Why Are We Killing Ourselves?

March 24, 2002

Riots Shake Friendships and Faiths in India

By SOMINI SENGUPTA



New York Times



AHMEDABAD, India, March 22 — On the day that a scooter-riding mob set fire to Akbar Divecha`s apartment building in an affluent, largely Hindu neighborhood here, it was his friend, Sanjay Shah, who drove across town and ferried him to safety.

Mr. Divecha, a retired judge with the Gujarat State court, is a Muslim, though by his own admission only nominally. He describes himself as an ardent secularist.

Mr. Shah, a chartered accountant, is a Hindu. He is also a state-level functionary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist group that controls this state and has been widely accused of doing little during the last month as Hindu mobs set ablaze Muslim homes, businesses and Muslims themselves. Nearly 650 people, mostly Muslims, have died.

Mr. Divecha, 66, calls it ``a holocaust.`` Mr. Shah, 52, at whose home the two met for lunch, says a terrible thing happened. But he adds, ``Frankly, the provocation was great.``

By this he means that the violence began only after a Muslim mob burned a train full of Hindu militants at a station in Godhra, 95 miles north of here; 58 Hindus, including children, were killed — or, in Mr. Shah`s word, lynched.

The riots here have done more than lay bare the simmering hostility between members of the Hindu majority and their Muslim neighbors. They have also left secular Indians fearing for the future.

In the collegial conversation between these two old friends lay the kernel of the debate roiling India.

As Mr. Divecha sat in his friend`s living room and listened quietly, Mr. Shah credited Hindu nationalists for uniting Hindus.

But later, in private, Mr. Divecha bemoaned what to him looked like a shrinking space for secularism. For the first time in his life, he faced the prospect of having to move to a Muslim enclave. He fears the riots will divide his hometown into ``watertight containers`` of Hindu and Muslim neighborhoods.

Mr. Divecha describes himself as a Muslim ``only by name, not by deed.`` Beaming, he said he had visited more Hindu temples than Muslim shrines. He is a vegetarian by choice. (His friend, Mr. Shah, is a meat-eater.)

Mr. Divecha does not read Arabic well enough to read the Koran, and he rarely fasts during Ramadan. Never had he and his wife, Maleka, thought of living anywhere but an integrated area. The mob that attacked the Divechas` apartment building, an island of 12 Muslim families in a Hindu and Jain area, singed that lifelong commitment.

``Left to me, I would prefer to live in a cosmopolitan, mixed neighborhood,`` Mr. Divecha said. ``But all depends on Mrs. Divecha. She`s too scared to go back.``

Mrs. Divecha, 58, pursed her lips. ``What we saw, we won`t be able to forget,`` she said. ``It`s unsafe. We have no police protection. Nothing.`` The Divechas are currently taking shelter in a government bungalow.

The cry was much the same at the Shah Alam relief camp, a grief-filled tent city in the walled courtyard of a Muslim shrine here. The refugees here had lived in a Muslim pocket in a largely Hindu area. Their homes have been destroyed. Their heads are filled with awful memories: a husband shot and killed by police, a son set upon by a mob.

Godhran Zadaphia, the Gujarat home minister, said he believed that most displaced residents would eventually move back home. But residents have already pressed the government for land to build a new settlement in a Muslim part of town.

The Divechas wonder aloud where they might feel at home. Should they move to a Muslim enclave, they asked. Would they be accepted?

``They wouldn`t harm me, they would look down on me,`` Mr. Divecha offered. ``They wouldn`t accept me as a Muslim person partly as a result of my outlook and partly as a result of my way of life.``

Mr. Shah insisted that Mr. Divecha was not like most Muslims. ``With rabid communal Muslims, this man cannot live,`` he said.

Mr. Shah, who befriended Mr. Divecha 20 years ago, fretted about his friend`s safety and wondered how Mr. Divecha, having invested his nest egg on his apartment, could afford to buy another.

Yet, when talk turned to the fate of those who set fire to the Divechas` home and killed hundreds of Muslims, the two men diverged sharply.

Of course, Mr. Shah said, the mob that killed Hindus on the train should be treated differently from the mob that went on a vengeful rampage. ``If I slap you first and then you slap me, should we be charged the same?`` he asked. ``Who started this mischief?``

Mr. Divecha disagreed. ``Homicide remains homicide,`` he said, ``even if it`s by way of retaliation.``

Mr. Shah escorted his visitors to the door. As Mr. Divecha stepped outside, he raised his finger to the sky and said: ``I`d like to add one thing. I have full faith in humanity.``

Ref hobbyty #: 174

[BJP, VHP philosophy appeals to significant numbers of Indians on a psychological level, in my opinion, entirely on a psychological level: The mythology of Hindu holocaust at the hands of the Muslims...]

That holocaust is no myth. In the 16th century when the Bahmani sultans of the Deccan fought with the Hindu Vijayanagar empire, it was routine to slaughter all the inhabitants of the captured cities and history records that after one battle, half a million people were put to death. Do not attempt to sweep the crimes of Muslim sultans under the carpet; there ain`t a carpet big enough to hide them in all of Persia.

Salman Rushdie may have thought that America is ripe for his anti God message. But American intellectuals and the American public at large is far more clear headed than those in India and a small but vocal and articulate section in Pakistan.

`Slaughter in the Name of God`

Thursday, March 14, 2002; Page A26

Salman Rushdie is correct that India does little to protect the secular democracy it cherishes so much[``Slaughter in the Name of God,`` op-ed, March 8]. But as a person of Indian descent, I was offended by the opening paragraph of his article, in which he described a ``human bonfire`` and the burning of a baby.

Mr. Rushdie apparently wants his readers to believe that such killings are routine in India. This is not the case. They are isolated incidents, and further, have no connection to the fighting between Indians and Muslims.

Mr. Rushdie had an excellent point about the fighting in Gujarat. Why he discredited himself with his ludicrous charges of infanticide is anyone`s guess.

ARTHI SRINIVASAN

Vienna

The problem is man and man alone. Salman Rushdie cannot be serious in blaming a ``God`` he clearly does not even believe in. Man needs few excuses for hatred and murder. Is murder in the name of secularism any more justifiable -- greed in Liberia or drug-running communism in Colombia?

Blaming God deflects the true blame from ourselves. The darkness within our own hearts causes these terrible acts.

All of us should cry out for that God to grant us the salvation from ourselves.

BENKAI BOUEY

Cambridge, Mass.

``Salman Rushdie is understandably in anguish about the violence done in the name of God in his India. But others` hatreds cannot justify his anti-theistic bigotry.

The Unabomber killed and maimed in the name of the environment, but it would be wrong -- logically and morally -- to use his actions as an excuse to condemn everything done in the name of the environment.

Mr. Rushdie made a parallel mistake in condemning things because they are done in the name of God -- ``The problem`s name is God,`` he wrote. The past 100 years have shown that anti-theistic bigots such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot are capable of killing millions in the name of a creed without a god.

People and institutions make mistakes in the search for religious truth, and the mistakes can be deadly.

But the worst mistake would be to give up the search. The problem`s name is bigotry, and, as Mr. Rushdie demonstrated, it can take an anti-religious form, too.

DENNIS McGRATH

College Park

``Salman Rushdie misses the mark regarding the real root of India`s woes.

Hindu nationalists and their attacks on Muslims are just more of what is seen worldwide under other names and other banners. Human beings seem to be endowed with certain traits already loaded on the hard drive, if you will.

I think we have a natural xenophobia, which gives us an us-vs.-them mentality. The same thing that makes for great high school football rivalry can be extrapolated to whacking our neighbor with what Mr. Rushdie called a ``good strong length of wood.``

Religion and God seem to be part of the software of the human condition. While in some instances this software can be used to increase our xenophobia, with demagogues whipping the masses up into murderous mobs, religious teachings can tone down our bloodthirsty urges and promote acceptance and understanding.

The problem`s name is not God. India`s problems are the world`s problems, and the world should work on a solution.

DOUGLAS D. WRIGHT

Ellicott City

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Ralph 176

The two enemies of Indian Muslims are VHP and Pakistan. Neither hesitates to spill our blood to achieve its goals. Their themes are the same.

Ref Headshrinker #: 77

[The Indians who vote for BJP should take a MAJOR portion of the blame.]

Why don`t you, to appease all those coyotes howling on this board (including yourself), castrate yourself first?

Then you can also use the handle Ali.

Ralph

Your question is an excellent example of my point. Thank you. What except a psychological need is it - like the song says: ``you come Big, when you are feeling Small.`` This ``feeling`` is a pyschological phenomenon - it has no basis in reason - One must not fight the ghost of history or recall these ghosts - all this will lead to is the abdication of responsibility.

Hobbyty #174 Layman #173

[The Muslim as ``not Indian`` is a central theme of the ideology of the BJP and affiliated organizations.]

What is the central theme of Pakistan?

Editorial from The Hindustan Times:

``Why is he splitting hairs?

This paper would not have commented on the completely irresponsible claim made about the hair of a ‘Nimnath Baba’ — as opposed to that of Prophet Mohammed, as commonly believed — being preserved at the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar. But then, the claim has been made by none other than VHP leader and BJP MLA Vinay Katiyar. One doesn’t expect Mr Katiyar to talk sense.

But for him to assert that the shrine should be “returned to Hindus”, especially at a juncture when a real estate dispute at Ayodhya between Hindus and Muslims is being thrashed out, reveals more than Mr Katiyar’s strong sense of ‘historical propriety’. It simply shows how far those bent on playing with religious sentiments are willing to go to undermine the secular and pluralistic principles of this country.

What takes one’s breath away is the way in which Mr Katiyar has argued his case. What is the basis, he says without batting an eyelid, of Muslims believing that the relic at Hazratbal is actually that of Prophet Mohammed? For a moment, one is left dumbfounded — not by his argument but by where he leads it to. It is in the same tradition as the claim made by self-styled ‘historian’ P.N. Oak who once insisted that the Taj Mahal was actually built by a Hindu ruler, historical evidence be damned.

While the ‘Hindu Taj’ canard thankfully failed to gain momentum, Mr Katiyar’s ‘Hindu Hazratbal’ comes at a time when the sectarian ball is already rolling. Even for argument’s sake if one is to historically follow up his claim, what could be the intent in suddenly picking a shrine and trying to turn it into an ‘issue’? Surely, not something noble. Considering that Mr Katiyar goes to Parliament as a representative of the BJP, perhaps someone high up in the ruling party should tell him that he should utilise his innumerable talents for matters other than manufacturing communal rifts.``

LAYMAN

I agree with you that Communalism is a major problem - I had posted an article by Thomas Friedman in which he argues that Muslims are experiencing a degree strong sense of dissonance with regard to what they learn is their history and the reality of their experience. He argues that the peoples of the subcontinent are similarly, ``diginity`` deficient.

BJP, VHP philosophy appeals to significant numbers of Indians on a psychological level, in my opinion, entirely on a psychological level: The mythology of Hindu holocaust at the hands of the Muslims, the refashioning of Hindu (Indian) religious mythology as muscular and aggressive, are designed to counter and recast a national character, a national identity - more in keeping with middle class aspirations and it`s perception of it`s struggle for dignity. Contrary to popular images, early stages of middle class formation is charcterized by ideologies that are aggressive and prejudiced.

That many educated Indians vote for BJP and the anti-Muslim sentiment is a result of this general development and importantly, of the rise of this sentiment in the West.

The Muslim as ``not Indian`` is a central theme of the ideology of the BJP and affiliated organizations. These attitudes are reflected here on Chowk: Note the Indian angst that the cultural identity of Muslims of the subcontinent is not culturally ``Indian`` - of the negation of choices of conscience, the denigration of ``Conversion``, of choices that are not historically ``Indian``. In each of these cases, ``Indian`` is generally the same as ``Hindu``. Several interlocutors even suggest that the change of world view, of orientation, is clear evidence of anti-Indian attitudes, as if to say that one may be a Muslim or Christian and have a little puja alter in their home as well or deny the universalist message of their religious faith. They point out that Persian and Arabic culture are alien, at the same time they express this sentiment in English, seemingly, not conscious of the irony.

If you are a fan of film, you may recall the movies of Renoir, and you will see the dramatization of attitudes of the ``pecking order`` and how this order functions. This is insight into the attitudes of ``well to do`` Christians in Bombay, you mention.

psychologists, psychiatrists and ``progessive`` educators use as a technique, the construct that to become aware of and confronting dissonance, the source of dissonance can be attenuated. And Friedman is making exactly this point with regard to peoples of the subcontinent. The struggle for ``Dignity`` of the various peoples, identities, has led itself into misconstruing reality, has disintegrated, into fighting the ghosts of history, of the abdication of responsibilty and the embrace of ``victimhood``, is ultimately obfuscation, is the abdication of ethics and morality - it has become a psychological endeavour instead of one rooted in reason. Communalism is nothing, if not a phenomenon rooted in the psychological realm. The challenege therefore is to reexamine what is the struggle for dignity about, of the need to accept responsibility, and what to determine what ``should`` be the intellectual foundations of this struggle.

hobbyty #171:

I didn`t get your point. I still think communalism is one of the MANY evils India faces, though possibly the most pressing one right now.

One more possible reason why middleclass voted BJP is given in the article posted on one of the other boards: Ashutosh Varney says both majority communalism and minority communalism are equally bad and the middle class and masses were pissed off that the political parties and media refused to acknowledge it.

I am from South India but have spent many years in the North. I was shocked at the anti-Muslim feelings that highly educated, middle class people had (have) - people from places like Mumbai and Kanpur. One more puzzling thing - highly educated and well off Christians in Mumbai too were similar to Hindus in holding anti-Muslim feelings.

Layman

Unfortunately, I recall my posts with Zafar, Stuka, Govinda and so many others - When The BJP writings (available on their website) was brought to their attention, they repeated mantras of ``secular`` and ``democratic constitution`` -I don`t want to be in a position of told you so - because these events and their prediction has resulted in misery and anguish for persons on both sides of the divide. I only imagine and regret what persons such as Zafar and Nasah will have felt.

re: dost-mittar # 166

That sounds very plausible. I relied on what I read somewhere - that is, kahi sunee baat.

*sigh *....don`t we all get suckered into loving dundamental democracies sometimes?....My dad still reminisces about the ``good old days`` of Indira Gandhi`s emergency period!

shankar #77:

``The Indians who vote for BJP should take a MAJOR portion of the blame. It is the dastardly ideology of their mentors, the RSS & VHP that has started this crap in the first place.

I dont understand why Indians havent taken the trouble of reading the BJP manifesto. They want India to be a HINDU nation, pure & simple. They can spin it anyway they want. I`m surprised that Indians, particularly hindus, downplay that. Are we trying to deny the obvious? I`ve always maintained that the BJP is more dangerous for India than Pakistan, Taleban or LeT is.

I shudder to think what would happen if the BJP got a 2/3rds majority in the Lok Sabha. I have no doubt in my mind that they will try to change the Constitution. Its all downhill from then on.``

Well, one reason why at least some people voted for the BJP was that communalism was not the only evil that people faced. Other parties represented other evils - corruption, casteism. Given that the choice is always for a lesser evil, corruption and casteism were the bigger evils at one point in time. Now they have become `mainstream` with all parties becoming corrupt and casteist, maybe it is time to focus on communalism.

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mithuna:

i am trying to meet with some civil rights lawyers to see if there is anything i can do here.

re: Dost-Mittar # 163

Some of the early advantage Pakistan enjoyed over India was certainly due to the more open and reformist economic/social policies Ayub instituted. Ayub started off with a growth-oriented economic agenda at a time when India was going socialist.