By Ananya Guha
A lot has been discussed of late on religion and politics in the columns of this newspaper. While some contend that politics is a backburner for religion others argue that the mix is inevitable in a country like India. Others would say that the cow issue has nothing to do with religion, politics or no politics. Why only protect one minority community ask some, what about others? Hindus have been tolerant for a long time exclaim others, enough is enough. Placating minorities for the inexorable vote bank is of course the common argument. Placating everyone for the vote bank including the majority is conveniently forgotten. That is why I suppose the majority is so supercilious and damn caring today. There is a resurgence of purist Hindu traditions today. Why was this not there earlier?
The Hindu religion has been described as all embracing. Very true indeed! That is why the people of India have been able to absorb multiple religions and peoples. We should certainly be proud of this. But we should not forget in excitable moments of applying blinkers to history, that it is exactly this process of absorption that has awakened a diverse consciousness in the country, cow or no cow. Mohammed Aklaq’s murder was very coordinated and planned. You can’t eat beef. The cow is sacred. She is Mother. Of course, you are entitled to your apotheosis. But you are not entitled to comment on others’ food habits and make perky comments on that. We are trying to be better Hindus in order to ingratiate the Gods that be.
It is not the current brand of thinkers only who are championing the cause of ancient Hindu texts. Romila Thapar and A.L.Basham have done that in their books. In fact the latter has translated texts from the original Prakrit, the fountainhead of Sanskrit into English. Were they not aware of ancient Indian culture? Today their likes are damned. Was it not the grandfather of Amartya Sen who also translated these texts, where the latter had a hand in these translations? Do they love their ‘culture ‘
less? No. Some like the contemporary savants like it more. And to prove this we have to denigrate others. What if Hindus eat beef at a personal level? Can you single them out? Or do you need to? But you need to single out the Muslims. You are obfuscating the Muslim factors with: immigrants, cow consumption, Jammu and Kashmir- deliberately to whip sentiments; to ignore diversity in the country and of course to show off strength.
This is totally misconceived and misconstrued. It is simply because of the political base that rules the roost. So history is tied up into knots and views of social and historical thinkers radically debunked. So called secularists are a target, the vocabulary domain has of course largely been enriched. Words such as sickularists and presstitutes have entered our jargon in a way nothing has. So if you profess secularism you are sick. The healthy ones are the ones who drink milk and are vegetarians. Why, they say even Europeans have upheld this virtue. So on the one hand you extol them, on the other you say they have imported our science, astronomy and mathematics.
If we are not careful as a nation, historical backlash could be an answer in the future. A historical backlash can take place either due to reactionary forces or due to a political and mass uprising. It would be inane and simply fatuous to tell the people of India that theirs is not a culturally diverse country. They know this at their level, whoever they prefer to vote for. Certainly we have an ancient collective wisdom in the country. We can glorify it. But we must also glorify the Sufis, the efflorescence of cultures which have led to the shaping of languages such as Urdu. We must revitalise the Bauls; stand up against any form of caste tyranny and look towards an educated and healthy India, cow or no cow, milk or no milk. Simply baiting minority groups could be disastrous and catastrophic. Let us respect Indians for what they are worth, what they have contributed to the conglomerate of a nation and not point unhealthy fingers at dietary habits.
In this manner everything will fall into a pattern of unity, not disembodied reality, which in turn can only cause divisiveness and fragmentation.