Oh! my intolerant India! Challenge of replacing conflict with compassionate tolerance!

dr. james kottoor

“Oh! my beloved Intolerant India! I hang my head in pain, shame, sorrow, despair and misery!” This is what this scribe is forced to cry out with tear filled eyes at the sight of ominous intolerance in India.

  James kottoor     One man – yes he was one of the towering Prime Ministers of India — did say it long ago. He said: “I hang my head in shame!” when the Australian missionary with his two children were brutally burned alive in a car parked for a night’s rest in a solitary place.

               His name is Atal Bihari Vajpai. He was and is after the heart of Gandhiji who would happily rush to and ask a  frightened Muslim neighbor: “Are you safe!” during the Indo-Pak partition holocost and mayhem.  Was he the only, yes “the solitary boast and exception to  communal India’s insatiable  hatred, bigotry and intolerance, Oh my God?” It was Wordsworth who used that phrase: “tainted nature’s solitary boast” first about  Mary, the immaculate Mother of Jesus. 

Globe-trotting Modi can

            Why can’t Modi, now be the indefactible, unstoppable globe -trotter ever on the run to unite all, starting with heads of states, as world citizens, take out that same inborn trick within, to unite his own country-men — communally divided vertically and horizontally? He surely can! Then why on earth, he doesn’t do it? That is the enigma, the puzzle, the big riddle defying all experts at difining, at problem solving!

             History repeats itself, it is said. During the emergency it was the rule of Gandhi dynasty and its leaders Indira and Sanjay. Some of the senior civil servants dared even then to raise their voice of protest and they were silenced or punished. Today a similar emergency-like situation exists in India. One man rule is enforced everywhere. Here also some 65 retired senior civil servants expressed their joint protest but no public discussion leading to solution is taking place.

             One or two swallows don’t make a summer. So CCV thought more protests should happen to provoke a public discussion. Therefore it suggested that the CBCI (Catholic Bishops Conference of India) the senior persons in the Catholic Church should call an emergency meeting to study the issue and make public their evaluation and suggestions. CCV  sent it to all Indian bishops. None responded except one top official who expressed desire to meet and discuss when he would return to India from Rome on July 1st . But nothing has happened  till today July 8th .

               Some concerned,  responsible and reputed journalists like Kuldip Nair continue to highlight the seriousness of the present situation. His latest insightful article: “Reclaiming the idea that was India” given below deserves attentive reading and reflection, every sentence in it by everyone.

Despotism vs pluralism

       The issue facing India is despotism vs pluralism. During emergency it was despotism of Indira. Indira could be changed and emergency went. Today the fight is between Hindutva ideology steered by Modi fighting against pluralism and unity in diversity. To get rid of dictatorship it is enough to remove one man dictator, but to get rid of an ideology (Hindutva) the majority community infected with it has to be reeducated convincingly into universal vision, the original Hindu (not Hindutva) vision of “Vasudeva Kudumbakam” and “Adithi Devo bhava”  driven by the resolute, unbending spirit of compationate tolerance towards one’s neighbour seen as stranger, different, dangerous, foreigner, intruder and therefore inimical.

           This is a long-drawn tedious task, but this alone is the remedy to reclaim the idea of India where everyone felt to be a ‘world citizen’ and therefore could be happy and pray “Loka samasta sukino bhavantu”, a happy family living in peace and harmony to achieve true prosperity. james kottoor, editor, ccv.

Please read below article by Kuldip Nayar

 

Reclaiming the idea that was India

Kuldip Nayar, in The Statesman, July 6, 2017

                be-mindful-of-kashmirs-autonomy-kuldip-nayar Government officers after retirement take sanyas, but some courageous ones have spoken against the intolerant society that India is becoming. In their open letter they say, “It appears there is a growing religious intolerance that is aimed primarily at Muslims.”

Apparently, there has been no discussion or mention about the sentiments of this letter. The BJP which sets the tone of society probably did not want any discussion and let the matter die as it has. Yet, the fact remains that the Muslims do not get their due.

They are 17 crores or 12 per cent of India’s total population of 1.2 billion. As Justice Rajinder Sachar’s report has pointed out, the treatment meted out to them was worse than what the Dalits go through.

The report is a decade old but none of its recommendations has ever been implemented, not even under the Congress. What it means is that a soft kind of Hindutva had spread into the country even before the BJP came to power. One expected the Congress Party to take up the point made by Justice Sachar.

I understand that he even went to the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) at the time to complain that if the government was not serious about implementing its recommendations, why did it waste his time and the time of other members of the Commission? Manmohan Singh at the time expressed his helplessness. He reportedly told Justice Sachar the bureaucracy seemed to have come in the way and what was promised to the Muslims remained only on paper. The report had hardly any adherent when the BJP came to power.

The Muslims, once in a while, do recall the report to underline their grievances, but the media has shown no interest. Even otherwise the media has come to tilt towards Hindutva.

The voice of pluralism is hardly audible. Things have come to such a pass that those who talk about pluralism are looked down upon and considered pro-Muslim for some personal gain. The BJP philosophy has come to prevail. The Congress Party which draws its connection with those who struggled for independence and its ethos of one country for all without distinction of caste or creed is not credible any more.

The dynasty rules the party and does not give space to anybody else. Even the Working Committee of the party, which used to be in the news, does not exist. One has never heard of the AICC, or the party President’s elections. In an effort to let her son, Rahul, be an arbiter, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has seen to it that there would be no dissenting voice. Senior members of the party openly express their disappointment that new and fresh voices are not entertained by Sonia Gandhi because she is keeping the seat warm exclusively for Rahul.

He is so much the apple of her eye that even daughter Priyanka—she goes down better with the masses—has been pushed into the background. Priyanka’s most powerful selling point is that she resembles her grandmother, Indira Gandhi. Never mind that Indira had many negative points.

For example, the excesses committed during the Emergency when one lakh people were detained without trial. The Shah Commission, which held open sittings to bring out how the common man was maltreated, said in its report that the Emergency was imposed because Indira wanted to save her seat after Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha disqualified her for six years. Instead of honouring the judgment she changed the whole system of governance.

Subsequently, she allowed her younger son, Sanjay, to effectively rule the country with the support of his rednecks. Back in those days there were also a handful of serving and retired civil servants who dared to defy authoritative governance and suffered the punishment meted out to them for having shown courage during the Emergency. Indira was very particular that those who challenged her were sidelined.

The government of Narendra Modi is not about promoting one man and his idiosyncrasies. It is more about ideology, the Hindutva. That makes it much more ominous. One person can always be removed but ideas are harder to dislodge.

That is the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. In the first, it is one person who tries to change the people. In the other, it is the people who change top rulers. Unfortunately, today it is Hindutva versus pluralism. Despotism of one person has been replaced by the despotism of ideology.

This can be seen in the way a 15-year-old Muslim, Junaid, was stabbed to death on his way back from a shopping spree to celebrate Eid. Those responsible for his killing first abused him on account of his religion. What is tragic is that those who struggled for independent India do not count and the ones who were never near the frontlines are ruling the country. Where were these voices when Nehru, Gandhi and Maluana Azad were caned by the people in solar hats?

There are some liberal voices who recall the independence movement and Mahatma Gandhi who led it, but the ruling party’s emphasis is on their philosophy which was looked down upon in a pluralistic country for which the nation was fighting. It is tragic to see that the civil servants themselves are wearing the badge of Hindutva.

In UP, where the BJP has come to power, Chief Minister Adiyanath Yogi has transferred 26 top secretaries to the government to make way for the people he considers nearer to his party’s philosophy.

This is different from the centre where the Prime Minister has reportedly seen to it that those secretaries who fail to do their jobs are given due warning. Modi is considered by the civil service to be a ruler who means business. So far there is very little evidence that Modi can rise above ideology.

He still has two more years to go in his five-year tenure. Maybe, he would now take some hard decisions to put the country before the party.

The writer is a noted journalist columnist and commentator.

You may also like...

1 Response

  1. benoy says:

    Mr. Nayar and Dr. Kottoor should also do a comparative study of Muslim majority countries and India. India has its own flaws. So does every other country in the world. With and overwhelming majority of tolarent people who belive in Sanathana Dharma, minority religions flourish in India. Increase in Christian and Muslim population in India from 1947 onwards illustrates the lack of religious intolerance in India. Even in a first world country like the USA, African Americans, Muslims and Hindus are discriminated against. In my opinion Mr. Nayar and Dr. Kottoor are exaggerating some isolated incidents that happned in India recently. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.