Oh, but of course, we must prove we are secular!

The recent Allahabad High Court judgement on the land dispute at Ayodhya is to be commended (I refuse to call it the Babri Masjid case because this is NOT the criminal trial associated with the demolition of the mosque. This case was concerned with determining the ownership of the land on which the Mosque stood). It is to be commended because it does the only sensible thing that any court of law, that has the interest of the majority of this nation, can do. It split the land three ways between all the contenders and expressed its opinion on the numerous evidences present before it.

The judgement however, has come in for much criticism from some noted intellectuals of Indian society. Two in particular stand out in my mind and I find them very problematic. The first was a criticism made by lawyer Rajeev Dhawan on NDTV on the day the judgement was announced. According to him, the judgement is panchayati because the judges acknowledge the historical veracity (in the face of evidence presented by the Archeological Survey of India) of the Hindu claim that a temple once stood in the place where the Mosque was. He also has a problem with the fact that the court accepts the Hindu belief that Ayodhya is indeed the birthplace of Lord Ram. Today, a friend sent me a link that led me to this article. Historian Romila Thapar, in an op-ed article in The Hindu, criticises the court judgement stating that the ASI evidence is faulty (without once saying why it is faulty) and that while the Mosque is an integral part of Indian culture, the beliefs and historicity of India's largest religious community has no bearing on Indian culture.

I find the grounds on which these two criticisms have been made worrisome because it seems to me that the intellectuals of the country are in a constant effort to prove that they are "secular" and "broad minded" by siding with the party that has the fewer numbers. The idea of being secular is not the unquestioned protection of the miniority but the acceptance that all communities (including the majority community) have equal rights. It saddens me that in the name of secularism, we have made the majority discourse of this country the minority discourse; that people are afraid to stand up for the Hindu faith for fear of being called fascist or non secular. Why are we so belligerent in our secularism and in our stand on equality? Why can we not be broad minded enough to give the majority its due as well? Why must that always be branded as Hindutva or fascism? It is this pandering to the minority that has, in my view, caused a certain section of the majority to rise up in violent protest. While this does not make their protest right, it should give us cause to think about how we approach notions of secularism.

The land dispute in Ayodhya is first and foremost, a religious one and secondly a historical one. In a religious dispute, faith must be taken into account for the simple reason that none of us can prove or disprove the existence of God. God is a notion we subscribe to on faith and so the historical belief in Rama and Krishna too is based on faith. Second, from a historical point of view, the court only says that a temple once stood on the land where the Mosque was. No where in its judgement does the court say that the Hindus must build a temple in that spot. It only allocates one third of the disputed land to the Hindus. The claim to build a temple has been made by political leaders. It does not augur well for a noted historian to discredit the judgement of the court based on a factually incorrect and biased reading of the judgement.

Lastly, the court is not condoning the act of demolishing the mosque. There is a separate criminal trial pending in court for that. It is only sorting out a civil dispute over the ownership of land. To tie the two issues to each other is to take away from the mandate of the court in this particular case and discredit its prudence. The court has, in my opinion, done admirably in ensuring that Ayodhya does not once again become the cause for a blood bath. It has, in its judgement, upheld the essential equality of all communities in a secular state and has accepted and given legitimacy to two historical facts: that a temple existed in that spot and that a mosque existed in that spot.

In terms of upholding religious faith, perhaps Romila Thapar and Rajeev Dhawan and anyone else who feels the court has been one sided should consider this - only one of the parties has a religious culture and mythology associated with Ayodhya. That community happens to be The Hindus. It is right that their faith should be upheld. The Muslims built a mosque there. That is a historical fact which has not just been recognised but also awarded. However, they do not have any religio-cultural mythology associated with Ayodhya. And therefore, try as the court may, it will find no faith to uphold. These are things we should recognise before we cry foul and rail eloquent about minorities being wronged and secularism being cast aside. Given the tensions and diversity of our society, we cannot afford to be so insecure and defensive about what it means to be secular.

Questions, questions, questions

The simplicity of Krishna's argument, and the utter difficulty of practising it, always stuns me. Krishna, through out the Gita, makes a very simple point - Do what you must, what the situation demands (from a larger cosmic point of view) unfettered by personal desire, power, lust, envy, anger, fear, vengance or any other emotion. Do it out of love he says. Not the love that is personal and exclusive, but love that is as large as life and all inclusive. Only then are you acting in favour of the cosmic balance of the universe.

It is this same principle that allows Krishna to manipulate and break the rules of righteous war, to dupe the Kauravas at every stage of the battle, allowing the Pandavas to win. Yet, at the end of the war, the Pandavas have done Krishna's bidding without understanding his purpose (with the possible exception of Yudhishtra who is the only Pandava who enters heaven).

Yet, as an individual, when I think about anything, it is hard to view a situation free of personal prejudice. How does one, at any point, determine whether a course of action is being undertaken because that is truly what the situation demands or because there is a subconscious desire for a particular outcome that one has not been able to identify yet? When do you know that you have peeled back all layers of prejudice and conditioning and desire? How does one calculate the merits and demerits of a situation without taking into account the gain or loss (happiness or sorrow) that one is expecting from it?

Yet another reading of a retelling of the Mahabharat and I only have more questions. Still more questions and no answers at all (that in itself is perhaps, a good thing).

PS: I do recommend everyone to read at least a couple of retellings of the Mahabharat. The retellings themselves are an exercise in understanding perspective and points of view. Some of the ones I've read are:

1. Mahasamar (Narendra Kohli): This one is in Hindi and was recommended by a friend who knows the epic better than anyone else I know!
2. Palace of Illusions (Chitra Banerji Divakaruni): The Mahabharata told from Draupadi's perspective, the woman who is the pivot of the plot of the Mahabharata.
3. Mahabharata retold by C Rajagopalachari: This one was my first, perhaps the simplest, as the tale would be told to a child.
4. Difficulty of being good (Gurcharan Das): This is not a direct retelling of the Mahabharata but an analysis of its characters and plot, the lessons that can be drawn from it and the continuing relevance of the epic in present times.
5. Jaya (Devdutt Pattanaik): This is one I just finished. It is a simple retelling but what I love about it is the little side stories and the notes at the end of each chapter pointing out the moral, sociological and political debates and setting the historical context of vedic lifestyle for the reader. It brings out both the context that created the Mahabharata as well as the underpinning values that make it eternally relevant. 

All of these books are available in India on http://www.flipkart.com and http://www.indiaplaza.in

At this point, I am regretting not knowing to read a vernacular language such as Tamil. Would love to read a folk retelling of the epic!

The memories we talk about

I recently finished reading a book by one of my favourite Indian authors - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The book is called One Amazing Thing. To cut a long story short, it is the story of 9 people trapped under the rubble of the Indian Embassy after an earthquake. And as they wait to be rescued, they begin to tell each other stories of that one amazing thing or moment or event of their lives. And as I was reading each story I realised, they were all sad in some measure. No story was completely happy, from start to finish.

And so I started thinking back I realised that we tell our sad stories more than our happy stories. We take the happy stories for granted and wallow in the sad ones. Like telling them somehow eases the pain or gives more purpose to our lives. And that's really all wrong. Purpose in life should come from its happy parts. The things that made you giggle and laugh till your jaws hurt, till you are clutching your tummy and rolling around helplessly, hoping something will make you stop before you choke. And those moments are rare. Much rarer than all the sad things that life has to offer (it really has plenty of those).

One Amazing Thing is poignant and the stories are beautifully told. But somehow, I finished thinking amazing things should have left me smiling more than sighing.

Home

A per chance conversation had me thinking about "Home" and I realise that whenever someone asks me that question, I don't really have an answer and my answers are hardly ever the same. Today, "home" might be Delhi, tomorrow it'll be my little flat in Mumbai and day after, it'll be Chennai. I don't have a definite space that has been home since i can remember. Home for me has been transitory, changing, more a function of where I find comfort than a specific house in a specific city.

It's this way for several reasons. I've grown up and lived in several places - Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi (which was my longest stint @14 years and even there I've moved three houses), Ahmedabad and now Mumbai. Till some years back, it was really simple. Delhi was home. I'd lived there the longest, made some of my best friends and happiest memories and my parents still lived there and I still went back there for little breaks and holidays.But now, I haven't been there in almost three years - since my parents moved back to our "home town" of Chennai, my friends have move out and some have moved back and Delhi, people tell me is no longer the same. I definitely need to go there sometime soon... walk the streets of where I used to live and the nostalgia of times really well spent.


Today, for every long weekend, every festival I go back to Chennai. In my head Chennai has always been the city in which my grandparents live. It's never been happening and visits to Chennai have largely consisted of relative visiting, eating, more relative visiting and more eating. Some of that has changed. Now it's where my parents live and some of friends work there now and I get to see a slightly different, "younger" side of the city. However, though I try to think of it as "home" in the more permanent everlasting sense, it doesn't quite seem that way. Visits to Chennai or rarely ever comforting or even relaxing. If anything, they end up being more hectic and with more decisions to make than I do in my working week. It doesn't have the ease and innocence of childhood, nor any memories of the same (all those are in Delhi, remember). PS: And it seems like I don't even have any pictures of Chennai. Must click the next time I am there.

And finally, Mumbai - where I've been for the last two and a half years. It's a city in which I've truly lived alone, discovered many things, including much about myself that I did not know. I now have a little apartment here (on rent, but nevertheless!) that is my pride and according to me the most comfortable place to come back to after a day at work. Mumbai is full of advertures had, happy memories, sad memories, it is a place full of loves found and lost. At one time, I considered wanting to live here forever. But not anymore.

So I wonder where would I make home? Or for that matter, where is the place that has the peace and solace of good times spent with people who still matter?

And yes, slightly sentimental post to begin with but at least  I am writing again!

Things I am being lazy about

Things I am being lazy about 

So on an afternoon when I am getting bored, friend and I decided to put down a list of all the things we want to do and don't get around to doing. So he put up a post on his blog and tagged me. So here I go:

1. Write more... especially fiction
2. Enrol for dance classes
3. Learn swimming
4. Put up my friend's wedding pics
5. Edit my thesis for publication

There I go. This will hopefully get rid of writer's block also.

Tagging back:
Flyin Fiddlesticks

People I am tagging:
Arjun
Rehab
& Cynduja


Tag Name: I Dont/IDont/iDont (if you are an apple fan)