The Secular Common Ground

The Secular Common Ground
Sarbajit Banerjee

[SAHMAT expands as the Safdar Hashmi Arts Trust. The world socialist web site describes it as ‘an alliance of artists and intellectuals opposed to Hindu fundamentalism and cultural nationalism’.]

I recently had the opportunity to witness a curious event, the screening of ‘Junoon ke Badhte Kadam’ a Gauhar Raza documentary combined with a chautauqua on the Gujarat riots by Shabnam Hashmi of SAHMAT fame at Stony Brook just outside of New York City. More curiously the NY Times reports that Ms Hashmi has been touring the US from California to Seattle to NY on a one woman crusade to ask the NRI community to desist from funding the so-called ‘Hindutva Brigade’. Curiouser and curiouser, representatives of SAHMAT testified before the Congressional Committee on Religious Freedom on the Gujarat carnage. Even stranger is the portrayal of SAHMAT as a loose association of intellectuals devoted to combating communalism in India. Note the quick and convenient jettisoning of the leftist baggage. No mention made of Communist Party of India (Marxist) cards carried and politburo connections.

Indeed what can be more ironic than the ‘anti imperialist’ khadi wearing, secular and intellectual commies coming to petition Uncle Sam. Junket activism is not a new phenomenon on the political landscape, much literature and art is actively devoted to the promotion of exotic India. Raza’s film is unabashedly directed at the west, replete with constant references to the growth of fascism in Europe and parallels between Mussolini and M.N Gowalkar. Even Indian English is subtitled for the convenience of the bleeding heart angrez liberal. While stating that the film focuses solely on Gujarat he happily interposes images from Ayodhya and innocent lathi play from what are ostensibly RSS shakhas. In her pre-film talk Shabnam traces the evolution of communalism in Gujarat happily placing the death of Graham Staines and the rape of nuns as having happened in Gujarat. The battle she is fighting she proclaims is to stop development funds from the west being used for propagating communalism in India. One cannot but help wonder at where she expends her time and energy in fighting this battle, what a curious choice of battlefield? Universities in the US, and Non Resident Indian (NRI) social gatherings. Granted that the evils of communalism are spreading their tentacles through Indian civil society a suburban Long Island township is hardly at the frontlines of that battle. And is the fight for NRI dollars the most important and vital battle facing the many victims of communalism in India. Indeed Ms Hashmi absolutely refused to provide even a single instance of how NRI dollars were responsible for riots in Gujarat. To every question her response was that it was too detailed to go into. There was just so much but not one instance came to her mind.

Indeed the total intellectual and ideological bankruptcy of the strident leftist voices for secularism is as shocking as their complete dominance of the secular fabric of Indian polity. Is the Messenger more important than the Message? Indeed yes if the messenger has an agenda very different from the message. There is no doubt that the secular fabric of the country is under threat and that this poses a real threat to our existence as a nation and as a nation amongst others that values and guarantees the rights of the individual. However in entrusting this message to the frantic, rabble-rousing voices of the left we can do no greater disservice to our nation and to the greater secular ideal. The right wing message comes disguised as an intensely fervent nationalistic identity and indeed thus their popularity amongst Indians in the west. The left message in contrast seems absolutely anti-national, remnants of their ‘ye azaadi jhootha hai’ days. Modern India does take her tryst with destiny and her place as an equal amongst the enlightened democracies extremely seriously, to depose in front of the Yankee congress is not only a denial of that sovereignty but also of a tremendous failure of the Nehruvian vision of us not having to be courtiers in Western courts anymore. One wonders what the objective of petitioning the West is? A few months earlier Bush called upon Palestinians to choose for themselves better leaders, what a proud day it would be for us as a nation if the White House itself were to call for Naren Modi’s resignation. Indeed would that even count as a victory for secularism? How many new friends would we make.

The left has problems in comprehending the real nature of democracy and refuses to accept the political maturity of the Indian electorate. One cannot help wondering at the huge hypocrisy that characterizes their fight against communalism. Why does an association directed against communalism not raise its voice against the Kashmiri Hindu migrants languishing for ten years in subhuman conditions in refugee camps; victims of communalism anyone? If Ayodhya is worn as a badge of honor (that they went and perfomed there against all odds) why not perfomances in Baramulla and Srinagar. Why does a narration of the evolution of communalism in Gujarat which includes Babri Masjid and Graham Staines omit Radhabai Chawl and RDX blasts. The piece de resistance of course is her implication that Godhra was orchestrated just so that the rest of Gujarat could happen. So interesting the choice of forums where they fight these battles, the day before coming to Stony Brook Ms Hashmi further braves the Hindutva frontline on Islam.net.

The battle for the minds is half won if people can be convinced that secularism is not appeasement and that secularism is not dilution of a Hindu or any other identity and that it can happily coexist with nationalism. And therein lies the task for every person who believes in that ideal. The secular common ground must not be surrendered to the left. The alternative must be firmly in place and indeed when there is an alternative it will be so much easier to dislodge the ‘Hindutva Brigade’ and to rid nationalism of these usurpers. The constant self-serving theme for the commies of course is that ‘unity is the need of the hour, and to that end they will happily ally with every medievalist caste-laden party, it is this temptation that must be fought. Divisive and regressive alliances will only entrench the right wingers and keep them in control. There is no alternative to a progressive secular occupation of that secular common ground. For should we not be moving forward rather than left or right.

Balakrishnan Rajgopal recently articulated a strong plea for international prosecution of those involved in the Gujarat carnage. He asks ‘If the mass killers of the Balkans and Rwanda can be prosecuted internationally, why not those of Gujarat? ‘ Apart from the obviously callous parallel, a number of questions need to be answered. One still fails to understand the reasons for petitioning the House of Representatives in the US and the European Court of Justice. Why does international sanction have to be obtained within the framework of these, why not the Supreme Court of Kenya or South Africa, or Brazil or Australia. What great ideal of fairplay does the West follow that we must petition these institutions specifically, and resign ourselves to accepting their diktat.

Not far from Stony Brook lives a man by the name of Warren Anderson, a man who has on his hands the lives of thousands of Indians choked to death in their own homes in Bhopal. Indians for whom justice was never won. Yet it is Greenpeace an international NGO that campaigns till today to bring him to justice. Noticeably absent from this debate are the voices of the Indian ’liberal left’ and human rights watchers that preach so stridently at any other available forum. Not surprising perhaps, their absence from anything that does not concur with their devious agendum and their absolute and complete acceptance and pandering to a superior ‘Western democratic model’. The West frequently in trade negotiations, raises issues of environmental accountability, human rights and child labor but these of courses are nothing more than bargaining chips to arm twist developing countries to further submit to corporate America or corporate Europe as the case maybe. Gujarat is likely to be used for the same purpose, to allow the heavily protected American farm industry to run the marginal Indian farmer out of business. That there are, wheels within wheels, is something that the liberals fail to see. The extent of the disservice they do to their nation in their self-promoting ways is something that does not seem to overly concern them.

[Sarbajit Banerjee, a graduate of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College is a graduate student at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.]