Saturday, December 30, 2023

 

On the Last Day of Another Year


In the midst of winters, alone I sit
By the window of my soul
A haunting melody stirs my nerves 
And tears write the sadness scroll

I wonder why I don’t swim
In the rivers of world’s thought
Why those who claim to see the unseen
In me, cannot be more distraught

The smiling veneer hides the war
Self has waged through its course
Fighting on all fronts, battles aplenty
Protected only by the spirit’s force

Even from keepers of life’s secrets,
Who you loved well, especially those,
Judgement seldom slowed its way,
Lazy advice, was often supposed.

The train of thoughts is running
Skipping at high speeds, alas!
The inventor didn’t leave instructions
And I too may have missed his class

It’s time to stop the chugging ascent
Afar is the final station, hasn’t arrived
Soul’s journey is higher than its pain’s arc,
Even with shards stuck, the will has survived.


Monday, January 20, 2020

Citizenship Amendment Act upholds the Idea of India


The Idea of India is under threat. Or so it is routinely claimed.

What exactly is the Idea of India? Is India just the sole propriety of the book now believed to have near-sacred reverence in the country - the Constitution or is it also a rich cultural and social inheritance that is touted to be one of the oldest living continuous civilizations?

It is in the starting point of this belief of the ‘Idea of India’ that the people of the country remain divided over solutions to civilizational issues. However, to even begin to understand the Citizenship Amendment Act, it is imperative to appreciate the context.

Much before Jesus Christ was born, between 500 BC and 50 BC, several extensive and well-administered kingly reigns were already prevalent in the country, we now recognize as modern India. The Maurya Empire, between 320 and 185 BC, more or less laid out the boundaries of present-day Indian sub-continent as a single empire ruled by one king. Evidence such as this and much more should have put an end to the shrill conversation around the miraculous ‘birth of India’ in 1947, but for the persistence of extreme Left elements who oppose this continuity both in history and in present.

The Indian sub-continent is geographically so categorized, flanked by the Himalayas in the north, the sea on its entire southern coast; and the flood plains, deeply forested mountainous regions and Chin and Kachin hills on the East, that irrespective of time and changing cultures, much of India today is also Bharat of the yore. The only moving area has been the North West of the country through which we suffered onslaught from incoming invaders time and again.

And all this while, we remained ‘secular; - as the implication of the meaning of the word stands today. We were welcoming to all persecuted religious groups all over the world. It is like while the world outside kept changing with invading armies and toppling reigns, we stood like a huge Banyan tree whose roots are deep within but still finds in its being, the ability to give shelter to all passers-by.
In 562 BC, the Jews – persecuted all over the world, including the countries heralded as secular today, found peace and comfort in Bharat, so much so that they were granted land and trading rights by the then kings who knew nothing of the word ‘secular’ that modern India will try to define itself by. In 1st Century AD, Christians came to India and through missionary activity spread the religion in various pockets in the country. Parsis (Zoroastrians from Greater Persia) came in the 9th Century, the descendants of whom command some of the most powerful business houses, along with one of the only two Field Marshals in India today. Tibetan Buddhists, escaping the persecution by the Chinese government in 1959, were not only welcomed but formed a government-in-exile from the cold mountains of Himachal Pradesh. Baha’I, facing religious persecution in Iran, found safe haven here.
These victimized groups have not only found refuge in the country, but they have thrived. Their numbers have grown, they have established businesses and local ethnic ties, and are inevitably an inextricable part of India.

The truth be told – India is secular because of its Hindu fundamentals, and not because the word found its way into the constitution by the 42nd Amendment. 

The Supreme Court in S.R Bommai v. Union of India, ruled that India was already a secular state from the time it adopted its constitution - what actually was done through 42nd amendment is to state explicitly what was earlier contained implicitly. However, Hindu in the statement above doesn’t mean a narrowly defined religion, but the ‘Hindu way of life’ that even the Supreme Court had clarified in Ramesh Yeshwant Prabhoo case [1996 SCC (1) 130] that Hinduism is a ‘way of life of Indian people’. As recent as yesterday, amidst cries of majoritarianism RSS chief Shri Mohan Bhagwat categorically said that 130 cr population of India is all a part of Hindu society. While this is the reality of India, Pakistan, formed entirely on narrow-religious lines has seen an inverse relationship of time and minorities. The more they moved away from Independence, the lesser the number of minorities became. At the time of partition in 1947, almost 14 percent of Pakistan’s population were non-Muslims which has declined to approximately 3 percent today1. A similar decline has taken place in Bangladesh where minorities have decimated to about 9% from around 23% in 1951.

But more than the numbers, it is the gruesome stories that come from the bottom of Pakistan’s conscience. Christian graveyards are often vandalized and desecrated because hate follows in death as well. In Sindh and Balochistan provinces, well-to-do Hindus are subjected to ransom kidnappings. Hindu women are repeatedly subjected to untold miseries through kidnapping and rapes. That these assaults have a religious element, is clear from the fact that both kidnapping and rapes are accompanied with forced conversions and/or forced marriages. While, obviously, there cannot be an official number, member of Human Rights Commissions and NGOs working in the region claim that a number anywhere between 20-70 girls from the Hindu and Christian community are abducted every month and forcefully converted. This strategy is not unknown to a similar trend against Kashmiri Pandit women when the Islamists in the Kashmiri valley drove away Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, with the call relayed across public loudspeakers – “Leave or get killed. Leave your women behind”

Reproducing verbatim from Wikipedia
“On 18 October 2005, Sanno Amra and Champa, a Hindu couple residing in the Punjab Colony, Karachi, Sindh returned home to find that their three teenage daughters had disappeared. After inquiries to the local police, the couple discovered that their daughters had been taken to a local madrassah, had been converted to Islam, and were denied unsupervised contact with their parents. In January 2017, a Hindu temple was demolished in Pakistan's Haripur district”

In the last two decades, a steady stream of Sikh and Hindu refugees from Pakistan have settled illegally in Punjab, especially those from Khyber Pakhtunwala and Sialkot. Several Afghan hindu families now living in Delhi, were original inhabitants of Afghan province of Kabul, Jalalabad, Ghajini, Gandhar, Logar, Kunduz, Parwan and Helmand. These families have been escaping human rights atrocities inflicted on them by Taliban, and have no papers and documents after their visas expired long ago. Numerous case studies such as the 52 year old Kamla Devi whose personal accounts reveal a story of racial and religious discrimination, and Rajesh living in Jalandhar, all of whom have come with their families and are surviving in absolute penury with precious money spent on renewal of visas, point to a glaring fact-Why would families endure more hardship and poverty in a different land if they were safe and secure in their own?

The country still charges people under Blasphemy laws, and around 700 people have been prosecuted under it. Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani, received death sentence for blasphemy in 2010, and on chances of her acquittal, Muslim cleric Maulana Yousaf Qureshi announced a bounty of 5 lakh Pakistani rupees to anyone who would kill her. Today, having fled to Canada, she is hearty and well but the two ministers who advocated for her – Shahbaz Batti and Salmaan Taseer were both assassinated.

In India, comparatively, during the same time, the majority has decreased from around 84% in 1951 to about 79% in 2011, with share of minorities increasing with the major increase coming from Islam (up from 9.8% to 14.23%). Here, the stories are of great significance. We have had Muslim Presidents, Catholic head of the opposition – Congress, extensive influence of minorities in the film industry, non-discriminatory selection of minorities in Cricket and sporting teams and in corporate world. India’s permanent representative to the UN is a quintessentially Indian Muslim.

Citizenship Amendment Bill – Necessity and Rationale

So, when the Citizenship Amendment Bill is introduced, it is only to set in stone a method for providing a legal method to persecuted minorities in Muslim-majority neighbouring countries with a poor-track record of human rights, to apply for citizenship in India through naturalisation. Contrary to what is being spread viciously amidst unsuspecting population, many of who are not in the know of the sections of the bill, let alone being conversant about it; the Act has a Positive and Noble objective behind it. To put it simply – in keeping with the centuries old tradition of India-the civilizational mother in the sub-continent, allow for minorities who have been forced or compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution before the date of Dec 31 2014.

The wording of the bill, which few would have read, is positively intended to provide a way to those suffering from human rights violations from our neighbouring countries and are already in the country, find a way to carry forward their near-stateless lives.

In any case, India, apart from being a geographical imprint on the landmap of the world, is also mother to one of the oldest religions in the world and its civilizational fundamentals. To deny cultural Hindus their natural origin of existence is not in keeping with the ethos of Bharat.

Why only Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan?

Simply because they are our neighbouring countries and often harassed minorities from these make way to India historically. Otherwise, the question can be asked for any country, religious or ethnic group that is persecuted which has nothing to do with India.

Why not Muslims from these three countries?

The three countries from which India has been receiving a steady-state of incoming refugees have a declared State Religion and are theocratic in nature. That naturally follows that persecuted minorities will NOT be those who belong to the majority religion of these three countries. In any case, if a Pakistani Muslim can be granted citizenship of India, what’s the whole point of the Partition?

Approach to Refugees

India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the 1967 protocol. There is no national policy on refugees, so the country is free to form a policy for incoming refugees based on the need and characteristics of the time and context.

It is unfortunate that Opposition leaders, some members of the uninformed civil society, and the Islamists in the crowd provoked and spread wrong information among the people, instigating revolutionary-friendly elements in society. Leaders should have risen to the occasion and championed amongst the people the cause of celebrating our citizenship.

The large-scale destruction that has accompanied these protests clearly shows that there is little love for the symbols and properties of the country of whose citizenship they are fighting for. India, as a democracy, must welcome protests, all of which she has seen over the years right from the days of Mahatma Gandhi, who even against the British employed non-violent means. In near future, against Court’s judgement on Sabarimala, protestors had laid down their concerns peacefully without harm to life and property. 

Those who are contributing to arson and looting are only revealing their internal lack of attachment to our country. We don’t burn our homes.

At a close estimate, there are only 31,000+ people who can be immediate beneficiaries of this Act. Let’s open our hearts and homes to those who are already living with us and have no chance or opportunity to go back, for they will never find their faith or acceptance in the countries they have left far behind.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

The Extremism of Moderation


I am a proud Hindu.
Ah! What was that? A declaration of self-confessed Hindu pride! I must definitely be communal. For when does a right-thinking person (with no reference to the political definition which can send the media lambasting everyone under its ambit) even a Hindu, declare so outrightly his love for his religion?
No sir! I must definitely be communal.

In a world charged with religious overtones where religion is no longer a merely personal pursuit which instead dominates world politics, terrorism, film-making, book-literature, facebook updates, election issues, it is still all right to declare yourself a proud Muslim or a Christian or a Jew, but a Hindu declaration must indeed be the right-wingedness of politics or at least an overt display of a newly-branded word: Extremist.

It is ironical and yet in many ways it isn’t, for after all, aren’t we in India – the land of contradictions, that calling yourself a proud Hindu and wearing the obvious badges of the religion on sleeve in an overwhelmingly Hindu population is publicly looked upon most disapprovingly and most suspiciously. You utter the ‘H’ word and the media, the people, the peers will point guns at you. Sarcasm and comments labeling you as a right-winger or as a Hindu extremist or as a communalist or as a BJPiite, will be thrown at your mercilessly.

It is another matter that this declaration is only an expression of one’s preference, with no intention to insult, invoke or slander any other religion, sect or community. Also, more often than not, statements to do with one’s religion are bereft of any purported signaling to any other.
However, that is exactly the meaning attributed to a harmless statement.

Nevertheless, my problem is much more latitudinous than the expression of one’s religiosity. It is the overt, repressive pressure to be all-conforming to the public-media-asserted holy line of “Moderation”. Political correctness has reached a never-before docile and obsequious standard.

And hence, I admit publicly that I am afraid. Afraid of the expansive and unsuppressed nature of this political correctness pervading our homes, our workplaces, media, discussion forums, facebook, and the worst of all - inter-personal relationships.
Somehow it is not right to express your opinions clearly if they go against the holy line of moderation. It is not right to say that you “hate” something or you “love” something. No sir! We all must dilute it to express our conformism to a ‘Moderate’ ‘like’. Worse still, eliminate the preference. Express the neutrality: This way or that way, I am ok, you are ok.

Riots break out for no explicit reason whatsoever if a word, a phrase or a declaration enrages someone. Calling a spade a spade is a thing left for English storybooks or literature from colonial era.  I remember this conversation where I was telling someone that I love Sachin Tendulkar. Within a few minutes while talking about cities and lives, I said that I hate Delhi because of the insecurity it offers to girls. Having ably supported my preferences with some reasons, irrespective of someone else’s agreement with them, I did not hesitate while saying them aloud. In no time, I was an extremist with strong opinions. Strong opinions, apparently, are to be frowned upon, as long as they do not toe the line of moderation.

The worst of all is the penetration of this attitude in small sections of society and personal relationships. Wearing a saffron kurta to work will invite at least one joke about ‘being RSS-wadi”. The same is not true for a green garment.
Expressing political opinions frequently, especially by a girl, will invite the ire and the frown of the moderation-practicing populace. Saying things as they are, as they should be, factually pointing out anomalies is the symbol of an active mind, not of a demented one. That in no way dents the humaneness of a person.

Conformism suits the present world of traders and organizations. Euphemism is the new mantra. I shudder to think what would have been the outcome of our freedom struggle if our leaders were afraid and every non-approved, non-moderate sentence would be opposed using reductio ad absurdum.

And so, it is with being Hindu.

So for the left-leaning media and the majority of those conscientious Hindus who are afraid of being labeled extremists; criticizing kar sevaks for demolishing Babri masjid is justified, so much so that we can play the same record year after year, openly castigating the people involved but to talk of Muslim-led genocide against Kashmiri Pandits in one of world’s largest cases of ethnic cleansing is being - you are right – Hindu Extremist.

No normal, right-minded Hindu will support any of these two activities, least of all any riots. However, when any of them expresses a preference of voting for BJP, he is automatically labeled in a derogatory tone as a ‘RSS wadi”.  Why can’t someone vote for BJP without being called so, simply because he or she is disgusted with the corruption of the Congress or with their flawed sense of economics or their misplaced idea of appeasement or the worst of all – their conniving sops to public, permanently damaging the exchequer without any effective ‘build money to spend money’ program.

A religion should be gauged by the way it treats its minorities when it is itself in majority. And India should be proud because despite being majorly Hindu, she has welcomed all religions with open arms. All communities, sects which were persecuted in the world found a refuge in this motherland. And that should make us delightfully proud of being Hindu. Pride as defined by dictionary also means “self-esteem” without any negative overtones. Why should that offend anyone?
“I am proud to belong to that Hinduism which is all inclusive and which stands for tolerance.” – Gandhi proclaimed a long time ago. He never went down in history as being communal. His love for other religions was so much that a real Hindu Extremist assassinated him.

Our democracy and its constitution gives the “Right to Free Speech” to each and every individual, limited only by its potential to invoke incendiary feelings in a community enough to cause destructive rampage or fuel insurgent emotions.
Apart from that, we are free to express. Unfortunately, what the constitution blesses us with; the society takes away – the Right to be an Individual.

A new thought emanates from a conflict of ideas. For conflict of ideas, there should be opposing opinions and the right to express so. Toeing the middle line has never revolutionized anything, neither any political nor any social or industrial change. The Moderates never got us freedom, so didn’t the Extremists. The conflict between them produced Gandhi - a new political awakening.
Moderation should not be an excuse for tolerance of the bad and the ugly – specks of terrorism, acts of vandalism, conformism to mediocrity, snubbing of free opinions, preferences and a societal snobbery for euphemisms. Continued practice of this has made us a soft and weak nation, which will tolerate just about anything: rapes, appeasement, terrorism, hijacking, naxalism, corruption and blatant misuse of power because as a community we are afraid of being labeled as “Extremists”.
Moderation is good, albeit in moderation.

In Sanskrit, there is a saying: “Ati Sarvatra Varjayet” , i.e. ‘Anything in excess is bad”.  Even ‘Moderation’.


Aparajita Tripathi
PGDM, IIM Kozhikode




Saturday, December 31, 2011

YOU AND I

Each time you gave some of you
You took some more of me,
Each time you closed your eyes to sleep
You stole some dreams of me,
Each time the sun set on your dreamy days
You shadowed the light in me,
Each time you looked at your reflection
You mirrored a lot of me,
Each time you stared at my frank eyes,
You entered the skin of me.

And now, when you are some of I
And some of I is you,
Difficult our lives have become
In removing all of you;

When I try to shed some of you,
I shed a lot of me,
With each layer that I skin off
You disappear with some more of me,
So deep was the intrusion of you in my life
That you are the majority in me;


Little by little, bit by bit,
Your rays had entered me,
And now erasing the thought of you
Is like dimming the light in me.

And with a new view, I look at you
Searching for the lost me
And all I find is a void sublime
Where darkness was traded for me,
The larks have stopped singing
The tales of love,
Now that, there's no more of me in thee!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Wherefore Shall One Find?

Oft at times, one should find
A mind engaged
In warring contradictions
In a place like this
Where exists a knowledge abyss!

Alas! Bereft of Convictions,
Thoughts often aged
Swarm without Friction.
In a place like this
A questioning soul is amiss!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Stay Away My Dear!

An overcast sky,
Clouded with darkness
A spring of colour
Spreads nevertheless.

Yet he Forbids
Happiness to come near
A tale spun so sordid
That Quoth he
“Stay Away My Dear”

What shalt she say
Grown weary with neglect.
Their Conversations abound
Erratic and Forlorn
Emphatic with words
And Absence of Sound

O’ she wonders!
How at fault was she?
And so she Wonders
As Time Flies Nigh
Is her Love someday To Be?

Monday, October 4, 2010

Aapke jawaab mein

छोटी छोटी रंजिशों में प्यार ढूंढ लें तो जाने
कोसों दूर रहने वाले की भावना को समझ पाएं तो जाने
ठहाके मारने के दिन तो उसी क्षण लद गए
जब बिलखती आँखों के मायने आपके लिए हो गए बेमाने


स्व-जड़ित कैदों से विचार मुक्त हो पाएं तो जाने
किसी की यादों से खुद को विमुख कर पाएं तो जाने
गनीमत सिलवतें ही थी, क्या आप भूल गए,
अपने हाथों के उस स्पर्श को हमसे छीन पाएं तो जाने

किसी की उल्फतों को नज़र-अंदाज़ कर पाए तो जाने

सोचते हैं की कभी तो दर्द बयान कर पाएं
उस काली कलम से शब्द छीन पाएं तो जाने
जिन सवालों के जवाब से आप खुद रहे बेखबर
वो छोड़ हमें, खुद से पूछें तो जाने

हमारे इकरार को मुक़र्रर कर पाएं तो जाने

क्या खूब-ऐ-किस्मत हमारा मजाक उड़ाया करती है
हमारी की गयी प्रशंसा को दरकिनार करिए तो जाने
आपकी खामोशी हमसे हमको ही छीन कर ले गयी
वो हंसी, वो नाटक, वो वो नाराजगी लौटा पाएं तो जाने

कभी अपने शालीन-ऐ-अंदाज़ में "मेरे साथ चलोगी" सुना पाएं तो जाने

गिरफ्त प्यार की न होती तो हम भी अहंकार-ऐ-सराबोर थे
हमारी हालत को समझ कर खुद पास आयें तो जाने
शिद्दत से बटोरा है हमने हर उस लम्हे को
उन लम्हों से खुद को छुड़ा पाएं तो जाने

रंजिशों को छोड़ हमें अपना पाएं तो जाने