Appearance of untouchability can be dated to over 2,000 years ago: Romila Thapar

Thapar said clearly those who enforced this found it greatly to their advantage to push entire communities into permanent exclusion so much so that successive generations too were decreed untouchable.

Written by Seema Chishti | New Delhi | Updated: April 15, 2016 8:56 am

Romila Thapar in New Delhi on Thursday. (Express Photo by Anil Sharma)

Babasaheb B R Ambedkar, who she had been reading “more and more over the years”, had contributed tremendously to her understanding of the abomination untouchability system in Hinduism, eminent historian and Professor Emerita at JNU, Romila Thapar, said while delivering the eighth Dr BR Ambedkar lecture, organised by Ambedkar University of Delhi, on Thursday.

In a talk lasting over an hour-and-a-half, apart from select questions she fielded, Thapar said a stratified caste-based society has existed in India for millennia, but the appearance of untouchability probably can be dated to more than two millennia ago, when the word ‘asprishya’ makes an appearance and the Chandals were discussed.

Speaking on “permanently excluding” an entire set of people which made untouchability unique, and even worse than slavery (“because under some conditions slaves could become free and citizens”), Thapar said clearly those who enforced this found it greatly to their advantage to push entire communities into permanent exclusion so much so that successive generations too were decreed untouchable.

The central premise of her talk — ‘Rethinking Civilisation as History’ — was on the limitations of how the term ‘Civilisation’ was used, with a focus on “cultural singularity” to discuss or understand events, creating the idea of ‘the other’ or a mistaken ‘clash of civilisation’ to define a people. She began by elaborating on how the phrase civilisation came about, was of European origin, seeking to define others as either savages or barbarians. Citing the creation of the ‘barbarous’ by the Greece or the ‘Mlechh’ or ‘das’ idea of the ‘other’ by Brahmins in Vedic times, Thapar dwelt on colonial history, 18th century European ideas and its impact on how India was seen by them and how Indians see themselves to date.

Thapar said that the term was used to denote a system with singularity of language, religion, fixed territory and a set of ideas. Eventually, when the term civilisation was used to denote the history of a particular time, it ended up representing the life of the dominant group at any point of time. So, Thapar argued, whenever ‘civilisation’ was used to talk about India, it did not fully represent India either fairly or accurately.

On territory, Thapar elaborated on how a ‘section of people’, arguing for Indian civilisation over a fixed territory, usually, following the description of colonial historians like James Mill, referred to British India as the boundaries, not speaking of Jambudwipe, Aryavarta or Al-Hind as alternative boundaries; “but even that changed so dramatically, that binding Indian civilisation between fixed boundaries was meaningless.”

Thapar spoke of the importance of culture at the frontiers of the boundaries and how it influenced things inside, but that having received inadequate attention so far.

On one religion, Thapar elaborated how for millennia, the wide spectrum of sects, between the Brahmans and Shramans or the Astiks and Nastiks and aajivikas defined a much richer variety of faith. But after colonial European historians came to India and put all non-Muslim and Christian faiths under the ‘Hindu’ label, it was an oversimplification of what was happening here.

She said dialogue between various sects between the Brahmans and Shramans resulted in each one calling the other ‘Pashandas’, or frauds, and levels of intolerance were on display with reference to Buddhism and castes and sects treated as lower and untouchable. In a statement significant with debates today about portrayal of ancient India as tolerant, Thapar said: “The degree of tolerance and ideas of non-violence in the past need to be re-examined.”

On language, too, Thapar spoke of how high-quality debates and arguments took place in Prakrit, which remained a very popular but ignored language as ancient India is characterised as having just a Sanskrit base, ignoring both Prakrit and Pali, and of course languages in peninsular India. While Sanskrit was also the language which the elites and several royals patronised, with a rich repository of literature and philosophy, it was not the only language of the land.

Thapar emphasised on interactions between cultures and across boundaries and even high, dominant cultures executed by often smaller and less dominant castes, such as artisans and craftsmen, about whose interaction we know little. She spoke of the importance of “interface between what see as distinct cultures, which civilisation is about and not separation”. She spoke of co-mingling of people, engagement and cultures who spoke to each other as agents of change and growth, internally and across boundaries accepted (mistakenly) as static and eternal that often generated the maximum activity.

Speaking before her, the Vice Chancellor of AUD, Dr Shyam Menon spoke of plans in the university to institute a Chair for Dr BR Ambedkar Studies and, soon, to have a Centre for Critical Ambedkar Studies. Menon spoke of how the 125th anniversary of Ambedkar had coincided with difficult times for ideals Ambedkar held close to him. “We are seeing distressing times when there is the silencing of rationality, which is under attack.” He also spoke of the “acute intolerance” on display, when “public universities were become epicentres of contestation” to debate whether “difference in ideas can be debated”.

Menon defined a university as a “liberal space” and a “protected space”, which acts as a “testing ground for several ideas”.

The lecture was chaired by Dean, School of Liberal Studies, Prof Denys Leighton.

Source: indianexpress

A Hinduism that is the mirror opposite of Hindutva: Anand Patwardhan on the making of 'Ram Ke Naam'

History revisited

The noted filmmaker recalls the horrific events captured in his landmark documentary.

Mar 31, 2016 · 10:30 am        Updated Mar 31, 2016 · 11:05 pm

Anand Patwardhan, sabrangindia.in

 Image credit:  AFP

In 1984 after her Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indira Gandhi, a revenge pogrom took the lives of over 3,000 Sikhs on the streets of Delhi. Many killer mobs were led by Congress Party members, but some were led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party as well. This is a fact forgotten by history but recorded in newspaper headlines of the day. It was this massacre that set me on the to road to fight communalism with my camera. For the next decade I recorded different examples of the rise of the religious right, as seen in diverse movements from the Khalistani upsurge in Punjab to the glorification of Sati in Rajasthan and the movement to replace the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya with a temple to Lord Ram.

The material I filmed was very complex and if I had tried to encompass it all into a single film, it would have been too long and confusing. Eventually three distinct films emerged from the footage shot between 1984 and 1994, all broadly describing the rise of religious fundamentalism and the resistance offered by secular forces in the country. Una Mitran Di Yaad Pyaari/ In Memory of Friends, the first film to get completed, spoke of the situation in the Punjab of the 1980s where Khalistanis as well as the Indian government were claiming Bhagat Singh as their hero, but only people from the Left remembered the Bhagat Singh who from his death cell wrote the booklet, Why I am an Atheist.

The second film was Ram Ke Naam/In the Name of God on the rise of Hindu fundamentalism as witnessed in the temple-mosque controversy in Ayodhya. The third was Pitra, Putra aur Dharmayuddha/Father, Son and Holy War on the connection between religious violence and the male psyche. All three films tackled communalism, but each used a different prism to analyse what was happening. In Memory of Friends highlighted the writings of Bhagat Singh suggesting that class solidarity was the antidote to religious division. Father, Son and Holy War looked at the issue from the prism of gender.

The long march

For this article, I will concentrate on Ram Ke Naam, the middle film of what became a trilogy on communalism. While the film covers a two-year span from 1990 onwards, the back story begins in the mid-1980s when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and sister organisations of the Hindutva family (the Sangh Parivar) were searching for a way to capture the imagination of the Hindus of India who at 83%, constitute the real vote bank of this country. A Dharam Sansad (Parliament of Priests) in 1984 (the year Indira Gandhi was killed and the Congress rode to power on a sympathy wave) identified 3,000 sites of potential conflict between Hindus and Muslims that could mobilize the sentiments of Hindus and polarise the nation. The top three sites chosen were at Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura. The Dharam Sansad decided to start with the Ram temple/Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.

Soon, a nationwide village to village campaign to collects bricks and money to build a grand Ram temple in place of the Babri mosque began. The campaign went international as NRIs chipped in from distant lands. By design or by remarkable coincidence, India’s state controlled TV channel, Doordarshan started to run a never-ending-serial on the Hindu epic – The Ramayana. In those days there were few other TV channels and the whole nation was hooked onto mythology. These were the ingredients already at play when BJP stalwart LK Advani set out on his chariot of fire.

Ram Ke Naam follows the rath yatra of Advani, who in 1990 traversed the Indian countryside in an air-conditioned Toyota dressed up by a Bollywood set-designer to look like a mythological war chariot. The stated objective was to gather volunteers, or “kar sevaks”, to demolish a 16th-century mosque built by the Mughal emperor Babar in Ayodhya and build a temple to Lord Ram in its exact location. The rationale for this act of destruction and construction was that Babar had supposedly built this mosque after demolishing a temple to Lord Ram that had marked the exact location of Lord Ram’s birth. This was justified as an act of historic redress for the many wrongs inflicted by Muslim invaders and rulers on their native Hindu subjects, a theme that runs through all Hindutva discourse like a flaming torch.

I started the film instinctively, shooting the rath yatra when it arrived in Bombay in 1990 and then following it through various segments of its journey. At many places the rath passed through, it left a trail of blood as kar sevaks attacked local Muslims either for not showing due respect or just to display their might. By the end of its journey over 60 people had been killed and many more injured in the wake of the rath.

Basic equipment

Most of our shoot was done with a two-person crew consisting of myself with an old 16 mm camera and colleagues who accompanied me on different legs of the shoot. For the leg that eventually reached Ayodhya, Pervez Merwanji recorded sound on our portable Nagra. Pervez was a dear friend and a filmmaker in his own right, having just made his brilliant debut feature Percy, which went on to win a major award at the Mannhein International Film Festival. Despite this he was not too proud to don the mantle of sound recordist on an unheralded independent documentary project like ours. It turned out to be the last film he would ever work on. Pervez contracted jaundice, probably during our shoot, seemed to recover, but then his liver failed him and he passed away never having seen the final edit of our film.

Our actual filming was staggered over a year-and-a-half, and we were able to research as well as shoot in this period. We learned that contrary to the theory that votaries of Hindutva were propagating that claimed that there was a temple underneath the mosque, the artefacts that archaeologists had originally found in digs in the vicinity had nothing to do with any temple. According to historians, in the 7th century at the location of present-day Ayodhya, probably stood the Buddhist city of Saket. We learned that the proliferation of akhadas (military wings attached to temples) in Ayodhya had nothing to do with the long war to liberate the birthplace of Lord Ram as was being claimed by Hindutva ideologues, but owed their origin to the ongoing rivalry between armed Shaivite and Vaishnavite sects in the middle ages.

Most importantly we learned that in the 16th century, the poet Tulsidas visited Ayodhya many times as he composed his famous Ram Charit Manas, a text which converted the relatively obscure Sanskrit Ramayana into khadi boli, a form of Hindi, that popularised the story of Lord Ram for the ordinary folk of North India. Not only does Tulsidas never mention that a temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram was just demolished by Babar, there is another telling fact. Until the 16th century the Rama legend was largely restricted to the few Brahmins who knew Sanskrit. It is only after Tulsidas’s Hindi version had spread that Ram became a popular god for the masses and Ram temples sprouted across the country. In other words in the middle of the 16th century when the Babri Mosque was built, it is highly unlikely that there were any Ram temples at all. Today, Ayodhya is full of Ram temples and at least 20 of them claim to be built at the birthplace of Ram. The reason is obvious. Any temple that establishes itself as the birthplace of Ram gets huge donations from its devotees.

Making it cinematic

Some of this research is hinted at in the finished film but rarely made explicit as I felt that it would be more powerful for our film to rely on the logic of events unfolding before the camera in 1990-'91 rather than become a theoretical and didactic treatise. Ideally I, or someone else, should have made an accompanying booklet to point out the many footnotes and annotations that such a film really needs.

October 30, 1990, had been declared by Advani as the target date for Kar Seva at the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Mosque site in Ayodhya. Pervez and I headed to Uttar Pradesh. We were trying to catch up with the rath at some of its scheduled stops. The trains were already jam-full. We squeezed into a Third Class compartment where we could barely sit on top of our luggage. We had got on a wrong train and it was impossible to get out! It turned out to be a stroke of luck as the train took us to Patna, Bihar, where the Left Front along with Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav were holding a huge anti-Rath rally at the Gandhi Maidan.

AB Bardhan of the Communist Party of India made a brilliant appeal to preserve India’s syncretic culture and Lalu Prasad Yadav gave a stern warning telling Advani to turn back from the brink. A few days later, he kept his promise. Advani was arrested and the rath yatra finally came to a halt in Bihar. Not so the kar sevaks who used all modes of transport to continue to head towards Ayodhya.

We caught a train back to Lucknow. There we spent almost 10 days trying to get permission to enter Ayodhya. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had vowed to protect the Babri Mosque and claimed that he had turned Ayodhya into an impenetrable fortress where not just kar sevaks but “parinda par na kar payega” (not a bird could fly cross). As it turned out in the end the only people who had difficulty getting into Ayodhya were journalists and documentarians like us.

We finally reached Ayodhya on October 28, two days before the planned assault on the mosque. Here we met Shastriji, an old Mahant (temple priest) who in 1949 had been part of the group that had broken into the Babri Mosque at night and installed a Ram idol in the sanctum sanctorum. From that day on, the site had become disputed territory as District Magistarate KK Nair refused to have the idols removed. As Ram Ke Naam points out, Nair after retiring from government service went on to join the Jan Sangh Party (precursor of the BJP) and became a Member of Parliament.

Shastriji, the Mahant, was proud of installing the idols and a little miffed that everyone had forgotten his role. Hindutva videos, audios and literature had proclaimed that what happened in 1949 was a “miracle” where Lord Ram appeared at his birthplace. Shastri was arrested and released on bail by the District Magistrate, Nair. Till the day we met him 41 years later, he had remained free.

On the other side

We went across the Saryu bridge to Ayodhya’s twin city, Faizabad. Here we met the old Imam of the Babri Mosque and his carpenter son who recounted the 1949 story from their perspective. The District Magistrate had told them after the break-in that order would soon be restored, and that by next Friday they could re-enter their mosque for prayers. As the Imam’s son put it, “We are still waiting for that Friday."

As October 30 dawned and we made our way on foot to the Saryu bridge at Ayodhya, we could see that Chief Minister Mulayam Singh’s promise that no one would get through to Ayodhya was proving false. Already several thousands had gathered by the bridge, despite the curfew. There had been a small lathi charge while shoes and footwear were scattered all over the bridge. Busloads of arrested karsevaks were being driven away after arrest. What we did not notice at the time was that many of these buses would stop at a short distance and the kar sevaks would disembark to rejoin the fray. By the side of the bridge thousands were chanting at the police “Hindu, hindu bhai bhai, beech mein vardi kahan se aayee?" All Hindus are brothers. Why let a uniform get between us?

As the day progressed it was heartbreaking to those of us who knew that any attack on the mosque would rent apart the delicate communal fabric of the nation. We had believed Mulayam Singh’s strong rhetoric that he would stop kar sevaks long before they reached the mosque. What we saw on the ground was bewildering. Not only were thousands pouring in despite the curfew but at many places there was active connivance from the police and paramilitary forces. There was utter confusion. In the end some kar sevaks did break through to attack the mosque but at the very last instance, the police opened fire. Some kar sevaks reached the top of the mosque’s dome and tied their orange Hindutva flag. Others broke into the sanctum sanctorum where the idols were kept but police firing prevented the larger crowd from demolishing the mosque. In all 29 people, young and old, lost their lives. Later, BJP and Vishwa Hindu Parishad propaganda claimed that over a thousand had been killed and thrown into the Saryu river. The think-tank of Hindutva then initiated another rath yatra across the country carrying the ashes of their Ayodhya “martyrs”.

On the night of the 30th, in the sombre mood that the attack had spawned, we met Pujari Laldas, the court-appointed head priest of the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Mosque site. Laldas was an outspoken critic of Hindutva despite being a Hindu priest and had received death threats. The Uttar Pradesh government had provided him with two bodyguards. It is this wonderful interview of one of independent India’s unsung heroes that gives Ram Ke Naam its real poignancy. Laldas spoke out against the VHP, pointing out that they had never even prayed at the site but were using it for political and financial gain. He spoke of the syncretic past of Ayodhya and expressed anguish that Hindu-Muslim unity in the country was being sacrificed by people who were cynically using religion. He predicted a storm of mayhem that would follow but expressed confidence that this storm too would pass and sanity would return.

Finding a lens

For In Memory of Friends, I had used a prism of class as seen through the writings of Bhagat Singh to speak of the Punjab of today. In reality, by the late 1980s classical Marxist analysis and class solidarity were no longer exclusively effective tools in an India and a world where the ideas of the Left were losing out to consumer capitalism. The Soviet Union was collapsing and China was embracing state capitalism. The US was the only superpower left in the world, which itself was fragmenting into its religious and ethnic sub-parts. Yugoslavia disintegrated into internecine warfare. The US with its ally, Saudi Arabia, stoked Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight communism, which in turn helped Kashmiri militants take up the gun. In Punjab, Sikh militants were rising and in Northern India, Hindu militants came into their own.

For Ram Ke Naam, the sane voice of the Hindu priest Pujari Laldas played the role that Bhagat Singh’s writings had done in my previous film. The Left antidote to communalism was still present through the Patna speech of CPI’s AB Bardhan. But it was now joined by a liberation theologist in the form of Pujari Laldas. The violent reaction of upper-caste Hindus to the attempt by Prime Minister VP Singh to implement a Mandal Commision report granting reservations to "backward" castes, had led to upper caste Hindus embracing Hindutva and the Mandir movement. This had not yet trickled down the caste order. Wherever we went in UP, Dalits and “Backward Castes” spoke out against the Ram temple movement. This became the third spoke in the anti-communal wheel.

The film was complete by late 1991. We had some hiccoughs and delays from the censors but finally cleared this hurdle without cuts. The film went on to win a national award for Best Investigative Documentary as well as a Filmfare Award for Best documentary. At the 1992 Bombay International Documentary Film Festival, Jaya Bachchan was head of the jury. Ram Ke Naam did not get a mention. Several critics commented that the film was raking up a dead issue as the Babri Mosque was intact and the film would unnecessarily give the country a bad name abroad. Later that month, I attended the Berlin Film Festival with Ram Ke Naam. I learned to my horror that Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, who were also guests at this festival, had told the Festival authorities that they should not have selected such an “anti-India” film.

On the strength of our national award, I submitted it for telecast on Doordarshan. Any government that actually believed in a secular India, would have shown such a film many times over so that our public could realise how religious hatred is manufactured for narrow political and financial gains. Widespread exposure may have undermined the movement to demolish the mosque. The BJP was not yet in power. Yet Doordarshan refused to telecast the film and I took them to court. Five years later we won our case and the film was telecast, but the damage had long been done.

The aftermath

After the October 30 attack in 1990 and the death of 29 kar sevaks, the BJP, which had been in coalition with VP Singh’s Janata Dal Party government at the centre, pulled out its support. Chandra Shekhar briefly came to power at the centre but quickly lost to Narsimha Rao’s Congress in the wake of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. In UP, Mulayam Singh’s government gave way to a BJP government. One of its first steps was to have Pujari Laldas removed as head priest of the Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Masjid, and then to remove his bodyguards. Conditions were now ripe for the major assault.

On December 6, 1992 with the BJP in power in UP, and a strangely acquiescent Narasimha Rao led Congress government at the centre, the Hindutva brigade finally succeeded in demolishing the Babri Mosque. Pujari Laldas’s predictions of large-scale violence in the region came true. The old Imam and his son from Faizabad I had interviewed were put to death on 7th December 1992. While Muslims were slaughtered across India, in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Hindu minority was targeted and temples destroyed. In March 1993, bomb blasts in Mumbai organised by Muslim members of the mafia killed over 300 people. The chain reaction set into motion since those days has still to abate.

Back in 1991 our première had been held in Lucknow, capital of UP. Pujari Laldas came for the screening and asked for several cassettes of the film. When I asked about his own safety, he laughed and said he was happy that now his views would circulate more widely. As he put it, if he had been afraid, he would not have spoken out in the first place.

A year later, a tiny item on the inside pages of The Times of India noted, “Controversial priest found murdered.” Pujari Laldas had been killed with a country-made revolver. The newspaper article never told us that the real “controversy” was the fact that this brave priest believed in a Hinduism that is the mirror opposite of Hindutva.

This article first appeared on Sabrang.

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

Source: scrollin

శ్రీ కౌముది ఏప్రిల్ 2016

Source: శ్రీ కౌముది ఏప్రిల్ 2016

Women ‘polluting’ religious spaces: How the idea came about

Social perceptions towards women are rooted in the established economic and cultural structures of the time in which they were formed.

Written by Adrija Roychowdhury | New Delhi | Published:April 3, 2016 4:17 pm

Sabarimala: Ayyappa devotees throng at Sannidanam in Sabarimala. File/PTI Photo

In his celebrated travelogue on Eastern Orthodox congregations, William Dalrymple’s first stop was at the Monastery of Iviron at Mount Athos, located in Northern Greece. He opens his book remarking upon the uniqueness of the monastery which does not allow anything female- ‘no woman,  no mare, no bitch’- inside its premises, the rule being relaxed only for cats. The tradition of no female presence has been in existence since the time of the Byzantine empire and the reasoning behind it was that the monks should not be tempted to engage in any kind of sexual act.

In the past few months, the issue of women entering religious complexes has been a disturbing factor to women activists across the country. On March 30, the Bombay High Court ruled against the tradition of not allowing women inside the complexes of the Shani Shignapur temple.

Despite the HC order, women were aggressively denied entry to the core shrine area. A similar issue surrounds the Sabrimala temple in Kerala which does not allow the entry of women while in menstrual age since according to tradition, as the presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa who is a Bhrahmachari (celibate), could be ‘polluted’. A number of other places of religious worship including the Trimbakeshwar temple in Nashik, the Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai, the Kartikeya temple in Pushkar and the Patbausi Satra in Assam, also denies entry to women.

A common thread of reasoning that surrounds both the Monastery of Iviron in Greece and the religious complexes in India is that of the ‘purity’ of the site which is feared to get ‘polluted’ by the presence of women. Menstruation and pregnancy are most commonly cited as the factors causing ‘pollution’. The other popular myth associated with the denial of entry is that women who are ‘sexually needy and mischievous’ are a threat to the religious structure and the men associated with it.

Were women considered a polluting factor since time immemorial?

It would be a fallacy to presume that women were always seen as an element that disrupts the purity of any environment. Cave paintings in Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh) often depict women carrying baskets and nets as pregnant. In some such paintings of hunting and gathering, women are seen wearing an elaborate head dress. On examining such evidence, historians have concluded that during the hunting and gathering stage, women did not just engage in the same activities as men, but were in fact valued for their contribution towards the same.

Paintings from sites like Kathotia (Madhya Pradesh) and Kharwai (Madhya Pradesh) along with those in Bhimbedka would lead to the conclusion that the sexuality of women was highly valued in primeval societies since the whole survival of the community depended on their reproductive capacity.

When and how did the need to control the movement of women first emerge?

As society moved from the nomadic lifestyle of hunting-gathering stage to the stage of agricultural settlement, labour associated with food production came to be divided along stricter lines of gender. While men were expected to work in the fields, women’s labour was restricted within the household. From now on, the reproductive capability of women was valued, but no more their ability to contribute economically. Here on we see an insistence on controlling the movement of women since their share of labour in food production was restricted to the four walls of their home.

How does controlling movement of women get associated with controlling sexuality of women?

By the sixth century in India, towns started emerging. The emergence of towns was accompanied by the rise in groups engaged in specialised economic activities. Caste stratification of society took roots during this period along with the establishment of private ownership of land.

Historian Uma Chakravarti has concluded that stratification of society  along lines of caste made it necessary for the sexuality of women to be controlled. Marriage and reproduction were the foremost factors that ensured the rigidity of stratification along caste lines. Therefore women were required to be kept under the control of men.

From this period on, we see the evidence of a large body of religious texts that mention the need to control women’s sexuality. For example, the Apastmba Dharma Sutra which is a Sanskrit text from 6th century BC states that “a husband should ensure that no other man goes near his wife lest his seed get into her”.

A common way of controlling the sexuality of women was by referring to the innate “wicked nature of women” which if left uncontrolled could lead to chaos in society. A large number of texts of the period starting from the middle of the first millennium BC carry explicit references to the evil character of women.

For instance, the Satapatha Brahmana, a Vedic text from the 6th century BC states that a woman, a Sudra, a dog and a crow are the embodiments of untruth, sin and darkness. The Manusmriti on the other hand clearly states that it is the duty of the man to guard his wife in order to ensure the purity of his offsprings.

Knowing their disposition, which the lord of creatures laid on them at creation (i.e., their reproductive power, their sexuality, their essential nature) every man should most strenuously exert himself to guard them” (Manusmriti)

Social perceptions and status of women are essentially rooted in the economic and cultural structures of the time. The ideas of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’ which form the backbone to the rule of denying entry to women in religious spaces can be placed within the economic necessity to keep women inside their homes and the social requirement of keeping caste compartments rigid. These were essential for society’s sustenance at a bygone era, not anymore.

Source: indianexpress

Jammu university convocation: Hamid Ansari calls on SC to help clarify and strengthen secularism, composite culture

Ansari wonders whether ‘more complete’ separation of religion and politics might not serve Indian democracy better

Written by Arun Sharma | Jammu | Updated: April 3, 2016 6:00 am

Jammu: Vice President Hamid Ansari with Chief Justice of India T S Thakur during 16th Convocation ceremony of University of Jammu on Saturday. (Source: PTI)

QUOTING from a report calling upon the Supreme Court to reflect how to protect minorities from majoritarianism, Vice-President Hamid Ansari Saturday urged the court to clarify contours within which secularism and composite culture should operate so as to remove ambiguities.

Addressing the 16th convocation of Jammu University here, Ansari also wondered whether a more complete separation of religion and politics might not better serve Indian democracy.

He said that a few years ago, in a volume published on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the Supreme Court, lawyers Rajeev Dhavan & Fali S Nariman had observed that “as we transit into the next millennium, the Supreme Court has a lot to reflect upon, and not least on how to protect the minorities and their ilk from the onslaught of majoritarianism”.

Unless the court strives to assure that the Constitution applies fairly to all citizens, Ansari said, the court cannot be said to have fulfilled its responsibility. “Is it therefore bold to expect that the Supreme Court may consider, in its wisdom, to clarify the contours within which the principles of secularism and composite culture should operate with a view to strengthen their functional modality and remove ambiguities?”

Any public discourse on India being a ‘secular’ republic with a ‘composite culture’ cannot overlook India’s heterogeneity, he added. “A population of 1.3 billion comprising over 4,635 communities… Religious minorities constitute 19.4 per cent of the total… Our democratic polity and its secular State structure were put in place in full awareness of this plurality. There was no suggestion to erase identities and homogenise them.”

Ansari said that the three accepted characteristics of a secular State were liberty to practise religion, equality between religions in State practice, and neutrality or a fence of separation between the State and religion. However, he said, their application had been contradictory and led to major anomalies. “The challenge, then, is to reduce if not eliminate these anomalies.”

Referring to the Constitution, the Vice-President said, “The State is prohibited to patronise any particular religion as State religion and is enjoined to observe neutrality… Programmes or principles evolved by political parties based on religion amount to recognising religion as a part of the political governance, which the Constitution expressly prohibits…”

Noting that secularism was “more than a passive attitude of religious tolerance; it is a positive concept of equal treatment”, he said observers have argued that pronouncements of the Supreme Court have “effectively vindicated the profoundly anti-secular vision of secularism” of some quarters. It has been argued for this reason, Ansari said, “whether a more complete separation of religion and politics might not better serve Indian democracy”.

“The difficulty lies in delineating, for purposes of public policy and practice, the line that separates them from religion… The ‘way of life’ argument, used in philosophical texts and some judicial pronouncements, does not help… identify common principles of equity in a multi-religious society. Since a wall of separation is not possible under Indian conditions, the challenge is to develop a formula for equidistance and minimum involvement. For this purpose, principles of faith need to be segregated from contours of culture since a conflation of the two obfuscates the boundaries of both.”

The Vice-President also emphasised the “constitutional principle” of equality of status and opportunity, saying, “This equality has to be substantiative rather than merely formal and has to be given shape through requisite measures of affirmative action… so that the journey on the path to development has a common starting point.”

Pointing out that one of the main ideals of the Constitution was justice, the Vice-President also quoted John Rawls to say, “Rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.”

Quoting K N Pannikar, Ansari said, “Whether India developed as a melting pot of cultures or only remained a salad bowl is no more the issue. The crucial question is whether Indian culture is conceived as a static phenomenon, tracting its identity to a single unchanging source, or a dynamic phenomenon, critically and creatively interrogating all that is new.”

Source: indianexpress

Dalits made to pray before locked temple

National      

HASSAN, April 3, 2016    Updated: April 3, 2016 03:21 IST

Sathish G. T.

 Dalit activists protest in Sigaranahalli. Photo: Special Arrangement

Matter was ‘resolved’ by making them offer puja in front of locked doors of temple.

In what was described by Dalit leaders as “adding insult to injury”, officials took some members of the community to the Basaveshwara temple in the district on Saturday, only to make them offer prayers in front of its locked doors.

A district official, journalists and policemen were injured on Friday in violence by upper caste people, who opposed the entry of Dalits into the temple at Sigaranahalli, in Holenarsipur taluk, to participate in the Durga Parameshwari Jatra Mahotsava. The temple was closed after Dalits entered it with the help of the district administration in September 2015. It was reopened on March 25 after “purification” rituals.

“The matter has been peacefully settled,” said Umesh H. Kusugal, Deputy Commissioner of Hassan, when contacted by The Hindu. He said upper caste people did not oppose the decision to take Dalits to the temple.

Ironically, Saturday’s event happened in the presence of Holenarsipur MLA H.D. Revanna. “In the guise of taking Dalits into the temple, the administration is practising untouchability. Our people were not taken inside, but were made to stand outside the temple doors. The Deputy Commissioner and the MLA should be held responsible,” said Vijay Kumar, a resident of the Dalit colony.

Source: thehindu

The Barrier of Caste

From the time of the Upanishads down to the present day, nearly all our great teachers have wanted to break through the barrier of caste, i.e. caste in its degenerate state, not the original system. What little good you see in the present caste clings to it from the original caste, which was the most glorious social institution. Buddha tried to reestablish caste in its original form.

Interview. London, 1896. Complete Works, 5: 198.

Idea of Bharat Mata is European import: Irfan Habib

National

NEW DELHI, March 29, 2016        Updated: March 29, 2016 00:06 IST

Vikas Pathak

 Irfan Habib. File Photo: Meeta Ahlawat

‘Bharat’ was first used in an inscription of King Kharavela in Prakrit, says the historian

Wading into the political controversy around the slogan ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (glory to Mother India), veteran historian Irfan Habib said here on Monday that the idea of Bharat Mata was an import from Europe and there was no evidence of any such imagination in either ancient or medieval India.

“Bharat Mata has nothing to do with India’s ancient or medieval past. It is a European import. Notions of motherland and fatherland were talked about in Europe,” Prof. Habib said, delivering a lecture in the memory of late historian Bipan Chandra at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

This statement comes at a time when leaders of the BJP and its ideological mentor RSS have upheld the slogan as intimately related to nationalism in India.

In the Maharashtra Assembly, All-India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA Waris Pathan was suspended recently for refusing to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai,’ with Congress MLAs also siding with the BJP and the Shiv Sena on the matter.

Later, talking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the event, Prof. Habib elaborated on his statement. “Bharat is mentioned in ancient India. It was first used in an inscription of King Kharavela in Prakrit. But representation of the country in human form as a mother or father was unknown in ancient India or medieval India,” he said. “This was an idea that emerged in Europe with the rise of nationalism, and it was found in Britain, Russia, etc.”

He added that Madar-e-Watan in Urdu was also a case of the European idea being borrowed.

Prof. Habib had irked many in the Sangh Parivar months ago too, when he reportedly drew parallels between the RSS and the IS.

In another lecture dedicated to the scholarship of Prof. Chandra, historian Aditya Mukherjee recalled freedom as a key value of the Indian national movement.

“Mahatma Gandhi had said that liberty of speech was unassailable even when it hurt. I hope the government is listening,” he said.

Source: thehindu

One country, many nationalisms

Features » Magazine                                   March 26, 2016   

A flag vendor tries to make a living by selling the tricolours and badges. Photo: K. Murali Kumar     The Hindu

What does the idea of India mean to the ordinary people — the auto drivers and fishermen, students and shopkeepers, car drivers and homemakers?

In the wake of an increasingly shrill demand for demonstrative ‘nationalism’, the country has ranged itself on two distinct sides, each taking upon itself the onus of defining and laying down just what nationalism is, which anthems are more or less devoted, which symbols more significant, and which citizens can be awarded certificates as good, bad or middling patriots. In the ensuing noise of battle, what we have lost sight of is the middle ground, inhabited by the ordinary people, the auto drivers and fishermen, the students and shopkeepers, the car drivers and homemakers. What do they think? What does the idea of India mean to them? How do they demonstrate their love or loyalty? What is important to them? The Sunday Magazine team fanned out across the country to talk to this anonymous person on the street. And what we found was eye-opening.

From the fisherman in Chennai who said that before Bharat Mata he worships Kadal Mata (ocean mother) who gives him his daily bread to the tribal musician in Kerala who said making anthems compulsory in school is no guarantee to produce more patriotic students to the driver in Vellore who said that Jana Gana Mana has no religion, we discovered a quality of distilled and clear reality in the ordinary Indian’s thinking that is far removed from the unreal and harsh debate of primetime television and social media. Read on to hear their voices.

***

‘The bore-well is broken’

Shakuntala Soren (40), Santhali, Purulia, West Bengal

This Santhal woman from Shahajuri village, deep inside the Bengal-Jharkhand border, seeks help from her neighbours when asked about ‘nationalism’. “Weh ki?” (what is that?) she asks in Santhali.

Much explanation later, the word still makes no sense to her. So we ask if she knows the “identity” of her country. She looks around at her neighbours and then says “Bengal”.

And what about the national anthem? Soren looks restless. “Nolkup bari ekana,” she says. (“The bore-well is broken.”)

We turn to ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ and now the crowd gets restive. Someone shouts, “We don’t have work.”

A middle-aged man, Dhananjay Kisku, says they “barely survive” selling dry timber.

“I visit the forest too,” Soren says, and leaves to collect timber from the Ayodhya hills, a Maoist stronghold during the last elections five years ago.

- Suvojit Bagchi

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‘Wasn’t Bharat a king?’

Mohammad Idrees Choudhary (47) , Dry fruit merchant, Bengaluru, Karnataka

Surrounded by neat packages of dry fruits imported from across the globe, Mohammad Idrees Choudhary, a 47-year-old merchant in the nearly 100-year-old Russel Market, explains what makes him an “Indian”. “At events and functions, I say: ‘Jai Hind, Jai Karnataka’ as a gratitude to the country and state that has allowed me to thrive. Now, with all this talk of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, I am confused. Wasn’t Bharat a king? How can he suddenly be a mata? If I think ‘Jai Hind’ symbolises my patriotism better than ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, why should I be forced to say the latter?”

With poverty rampant and other pressing issues still affecting life, citizens do not have the time to repeatedly display their ‘patriotism’. “It is only politicians who seem to have all the time in the world to set these rules,” he says.

- Mohit M. Rao

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‘Hatred is anti-national’

Drashti Shah (28), Entrepreneur, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

For Drashti Shah, patriotism or nationalism is about respect for the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. “My definition of nationalism is to serve a new India that is visibly emerging from the fold of its many pasts. This new India needs to be seen with new eyes, free from the baggage of yesterday's political characterisations,” says Shah who is a designer and runs a café.

“A liberal and pluralistic democratic nation makes us a progressive and self-confident country,” she says. Anything that promotes violence or hatred, says Shah, is anti-national.

- Mahesh Langa

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‘My slogan is Jai Bheem'
Premnath Dhingra (52), Sanitation worker, Meerut, UP

“For a sanitation worker, a Dalit who cleans toilets and streets, and who has struggled all his or her life for dignity, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ has no meaning, says Premnath Dhingra, a sanitation workers’ leader in Meerut. “In fact, as a group that faced upper caste atrocities for centuries, I would say that this slogan is an insult for us because the Hindutva groups that are talking about ‘Bharat Mata’ hail the caste system and want to continue with the structures of injustice and untouchability. It was neither a slogan of Bhagat Singh nor Baba sahab (Ambedkar), nor even Mahatma Gandhi,” he says. For Dhingra,the very idea of questioning the nationalism of lawful citizens of the country is “problematic”.

“From what I know of history, I can say that ruling governments and ideologues have raised the issue of nationalism when they had to do something dangerous. One instance is Hitler.”

“Nationalism,” continues Dhingra, cannot be “a slogan or an abstract idea or a statue or just one symbol. For me, nationalism means talking about those living in the nation and working to ensure equality, liberty, social justice and the absence of corruption”

For Dhingra, the suspension of the MLA in Maharashtra is not only wrong but also illegal. “Not only Waris Pathan, even I would never say ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. Why would I? For me, the slogan is ‘Jai Bheem’, which stands for the struggle of Dalits. But I would never advocate forcing ‘Jai Bheem’ on anybody,” says Dhingra.

- Mohammad Ali

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‘Corruption is anti-national’

P. Kannadas (42), Toddy shopkeeper, Muthalamada, Kerala

A worker at a toddy parlour close to the Govindapuram border checkpost between Pollachi in Tamil Nadu and Palakkad in Kerala, P. Kannadas is also an amateur nature photographer and environmental activist. “My area is a composite of Tamil and Malayalam traditions. Many unskilled workers from North India, who work in the farms and factories of Pollachi and Palakkad, visit my shop every day. I don’t feel any difference based on region or language. I connect with them as a daily-wage worker who ekes out a living in a toddy shop. For me, the ability to relate with others is nationalism. Patriotism is not just jargon but an attempt to consider all Indians as equals irrespective of their class, community and other affiliations. Patriotism is not an end in itself. It must be a giant leap forward to achieve global citizen status.” For Kannadas, corruption and communalism are anti-national. “They are taking our society backwards to the dark ages. Nationalism is not about wearing a T-shirt carrying symbol of Bharat Mata. It is something that must help us broaden our perspective.”

- K.A. Shaji

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‘Kadal Mata is my first loyalty'

R. Raju (45), Fisherman, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

R. Raju is still intently unknotting his fishing net when we begin talking. “What does desa bhakti (patriotism) mean to me?” he repeats my question. And then, as if on cue, the 45-year-old resident of Pattinapakkam, along Chennai’s Marina Beach, responds: “It’s like worshipping god.”

But when we come to the question of Bharat Mata, Raju is more contemplative. He turns around and points to the sea: “To me, Kadal Mata (ocean mother) is with whom my first loyalty lies. Everything else follows. Bharat mata, swamis and temples, whatever, whoever they may be.”

On a day when the catch is good Raju makes close to Rs. 1,000. “The ocean is the giver. That is how I have fed and clothed and educated my children, that is how I run my house.” For Raju, the ocean is clearly bigger than the nation.

- Divya Gandhi

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‘Jana Gana Mana must be compulsory in schools’

Suresh Shaw (52), Street vendor, Kolkata, West Bengal

Suresh Shaw is not sure about the symbols of patriotism, but he is particularly fond of ‘Jana Gana Mana,’ which he used to sing at his local government school. A sports enthusiast, Shaw has played football in the first division league in Kolkata until poverty and family pressure forced him to give it up. Now Shaw sells vehicle accessories on the pavement. “I think the national anthem should be made compulsory in schools. This makes us more patriotic. We are able to express our love for the motherland,” he says. Patriotism, says Shaw, is to express deference to the nation, but being patriotic also means “having responsibility to stand beside your countrymen”.

- Shiv Sahay Singh

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‘Patriotism is dwindling’

P. Ramesh (32),Shopkeeper, Vellore, Tamil Nadu

P. Ramesh says that patriotism has been dwindling over the years. “Not many understand what true patriotism is. When compared to earlier generations, the present generation gives less importance to patriotism. I am proud to be an Indian. Be Indian, buy Indian is what I believe in.”

Ramesh regrets that people vote for money but show less interest in being loyal to the nation. He says that singing the national anthem is a wonderful feeling.

“For me, listening to the national anthem or singing it is a chance to feel patriotism. Students should definitely sing the anthem everyday in school, as those few minutes are an opportunity to express our love for the nation.”

The businessman sees nothing wrong in chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. “There is a practice of saying ‘Jai Hind’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ gives a different feeling. There is nothing wrong in saying it.”

What distresses him is engaging children in labour, alcoholism, and discrimination against women. “These are not good for the country. Child labour is an insult to the nation. Providing education to women is equal to educating the society,” he says.

- Serena Josephine M.

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‘The debate is absurd’

Sheeba Ameer (55), Social worker, Thrissur, Kerala

As a social worker engaged in supplying free essential medicines to institutions housing people with disability, Sheeba Ameer believes the present debate on nationalism and patriotism involves a high dose of absurdity. “Those who have any doubt on nationalism must read the Indian Constitution. It has clearly defined nationalism as pluralistic and accommodative. The concept of nationalism envisaged in the constitution involves the right to dissent and the right to remain different,’’ she says.

“I come from an orthodox Muslim family and life so far was a relentless fight against fundamentalism of different hues. Intolerance has no religion. Nationalistic and patriotic feelings must not involve hate and intolerance. We must not allow obscurantists to define nationalism,” she says. According to Ameer, nationalism must not be something imposed on others by a brute majority.

“I don’t know what prevented the Maharashtra MLA from saying ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, but forcing one person to say something and punishing him for disobedience would not be ideal for a civilised world. We have to make our democracy more meaningful by ending hatred based on religion and narrow perceptions of nationality.”

K.A. Shaji

Source: thehindu