Author: Brown Pundits Archive

….“The
book is extremely important for Dalits and it not right to add
footnotes to the book. We feel Arundhati Roy has diluted Ambedkar’s
writing and there is every chance that the book might be misinterpreted……Roy has always been a Maoist sympathiser and has never been vocal on
Dalit atrocities. So with that understanding, how can she write a
foreword for the book?” ….

Roy and Godse are dwellers of distant planets so one has to be careful while drawing equations. She is THE leading global thinker while he was just a deluded terrorist. But it should be highlighted that Roy is a fan of Comrade Charu Majumdar (see below), a terrorist of equal or much higher caliber than Godse.

What unites Roy, Godse and Majumdar is deep-seated Gandhi-hatred, and to mock non-violence as a way to solve (big) societal problems. Perhaps it is because deep down we are all defined by our caste. Roy, Godse and Majumdar are all Brahmins who despise the upstart Vaishya/Baniya (Gandhi).
………..
….After acknowledging that Mazumdar’s “abrasive rhetoric fetishses violence,
blood and martyrdom, and often employs a language so coarse as to be
almost genocidal”, Roy finds that despite all this blood lust Charu “was a
visionary in much of what he wrote and said. The party he founded (and
its many splinter groups) has kept the dream of revolution real and
present in India. Imagine a society without that dream. For that alone
we cannot judge him too harshly. Especially not while we swaddle
ourselves with Gandhi’s pious humbug about the superiority of ‘the
non-violent way’ …
………..
As far as blood lust is concerned, while Majumdar argued in favor of “making shoes for the poor with the skin of rick people” (Bengali- dhonir chamray goriber juto), Godse wanted a Muslim mukt Bharat (muslim free India).

Now Roy has made many Dalit activists extremely unhappy (see below). They want her to shut up about Gandhi and also shut up about Ambedkar. This is primarily because Roy (as dalit activists see her) is a forward caste celebrity trying to cash in on Ambedkar. They are not interested in her certificates because of her lack of a (caste) certificate. Throwing stones at Gandhi is not going to change that equation.


We learn that the book launch (for The Annihilation of Caste in Hyderabad by AR) was cancelled because of opposition from Dalits? We would expect S Anand (publisher) to scream out when there is attack on free speech on HIS own book. Before he and other left-liberals shout wolf again they will need to tell us why one form of censorship is bad, while others are benign.
……..
You would think, therefore, that Dalit intellectuals would only be happy
that Arundhati Roy is engaging with that text, that leading English
language magazines are telling the world about it, that we need to read
Ambedkar, and explaining why.

Strangely, some Dalit radicals and
intellectuals have a problem with Arundhati Roy reading, learning from
and expounding about Ambedkar. On March 9, Roy was to be in Hyderabad to
launch the book. But the event was cancelled because the publisher
feared protests from Dalit radicals who have been upset about the book. The Hindu quoted some of them:

“The
book is extremely important for Dalits and it not right to add
footnotes to the book. We feel Arundhati Roy has diluted Ambedkar’s
writing and there is every chance that the book might be misinterpreted.
Roy has always been a Maoist sympathiser and has never been vocal on
Dalit atrocities. So with that understanding, how can she write a
foreword for the book?” asked J. Srinivas, state co-convenor for the
Dalit Shakti programme, and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of
Hyderabad.

Renowned author and lawyer Bojja Tarakam, who
will be the guest at the event, also plans to raise objections
regarding the content. “Most of the preface is about Gandhi, rather than
Ambedkar. What is the need to write so much about him?” Mr. Tarakam
said. However, he opposed any kind of curbs on the release of the book
and felt it should be released in order to facilitate healthy discussion
on the subject.

In other words, Dalit intellectuals think
it is their right, by virtue of their caste, to decide whether a Maoist
sympathiser can write on Ambedkar; whether one can write on the Ambedkar
debate with Gandhi; or whether one is allowed to write more words in
criticism of Gandhi than in praise of Ambedkar. Annihilation of Caste was written for the upper castes, meant to be addressed to them.


……
Arundhati Roy, the Booker-prize-winning author who likes to shock us
periodically with her outlandish statements, is now in the business of
rubbishing Gandhi. She is sailing in the same boat as Babasaheb Ambedkar
– and Nathuram Godse, one might add. For Roy, Gandhi is Caste Bigot,
not Mahatma.

….
Godse put bullets into the Mahatma because he was allegedly too
pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu; Roy wants to erase the name of Gandhi from
every institution that currently carries it because, she says, Gandhi
was an out-and-out casteist.

….
According to this Times of India report,
Roy, speaking in the memory of the late Dalit leader Mahatma Ayyankali
at Kerala University, said universities named after Gandhi should be
renamed. Her reference was probably to Mahatma Gandhi University, a
leading educational institution in God’s Own Country.

….
The newspaper quotes Roy as excoriating Gandhi for an essay he wrote in
1936 titled The Ideal Bhangi to prove that Gandhi was casteist and
patronising towards Dalits. Today nobody would use the word “bhangi”
without inviting the charge of gross political incorrectness, but Gandhi
lived in politically incorrect times. Much of Ambedkar’s writings on
caste and religion too would not pass muster in today’s identity-charged
political discourse.
 
Arundhati Roy also despises Gandhi for his idealism.

There is some validity to the caste charge levelled against Gandhi. He
was a social conservative keen to reform caste, not annihilate it.
Ambedkar was irritated by Gandhi’s claim that caste was not central to
Hinduism but a sin committed by caste Hindus for which they must atone.
Many Dalits also see Gandhi’s decision to call “untouchables” Harijans
as condescending and obnoxious.

Gail Omvedt, another writer influenced by Marxist thinking, explains Gandhi’s approach thus:
“Gandhi was not simply a devoted Hindu, but also a fervent believer in
his idealised version of ‘varnashrama dharma.’ He felt that what he
considered to be the benign aspects of caste – its encouragement of a
certain kind of solidarity – could be maintained while removing
hierarchy and the extreme evil of un-touchability. This was in fact the
essence of his reformism.” Ambedkar saw caste as the very basis of evil,
which needed to be excised completely from the body politic.

Godse, a Brahmin, had views on caste that Gandhi would not have disapproved of. In his trial statement,
he says that he “worked actively for the eradication of untouchability
and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste
movements and maintained that all Hindus are of equal status as to
rights, social and religious, and should be considered high or low on
merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste
or profession….I used publicly to take part in organised anti-caste
dinners which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Vaishyas, Kshatriyas,
Chamars and B—–s participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in
the company of each other.”

The interesting point is Godse hated Gandhi for his “appeasement” of
Muslims while Arundhati Roy criticises Gandhi for his alleged casteism.
Godse wanted Gandhi excised from this world, Roy wants Gandhi excised
from public memory for espousing the evil of caste.

Despite present-day antagonisms between Ambedkarites and Gandhians, it
is doubtful if Ambedkar himself, unlike Roy, would want Gandhi
forgotten, though he would certainly want him removed from a pedestal.

But if so far Roy’s views are analogous to Ambedkar’s, she seems to
despise Gandhi as much for his impractical idealism. In contrast, she
can forgive the murderous ideas of Naxal theoretician Charu Mazumdar for
being a visionary. This is what she wrote some years ago about her
travels in Naxal-land titled, “Gandhi, but with guns.”

After acknowledging that Mazumdar’s “abrasive rhetoric fetishses violence,
blood and martyrdom, and often employs a language so coarse as to be
almost genocidal”, Roy finds that despite all this blood lust Charu “was a
visionary in much of what he wrote and said. The party he founded (and
its many splinter groups) has kept the dream of revolution real and
present in India.”

“Imagine a society without that dream. For that alone
we cannot judge him too harshly. Especially not while we swaddle
ourselves with Gandhi’s pious humbug about the superiority of ‘the
non-violent way’ and his notion of Trusteeship: ‘The rich man will be
left in possession of his wealth, of which he will use what he
reasonably requires for his personal needs and will act as a trustee for
the remainder to be used for the good of society.’”

Put another way, Charu’s murderous idealism was fine, but not Gandhi’s.

Roy’s views, in fact, are in sync with what Godse himself had to say
about Gandhi, who said: “He (Gandhi) was, paradoxical as it may appear, a
violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the
name of truth and non-violence.”

Just as Roy ridicules Gandhi’s idealism about trusteeship, Godse mocks
Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence thus: “His activities for public
awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the
slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before
the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to these
slogans.” 

“In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are
implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a
dream if you imagine the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become,
capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal
life…In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and
country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use
force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression
is unjust.”

Roy eulogises Charu for his revolutionary ideals, even if achieved
through violence. But Gandhi’s idealism pursued without violence is
“humbug.”

It would appear that if Godse had only been a murderous Marxist, Roy would have approved of his act.
……

Link(1): http://www.firstpost.com

Link(2): http://scroll.in/article/658279/Why-Dalit-radicals-dont-want-Arundhati-Roy-to-write-about-Ambedkar

……

regards

We were not overtly fond of the past Congress-UPA regime but there was one bright spot. The govt had taken the courageous stand of supporting gay rights and against the Supreme Court order criminalizing gay lifestyle (and canceling out the progressive decision by the Delhi High Court). Since BJP was in the opposition it had the luxury of side-stepping a bed of thorns (on a point which would affect religious conservatives).

Now that BJP-NDA is in power and they have absolute majority the time for prevarications are over. There is no opportunity to hide behind coalition partners (as the Congress often did, especially with the Women in Parliament Reservations Bill). We understand that people  who have voted in favor of BJP (not including ourselves) were in part motivated by the fact that it will take bold decisions for the long-term benefit of society (even if they prove to be unpopular in the short run).

The good news is that the Health Minister Shri Harsh Vardhan (who is an actual medical doctor) has announced that the human rights of gays must be protected. Now his party needs to translate his words into action and pass a gay rights bill in the parliament.
……..
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan today batted for “human rights” of gays
and said it was the government’s job to protect their rights.
“Everybody, including gays, has human rights. It is the job of the
government to protect their rights,” he said on the sidelines of an
event.

 
He, however, declined to make further comments when asked to explain his
position as his party, BJP, had supported the Supreme Court judgment
which had upheld the validity of Section 377 of IPC, criminalising sex
among homosexuals.

 
BJP, which was in opposition when the Supreme Court judgement came last
year, had said it was for the government to decide the next course of
action over the matter, and the party would take a position depending on
the official move.

 
The SC is at present hearing a curative petition on the matter.

Senior BJP leaders have spoken in different voices over the issue and
then party President and present Home Minister Rajnath Singh had termed
gay sex “unnatural.”

 
Another senior leader and present Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had
taken a more liberal position, saying he tended to agree more with the
Delhi High Court order decriminalising gay sex, which was later
overturned by the apex court.
……

Link: http://www.outlookindia.com/news/printitem.aspx?850245

…..

regards

…..Christians still in the city convert, pay a special tax or leave…..”nothing for them but the sword” if Christians did not abide by those
conditions before 0900 GMT…..”Christian
families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil” in Kurdistan….. “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.” 

….
Mosul, Iraq. Officially certified to be Christian free as of today.

Incidentally, the same thing happened two decades ago in Kashmir. The message blaring from the mosques was stark: all minorities leave NOW (leave your women behind).
…………
Thousands
of Christians abandoned their homes and belongings to flee the Iraqi
city of Mosul on Friday following an ultimatum by jihadists who overran
the region last month and proclaimed a caliphate.

As
militants attempted to break government defences in strategic areas and
edge closer to Baghdad, Christians joined hundreds of thousands of
Shiite and other refugees into Kurdistan.

Their flight to the
safety of the neighbouring autonomous region coincided with the expected
homecoming of Iraq’s Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, after 18 months
of treatment in Germany.

The Islamic State group running Mosul
had already demanded that those Christians still in the city convert,
pay a special tax or leave but messages blaring on mosques’ loudspeakers
appeared to spark an exodus.

An earlier statement by Mosul’s
new rulers had said there would be “nothing for them but the sword” if
Christians did not abide by those conditions before noon (0900 GMT) on
Saturday.

“Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and
Arbil” in Kurdistan, Chaldean patriarch Louis Sako, who heads Iraq’s
largest Christian community, told AFP. “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.”

Most Christians in the northwestern Nineveh province fled in terror
after jihadist-led militants enforcing an extreme version of sharia — or
Islamic law — launched an offensive on June 9.

But many of the
poorest families returned when the fighting stopped and IS started
administering the city. Sako put the number of Christians who were still
in Mosul on Thursday at 25,000.

The mass displacement was the
latest in six weeks of turmoil which the have forced more than 600,000
people from their homes, left thousands dead and brought Iraq to the
brink of collapse.

Talabani’s return to his native Kurdistan on
Saturday was likely to spark celebrations among supporters from his
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.

He is widely celebrated as a
skilled negotiator, who enjoys good relations with both the United
States and Iran and has repeatedly mediated between Iraq’s fractious
politicians in recent years.

But some observers warned that
there was little the avuncular 80-year-old head of state could do to
ease spiralling ethno-sectarian violence and rhetoric and roll back the
Islamic State’s expansion.

“I really do think this is a
post-Talabani era. I’ve stuck my neck out there, but I haven’t heard any
Iraqis talking about him in any way being president,” said Toby Dodge,
director of the London School of Economics’ Middle East centre.

Federal forces collapsed, in some cases abandoning uniforms and weapons
in their retreat, when fighters under the command of IS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi launched their assault.

The army has since
regrouped, received intelligence, hardware and manpower from Washington,
Moscow and Shiite militias, but nonetheless struggled to regain lost
territory.

Security analysts have said Baghdad remains too big a
target but the militants have in recent days repeatedly attacked
targets that would expose the capital if captured.

On Thursday
night, a jihadist commando stormed the Speicher air base north of
ex-president Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, sparking a fierce
battle. “Last night, gunmen infiltrated the base. There were
snipers and suicide bombers among them, they managed to reach the
runway,” an intelligence officer who survived the attack told AFP.

He said the pilots managed to fly all but one of the base’s aircraft to
safety but a statement posted on jihadist Internet sites said many were
destroyed.

Many, including within his own Shia alliance that
comfortably won April elections, now see Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s
departure as essential to national reconciliation efforts.

In a
Friday sermon delivered by one of his spokesmen in Karbala, the
Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani — Iraq’s most revered Shia
cleric — appeared to lean in the same direction. “The new
government should have broad national acceptance and be capable of
solving the crisis in the country and correcting the mistakes of the
past,” he said.

Parliamentary blocs have until Sunday to submit
nominees for the post of president, whose election is the next step in
what has been a protracted and acrimonious process to renew Iraq’s
leadership.

Despite his unexpected return, there is little
expectation that Talabani, who has been president since 2005, will seek
another term.

…….

Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Jihadist-ultimatum-sparks-Christian-exodus-from-Iraqs-Mosul/articleshow/38651056.cms

……

regards

In the past week we have heard a lot about how Ved Pratap Vaidik has committed treason by meeting with Hafeez Saeed. The meme has also spread that there is a back channel between the right-wings in India and Pakistan.

We are not sure what to believe at this point. A Nixon going to China moment was always a possibility. But a few things are fairly clear. Vaidik went with a delegation that included Mani Shankar (Modi can serve us tea in Congress sessions) Iyer who has many fans in the Pak establishment. So while not a “Aman ki Asha” brand they certainly came in peace.


Vaidik would not have been able to meet with Saeed unless there was clearance from the Deep State (did anybody worry at all that VPV would detonate a bomb and eliminate HS – thus collecting $10 mil posthumously – now that would be a sensational story).

Some deep-state czar may have wanted to get an inner view of Modi Sarkar and thought that VPV can be helpful. This is speculation, yet the most likely explanation.

At the end of the day Indian media and pols are revealed to be a bunch of self-serving clowns (yes we already knew). OTOH while Saeed as a viper is not to be underestimated, he is mostly a deep state puppet. He should have at least had the courtesy of supplying a few golden nuggets like how India would be shortly re-captured by the descendants of Md. Ghori and Babur. That would have certainly made  the Indian media explode in excitement.

As far as Vaidik is concerned, he seems to be an amiable idiot who can only find time to gossip about private morality (the life of the wives etc) while glossing over the public vices. While 26/11 is a watershed event and the war-criminals must be held to account, it is also the case that thousands have died before and after because of the vipers amidst us and no lessons have been learned. It was time that this is exposed, but that would require journalists with integrity, courage and vision, who are not necessarily after fame and fortune. That would be more difficult than finding a better fast bowler than Bhuvaneshwar Prasad (go Bhuvi!!!).
……..
Within a span of four days our hyper TV news channels and politicians
gifted Ved Pratap Vaidik something that has eluded him for four
decades: his 15 minutes of national fame.  

Until his controversial
meeting with Hafiz Saeed his name didn’t ring a bell much beyond Delhi’s
incestuous circle of policy wonks and media persons. That rendezvous,
shrouded in mystery, catapulted him to centre stage.


Sadly for Vaidik the 15 minutes of fame swiftly metamorphosed into
interminable hours of infamy. Never in his long professional career was
he the butt of so much strident criticism, insult and ridicule. None of
this, however, seems to have made an iota of difference to him. He has
remained true to himself: smug in the conviction that Destiny has
reserved for him a calling that goes far beyond his sentient avatars as a
journalist, scholar, ideologue and orator.


That smug conviction earned for him a rather unsavory reputation,
especially in the eyes of his peers in the media and in the political
establishment, as a compulsive name-dropper and an amiable bore who
sought a place in the sun with his smooth talk and obsequious demeanor.
He was seen, in plain words, as a social climber and a parvenu.


All of this served to eclipse some of Vaidik’s admirable qualities:
his flair to reach out to politicians of every ideological persuasion,
his range and depth of first-hand knowledge of developments in South
Asia, his enviable network of contacts in high places in the region and,
not least, his cheerful disposition that allowed him to persuade his
bitterest critics to engage with him. That is no mean achievement for
someone who has been a freelance columnist for newspapers that command
little influence among those who make policies and shape opinion.


His controversial meeting with Saeed, therefore, needs to be seen in a
more tempered perspective. A journalist has every right to sup even
with the devil if he is able to wangle a news story out of him. 

Some of
the most compelling interviews with Adolf Hitler — denounced as a
dangerous demagogue in western democracies — were conducted by reputed
American journalists like H R Knickerbocker for Chicago Tribune and
Dorothy Thomson for Cosmopolitan. Well-known German journalist Emil
Ludwig interviewed Mussolini and Stalin when the dictators were at the
height of their power. H G Wells also interviewed Stalin for New
Statesman and Nation.


And there is the remarkable example of Edgar Snow who met Mao Zedong —
persona non grata in the West until the mid-1960s — both during the
Long March and after the establishment of the People’s Republic and
published his interviews in influential publications worldwide. Other
great interviewers include Italian journalist Orianna Fallaci and CNN’s
Christiane Amanpour: both managed to interview another bete-noire of the
West, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran.


Vaidik is obviously nowhere in this league. But that is not the
point. The point is that these journalists who interviewed individuals
regarded as sworn enemies of their respective countries did not generate
hysterical reactions against them. There were no calls to arrest them
or to try them for treason. Quite to the contrary, the interviewers won
accolades for discharging their professional duty with exemplary
rectitude.


As a journalist, Vaidik, therefore, was well within his rights to
interview Saeed without seeking a nod from anyone. But did he in fact
meet him in that capacity? He has explained that the rendezvous with
this hate-monger was fixed on the spur of the moment. That, to say the
least, is odd. Nobody can come within sniffing distance of Saeed, who is
on the list of wanted men of the US, UN and India, without clearance
from the top-most political and intelligence echelons in Pakistan.


What transpired during the rendezvous is also hazy. A journalist,
especially from India, would have used the occasion to ask Saeed tough
questions about his role in instigating terrorist acts on Indian soil.
Did Vaidik ask those questions? That is far from clear.


Would a journalist who did get a chance to question Saeed not have
seized the first opportunity to publish the interview? Vaidik didn’t do
that. What he has revealed in his TV interviews is risible: remarks
about Narendra Modi’s marital status, Saeed’s three wives, whether he
would protest against a Modi trip to Pakistan etc. That speaks poorly of
his professional competence. But this is hardly a reason to cry
treason.


The truth may well be more mundane. Vaidik was given access to Saeed
and other influential people in Pakistan because his hosts reckoned,
doubtless on the strength of their guest’s own claims, that he was close
to Modi and the new dispensation in Delhi. Such a reckoning was wholly
misleading. The Pakistanis should have known that Vaidik has always
punched above his weight. Now they have egg on their face.


And so do hysterical sections of the media and the political class.
Both failed to understand that the likes of Saeed and Vaidik survive and
thrive on the oxy-gen of publicity, even of the adverse sort. The
failure reveals an appalling lack of judgment.
…….

Link: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/talking-terms/hysteria-about-freelance-journalist-vaidik-speaks-poorly-of-our-media-and-political-class/

……..

regards

In light of the world having gotten far more interesting, we may have reach the apex of the nation state.

I finished (for the book club) the book Diamond Age (by Seattle author Neal Stephenson) and it seems we are hurtling towards a world where national & state boundaries are going to get subordinated. Just as it’s de rigeur now for Elitestanis to have second passports so in the same way middle classes are coming under significant strain in the West.

Paradoxically after the Malaysian crash I am beginning to think the third world can be a better safe haven than the first world. London, Moscow and NY may be prime targets but who’d want to do anything in the DRC?

My late Dada, Md. Nazir Ullah would tell it really well…..a great Chishti Pir from Ajmer, India came to the Bengal….One of them fell in love with a native
(most probably a low caste Hindu) woman, converted and married her….after the
birth of a male child, the Sufi was gone, never to return.…Dada would conclude “ei bhabe amra Mosolmaan hoyechhi“(this is how we became muslims)….

It is a fascinating (and memorable) story. It also discounts any role of conversion by force (but that is not so important in the scheme of things).

Depending on who you ask, Bangali Muslims are (justifiably) proud of having participated in two revolutions which (in their words) nixed the tyranny of Hindu zamindars and Pakistani generals. That being so, it does seem strange that a liberal, liberated B-M would cry her heart out when the bombs dropped on that super-tyrant Saddam. Do genocides of Shias and Kurds not matter much to lovable (and loving) Sufis?

There is another thing about Iraq war that is a surprise. The sense of betrayal by America that united B-Ms with muslims around the globe. But we have seen this movie before….in Bangladesh!!! America did incalculable harm by supporting the Pakistan army in its genocidal mission in 1971. How difficult was it for Nixon/Kissinger to call a meeting in the White House and convince Bhutto and Mujib to work together for the sake of democracy? Instead when the Indian army joined the campaign Nixon dispatched an entire Armada to the Bay of Bengal….against the cause of freedom. There was no sense of betrayal then?

The author wields a powerful pen to show the reasons why many B-Ms feel insecure about
their second class muslim status, which comes (as we understand it) from a Sufi past
(imagined or otherwise) with its heavy shirk quotient, from a shared
culture with Hindus, from being distant from the Koran in Arabic
mindset.

However this unhappy equilibrium is unlikely to last. All over South Asia today, polarization is the name of the game. And with the Hindu population slowly fading away in Bangladesh and promising opportunities for a South Asian Muslim Federation (Zachary has pointed to this before), the future points to a mono-culture secure in its (Sunni not Sufi) muslim past, present, and future.

To the extent the above helps stabilize the political environment and allows for economic progress this may be a good thing for the aam admi (aurat). New stories explaining the rise of Islam in the sub-continent will have to be concocted by a new generation of Nana-Dada-s. It will take some skill and it may not be as soothing as the old ones were.
……………….
My own story of trials and tribulations with Islam begins with my family’s own history.

My late Dada, Md. Nazir Ullah would tell it really well. The story
goes something like this: a great Chishti Pir from Ajmer, India (based
on time line and some research, it may have been Shaykh Mu’in ad-Din
Chishti, but we are not entirely sure) came to the Bengal area with his
entourage of wandering Sufis. One of them fell in love with a native
(most probably a low caste Hindu) woman, converted and married her. But
alas! The wandering soul could not be tamed and one day, after the
birth of a male child, the Sufi was gone, never to return.


With teary and distant looking eyes, Dada would conclude “ei bhabe amra Mosolmaan hoyechhi.“


My late grandfather (rest his soul), told that story beautifully
with the right amount of emotions and convictions. It is fairly easy to
understand how romantic that story was to a young 14-year-old highly
impressionable girl. But that is exactly the problem with our
narratives on Sufi origins — we romanticise that past without deeper
understanding of the Sufi ideals and philosophies, let alone critically
asking about the processes by which the conversions took place.


“Liberal” Islam imagination stops at this general story of heritage.
Ask anyone on Sufi teachings and one will get sweeping comments and
remarks revealing our ignorance of our forefathers and their histories.


Sufis are in general seen as qawaali singing, wandering, esoteric
Muslim preachers who spread the message of the Almighty’s benevolence
and had a great love for the Prophet. To find God, one must love all of
His creations, even if they are practising other religions/beliefs.
This is usually the narrative of Bengali Muslims on why we are secular.


It came as no surprise when at the secularism conference, a number
of Bangladeshi civil society members kept saying that we are “secular
by nature” because of our Sufi heritage.

“Secular by nature” — what does that even mean?


To me it means that we have stopped at Nana-Dada’s stories. It
means, we are quite ignorant of what it means to have Sufi origins and
hence what secularism has anything to do with Sufi Islam. Sufism is now
almost a folklore — some true, mostly imaginary.


The present generation has very little information on these Sufi
beginnings. In fact, I will argue that it is exactly because of such
shallow and romanticised stories of the past, we suffer from an
inferiority complex of not being “Muslim enough”.


From the Sufis, our popular secularism narrative leaps centuries and
plunges right into the liberation war. The liberation war is often
synonymous to fighting for secularism.


While that is part of the larger history, the political struggle is
lost in mass media and popular culture and narratives. In the struggles
of keeping the ideology of a non-communal state where people of all
religion are equal, secularists have in a certain sense created
hyperboles on “inherent secularism” of the Bengali people.


In these dichotomies, even I have personally felt lost and not at
all comfortable choosing a side. While I was raised by my deeply pious
Nana, I was also raised with a great sense of love for all that is
Bengali, including learning Hindu theology, because of my father.


Many would term my family as “moderate” Muslim. Again, what is that?
That we believe in moderation? That we sin or practise in moderation?
That we drink and pray in moderation? No, the secular or the
fundamentalists did not know where to put us and neither did we
subscribe to any boxes.
 I clearly remember running a little late for a 9am class on September
11, 2001. The campus was a little quiet but that didn’t quite register
till I entered the building where my class was scheduled. At the very
entrance, a group of students in complete shock and horror stared at a
television screen. At inquiring as to what they were all looking at,
with utter disbelief, my best friend asked me, “Shahana, you seriously
don’t know? The World Trade Center got hit!”

And so it did. The world as we knew it changed the minute that plane
went through that monumental building in the middle of New York City. 

In the midst of the complete chaos, disarray, while we watched CNN and
tried to stream Al-Jazeerah (at that time, it was still an underground
alternative media house), all I could think of was — they will be
coming for us.


And so they did. The Patriot Act came into effect. Civil liberties
were frozen. Even while the civil rights activists were advocating
against it, there was a general fear of Muslims.


Muslim community leaders were giving fatwas to sisters to take off
the hijab and suddenly anyone remotely considered to be an expert on
Islam and Muslims were coming on to the televisions and giving sweeping
comments — “Islam is a religion of peace”.

Muslim, Arab, South Asian Americans kept stressing, “WE ARE AMERICANS”.

My religion became my ethnic identity.


Without any protest (in fact in many cases, supportively) the
foreign male students lined up at the immigration offices to report on
their entry and exit into the country. “If this was India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, it would have been worse.” Of course it would have been
worse. But this wasn’t India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. This was America,
the land of the free, the home of the brave. This was the country
preaching to the rest of the world on justice and equality.


I was one of the luckier foreign students because of the activist
and liberal college I attended. My friends and professors were
protective towards me (and other foreign students) and institutionally
we took a stand against the Patriot Act, keeping student records
private. But this was a bubble. The bubble burst every time I travelled
out of the college peripheries. Though physically I was not lynched,
there was always a fear of getting harassed. Doing mundane things like
going to the mall or a diner became stressful.


February 15, 2003, hundreds of college mates got on buses and made
way to New York to protest against the war on Iraq. We blocked off 50
blocks of the city. Almost a million people from across the country
came to that march. As we chanted anti-war slogans and clashed with the
riot police, local and international media did a fantastic job in NOT
telecasting any of the ground scenes. Whenever I talk about that march
and the number of other similar marches in Chicago and San Francisco,
people look at me dumbfounded as if those marches are figments of my
imagination. What Matrix effect — déjà vu! Such is the power of media!


A week later, we watched the first set of bombs over Baghdad. I cry
at the drop of a hat, but very few times in my life have I cried the
way I did that night. Something fundamentally changed. I no longer
wanted to be in the US and felt this deep sense of connecting with my
Muslim identity.


For many of us religion became a political stand rather than a
spiritual conviction. Some put bombs around themselves and some went
off to study abroad programmes in the Middle East to find “answers”.


Why the Middle East?

Here I go back to my earlier point about not being “Islamic enough”.
The weak understanding of our own Islamic heritage creates much
confusion among many that perhaps something is amiss with the way we
practice the religion.


An important reason for feeling this “second class” Muslim status
has to do directly with the language barrier, that Arabic is not our
native language. Somehow we have convinced ourselves and have accepted
the hegemonic claim that without knowing Quranic Arabic, we cannot
interpret the religion and come to conclusions on its legal
jurisprudence. Both fundamentalists and secularists have used this
rhetoric to justify one’s enforcement of practices from Arab nations
and the other’s rejection of religion.


Post 9/11 global politics along with “second class” Muslim complex
leads to the one-way road to a study abroad programme in the Middle
East. Some went to these programmes to be better Muslims. Some went to
get a better job in the US State Department upon returning. And some
idealistic ones went to learn Arabic, seek knowledge and find answers.


What a load of complete rubbish! Study abroad programme in a Middle
Eastern country left me jaded, sun burnt and sexually harassed because
Arab men tend to think Desi women all run around the fields in skimpy
lehenga-cholis like they do in the Bollywood films!


Instead of finding any sense of camaraderie with Arab Muslims, I
came out of the programme convinced (and remain true to that conviction
till today) that religion can never overcome cultural, class,
political differences. We can only overcome these differences through
humanity and mutual respect, and not religion.


So I did what anyone in my situation would do — like the prodigal daughter, I returned to the motherland.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh of my childhood and pre-college days had
dramatically changed. War criminals of 1971 were a part of the ruling
coalition, and massive corruption characterised the economy. People
were flaunting religion (sudden proliferation of Bismillah,
Alhamdullilah, Mashallah in every sentence; the Khoda Hafez vs. Allah
Hafez debates, etc.) and money everywhere, all the time. One could actually see the change in the physical make up of Dhaka and its peripheries.


More women were donning the niqab and more men were bearded. What
was a simple gathering of Tablighi Muslims became hyped up as an
important gathering for all Muslims. Roads and highways were being
blocked, airports were making special arrangements for those attending
the Akheeri Monajaat. State and culture were making spaces for this
revival of an Islamic identity that had almost nothing to do with
Bengali Muslim identity.


In addition to the rise of political Islam, two generations of
migrant workers had established a new globalised middle class. No
longer do the middle class ideologues reside in the post war 1970s/80s
Bengali ethnicity dominated identity. This new middle class is
mushrooming in peri-urban and urban spaces. Suddenly we find in the
middle of Habiganj, 2000-people accommodating community centres at
every union with at least one wedding in a quarter having the groom
arriving in a helicopter.


When the national leaders are too busy with political mudslinging in
the Parliament and local government bodies are too confused to
implement any project without directives from the central government,
it is the new middle class in the graam-gonjo putting up the schools,
the small businesses, generating employment and influencing the masses.


When the migrant worker returns from Dubai after 20 years with cash
in his pockets and sets up a madrassah that shelters and feeds at least
50 children from extremely poor households in his village, who cares
about Sufism, secularism and ekattorer chetona?

What does it all mean?

I am not sure what it all means.


When I read the World Bank report on how madrassahs have contributed
to the literacy achievements of Bangladeshi children, I am confused as
to whether I should rejoice that more children can read or write, or
be thoroughly worried that secular education could not meet the demands
of the people. After all, major NGOs such as BRAC are working closely
with maulanas at the community level and “empowering” them to give
positive messages in their khutba and waz because people still consider
them as the guardians to the gates of heaven.


I am also not sure of the old school secularists who will almost to
prove a point, take an atheist standpoint, put up the overtly Bengali
outlook and thus present secularism as a space for the educated, those
with pedigree. There is a real disconnect between the secular discourse
of Bangladesh and the grassroots level realities. More and more, it
has become an either/or situation.


But I also have no time for this post-modern, all is fine, all is
acceptable, all is fluid stand without a stand (!). While identities
are fluid and should not be constrained to binaries, discourses require
a clear vision that is in a great lacking. This vacuum is primarily
because of the limited spaces we have to openly argue without being
tagged with partisanship and/or being politically persecuted.
………….

Link: http://dpwriters.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/sufi-of-suburbia-struggles-of-a-muslim-identity-in-bangladesh/#more-559

……

regards