sukla sen wrote....
[This is the article which has become a cause celebre triggering
off a raging controversy by inviting legal harassment by the Gujarat
government.]
http://timesofindia .indiatimes. com/Opinion/ Editorial/ LEADER_ARTICLE_
Blame_The_ Middle_Class/ rssarticleshow/ 2681517.cms
LEADER ARTICLE: Blame The Middle Class
8 Jan 2008, 0000 hrs IST,Ashis Nandy
Now that the dust has settled over the Gujarat elections, we can afford to
defy the pundits and admit that, even if Narendra Modi had lost the last
elections, it would not have made much difference to the culture of Gujarat
politics. Modi had already done his job. Most of the state's urban middle class
would have remained mired in its inane versions of communalism and parochialism
and the VHP and the Bajrang Dal would have continued to set the tone of state
politics. Forty years of dedicated propaganda does pay dividends, electorally
and socially.
The Hindus and the Muslims of the state — once bonded so conspicuously by
language, culture and commerce — have met the demands of both V D Savarkar and
M A Jinnah. They now face each other as two hostile nations. The handful of
Gujarati social and political activists who resist the trend are seen not as
dissenters but as treacherous troublemakers who should be silenced by any
means, including surveillance, censorship and direct violence. As a result,
Gujarati cities, particularly its educational institutions are turning cultural
deserts. Gujarat has already disowned the Indian Constitution and the state
apparatus has adjusted to the change.
The Congress, the main opposition party, has no effective leader. Nor does it
represent any threat to the mainstream politics of Gujarat. The days of
grass-roots leaders like Jhinabhai Darji are past and a large section of the
party now consists of Hindu nationalists. The national leadership of the party
does not have the courage to confront Modi over 2002, given its abominable
record of 1984.
The Left is virtually non-existent in Gujarat. Whatever minor presence it once
had among intellectuals and trade unionists is now a vague memory. The state
has disowned Gandhi, too; Gandhian politics arouses derision in middle-class
Gujarat. Except for a few valiant old-timers, Gandhians have made peace with
their conscience by withdrawing from the public domain. Gandhi himself has been
given a saintly, Hindu nationalist status and shelved. Even the Gujarati
translations of his Complete Works have been stealthily distorted to conform to
the Hindu nationalist agenda.
Gujarati Muslims too are "adjusting" to their new station. Denied justice and
proper compensation, and as second-class citizens in their home state, they
have to depend on voluntary efforts and donor agencies. The state's refusal to
provide relief has been partly met by voluntary groups having fundamentalist
sympathies. They supply aid but insist that the beneficiaries give up Gujarati
and take to Urdu, adopt veil, and send their children to madrassas. Events like
the desecration of Wali Gujarati's grave have pushed one of India's culturally
richest, most diverse, vernacular Islamic traditions to the wall. Future
generations will as gratefully acknowledge the sangh parivar's contribution to
the growth of radical Islam in India as this generation remembers with
gratitude the handsome contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and his cohorts to Sikh
militancy.
The secularist dogma of many fighting the sangh parivar has not helped matters.
Even those who have benefited from secular lawyers and activists relate to
secular ideologies instrumentally. They neither understand them nor respect
them. The victims still derive solace from their religions and, when under
attack, they cling more passionately to faith. Indeed, shallow ideologies of
secularism have simultaneously broken the back of Gandhism and discouraged the
emergence of figures like Ali Shariatis, Desmond Tutus and the Dalai Lama —
persons who can give suffering a new voice audible to the poor and the
powerless and make a creative intervention possible from within worldviews
accessible to the people.
Finally, Gujarat's spectacular development has underwritten the de-civilising
process. One of the worst-kept secrets of our times is that dramatic
development almost always has an authoritarian tail. Post-World War II Asia too
has had its love affair with developmental despotism and the censorship,
surveillance and thought control that go with it. The East Asian tigers have
all been maneaters most of the time. Gujarat has now chosen to join the pack.
Development in the state now justifies amorality, abridgement of freedom, and
collapse of social ethics.
Is there life after Modi? Is it possible to look beyond the 35 years of rioting
that began in 1969 and ended in 2002? Prima facie, the answer is "no". We can
only wait for a new generation that will, out of sheer self-interest and
tiredness, learn to live with each other. In the meanwhile, we have to wait
patiently but not passively to keep values alive, hoping that at some point
will come a modicum of remorse and a search for atonement and that ultimately
Gujarati traditions will triumph over the culture of the state's urban middle
class.
Recovering Gujarat from its urban middle class will not be easy. The class has
found in militant religious nationalism a new self- respect and a new virtual
identity as a martial community, the way Bengali babus, Maharashtrian Brahmins
and Kashmiri Muslims at different times have sought salvation in violence. In
Gujarat this class has smelt blood, for it does not have to do the killings but
can plan, finance and coordinate them with impunity. The actual killers are the
lowest of the low, mostly tribals and Dalits. The middle class controls the
media and education, which have become hate factories in recent times. And they
receive spirited support from most non-resident Indians who, at a safe distance
from India, can afford to be more nationalist, bloodthirsty, and irresponsible.
The writer is a political psychologist.
Peace is doable.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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