Coverage of Orissa, Karnataka trouble

As we read this, one top Maoist leader has taken responsibility of killing Swami Laxmananda Saraswati [Link]. It can’t go more interesting than this: they don’t want government to do any investigation and are sending scapegoats to accept all the blames! Think how much exposed and globally embarrassed the missionaries will be if government carries out an honest investigation and finds out the role of Christian missionaries in his murder? And hence the acceptance…

Just when I wondered why only a single voice of condemnation is coming from all quarters and no one is caring to think about the root causes, I got to read this article. A very balanced one, asking us to think fairly at the times when we are busy being politically correct:

Coverage of Orissa, Karnataka trouble: Balanced approach wanting

All the reports and commentaries on the attacks in Orissa and Karnataka sidestep the original sin of extreme provocation and the consequential long-simmering discontent among the Hindus. Would such scurrilous observations about what is regarded as holy and sacred be tolerated by any community anywhere else in the world?

B. S. Raghavan; The Hindu Business Line, Sep 3, 2008

It is a hallowed principle of jurisprudence that justice should be even-handed, and both sides to a dispute must be given a full hearing before conclusions are drawn. The media coverage of the disturbances in both Orissa and Karnataka and the action taken by the Centre are so one-sided as to make any fair-minded person feel extremely worried.

I am not a practising Hindu, perform no rituals and have no religious hang-ups. Further, having worked directly under Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi for nine years (1961-9) as the secretary of the National Integration Council from its very inception, (besides my other duties in the Political Division of the Union Home Ministry), I have savoured from close quarters the spirit that animated the heroes of pre-Independence era. Hence, in sharing my uneasiness with readers, I have tried my best to rise above prejudices or preconceptions, and appraise events on the touchstone of fairplay and freedom from bias.

To anyone for whom the print and electronic media were the only sources of information, it would seem that Hindu fanatics, behaving like dreaded terrorists, had been making killing fields of both Orissa and Karnataka, by indulging in murderous attacks on Christian minorities, and the destruction of sacred religious places.

The emerging picture of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal (BD) — all subsumed under the pejorative rubric Sangh Parivar, or the Saffron Brigade (why not, by the same token, call the Congress the Quattrochi Brigade or the Left the Hammer-and-Sickle Brigade?) — is that, encouraged from behind the scenes by the communal ‘monster’, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), they are going on a ruthlessly violent spree, just to vent their hatred of minorities.

In short, the impression given is that swarms of totally insane thugs are on a rampage, without any provocation whatsoever, holding both States to ransom, and the State Governments, in open sympathy with them, have done little to prevent their excesses.

Not the best way

God knows there have been condemnable incidents, making innocent Christians fear for their lives. There can be no wishing away of the despicable and wilful desecration and destruction of places of worship in Kandhamal in Orissa and in some places, including Bangalore, in Karnataka. Certainly, any wanton resort to violence should be put down with an iron hand and peace and harmony among all sections of the people restored at all costs.

Only a dispassionate and disinterested inquiry can credibly establish whether in the particular cases of attacks on churches, the respective State Governments acted with due sense of urgency and concern for the well-being of the affected communities. Sending on a hurried visit some functionaries from the Home Ministry toeing the official line, unfamiliar with local conditions and listening to only the slanted version is not the best way of getting at the truth. Also, it must be remembered that it is, and will always be, a matter of judgment whether more or less could or should have been done by the State or Central authorities to enforce the law, round up the ruffians and quell the disturbances in any particular set of circumstances.

Such cases cannot be weighed on a fine scale. I say this having dealt with a number of instances of violent outbreaks and insurgency during my nine years in the Home Ministry and two years as Chief Secretary of a north-eastern State.

Journalists and columnists, enjoying the good fortune of never having to manage crisis situations, should, therefore, think many times before showering their verdicts on the happenings, and especially guard against saying or writing anything approaching character assassination. All the reports and commentaries on the disturbances in Orissa and Karnataka neatly sidestep the original sin and the consequential long-simmering discontent among the Hindus. They make it look as if the attackers, who were readily assumed to be members of the ‘Saffron Brigade’, were madly running amok without any justification.

Real cause ignored

Reams have been written and billions of sound bytes have gone on air describing in lurid detail all that has happened to the churches and the Christian community, with no equal space given for the real cause of all the trouble.

Swami Lakshmananda was a revered figure in Orissa who was engaged in service to the weaker and vulnerable sections of the population. Allegedly, the local Christian votaries of conversion saw him as a thorn in their flesh. Whatever that be, the fact was that some time ago, he was the victim of attack by a gang bent on doing away with him. Luckily, he escaped at that time, but his enemies had their way the second time.

The Centre could have set all speculation at rest if, with all the mighty and extensive intelligence and investigative machinery at its disposal, it had ascertained the truth behind the murders of the Swami and his associates and unhesitatingly named the desperadoes. Its own inability, or unwillingness, to expose the forces that were behind the killing should be taken to have contributed to the flare-up that followed in Kandhamal.

Extreme provocation

Similarly, as regards Mangalore and Bangalore, those who are quick to castigate the State Government gloss over the extreme provocation contained in an obnoxious pamphlet, Satya Darshini, in Kannada language, circulated in the name of an outfit called the New Life Church, scathingly denigrating Hindu gods and goddesses in the foulest of language.

Since all the manifestations of anger from the side of the so-called Saffron Brigade have been set out in graphic detail day after day, fairness in maintaining balance calls for revealing a few samples from the pamphlet to illustrate the revolting nature of its vilification of Hinduism:

“When the Trinity of Hinduism (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) are consumed by lust and anger, how can they liberate others? Their projection as Gods is nothing but a joke. (page 39).

“When Vishnu asked Brahma to commit a sin, he immediately did so. How can such an ‘evil Brahma’ be a Creator of this Universe? How is it possible for both the sinner and the entity that provoked the sin to be gods? (Page 39)

“God, please liberate the sinful people of India who are worshipping false Gods that believe in the pleasures of illicit relationships (Page 39).”

Perversity

I want to ask the holier-than-thou commentators to place their hands on their hearts and tell me whether such scurrilous observations about what is regarded as holy and sacred would be tolerated by any community anywhere in the world?

One need not even go as far as gods and goddesses: Suppose one’s wife or parents are the targets of such scatological stuff distributed far and wide? Would one smile it away? Or, suppose one exhibits in a public forum paintings of particular individuals and their kith and kin in the nude, will those individuals celebrate it as an ex-pression of artistic freedom?

Why, then, show this perverse support to sacrilege perpetrated against Hinduism alone and work overtime lambasting the spontaneous reaction of largely simple and pious people who are sustained in their quotidian hardships by their faith in their gods and goddesses? To me, somehow, it does not stand to reason or common sense.

There is yet another aspect of this perversity. It gives a handle to foreign governments and busybodies to bad-mouth India as a den of fanatical Hindus who love nothing better than being at the throats of persons of other faiths.

A country which rained death and destruction on Iraq by flaunting a tissue of lies, indulged in unspeakable atrocities in Abu Ghraib and for the last eight years, has kept Muslim detenus in Guantanamo Bay without trial, treating them worse than vermin, denies a visa to Narendra Modi to the resounding applause of self-styled secularists who do not realise the egregious nature of the insult to the entire nation.

In sum, the secularism as practised in the country is letting it down, besides polarising the population. It is time a body of persons reputed for their objectivity and erudition went into the meaning and implications of secularism and communalism.

Nehru set up a Committee in 1961 for this purpose under the chairmanship of Asoka Mehta, of which Indira Gandhi, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Prof Mujeeb were among the members.

Unfortunately, its labours were interrupted by the Chinese invasion of 1962, and it was wound up. Getting going from where it left off is eminently worthwhile.

Ref: The Hindu Business Line [Link]