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Editorial
Lessons From Amritsar to Ayodhya
 The Liberhan
Commission report on Babri mosque has done all things for all
people, except anything for the wronged community or offering solace
to the civil society.
In 1984, when
the Indian Government unleashed an attack by the Indian Army,
complete with artillery, on the centre of Sikh religion, the Golden
Temple and Sri Akal Takht, the Sikhs were let down by the Indian
civil society.
Voices of
protest were too few, and too feeble. To speak for the Sikh
question, or to engage meaningfully with the issues raised by a
community that not only had a proud history but even a geography –
the Sikhs had been ruler in the not very distant past and had run a
kingdom the likes of which the world has rarely seen – had become
almost an anti-national thing to do. The entire body of work of that
sterling fighter for the cause of human rights, Ram Narayan Kumar,
as also his words reproduced elsewhere in this weekly edition of the
World Sikh News as a tribute, underlines this failure of the civil
society.
When the second
phase of the tragedy happened in the form of pogrom of the Sikhs in
Delhi and elsewhere, the civil society people were able to somewhat
pull themselves up, dust off their blatant prejudices and start
speaking out.
By the time,
India's Hindutva forces gathered more strength and blood thirsty
crowds thought it better to show their allegiance towards Lord Rama
by demolishing the house of another community's God, such voices had
gathered more steam. But the experience of silence, the rulers’ view
that it was possible to bamboozle the civil society, had become
entrenched. What else can explain the fact that a commission tasked
with probing the causes and fixing responsibility of such a heinous
crime takes 17 years before churning out a report that, as we said
it earlier, is all things to all people?
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It is time
the Sikh community starts thinking in terms of forging new
alliances as force multipliers. There are endless numbers of
marginalised communities trying and fighting to come out of the
pantheon of Hinduism. The Dalits are on a resurgence and are
trying to pull out of the brahamanical system. This is the time
to debrahamanise our minds, our epistemological mental
furniture, our pedagogy, and our polity. It is the time to think
big. |
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The BJP has
thrived on its self depiction as a part in the Hindutva mould. Now,
with its latest intra party churnings and its stated decision to
stick to Hindutva, the Liberhan Commission's harsh words delivered
in soft tones are godsent for this godless party that sees a great
future in politics of hatred.
Rajiv Gandhi was
the first major Congress leader who thrived on hatred when he won on
a communal wave generated by Operation Bluestar, killings of Sikhs,
and placing advertisements in major Indian newspapers that tended to
show that all Sikhs are terrorists. L K Advani only built upon that
with his Rath Yatra. The BJP-RSS edifice is constructed on the
foundation of repression of minorities, mosque and church
demolishing agendas and dreams of a pan-Hindu nation.
It is time that
the minorities saw the game clearly. Both, the Congress and the BJP
are parties of Hindutva. Congress played to the Hindutva gallery by
opening the locks and carrying out shilanayas. It was this
foundation of anti-Muslim hatred on which the BJP built its
superstructure that saw it catapulting from a party with two MPs in
Lok Sabha to leading the government under AB Vajpayee. As for the
attack on Golden Temple and Akal Takht, it is none other than L K
Advani who sought to take credit for pressurizing the then
government of Indira Gandhi in his latest book.
Clearly, the
entrenched brahamanical powers are pretty well networked. That is
natural too because their agendas converge and there is little scope
for minorities to bloom under any dispensation that is run by these
established power levers.
It is time for
the Sikh community to think in terms of forging new alliances as
force multipliers. There are endless numbers of marginalised
communities trying and fighting to come out of the pantheon of
Hinduism. The entire Dalit community is on a resurgence and if it
succeeds in breaking out of the Hindutva hold and finds its true
religious identity, it will be a victory for those who want a more
egalitarian world. This is the time to debrahamanise our minds, our
epistemological mental furniture, our pedagogy, and our polity. It
is the time to think big. If the crooked can demolish the houses of
God, be they in Amritsar or Ayodhya, what stops us from breaking out
of the false walls of prejudices? As the children of a Guru who
preached nothing less than welfare of the universe, Sarbat Da Bhala,
we owe it to ourselves to have no lesser ideal.
1
July 2009
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