There is a new awakening that is challenging the ongoing westernization of the discourse about Bharat. An important new book “The Battle for Sanskrit” (www.thebattleforsanskrit.com) seeks to alert traditional scholars of Sanskrit and Samskriti
A Kashmiri Pandit’s Reply To Farooq Abdullah’s Taunts
On the somber occasion of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus day, rather than empathize with the victims of religious cleansing and introspect on the way he abdicated his responsibility at a time of crisis, ex-CM of Jammu & Kashmir Dr. Farooq Abdullah chose to taunt Kashmiri Pandits.
Asked Him If He Was Hindu – And Then They Burned Sawan Alive
In a shocking incident in Pune, 17-year-old rag-picker, Sawan Rathod, was set on fire by Ibrahim Shaikh, Imran Tamboli and Zuber Tamboli in broad daylight last Wednesday, 13 January. Sawan, who belonged to the Banjara community (a nomadic community classified as backward in many states), sustained 75 per cent burns in the gruesome crime. He succumbed to his injuries on Friday morning.
In a video recorded by members of his community on Thursday night, and which is now with the police, Sawan is seen saying,
“I was working with my family in Pandhapur. I had a dispute with them (family) and came to Pune looking for work…While I was taking a leak, three persons objected and asked me my name. I said Sawan Rathod. They asked me if I am Hindu? I said, yes. Then they poured something over me from a can and set me on fire.”
(emphasis added)
The three Muslim assailants claim that they burned Sawan as they suspected him of ‘stealing bike batteries’. See the full report here. Note how the writer of the linked report implies that the communal ‘angle’ is still not clear – despite the statement of the victim.
Why is the dying declaration of this 17 year old not national news? What kind of bigotry and hatred drives someone to burn alive a hapless teenager based on his religion? At a time when all sorts of politics is being played over the suicide of Rohith Vemula, why is there no prime time discussion on this gruesome crime? Why the haste to play up the Dalit caste angle in one incident, and brush the brutal murder of another Dalit under the carpet?
If you scan the Pune editions of various national newspapers for 14th January (the day after the crime), there is NO reference to this incident, even in the inside pages – Exhibit A, Exhibit B.
The message from our media and elites is clear – Hindu lives matter only if they can be used to paint Hindus as a caste-ridden patriarchal society fueled by an oppressive faith. Else, they are just cannon fodder in the pursuit of whatever political ideology is being attempted to be foisted on Hindus.
What sort of editorial standards say that such news should be buried, while the headline “And They Hanged Yakub” is splashed on front pages the day after convicted terrorist Yakub Memon was hanged as per the law of this land, after he had exhausted all his legal options, including multiple appeals to the Supreme Court and the President of Bharat?
Marxists And Media Manufacture Caste Angle To Milk Tragic Death Of Young Scholar
The recent tragic suicide of a young research scholar, Rohith Vemula, at University of Hyderabad (UoH) has shown the depths to which Marxist groups, ‘secular’ parties and our national media have sunk in their pursuit of manufacturing fault lines in Hindu society, playing identity politics and chasing TRPs.
What Happened to Rohith Vemula?
Rohith was one of five students of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) who had been on a sleep-in strike in the open on the UoH campus since they were expelled from the hostel by University authorities over a disciplinary issue. On the evening of 17 Jan, the 25-year-old Ph.D. scholar, was found hanging in one of the rooms of the New Research Scholars’ hostel.
His five-page suicide note shows a sensitive though deeply troubled mind. Some key highlights from the note (which can be seen in full here) are listed below:
- I have no complaints on anyone. It was always with myself I had problems.
- I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science
- I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature.
- The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number……In very field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.
- I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this.
- I forgot to write the formalities. No one is responsible for my this act of killing myself. No one has instigated me, whether by their acts or by their words to this act. This is my decision and I am the only one responsible for this.
What’s the background on his expulsion?
Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) had organized a protest march in UoH over the hanging of convicted terrorist Yakub Memon, with posters like “Har Ghar se Yakub Memon” (Every Home Will Have a Yakub Memon). Reacting to this, N. Susheel Kumar, president of ABVP, allegedly called the ASA students ‘goons’ for protesting the death sentence of a terror convict. Around 40 ASA students barged into his room at 1 AM and beat him up over this post.
Upon complaint from Susheel, the University authorities enquired into the matter and recommended suspension of 6 students, Rohith being one of them. After ASA protested this suspension, the University watered down the disciplinary action to only hostel expulsion. The student’s fellowship and academics was not affected and they were allowed access to their classroom, library and conferences and workshops related to their subject of study. ABVP did not protest this.
ASA continued protesting against this University decision and were doing hunger strikes, sleep-in tents etc. Affected students also approached the High Court and legally challenged the University decision. As per another student group Dalit Student’s Union of that same University, ASA had assaulted Dalit students too:
Why has police booked a Union Minister and University vice chancellor under SC/ST act?
This part is not clear, as Rohith’s hand-written suicide note clearly says that “I am the only one responsible for this”. It could be due to political pressure created by the synchronized manner in which multiple student groups and political parties have tried to play up the matter.
The fact remains that the country lost a talented young scholar. Left politics on our University campuses has radicalized many young minds with the negativity of their subaltern discourse and the Sharia-Bolshevik idea of class war. This is what a Dalit scholar from JNU has to say about the sorry politics being played over Rohith’s death
They have no concern for the unfortunate #Dalit scholar, they radicalised him used him as a pawn & now capitalising on his tragic end /2
— Abhinav Prakash (@Abhina_Prakash) January 18, 2016
But all media houses have played up the caste angle in their mad rush to milk this tragic death.
Their malafide intent is not hard to gauge for informed twitterati:
Concern for dalit lives is pretty evident. They’re not just vultures and hyenas, but also the hounds who kill. pic.twitter.com/dAhORr9yay
— Rahul Roushan (@rahulroushan) January 18, 2016
And the usual political opportunists have jumped in to exploit this tragedy as well.
It’s not suicide. It’s murder. It’s murder of democracy, social justice n equality.Modi ji shd sack ministers n aplogoize to the nation(2/2)
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 19, 2016
Most tragic-comic is the Islamist groups voicing their faux support for Rohith Vemula. Any Hindu student or groups like ASA who believe the narrative that Islamists are peddling would do well to read Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s thoughts on Islam.
Dalits are an integral part of Hindu society. The injustice and discrimination they have suffered is acknowledged by all, and is something which the State of Bharat and Hindu society is constantly working to eradicate through tangible actions. It is Dalit Hindus who are the first target of Communist-Islamist violence in places like West Bengal and Kerala, and are facing the brunt of Islamofascism in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Media and discredited political outfits should realize that their old game of divide and rule employed against Hindus will not work anymore.
The Genocide That Wasn’t – Remembering Kashmiri Pandit’s Exodus Day #KPExodusDay
January 19, 1990- a day chiseled in their collective memories – is the day of exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community.
The name of ‘Kashmir’ valley is derived from the name of Rishi Kashyapa, the progenitor of all those living in Bharatvarsha. Kashmiris have played an integral role in Hindu civilization – Kalhana authored ‘Rajatarangini’, the first written history of Kashmir and contemporary Bharat; Sarangadeva helped evolve Carnatic music; scholars like Nagarjuna taught Buddhism.
But Kashmiri Hindus have faced genocide for over 800 years – there have been seven exoduses since the first Muslim rulers invaded Kashmir. Even according to a Muslim scholar Al-Beruni, Kashmir and Varanasi were the main centers of Hindu learning, and hence Kashmir, besides Varanasi, has been a target of those who invaded India in order to spread Islam, with the might of their swords, from the beginning. When we read Muslim texts like Bahristan-i-Shahi, we can imagine the kind of barbarism unleashed on Kashmir; but the Kahsmiri Pandit exodus in 1989/90 was the most shameful episode in the history because it happened in a a secular democratic republic of India and also in the era of great ‘human rights’ movements!
The signs were ominous right through the autumn of 1989 – posters were pasted on the doors of Pandit houses, asking them to convert, flee, or perish; as prominent Pandits were being murdered, the Chief Minister of the state Dr. Farooq Abdullah abandoned his people and ran away to London in order to let this slow pogrom unfold. On the night of January 19, 1990, things reached a fever pitch– mobs of ordinary Muslims gathered in every street, whipped into a frenzy by slogans which rang out from the loudspeakers of mosques. One such slogan was,
‘Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san’
(We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).
Many Kashmiri Pandits fled the very next day. In April 1990, a Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat was gang-raped and beaten to death, in June Girija Tickoo was also gang-raped and then sliced at a sawmill. Over 90% of Pandit families, close to half a million people, fled Kashmir by June 1990. 450 temples were destroyed, and 10000 houses were razed to dust in the following years.
A false theory was propagated by those on the payroll of ISI, the intelligence agency of Pakistan, that the then Governor Jagmohan organized the exodus to defame Muslims. Kashmiri Pandits were forced to live in camps without toilets, water, electricity – 250,000 people lived in these conditions for 17 years. A few Pandits who dared to stay back faced massacres from time to time. The book ‘Our moon has blood clots’ by Rahul Pandita, tells us the untold story of the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community from their ancestral homeland.
As if their exodus was not enough, the killers of Kashmiri Pandits like Bitta Karate who murdered over 40 Pandits and JKLF chief Yasin Malik who self-admittedly killed unarmed Bharatiya Air-force men are still roaming free, bearing a shameful testimony to our impotence to ensure justice to the persecuted Hindus of Kashmir. What this religious cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits shows is that we choose to live in denial and tend to treat such genocides as though they never happened.
What we need is a paradigm shift. First of all, Bharat must halt the genocide of Hindus within Bharat itself. There are three imperialist processes working in Bharat – Islamic, Christian, Chinese. Secularism in Bharat has been the interplay of these three imperialist processes, which are collectively used to emasculate Hindus.
The ethnic cleansing of Hindus from the Kashmir valley was aimed at destroying the place consciousness of Bharat by Islamizing the Himalayas. On Article 370, rather than getting into the technicalities we need to question the ideology involved. Sadly, all political parties of Bharat have trivialized the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus. Panun Kashmir is the first attempt to create a Hindu habitat and reverse the process of genocide.
Secularism is a process of incremental compromises to Muslim and Christian identity politics – this has to be destroyed. Else, the fate that befell Kashmiri Pandits will one day befall the rest of us: we will die while dreaming of return.
This article contains extracts from talks delivered by Rashneek Kher & Dr. Ajay Chrungoo at the inaugural World Hindu Congress held in 2014.
PS: Kashmiri Pandit Youth Initiative, Roots in Kashmir, is organizing a silent protest by children on #KPExodusDay, 19th Jan, 5.00 PM at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. If you are in Delhi, please go to lend your support.
Mamta Banerjee Has Given Free Reign To Islamists In West Bengal
Muslim extremist mobs are now functioning with complete impunity in West Bengal. They fear no one, not the police, nor BSF, and definitely not the State of Bharat. Today, the West Bengal police is heavily demoralized due to the repeated assaults and humiliation meted out to them by Islamist mobs, who have the full backing of the ruling TMC party. In their latest show of brute strength, a mob of Muslims ‘torched two police jeeps, assaulted cops and vandalised and laid siege to a police station in Birbhum’s Mayureswar, prompting officers to flee.’
This is the chilling bit from the above report –
“An officer later said the police in Birbhum were under “strict instructions” from higher authorities not to use force, which is why there was no resistance.
In the past two years, the police have come under attack several times in Birbhum, causing the death of one officer in 2014. District police sources said the force had lost its morale because of alleged political backing enjoyed by the attackers and resistance to action.”
This was not the first assault on the State of West Bengal, and doesn’t look like it will be the last. From brazen rallies in support of a Bangladeshi war criminal convicted for genocide, to rampaging mobs burning vehicles and sexually molesting women when a Muslim Imam is questioned – Kolkatta and West Bengal it seems are inured to Islamist violence. It is the new normal.
This India Facts report captures the series of attacks on the hapless Hindus of West Bengal in the last few years, which the police is either unwilling or plain incapable of preventing. This is an orgy of controlled violence and slow ethnic cleansing of Hindus from West Bengal.
The unfortunate 2002 Gujarat riots which erupted after the gruesome burning alive of 58 Hindu passengers, mostly women and children, travelling in the Sabarmati Express, were covered non-stop for days on end by our national media. The actions of the then CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, were subject to intense scrutiny, by media & courts for over a decade – and rightly so. But why hasn’t Mamta Banerjee been subject to even a fraction of similar scrutiny?
There is documentary evidence that TMC’s Rajya Sabha member Ahmed Hassan Imran had a direct role in the communal violence that took place in Canning, South 24 Parganas district in 2013. Despite being privy to this information, Mamta Banerjee nominated Ahmed Hassan Imran, also one of the founders of the banned SIMI, to Rajya Sabha in Feb 2014. TMC cadre have shot dead police officers in broad daylight and also rented out their house to bomb-making terrorists. A sensitive border state like West Bengal has today become a breeding ground for Islamists and jihadis who want to topple the Government in neighboring Bangladesh and carve out a “Greater” Bangladesh by annexing part of West Bengal. Still, Mamta Banerjee is treated by national media like an indulgent parent treats a petulant child – no one is asking the tough questions which need to be asked if Hindus in West Bengal are to survive.
Some specific incidents like the Tuktuki Mandal abduction and Malda riots came to the fore in mainstream media only due to intense pressure from social media. And even then, some news portals tried to negate the ordeal of Hindus, or gave a vicious spin while downplaying the clear Islamist hand behind the violence.
When even an act of ink-throwing is painted as a sign of ‘growing intolerance’ in society, what should we make of these repeated assaults on law enforcement & border protection forces by large mobs of Muslims? Or are we expected to apply a different tolerance standard for Muslims, just like a different civil code applies to them? And this Islamist intolerance also extends to Muslims who they believe are acting against their Talibani doctrine. So why aren’t self-avowedly liberal Muslims like Javed Akhtar, Aamir Khan or Shahrukh Khan (the official West Bengal brand ambassador) using their public reach and position to condemn this growing Islamization of West Bengal?
At a time when even the Western media is finally reporting the rampant persecution of Hindus in West Bengal, why is there no debate happening in Bharat on this multi-pronged assault on Bengali Hindus and their beliefs? Why aren’t Bengali icons like Sharmila Tagore, who spoke so eloquently on the Dadri incident, not speaking up on this sustained persecution of Hindus and total break-down of law & order in her home state? Will President Pranab Mukherjee speak on this issue the way we were told he advocated tolerance in the wake of Dadri? And finally, why aren’t we discussing the need to enforce Article 356 in West Bengal, where the rule of law has dissipated for all practical purposes?
Hold Pakistan Accountable For The Way It Treats Its Hindu Population
Pakistani Hindus are arguably the most persecuted minority community in the world, but strangely their plight is hardly noticed across the world, including in Bharat – the only homeland of Hindus. Even accounting for the fact that Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic”, and hence gets a waiver from being judged by the secular standards which we are told modern civilization demands, isn’t a State supposed to guarantee a basic right to live to all citizens? Let’s see if Pakistan is meeting even this very watered down expectation.
A recent moving piece by Dr. David Frawley should be required reading for all those who choose to live in denial about the plight of Pakistani Hindus. He says, “Pakistani Hindus are among the poorest of the poor and do only the most menial jobs. The most basic human rights are not given to them. Pakistani Hindus cannot own land or register their marriages. Their women are commonly abducted and there is little they can do about it. Pakistani courts seldom hear their pleas, or if they do, seldom rule in their favor. Sometimes paying of high ransoms may work to bring their daughters back, but overall Pakistani Hindus are too poor to afford these. A Pakistan Hindu Marriage Act has been in the courts for years but has not yet been approved, though Pakistan has continued a Christian Marriage Act from the British era.” (emphasis added)
And the reason for this sub-human treatment of a peaceful minority population is the pernicious propaganda against the Hindu way of life in every sphere of Pakistani life – education, politics and religion. As Dr. Frawley articulates, “Hinduism is denigrated in Pakistan textbooks as unholy and the Hindu past of Pakistan is almost eradicated from the record. Pakistanis are taught to distrust and look down upon Hindus, as kafirs, if not subhuman. The result is that Pakistani Hindus often face fierce religious hatred by people who do not even know them.” (emphasis added)
One of the most heart-rending aspects of the rampant discrimination faced by Hindus in Pakistan is the frequent abduction, rape and conversion of Hindu girls, even 6 year olds. According to this Asian Human Rights Commission report, every month some 20 to 25 girls are forcibly converted to Islam in the Sindh province of Pakistan alone. Listen to senior Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi on the chilling fate which awaits these girls after forced ‘marriages’ – he estimates over 90% of such girls are either killed or forced into prostitution after a few months. Only a few brave Pakistani journalists like Veengas write on these abductions like the plight of 12 year old Anjalee Bai. She has put together the below partial list of cases that she has personally tracked –
Hence it is no surprise that Pakistani Hindus are fleeing to Bharat in ever increasing numbers to seek refuge. There are estimated to be up to 2,00,000 Hindu and Sikh refugees residing at present in Bharat. But we, the citizens of Bharat, have failed abjectly in our duty to these people who have nowhere else to go.
The current Government has granted citizenship to 4,300 Hindu & Sikh refugees in its first year, as compared to the 1,023 citizenships handed out during the entire 5-year tenure of UPA-2. But the way Pakistani singer Adnan Sami was granted citizenship on a fast-track basis with personal intervention of the Home Ministry, while scores of Pakistani Hindu families are waiting interminably for citizenship and struggling under restrictive visa conditions, shows the long way we have to go. It is a matter of shame for all of us that this is what our Hindu brethren from Pakistan have to say:
“They (Hindus of Pak) came here with the sense that they are Hindus and will be warmly welcomed. But the scenario here is totally different.”
Apart from a few stray reports on the plight of Pakistani Hindus languishing in Bharat, our media has largely ignored their rampant persecution in Pakistan, and actually covers the Rohingya Muslim crisis with far more sympathy. Rohingya Muslims started leaving Myanmar after riots broke out in 2012 between them and Rakhine Buddhists over the gang-rape and murder of a Buddhist woman.
Today, there are 36,000 Rohingya Muslims residing across Bharat, and their alleged persecution in Myanmar enraged Islamists in Bharat so much that they unleashed gruesome violence at Azad Maidan, Mumbai in ‘protest’. It is pertinent to note that back in 1946, Rohingya Muslims had requested Jinnah to annexe their region in Myanmar and merge it with East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh).
As we discuss another terror attack on Bharat which was hatched, planned and executed by the ‘Deep State’ of Pakistan, we are witnessing the same déjà-vu inducing commentary from experts on the perennial ‘should we talk or not’ question. But one factor has been missing from the debate – why isn’t justice and dignity for Hindus living in Pakistan one of the pre-conditions for any meaningful dialogue with that nation? If the Government of Bharat were to take such a stand, it would also help raise international awareness on the issue. Unless we force Pakistan to look within and root out the religious hatred that has sunk deep within its body politic, can we ever have normal relations with it?
There is an old adage “People get the government they deserve”. So it is incumbent upon us, the citizens of Bharat, to first take note of what is happening to the Hindus of Pakistan, lend them a helping hand in whatever way possible, and then force our political system to act by making this an election issue. But first we in Bharat must realize the obligation we have to support the cause of Hindus in Pakistan and elsewhere. If we don’t, then who will?
Hegemony and Hindu Dharma in the West Indies: Part 1
“The strongest man is never so strong enough to be master all the time, unless he transforms force into right and obedience into duty.” – Jean Jacques Rousseau
The introduction of large numbers of people from Bharat in the Southern West Indies (Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname ) between 1838-1917, helped to create plural societies that have been wracked by competition amongst the several groups, including Bharatiyas, that remained there. The struggle, focused on securing political power upon the departure of the European Imperialists, has transmuted the question of “culture” and “religion” into contestatory sites, since the political mobilization in each territory has centred on groups that define themselves ethnically (thereby, incorporating group origins, culture and religion).
The “national question” is therefore quite unsettled even though for most of the colonial and post-colonial periods the goal of integration was posited as to be achieved through assimilation. One premise is that there was a “persistence” of Bharatiya culture in the Caribbean that had to be eradicated and that they should accept “Creole Culture”.
It is the contention of this paper that the Bharatiyas of the Caribbean, especially the Hindu segment, do not have the pristine culture that is assumed by other groups in the West Indies. The changes induced in their cultural practices were not only the innocuous or randomized inevitable adaptations to new environments but also the result of a conscious process labelled “hegemony”/”social maya” that has fundamentally affected them and their identity.
This process was a project of the British Imperial power. While all West Indian groups have been hegemonised, each brought different cultural attributes into the hegemonising situation and since they were also introduced at different times, the hegemonising apparatus – in both the procedures and substance – would have varied, ensuring that the groups ended up with different cultural attributes and responses to the power structure.
The Hegemonisation of Hindu Dharma in Guyana will be located within the overall power relations of the society it finds itself, as by definition it is within the context of these relations that the Hindus were hegemonised. We are contending that, unlike the situation with the other groups, the hegemonising process on Hindus started back in Bharat from which they were brought as indentured servants.
We will therefore also look at the process historically and examine the situation in Bharat where the British had completed the conquest of Bharat by 1818 with the defeat of the Sikhs, and before the introduction of indentureship.
The struggle against the debilitating effects of the hegemony – labeled the formation of a “counter-hegemony” – by the Hindus in Bharat and in Guyana will also be examined from a normative standpoint. The Hindu counter-hegemony, obviously, will have implications, if not lessons, for the wider society to throw off the shackles of the hegemony as it suppresses them.
Hegemony/Social Maya in Bharat
It is still a source of amazement to many that the British, a nation of twenty five million at the beginning of the nineteenth century, from an inconsequential eighty-nine thousand square mile island, was able not only to conquer but hold a country such as Bharat with ten times its population – and an Empire on which, they boasted, “the sun never set”. At no time during their one hundred and fifty years of rule over Bharat, did the British have more than 150,000 troops (and as low as 15,000) in a captive population of 250 million.
The Empire was supposed to have been established on the foundation of superior technological advances in military hardware achieved by the Europeans and tactics that the technology opened up and made possible. There was also the technology of production that they improved on as they destroyed the existing industrial base of Bharat and held back the introduction of the new technology and so contributed to the latter’s underdevelopment.
But with all of that, the extended British rule is astounding when that rule is considered against a background of the rapacious looting of the wealth of Bharat, the contemptuous, second-class treatment of the colonized in their own country, and the luxurious lifestyle of the conquerors juxtaposed against the abject poverty of the conquered. Much of it had to do with the technology of communication.
Domination
One method of maintaining dominance over a conquered people is to utilize the same type of force and violence by which they were conquered – garrisons, executions, torture, prisons etc. to keep them in line. This has been the tried and tested method used by all conquerors of the past- and quite a few of the present. This method however, has proven to be quite costly – especially in terms of manpower and material, since the oppressed has a visible reminder – even a red flag – of his oppression, against which he can be aroused to rebel. Spartacus and his slave rebellion against the Romans were echoed in many African slave rebellions against the British in their West Indian colonies during the eighteenth century.
The British, however, perfected an alternative, which had always been around – but in bits and pieces. From time immemorial, victors had attempted to lighten their burden of conquest by eradicating perceived differences: Aristotle, for instance, that paragon of rationality, had suggested that the enslaved barbarians might be “educated” to accept their condition. The British took the process to higher levels, refining and perfecting techniques and institutions successful in the past and creating completely new ones. What the British did was to exchange the metal chains holding the colonized people with mental chains for which the people clamoured: they introduced a hegemony or social maya over the people of Bharat.
Hegemony or Social Maya
In the 1920’s the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, was confronted with the anomalous phenomenon of the lower classes of Italy being attracted to Fascism, even though objectively he concluded that the masses were oppressed by that regime. He introduced the concept of “hegemony” to explain the passivity of the masses to their oppression. Hegemony, he proposed, was the seizure of the moral and philosophical leadership by one group in society through their creation and imposition of a new and complete world view or paradigm in such a thorough fashion that the remainder of society (or at least, the overwhelming majority) accepts as “common sense” or givens, the ideas, social structures and systems that just happen to privilege the hegemony.
These ideas form a coherent, internalized word view which creates in the mind of the hegemonised group, the feeling that their oppression and inferiority to the hegemon as “just the way things are” or “that’s life”. There appears to be an inevitability and eternality to their subjugation: the latter becomes a plight – part of the unchangeable, universal order, and not a problem; as against part of the man-made order, which can be changed by man.
The term “world view” or paradigm is used rather than “ideology” to emphasise the pervasiveness or all-encompassing nature of the hegemony/social maya which, when incorporated into the individual’s consciousness, provides an “explanation” in terms of a vocabulary and conceptual framework, for everything within the subject’s experience.
Maya and Social Maya
In Hindu Dharma, “maya” was a concept introduced by Adi Shankaracharya to explain the difference between the “real” or Absolute (that which is unchanging) and that which we experience in the phenomenal life, which he defined as “unreal” (and is always in a state of flux). He posited that Maya, in reference to us, was an integral aspect of the Absolute and acts to conceal that Absolute but simultaneously to project that which we perceive through our sense organs and mind and believe to be real. Most of us go through life without realizing that there are levels of reality behind the familiar, everyday, common sense ones. Hindu Dharma is actually a way of life with number of paths to apprehend the “Real”.
In an analogous similar fashion, in human communities, during the socialization of individuals from birth onwards, there is a social construction of reality located in the words and concepts transmitted to all who are part of families (and societies) – especially as they relate to social institutions which objectively have no existence outside of the stipulated socially defined one. While maybe more mundane than the original maya, this social construction of reality is also a form of maya, which has no less a profound effect on the lives and actions of the subjects. The rupture of a social institution – marriage vows, say, can be as devastating to some persons as being hit by a rock. Which is more real? The ideas and concepts of this social maya can obviously be shaped and directed by groups that are in control over the institutions that “create” knowledge and this brings us back to Gramsci and his concept of hegemony.
Constitutional Interventions Have Created An Uneven Playing Field in Education
Political literacy plays a vital role in the sustenance and growth of any democracy. Unfortunately, even after almost 70 years of the commencement of the Constitution of Bharat, the dismal state of political literacy among the people of Bharat remains a daunting challenge before all of us. The Government of Bharat, in this light, has decided to commemorate and celebrate November 26 as ‘Constitution Day’ in order to spread political literacy. While we appreciate this initiative of the Union Government to spread political awareness among the citizens, it is imperative upon all of us to do our bit, and hence this write-up is devoted to the consequences of interventions in the Constitution in the field of education.
The Directive Principles of State Policy embodied in Part-IV are a unique feature of our Constitution. While seeking to protect the basic rights of the individual, the framers of the Constitution also wanted it to become an effective instrument for social revolution. Hence Article 45 was originally provided for free and compulsory education for all children upto the age of 14. But the Eighty-sixth Amendment (2002) made education a fundamental right for children of 6 to 14 years by inserting a new article 21A. As a corollary, article 45 was substituted by a new article providing for early child care and education to children below 6 years.
A provision under the title of ‘Cultural and Educational Rights’ has been made in the form of articles 29 and 30 for the protection of interests of minorities. The article 30(1) recognizes two kinds of minorities, viz. religious minorities and linguistic minorities and grants them the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
PRIVATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Not only has demand overwhelmed the ability of government to provide education, there has also been a significant change in the way that higher education is perceived. The idea of an academic degree as a “private good” that benefits the individual rather than a “public good” for society is now widely accepted. The logic of today’s economics and an ideology of privatization have contributed to the resurgence of private higher education, and the establishing of private institutions where none or very few existed before.
During the 1990’s, questions arose over regulating the proliferating private education space. In 2002, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgement in TMA Pai Society vs Union of Bharat which allowed autonomy in admissions to all private colleges. It held private education institutes established by minorities and non-minorities to be on equal footing. The judgment of Islamic Academy of Education vs State of Karnataka in 2003 further clarified,
“Although the minorities have a right to establish institutions of their own choice, they admittedly do not have any right of recognition or affiliation for the said purpose. They must fulfill the requirements of law as also other conditions which may reasonably be fixed by the appropriate Government or the University.”
FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF THE 93RD AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTION
This hard-fought parity to Hindus in education which was confirmed by successive Constitution benches of SC was quietly overturned in 2005 by the Sonia Gandhi led UPA, aided by likes of Yogendra Yadav in NAC. They introduced the Ninety-third Amendment which exempted educational institutions established and administered by minorities from making special provisions for admission to any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes. It was, thus, left to the discretion of the management of those particular educational institutions established and run by minorities:
(a) to admit students;
(b) to set up a reasonable fee structure;
(c) to constitute a governing body;
(d) to appoint staff (teaching and non-teaching); and
(e) to take action if there is dereliction of duty on the part of any employees.
On the top of it, the Parliament passed the THE RIGHT OF CHILDREN TO FREE AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION ACT, 2009 which rendered the very existence of private institutions, which offer primary education and are not established or run by minorities, virtually impossible. Salient clauses of the RTE Act, viz. reservation of 25 per cent of the total seats, prohibition of holding back and expulsion, no capitation fee and screening procedure for admission, pupil-teacher ratio, etc. amount to an administrative nightmare. The factors listed here will ensure that the overall quality of education also end up deteriorated, quite ironical to the very purpose of this RTE Act.
Many religious or social service trusts/societies invest in the Education sector. The diktats of RTE will make sure that the cost of running private schools, established and administered by non-minorities, becomes prohibitive enough to force the management to either slap a substantial hike in fees or shut down the school. So, exactly opposite to its very purpose, the RTE Act has ended up being detrimental to the provisions of article 21(A), and thus while we may claim that the fundamental right of the children of 6-14 years of age to avail compulsory and free primary education will be upheld, the ground reality is quite different.
Having received excellent schooling from a government school, I do not subscribe to the gross generalization that the government schools are unable to cater to offer quality schooling but at the same time I cannot and will not brush aside the harsh reality- that most government run schools are in shambles and need a major shakeup even to come at par with private schools which provide decent schooling. One more point I wish to make is that while the state has, so far, failed to provide free education to all its citizens, it is highly imprudent on its part to issue the death warrant of educational institutions which are catering to the educational needs of those who can afford them by means of the RTE Act. And there is a growing body of evidence to show that RTE has made the job of running private schools much harder for Hindu education entrepreneurs. Most importantly, the sectarian nature of RTE violates the very concept of uniform Law.
As we all know, it takes a very long time to undo the damage done by a bad legislation; also the current political scenario doesn’t allow us to hope that the NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be able to clear the mess inherited to him as legacy by the machiavellian Congress led UPA government in the field of education any time soon. It is therefore imperative upon us to understand that we (i.e. Hindus) have to guard our interests on our own, and not expect someone else to do the job for us! And all this has to be done within the realm of the Constitution of Bharat.
As we discussed earlier, members of linguistic and religious minority communities are exempted from both the legislations. Anybody who lives in a state whose official language is not his first language is a member of the linguistic minority community in that particular state. For e.g. a person whose mother tongue is Gujarati living in, say, West Bengal, is a linguistic minority, eligible for both the exemptions, regardless of everything else, in the state of West Bengal. Similarly, a member of any of these six faiths/religions viz. Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Jainism will be a member of the religious minority community throughout Bharat.
When a law ceases to serve the very objectives (stated or implied) which gave it birth, the government of the day has no option but to either amend or repeal that legislation. And insofar as my understanding goes, there are enough grounds to strike down both- The Ninety-third Amendment (2005) and THE RIGHT OF CHILDREN TO FREE AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION ACT, 2009. But we must remember that there is a very powerful nexus at work to ensure discriminatory laws like RTE are persisted in the guise of social justice. In order to bring down this legislation or get it amended in the desired manner, we need to mount an organized and systematic campaign and build public awareness on this critical issue. As studies have shown, other solutions like school vouchers work better to compensate poor students if they want to attend a private school instead of the free government school.
To sum up, do not wait for any one party or organization to put forth a spirited fight for any Hindu cause. Instead let us draw our inspiration, my Hindu brethren, to put forth a spirited fight to guard our interests, from this Shloka of Katha Upnishad:
उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत,
क्षुरासन्न धारा निशिता दुरत्यद्दुर्गम पथ: तत् कवयो वदन्ति |
Or as retold to us by Swami Vivekananda-
Arise! Awake! and stop not until the goal is reached!
The Truth Is Under Siege – Will You Protect It?
The news media is often referred to as the fourth estate in a functioning democracy. Brazenness and partisanship of the news media neither astonishes nor shames me anymore. “When asked to bend they crawled”, is how Lal Krishna Advani described the role of the media during Emergency, proclaimed by Mrs. Indira Gandhi of Congress. Devoid of any objectivity, which is a prerequisite to call oneself a journalist, members of the media in Bharat act as cheerleaders of the Government when Congress is at the helm of affairs; and assume the role of a mindless crusader against the Government whenever there is a non-Congress Government at the centre.
During the campaign trail of the Lok Sabha elections, the same media fueled the malicious campaign of propaganda and hate, waged by political and ideological adversaries, against both the BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The media did everything it could to stop Narendra Modi marching towards Delhi; if one relied solely on the media, the paranoia of certain ‘journalists’ and ‘public intellectuals’ would have made him/her believe that ‘If Modi becomes PM… aag lag jayegi’! Nevertheless, rejecting the propaganda of paranoia and politics of fear psychosis, the people of Bharat overwhelmingly voted in favour of the NDA and gave BJP a decisive mandate to govern for the next five years.
It took a while for the media to recover from the severe setback of 16th May, 2014 and re-launch the propaganda of deceit and paranoia. Almost a hundred days! They began with the black-money. Notwithstanding the facts that no leader of the BJP ever said that they would bring back black-money within 100 or 150 days of forming a government at the centre and the first cabinet decision of the Modi Government was to set up a Special Investigation Team to hunt for all the black-money stashed abroad, the media has been working in cahoots with Congress to needlessly attack the government over it. So-called anti-corruption crusaders, e.g. Anna Hazare too have joined the bandwagon despite ongoing efforts to prosecute black-money hoarders by the SIT and sincere efforts of the government to curb the menace of black-money. Then they attacked the Modi government over The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015. However, such attacks failed to deplete the popular support for the Modi government or tarnish its image; hence a propaganda of fear psychosis was launched.
It all began with casual rumblings of religious intolerance, towards so-called religious minorities, having been ramped up right after 16th May, 2014. The agenda is clear- to paint the government at the centre as intolerant and fascist! The message is also obvious- to showcase so-called religious minorities being under siege. Despite Law & Order being the state subject, BJP was dragged into the Saharanpur riots between Muslims and Sikhs in order to cover-up the Muslim aggression which led to these riots and inept handling of situation by the state government. An honest and upright journalist Gaurav C Sawant was publicly rebuked by a controversial journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, notorious for abusing and assaulting an NRI at Madison Square Garden, New York, for asking a few bold questions vis-a-vis Saharanpur riots. Sawant was forced to retract and to delete his tweets. When Trilokpuri riots broke out, media in cahoots with the Aam Aadmi Party alleged that BJP perpetrated those riots in order to polarize bye-elections in Delhi and electorally capitalize from the polarization without even a shred of any evidence.
A new dimension was added to this propaganda of deceit when the media went on and on with the story of churches in Delhi being vandalized and ascribing some pattern to such incidents, despite Delhi Police dismissing the possibility of any such pattern. The propaganda of paranoia took a bizarre turn when attempts were made to ascertain that ‘Ghar wapsi was the motive behind Ranaghat attack’, the unfortunate incident of a gang rape of an elderly Christian nun. Without even a shred of any evidence and fathomable logic! When the findings of investigation agencies broke out, that all gang-rape accused were Muslims whose activities were traced to Bangladesh, those who were holding Ghar wapsi responsible for the incident of gang-rape mysteriously went silent. Nevertheless, no one, including the National Commission for Women, had time to hear the plea of a Hindu Sadhvi, of Ramkrishna Mission, who was brutally gang-raped a day before the gang-rape incident with the elderly Christian nun. The Sadhvi in question, when she went to the police station to lodge an FIR against her culprits, was asked by the West Bengal Police to compromise with her rapists, instead of being assured of prompt action.
The issue here is skewed coverage of events and incidents and deliberate concealing of the truth! The media went hyperventilating when the office of Holy Child Auxilium School of Delhi was allegedly vandalized and a theft of merely 8000 rupees took place. The PM had to summon the Commissioner of Delhi Police, under the media pressure. Repeated assurances of security were issued by the government, followed by prompt actions. Nobody ever cared to ask what happened to those 206 temples and 30 gurdwaras which also were ATTACKED in the year 2014! Talking about the year 2015, 14 temples and 5 gurdwaras had been attacked at the time this data was released.
Nobody is bothered about incidents of theft in Hindu temples. The casual attitude of media, when it comes to Hindu temples, is evident from the reportage of such incidents. Nobody feels outraged over incidents of theft, robbery or vandalism when it comes to Hindu temples!
So what exactly is under siege? The truth is under siege, credibility of journalists is under siege, the trust of readers/viewers upon media houses is under siege, the reputation of a vibrant democracy is under siege! Above all, the leftover mutual trust between communities is under siege. So I ask of you – Will you protect the truth from predators?