in love with them. These men then, apparently, smooth talk women into converting to Islam for the sake of love. This phenomenon of a Hindu woman marrying a Muslim man has been coined as love jihad because consensual interfaith marriage cant be a reality in new India.

Yogi Adityanath has openly declared that any Muslim man indulging in love jihad will be inviting death.

His government, along with the Bharatiya Janata Party governed states of Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, have decided to enact laws against love jihad. These are three states of a secular nation unabashedly endorsing religious diktats. In Kerala, too, the concept has found support from Catholic bishops, with former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy claiming that 2,667 young women had converted to Islam in the state since 2006. Last year, the National Commission for Minorities vice-chairman George Kurian wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah saying that Keralas Christian community was a soft target for Islamic radicals who were trapping women through love jihad.

How is this fear and paranoia any different from the Wahabi policing in Saudi Arabia, where women are told how to dress, how to behave, or who to be accompanied within a public place? We are also now dictating who to fall in love with with state sanction.

When a state starts policing its citizens based on religion, it turns from a democracy to a theocracy. Europe has struggled with this for long. And the very suggestion of such a law by Indias ruling political partys state governments is, in fact, laying the first foundation stone of the Hindu Rashtra, which so far was only rhetoric a concept of a Hindu country (as opposed to a secular one) endorsed by the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in their gatherings. Now we have the legal basis for it.

Also read: We should be free to live, free to love & free to marry that is the real idea of India

The concept of a Hindu Rashtra, at first, seems simplistic a country whose official state religion is Hinduism. But if you were to scratch the surface, the concept has overtones of patriarchy and a totalitarian state where even someone you marry has to be approved by the state that is quite clearly being ruled by men.

Lets understand the patriarchy. The very concept of love jihad is based on the premise that Hindu women are incapable of thinking for themselves and that theyre gullible enough to fall for potential terrorists who just want to marry them for the sake of religious conversions. They have no agency or choice. Often, it is the parents or family of the woman who files complaints alleging love jihad. Only because their daughters choice goes against theirs.

Many Right-wing Hindu men have also reduced Hindu women to just their wombs, because they claim that Muslims are marrying Hindu women only to produce Muslim children, thereby pandering to the fake narrative that Muslims are going to overtake the Hindu population in India. Lesser Hindu wombs, lesser Hindu children.

In fact, if you think that love jihad is a modern concept, youll be surprised to know that Right-wing Hindus were stricken by the same paranoia in the 1920s. Back then, riots took place over the alleged abduction of Hindu women and their forced conversions to Islam in Kanpur in June 1924 and Mathura in March 1928, according to history professor Charu Gupta.

And the story is not very different today. Without any confirmed fact, there is still a big show of the number of Hindu women who have been forcefully converted to Islam by nefarious and seductive Muslim men masquerading as lovers. In 2009, pamphlets distributed in Jawaharlal Nehru University claimed that 4,000 girls had been converted to Islam under love jihad in Delhi and Maharashtra. This number, whose source is unknown, was circulated by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad or ABVP the student wing of the RSS.

But there are new figures of the number of cases of love jihad being put forth in Uttar Pradesh, with the police actually investigating such cases. And this is how we understand the manner in which totalitarianism is embedded in the very concept of the Hindu Rashtra. Under Yogi Adityanaths very own administration, 14 cases were being investigated for love jihad in August this year. But half of those cases have been found to be consensual marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men, and closure reports have been filed for them. The remaining seven cases are still under investigation. Yet, the myth of love jihad is still considered real enough for Yogi Adityanath and other chief ministers wanting to enact a law on it.

The author is a political observer and writer. Views are personal.

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Not Ram Mandir, the love jihad laws are the foundation of Hindu Rashtra - ThePrint

Update: Since publication, the Uttar Pradesh government approved a draft ordinance to curb forcible or dishonest religious conversions. Under the new law, a marriage will be declared void if a woman converts to another religion in order to marry a man of her new faith. Women will be able to change their religion only after theyre married and must inform the district magistrate two months in advance so as to obtain permission to convert. Those in violation of the law will face a jail term of up to 10 years.

The Uttar Pradesh polices investigation of Love Jihad has revealed its not quite the problem its made out to be by right-wing ideologues and the media. Love jihad is an offensive term to describe the made-up phenomenon of Muslim men seducing and marrying Hindu women by subterfuge and coercion in order to increase the countrys Muslim population. The investigation, carried out at the behest of right-wing organizations including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), involved a review of cases involving Hindu woman-Muslim man marriages submitted by all 22 police stations in Kanpur. Of these, The Wire reports that eight out of 14 cases involved consensual marriages. Another report by the Indian Express states that the police also ruled out any deliberate conspiracies and online funding set up to mass-convert Hindu women to Islam.

These reports stand in direct contrast to the necessity of a love jihad law, proposed by politicians and ministers of many states, who want to criminalize the non-existent practice. They also rubbish the love jihad-related outrage over Netflixs A Suitable Boy, featuring an inter-religious couple kissing with a temple in the backdrop, and Tanishqs wedding advertisement, featuring a young Hindu bride welcomed into a new home by her Muslim mother-in-law.

Love jihad, though a modern term, has been an unproven but unshakeable bogey since the 1920s. According to historian Charu Gupta, organizations like the Arya Samaj spread pamphlets full of propaganda regarding the Hindu woman victim and the Muslim man perpetrator. This was to further the notion of shuddhi, or re-converting Hindus who had chosen other religions back to Hinduism. Arya Samaj members believed it necessary to undertake shuddhi as a means for Hindus self-respect and determination because of the rapid increase in conversions from Hinduism to Islam/Christianity in pre-Independence India. This flurry of propaganda coincided with communal clashes in areas like Uttar Pradesh. In Muzaffarnagar in 1927, a mob gathered around a girls house after rumors spread regarding her marriage to a Muslim man and forced conversion to Islam. However, after the mob marched into the house to ensure justice, it learned the girl in question had always been Muslim.

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Tell Me More: Talking Caste and Marriage With Jyotsna Siddarth, Founder of Project AntiCaste Love

In modern times, though right-wing idealogues stick to utilizing the Hindu womans body as their main battleground, the presence of Internet-influenced outrage culture and supplemental conspiracies like foreign funds make love jihad a stronger-than-ever bogey. Plus, the States and politicians tolerance and even encouragement for fake news and propaganda surrounding love jihad make it harder for the average individual to discern between fact and fiction. As Gupta writes in Hindu Women, Muslim Men: Love Jihad and Conversions, the fact that such generalizations about Hindu womens conversions due to false love and marriages can now be made openly often legitimizes their public expressions and increases the threshold of public acceptance for them; this also makes them true. Propagating such stories through pamphlets, meetings, rumors, and everyday conversations fed by them sustains this as an active cultural, and therefore, political issue.

It remains the State and the judiciarys responsibility to quell communal tensions spread by rumors. While progress on that front remains dim, considering many Indian lawmakers public attempts to legitimize love jihad by banning it, there is hope. The Allahabad High Court recently struck down an old judgment that said religious conversions for marriage were unacceptable, calling the same bad in law.

The judges involved noted, We fail to understand that if the law permits two persons even of the same sex to live together peacefully then neither any individual nor a family nor even the state can have an objection to the relationship of two major individuals who out of their own free will are living together.

Original post:

UP Police Investigation of 'Love Jihad' Concludes What We Already Know -- It Doesn't Exist - The Swaddle