Responding to Chetan Bhagat

What is a moderate Indian Muslim to do? @Chetan_Bhagat

Published Online: Dec 29, 2014

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http://www.milligazette.com/news/11503-what-is-a-moderate-india-muslim-to-do-chetan_bhagat

Proclaiming “It’s not moderate Muslims’ fault”, in an uncharacteristically generous moment pop-pundit of Hindutva, Chetan Bhagat, lets moderate Muslims off the hook, even as he sets the stage characteristically for reviling their religion alongside. To quote him in full flow: “religion (Islam) gets associated with terror, hate, intolerance and violence. Even though people from other religions don’t say it, you (Muslims) can feel their prejudice towards you. With every incident, your religion gets more tainted.”

With a typical sleight of hand, that somehow always escapes his presumably loyal following of his column “The underage optimist” in a national daily, he absolves the “moderate Muslim,” resignedly sighing: “What is a moderate Muslim to do?”

Before answering the question, let’s first turn the question round and ask Mr. Bhagat, in the context of what is happening in India under the champion he has been cheer leader for, “What is a moderate Hindu to do?”

Your religion, Mr. Bhagat, is increasingly in danger of being hijacked by extremists. Absent intervention by the Mr. Bhagat’s champion, can it be taken that this takeover of Hinduism by a narrow, right-wing philosophy has government imprimatur? The assault on minorities is the obvious part of what is happening.

What is actually happening is the subversion of Hinduism from the inside. Its tolerance and broad philosophical streams within are being slowly and surely contaminated.

What is a moderate Hindu to do? Is he to keep up his political support for Mr. Modi who is presiding over all this in the hope that economic dividend will sweep such social costs under the carpet? Or is he to speak up, stand up and be counted, before his religion is distorted? While Mr. Bhagat believing people associate “terror, hate, intolerance and violence” with Islam, thinking people will never ascribe distortion resulting from cultural nationalism to Hinduism, one of the humanity’s great succours. They will place the blame where it rightly belongs, at politics door. 

Mr. Bhagat will be well advised to use his prolific pen introspectively to sermonise for the moderate Hindu, who has handed over power to Mr. Modi, to rethink timely. It is not only Hinduism at stake; it is over time the nation. The relatively greater power that moderate Hindus have to preserve Hinduism - in contrast to the moderate Muslim’s ability to preserve Islam from extremism within and Islamophobia without - implies that they can do much more and should do so. Should the silent majority of moderate Hindus remain silent, leaving the defence of their faith to a minority of active, courageous, secular-minded Hindus alone? Can these stalwart guardians of Hinduism match the government-backed politico-cultural formations running rampage across India? Mr. Bhagat, do answer: “What is the moderate Hindu to do?”

Leaving Mr. Bhagat with a taste of his own medicine, it is worth dissecting his answer. He believes that moderate Muslims cannot reclaim their faith. It requires the “UN and NATO” and “an organisation equivalent to the UN for all the world’s religions, backed by world leaders.” Since the NATO is part of the problem, Mr. Bhagat’s referring to it as a knight in shining armour reveals his lack of political sense, easily attributable to his IIT-IIM, and therefore technical as against political, background. As for the UN, it is indeed doing all it can. Since a “UN of world religions” makes little sense – perhaps his allusion to inter-faith dialogue – we shall let it pass here.

Clearly, then Mr. Bhagat has no answer to his question: “what can be done?” Which brings one back full circle to the beginning: to the aim behind his article.

It is apparent that it is Mr. Bhagat’s smoke-screen to cover what is happening in India by alighting on what happened in Pakistan, and then typically riding off on his favourite hobby horse, minority-bashing.

But then, since he has raised the question of significance for readers of this journal, the answer bears an attempt on two levels: one is internal to India in relation to the onslaught on Hinduism and India, and the second, external, in relation to the problem that defies Mr. Bhagat.

Internally, India’s moderate Muslim majority has to stay engaged with moderate Hindus, strengthening them strategically against their rabid counterparts. The first ones to take a hit will be this, vocal secular Hindu minority. Once they are silenced, Hinduism would be up for grabs with the secular Hindu majority bought off with the economic sops that they voted Mr. Modi into power for. Since Muslims will be next in the queue, the majoritarian nationalists will rely on provocations to gain an excuse to tamp down the minority to second class citizenship.

Moderate Muslims have their task cut out. They are to in the interim emerge as the leadership of Muslims so as to prevent such an outcome over the middle term. They are to work in tandem with the secular Hindu vocal minority in arousing the secular Hindu silent majority to deploy its vote, this time to overthrow the pretender who has taken over their faith and country in their name.  

Externally, Mr. Bhagat’s reliance on the NATO as an answer suggests that moderate Muslims need to dispel the argument for a “military solution,” an oxymoron if ever there was one.

The heinous act in Peshawar that set Mr. Bhagat off on his article was not without a context. Part of the context has been persistence of colonialism in the form of external interference and military presence in Muslim lands in general and in the region in particular.

Clearly, while there is every call for the terrorists who planned and perpetrated this crime, and such likes crimes in the region including in India, need to be administered their just deserts, other measures than military ones need highlighting and pursuing alongside. Ending the militarised environment in such lands is the answer. Take for instance the AfPak region. This crime originated partially in lack of the peace surge accompanying Mr. Obama’s military surge. If the former had kept pace in terms of developmental and educational efforts in the “ungoverned space” between Pakistan and Afghanistan, such crimes would have been prevented. To wit, firstly, moderate Muslims world-wide have to fight this notion that terrorism has only a military solution. Secondly, moderate Muslims in India need to weigh-in against cultural nationalism-inspired strategic and intelligence pro-activism on India’s part. 

And finally, back to Mr. Bhagat’s platitudinous comparison, “that Hindu radical groups don’t have as much power as Muslim radical groups do around the world at present.” Unlike Muslim radical groups that are pursued and hunted by respective states across Muslim lands, Hindu radicals instead have the power of a nuclear armed state being placed at their disposal by its very government! They have fulfilled the epitome of Tzun Tsu’s art of war: taken over the government of a nuclear power and without a fight, democratically empowered by the secular, but silent, Hindu majority, sadly bought off by the mere promise of “acche din”!

messiah modi

Messiah Modi: What to make of him?

Milligazette, 1-15 September 2014

http://www.milligazette.com/print/issue/1-15-september-2014

‘What is one to make of Pradhan Sevak Modi?’ is a question puzzling many. The RSS supremo has already gone public with his rejoinder to the BJP stalwart and former colleague, Mr. Modi’s characterisation of his electoral victory. Clearly, the RSS is also trying to cope with the Modi phenomenon. How the pariwar’s internal politics turn out will determine the immediate term in which Mr. Modi tries to extend his domination from the BJP to the wider Hindutva fraternity.

Central to this fight will be Mr. Modi’s attempt to dislodge the RSS’s claims on him by forging a direct link with his constituency, bypassing the RSS, his erstwhile support structure. The strategy he is using is to present himself as Messiah Modi, the Pradhan Sevak of India’s masses. The RSS for its part will try and keep its institutional control over him and his party. Bhagwat has already reminded Mr. Modi that the election victory was not about individuals. The contention can well end up over time as India’s own ‘night of long knives’, as Hitler’s purging of the Brown Shirts is known to history. In this case it would be Modi’s overthrowing ‘khaki chaddis’.

However, this article is more about the consternation within the Muslim community. What are we to make of Messiah Modi? We already have a view on this. Mr. Sirajuddin Qureishi, head of the India Islamic Cultural Center in Delhi, has opined that, ‘Muslims have started rethinking about their attitude towards the NDA government led by Prime Minister Modi.’ A press release from the IICC indicates that Mr. Qureishi was speaking at the independence day function of his institution, that is incidentally, so heavily subscribed that it has stopped taking applications for new members.

Clearly, Mr. Qureishi is a victim of the Modi puzzle. Mr. Modi in presenting himself as an individual, a messiah no less, without the ideological and institutional baggage of the parivar, has attempted to collapse the distinction between him and the government. This process has been on since the elections with the BJP campaign not talking of a BJP government, as much as a Modi one. Its president had to change his tweet within minutes of soliciting votes for the BJP substituting Modi for BJP. Therefore, if Mr. Qureishi confuses India’s government for Mr. Modi’s government, he can be forgiven.

However, the distinction is pertinent. Mr. Modi heads the government temporarily, as Bhagwat reminded him, till the next elections, when the people could also  show him the door in case they want change. The government of India however remains. Therefore, there is no call for Muslims to change their attitude to the government. It can only remain positive and mutually supportive. Since Mr. Modi has promised a developmentalist agenda, it is one that Muslims can partake of. Therefore, there is no call for a change in attitude. 

Now in so far as Mr. Modi is concerned, he has given no reason for Muslims to change their attitude. He has not expressed remorse for presiding over the carnage of fellow community members of his state. This attitude of his was exemplified by refusal to wear a muslim headgear despite his penchant lately for ethnic headgear, the latest being the red Jodhpuri safa sported by him at the ramparts of Red Fort. We know that this lack of remorse was to profit from a vote bank of the majority community, relying on the inroads the sangh parivar has made, with his active participation as a pracharak, over the past three decades. The election victory itself is outcome of polarisation attributed to his close aide, Mr. Shah, now elevated to head India’s ruling party.

Islam enjoins forgiveness, but in this case cannot be bestowed without evidence of any contriteness. In fact, the contrary is the case. The message from the election victory is that Mr. Modi does not need Muslim votes. He in fact can do without them, so as to keep his vote bank in the majority community intact. This is also evident from his independence day speech. Take for instance the call for a ten year moratorium (gives an indication of his intention to remain in power for at least a decade) on casteism and communalism. On the face of it this is unexceptional. However, it would be naïve to take a commensurate politician as Mr. Modi at face value. Since the BJP and its upper caste support base does not own up to casteism, this is more a reference to the parties and support base relying on backward castes. They are being exhorted to give up casteism so as to bring about the majority’s unity, and forge it into an unbreakable voter war chest for Mr. Modi.

By analogy, the communalism Mr. Modi is talking of is not that of the majority community. He has  been reticent on this for the past three months, despite calls for him to declare that he  has ended his association with his erstwhile communalist camp, the pariwar. Nothing of the sort has happened so far, implying that the communalism being referred to is that of the minority community. This yet again is part of the wider project of ‘peace, unity and harmony’ in which harmony is in acceptance of Muslims being Hindus, by Goa deputy chief minister’s definition of Indian. Even the President’s independence day reference to Shivaji’s letter to Aurangzeb asking for discarding jaziya suggests as much. The president in our system is mouthpiece of the government. Muslims now, as then, are being required to shed their intolerance. Then there will be ‘unity and harmony’. Clearly, the moratorium on communalism will be one sided.

Therefore, Muslims need to wait till Mr. Modi explicitly directs his message on communalism on his erstwhile camp followers, the RSS. This may well happen and will signify the culmination of palace politics of the pariwar. Even were Mr. Modi to take on the pariwar, there is the judicial accounting for a thousand lives. There is no question of changing attitude to Mr. Modi. Muslims need to wait out Mr. Modi’s innings at the helm, under which he would enjoy immunity from the legal pincers that were closing on him and his aide. Since he will head the government for the duration, till the RSS-Modi spat potentially upturns both, at the next elections, Muslims can only continue to engage the government, without mistaking it as Modi’s government.

It remains the government of India and shall continue to command Muslim respect and loyalty. Muslims will participate in its poverty elimination and development agenda. Of course, alongside we must eliminate intolerance that is within us as it is in all individuals and communities universally, if only to be true Muslims. Mr. Qureishi and his privileged compatriots at the elite institution on Lodi Road are at liberty to make of Mr. Modi as they please, including falling for his projection of himself as Messiah Modi. 

life under modi

Life under Modi

By Firdaus Ahmed

Milligazette, 1-15 May 2014, Vol. 15 No.9 Issue Serial # 343

It is not certain if Mr. Modi’s grasp of physics comes across in the comic book, Bal Narendra. That his sense of physics informs his politics has been brought home to all pretty clearly by Mr. Modi himself in his referring to the Godhra aftermath as being brought on as ‘reaction’ to the ‘action’ at Godhra. The sentence joins in infamy the supposed quote of Rajiv Gandhi that when a tree falls the earth shakes. While it is plausible that Rajiv Gandhi never quite said what is attributed to him by motivated forces, Mr. Modi’s will not on that count remain alone. It has since been joined by his inimitable expression of his feelings on the death of a thousand Muslims on his watch in his home state as how one feels on the death of a puppy under the wheels of one’s speeding car.

This is the authentic Mr. Modi. Through election time in India that his phrasing has been considerably more circumspect owes less to his reforming himself, but due to the fact that those in his corner have tutored him against straying too far from what can be considered merely conservative views to the views he may otherwise be more comfortable with, those further to the right. Since Mr. Modi needs their ballast for now, he is playing along and, if media is to be believed and opinion polls given any credence, increasing his acceptability as a conservative champion in the mould of a Patel and a Vajpayee. 

Answer to the critical question ‘What will life be like under Modi?’ is displacing the question ‘Who is the real Modi?’ Prospects of gains to be made under Modi make the latter irrelevant. Middle classes that may have largely contributed to his ascent can look forward to gains in a corporate takeover of the land. Peopling the capitalist innards he promises to give full play to puts them squarely among the pickings. Hindus of rightist persuasion will be looking for psychological dividends in the form of a break out from their self-inflicted minority complex. Those of the upper caste will have got their champion to lay the Mayawatis and Mulayams of the lower human clay to dust. While some hope for India’s own Thatcher-Reagan era, others are pining for a very own Indian ‘Dubya’ Bush. Those linked to the national security establishment can then expect their windfall years begun under Vajpayee to continue.

Since this is a relatively narrow band of voters in relation to the number and diversity of India’s electorate, Modi and his campaign managers have astutely taken care not to rely on these sections alone. They have let lose Amit Shah and the Sangh into the dust belt with a more potent opiate of the masses: religion with a dash of nationalism. Thus both Indias, that of the multiplex going classes and mufussil cinema going masses, are being worked on to place Modi in 7, Race Course Road.

The resulting marriage has potential to come apart. Sanghis on the campaign trail will want their piece of the governance action. Some among them have been swadeshi (anti-globalisation). These two areas will breed discord with the upper crust buoy of Modi. This section wants second generation economic reforms. It would not like being embarrassed by reactionary demands of the parivar on Modi’s government.

It is at this juncture that the question of ‘Who is Modi really?’ will kick in. If he is as worldly as his selection of kurtas (tunics) suggests, then he would will allow regressive forces that claim propriety over him only as much leeway as to keep them distracted and contained. If it is the other way round, and Modi is being used by these forces to gain the support of the upper crust to take control of the state, then the reverse is liable to happen with the befooled upper classes being shown their place.

In either case, there is trouble ahead. In case Modi is hijacked by the conservative classes, then the diversion of the masses can only feed an inward frenzy against minorities in their midst. The backlash in the form of a leftist counter to his economic policies, that promise a freewheeling playfield for the business class, will expand instability from its current confines in the forests of central India into towns and cities. This denouement may not In case he turns out a creature of the Sangh, then he would use his new found state authority to keep the surprised murmurings of the educated middle and upper classes backing him now in check, in a manner he has already mastered over three tenures of rule in Gujarat. In both cases, the national security argument will be to fore. 

Though the real Modi will surface after the elections whitewash rubs off, it would be too late to find out who he is. The answer is wrapped up in the riddle of where he was when he abandoned his marriage, leaving reportedly for wandering across the land: in the Himalayas, if you please. It remains to be seen if these early impressions then have been watered down by his later day association with the likes of Adani.

Here the surmise is that Modi by his lights will begin well enough: keeping the economy in his sights; talking to Pakistan and China; following up with his feelers in Kashmir to the likes of Geelani; getting a computer to complement the Quran among Muslim youth; gaining a vice like grip over national security agencies; making both his horses, the BJP and the Sangh, fall in line; and cornering the Gandhis, with Mr. Vadra providing a ready opening. It’s by middle of his first innings that the predicted cracks will begin to show and it is into his second term that India will begin falling apart.

How so? The hijack by the business classes will be resented by the right wing, who will take it out on the minorities. Modi’s economic measures will generate have-nots, forming a constituency for left-wing extremists. The haves will cover behind a garrison state. Modi for his part will emerge in his true colours, mostly saffron and mostly acquired in his wanderings, to use the right against the left at the expense of his current-day advantaged followers.

Late Khushwant Singh’s wisdom in entitling a book The End of India, will reinforce his posthumous reputation.  It is then the likes of Chetan Bhagat will regret their inability to look beyond showing the dynasty the door to the great demoralisation a-coming. 

strategy for the modi era

Strategising for the Modi Era

By Firdaus Ahmed, The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: May 17, 2014

http://www.milligazette.com/news/10414-strategising-for-the-modi-era-indian-muslims

From their allowing Modi the benefit of doubt, it may appear that Hindus who have voted to propel him to power with an untrammelled majority have let their Muslim brethren down. This could prove disappointing for Muslims if taken to heart. However, it would be a travesty were Muslims to give up on the good sense of their Hindu counterparts. It is best therefore for Muslims to also give Hindu voters who backed Modi the benefit of doubt and give them a second chance at the next hustings.

Modi’s exceptional mandate can be taken as a chance for him to make good on his promise of development and good governance. His media and corporate backers convinced people to look towards him to replicate the so-called ‘Gujarat model’, in particular in UP and Bihar that have seen a relative decline in comparison to southern and western India. Clearly, Modi is on trial and will attempt to deliver with the expectation of another shot at the top in the next elections.

Since it would not do for Muslims, already among the deprived, to be left out of any advances that India may make, Muslims would need to reconcile with the majority verdict and participate to the extent feasible. The condition for such an engagement can only be on the footing of equality. This may be necessary since there may be a programme afoot to make any sops of development coming the way of Muslims conditional on their exhibition of either subordination or national loyalty. Since Muslims have no call to bow, they need to engage with the regime straight backed. This would deter any aggression in the regime even as it accepts Muslim offer of joining shoulders in the promise of national development as equals and partners.

Aware that secularists have been complacent in keeping Muslims backward, the new regime can be taken as an opportunity for conditional engagement to better the lot of common Muslims. Not doing so would lead to another five years of waste and, who knows, even a decade. Also, keeping an open mind will ensure that the regime does not get an excuse to lock Muslims out of any gains India may make. Concerted community action will also deter those in their own midst who may be out to sow discord. Instead, a positive outreach may assure the majority community of Muslims’ continuing faith in their judgment. After all, majority-minority relations remaining in good health is the best guarantor of minority security. It is also a sign of respect for Indian democracy that Muslims abide by the choice of the majority.

Clearly, this cannot be unconditional. Modi would require proving capable of reining in the Hindutva brigade. This is a tall order since their backing of Modi has been as consequential as corporate power and money to have taken him to the top. Modi’s own personal predilections, evident in his adamant refusal to take responsibility for the Gujarat carnage and to reach out to Muslims as a leader with national aspirations, will perhaps be asking too much from him. However, respecting the people’s mandate must imply that Muslims allow Modi to make amends, perhaps not visibly, but in practice by ensuring Muslims their rightful share of any growth in the national pie. Therefore, the first stone must not be cast by Muslims. Modi must be allowed to fail on his own so that the majority community shows him the door next time round as resoundingly as it has ushered him in.

This is not impossible to visualise. Rajiv Gandhi squandered his mandate of greater proportions by getting into a communal quagmire by opening the locks of the Babri Masjid. His twist towards neo-liberalism in the mid-eighties led up eventually to India having to send out gold by air to UK banks lest it default on loan repayments. Since Modi has promised a decisive turn to neo-liberalism under a second generation reform package, that it would create an army of ‘have nots’ can well be imagined. Authoritarianism is the expectation of his corporate backers to push through these reforms. It is not a coincidence that the Gujarat model in which Modi ran a fearful administration has been chosen by them for India. The outcome cannot but be in expanding the foothold of Maoists from their rimlands in central India into the Indian heartland of towns and cities.

Also, there is the Hindutva dividend that his RSS mentors will demand. Modi may have to at a minimum give them sops whereby they can stay out of his developmental agenda with their swadeshi ideology and confine themselves to a cultural reset of India. This may lead to a confrontation with Muslims since in the main the RSS fixation is to take ‘revenge’, in the words of Modi’s UP campaign manager, Amit Shah, on Muslims for what they consider has been a millennium of subjugation. Therefore, it is possible that despite Muslims putting their best foot forward, if not their right hand itself, they may find the pitch queered for them. The steps that Muslims may then take in safeguarding themselves will then be used against them for invective and hatred. 

In case Muslims were to rethink their strategy, depending on the nature of the Modi regime as it unfolds, it is quite clear that they would not be alone. There would be India’s expanding army of disaffected, those imposed on by the economic ‘reforms’ which in reality will be an oligarchic loot of India’s treasures with Modi as national security and corruption minder. There is little doubt that ethnic minorities such as Kashmiris and Bengalis will feel put upon by Modi’s impending policies on the Article 370 and illegal migration respectively. Pockets of India by voting for regional parties have already demonstrated that they are not enamoured of the so-called Modi ‘wave’. Also, liberals will likely stage a comeback with the majority itself revolted by the initiatives and innovations on the cultural front that Modi’s ideological storm troopers will seek. In particular, the fillip that Brahmanism hopes to receive will prompt its own backlash.

Modi will of course try to avert this inevitability. He will employ media hype to keep the counter narratives under wraps. He will use the suppressive might of the India state for his ends. He will seek time to create the rising tide economically to see him through to another term. This will give majoritarian extremists the time they need to reshape India in their image. Therefore, it is not unlikely that it may take till end of the decade for the cracks to begin to show. Once this happens the regime will seek scapegoats. Muslims are their traditional scapegoats and therefore need to have a prevention and responsive strategy in place by then. There being no call to invite such retribution, Muslims must take care to ensure the regime lacks a justificatory narrative for scapegoating. Consequently, Muslims need to wait out the Modi regime, without backsliding in the interim. At the opportune time, perhaps in the elections after next, they can make their move to, in conjunction with the majority, displace Modi democratically. This will finally and emphatically expose him to justice for 2002. 

Strategy is not an outcome of sulking. It emanates from pragmatism. Even as the regime strategises, Muslims too must reflect. It is not a time either for provocation or hot-headed response to motivated provocation. A time shall come as it must when Muslims, in step with the very majority that has temporarily disregarded Muslim sentiment, will show Modi the door. Awaiting that time is necessary to have India’s majority exhaust any attraction for Hindutva.