Politics

Why Indian ‘liberals’ aren’t quite liberal

Vir Sanghvi makes an immensely valid point here:

Every liberal I know argued that MF Husain had the right to paint a naked Saraswati or a nude Bharat Mata. Yet, hardly any liberal of my acquaintance extended the same principle to the Danish cartoons. The liberal position was that Hindus should be tolerant of the manner in which their gods and goddesses were portrayed but that Muslims were right to complain about any visual representation of the Prophet Mohammed.

By ‘liberal’, of course, he is referring to the Leftists who have appropriated that term (both in India and the US), and are hardly liberal in the classical sense. So while liberalism is all about individual freedoms, many Indian ‘liberals’ are actually against economic freedom, and their support for social freedoms depends on convenience. As Sanghvi points out, many of them have double standards, speaking out for free speech on issues where the BJP is involved, but being silent when people of other religions act in an equally repugnant manner. As I wrote here, such ad-hoc support does nothing for the cause.

(Readers of this blog would know that I invite abuse from intolerant people everywhere by speaking up against violations of free speech regardless of the religion of the violators: one of the most-read posts on this blog is the one speaking up for the Danish cartoonists, and I’ve expressed myself on the subject adequately in “Don’t Insult Pasta” and “Fighting Against Censorship”.)

What gets my youthful goat, however, is when Hindutva supporters use the hypocrisy of some of the protesters against the Baroda incidents to distract from the larger issue of oppression and free speech. Focussing on people instead of issues is a typical diversionary tactic, and I think they would be much better off simply stating, “We do not believe in free speech. We believe our religious sentiments are more important than your individual freedoms. So there.” That would at least be an honest position, and would address the issues involved. But public discourse in India focusses more on personality than on issues, ignoring arguments while attacking the people making them. Pity.

(My posts on the Baroda incidents: “Fascism in Baroda.” “Only live in fear.” “The Hindutva Rashtra.”)

Suckers!

The New York Times reports:

The United States is continuing to make large payments of roughly $1 billion a year to Pakistan for what it calls reimbursements to the country’s military for conducting counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan, even though Pakistan’s president decided eight months ago to slash patrols through the area where Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are most active.

[…] So far, Pakistan has received more than $5.6 billion under the program over five years, more than half of the total aid the United States has sent to the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, not counting covert funds.

As I’d written in my essay, “General Musharraf’s incentives,” the carrots aren’t working. And the US is too scared to try the stick, having bought Musharraf’s bluff of après him le déluge. And so it goes…

(Link via email from Manish Vij, who has recently returned to the US, and after numerous emails about how his broadband is 82 times faster than mine, has started sending me screenshot evidence. Fug you, Mr Vij. Fug you and your broadband. We have culture and family values here in India. You can stig your broadband you know where, and make that broad too. So there.)

Mumbai buses blamed for blasts in Hyderabad

There have been bomb blasts in Hyderabad, at the the Mecca Masjid compound near the Charminar. Shivraj Patil has said that a crude bomb caused the blast, while AP chief minister, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, has stated the obvious.

Meanwhile, back in Mumbai, some chaps have reacted to this by stoning buses in Kurla. Why? What have buses in Kurla got to do with it? Have buses planned these attacks? Do we even know yet who has carried out these attacks? Who are we stoning?

I think I’m just going to go and get stoned now. If anything significant happens on this story, I’ll update this post and maybe make it sticky.

The Hindutva Rashtra

This is the 14th installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.

This is the text of a speech given by Shri Adolf Shah at the Baroda University on 17 May 2022.

Dear Friends

I welcome you to Baroda University for this special ceremony. This day marks the eighth anniversary of Shri Neeraj Jain’s appointment as vice-chancellor of this university by our honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. We have seen some glorious days under him, and have grown almost analogously with our Hindu Rashtra, as India has officially been for the last decade. Indeed, these two stories are interlinked, and if you permit me, I shall take you through some of our most glorious moments. The monitor on top of the stage will instruct you when to clap; please do so.

Shri Jain first came to our notice when he protested against some paintings at the now long-defunct fine arts faculty around 15 years ago. Shri Jain said the paintings offended his religious sensibilities, and his valiant thugs manhandled the painter, who was sent to jail. Many people protested, including the dean of the faculty, who, in contrast with protesters of later years, was lucky to get away with just a suspension. It was an important moment for us, for reasons other than just the emergence of Mr Jain.

You see, what is Hindutva all about? Please do not think it is about Hinduism, though that was our official line until recently. Hinduism has a rich culture with a tolerance for diversity, and is thus of no use to us. No, Hindutva arose not from our cultural heritage or rubbish like that, but from our need to cement our place in the world. Our critics would say that we were insecure. I would say that we merely wanted respect from the world for what we were.

Look at the history of the world and see how other religions have asserted themselves. Non-Christians slept in fear during the crusades. Women and moderate people were equally uneasy in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule there. Osama bin Laden used Islam to terrorize people, George Bush invoked a Christian god for his War against Terror, but what were we Hindus doing? How were we to show that we could be equally oppressive and macho?

Great nations are built not by freedom but by fear (it is an aberration that Hitler’s Germany collapsed and the US is so strong today, and I shall explain why some other day.) To show how strong we are, we had to first subdue our own people. Free expression was a threat to us, and it had to go. And in this, ironically, we were helped by our one-time colonizers, the British.

The Indian Penal Code (IPC), framed by the British in the 19th century and amended constantly through the years to curb freedom, is a masterful document of oppression. We could stifle free speech and dissent in entirely lawful ways, for the IPC actually enables and justifies our thuggery. For example, consider Article 295 (a), which makes it illegal to “outrage religious feelings”. What a wonderful law for us! All we needed to do was claim to speak on behalf of Hinduism and get offended by whatever we felt like. Then boom, put the person in jail, all most lawfully.

Such laws made sure that we were not the only fascists around. There was a climate of intolerance enabled by the IPC, and people were already used to violation of free speech. They would hear about censorship and the banning of books and shrug and say, “What goes of my father?” Thus, no one protested when some Sikh gentlemen used 295 (a) to get the publisher of a Santa and Banta Joke Book jailed. And it seemed natural when Christian groups protested against the Da Vinci Code, and when Muslim groups railed against cartoons in Denmark. All that suited us perfectly. Once oppression became commonplace and accepted as routine, who stood to benefit the most? We did!

And so, one by one, we shut them up. Yes, they protested, but their protests were ad hoc. When the government—not ours, I’m afraid—blocked the most popular blog-hosting sites, bloggers protested. When Shri Jain rose up in Vadodara, artists protested. But mostly they protested only when they were directly affected, and did not come together for the larger cause of individual freedom. Even with regular protesters, there was that delightful phenomenon we now call “protest fatigue”. How much can you protest, especially when it seems futile? Eventually, they gave up, defeated not by concentration camps, but by apathy.

And look at the result! In India, we have a Hindu Rashtra which, of course, is really a Hindutva Rashtra, and in Vadodara we have no artists anymore. This must be celebrated, and the efforts of people such as Shri Neeraj Jain must be acclaimed. And yet, the way we planned it, and the way the odds were stacked in our favour, I ask you one question: Could it have been any different?

My earlier posts on the Baroda affair: “Fascism in Baroda.” “Only live in fear.” Also read: “Don’t insult pasta” and “Fighting against censorship.”

Question of the day

Why is the average age at nudist camps steadily rising?

My guess is that young people come to check it out, find themselves surrounded by older, fatter people, and don’t bother to turn up again. Meanwhile, older, fatter people who turn up see people like themselves, and feel comfortable enough to return. It’s a vicious circle—or a virtuous one if you don’t like youngsters around.

And what if someone started a nudist camp in India? My guess is that there would be no women and 80,000 men, all craning their necks madly to spot the women they fantasized about, and discreetly checking out each other’s, um, size. Social networking in the buff, until the moral police descends and points out that nudity is against Indian culture.

(Link via email from Abhinav.)

Only live in fear

The placard in the picture below, from the protest in Mumbai about the Chandramohan affair, says it all (click to enlarge):

image

My summary of the events that led to the protest is in the post, “Fascism in Baroda.” The turnout at the protest was immensely encouraging, and Ranjit Hoskote and gang did a great job of organising it. Senior artists like Tyeb Mehta, Jehangir Sabawala and Jaideep Mehrotra turned up, and I spotted many younger artists among those gathered, such as Riyaz Komu, Payal Khandwala, Apnavi Thaker, Julius Macwan and Dhruvi Acharya. There were also others like Syed Mirza, Anil Dharkar, Pratap Sharma and Keku Gandhi present. A few speeches were made. The people gathered seemed attentive, and committed.

I have two concerns, though.

One, in rightly condemning the gundas, I worry that we might forget about the laws that enable such gundagardi in the first place. The Indian Penal Code has simply too many draconian laws that need to be scrapped, starting with Section 295 (a). These are not archaic laws that rarely gets used: As I outlined in my piece, “Don’t Insult Pasta,” these laws have been invoked with alarming regularity in recent times.

Two, I worry that protests such as these might turn out to be ad-hoc events, and not part of a broad-based movement to defend free speech. For example, as Peter pointed out in a chat when I mentioned this worry, when Blogspot was blocked by the Indian government, many bloggers rose up in arms because they were affected, but have not been heard from since. Similarly, the artist community has rallied superbly behind their man, but will they show the same commitment towards free speech if the moral police attacks someone from another profession tomorrow? For example, how many people protested when the publisher of a joke book was thrown in jail because the “religious sentiments” of some people were offended?

The issues here run deeper than one bunch of goons attacking one painter and his work. I hope the scope of the protest expands beyond that.

Fascism in Baroda

I suppose many of you would be familiar with the recent events in Baroda. An internal evaluation of students is on at the Fine Arts Faculty in Baroda. A BJP leader named Neeraj Jain storms in with a bunch of gundas. He has a problem with some paintings by a student named Chandramohan that use religious imagery. Jain and his gundas beat up Chandramohan, and abuse faculty members and students. Things are getting out of hand when the police arrive. They will surely arrest Jain and put an end to this, you would think.

But no, they arrest the painter, for his art is the crime under the Indian Penal Code, not the hooliganism showed by Jain and his cohorts. Chandramohan is whisked off to jail. Five days later, as I type these words, he is still behind bars.

The artist community obviously rises up, and organises an exhibition documenting erotica in Indian and Western art. It is a peaceful way of showing their protest. The pro-vice-chancellor of the university arrives and demands that the exhibition be terminated. The dean of the faculty, Dr Shivaji Panikkar, takes a stand and refuses to do so. He is suspended. As I type these words, he is in hiding, worried about what the ruffians could do to him.

The matter is being followed at Art Concerns, who have a detailed chronology of events up here. Do also read what Gulammohammed Sheikh and Johny ML have to say, as well as this piece by Abhijeet Tamhane. Peter Griffin has more links here, as well as details of a public protest I intend to be part of in Mumbai.

My feelings on this will be known to regular readers of India Uncut, and have been laid out in pieces like “Don’t Insult Pasta” and “Fighting Against Censorship”, as well as many posts (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) It is ludicrous that giving offence is a crime in India, and shameful that the Indian Penal Code actually enables this suppression of free speech, and empowers oppression. For Chandramohan the artist to be in jail for five days (so far) and for Neeraj Jain the gunda to walk free is a slap on the face of all those who think that our nation respects and protects individual freedom.

No doubt some readers will be upset that I used the word “Fascism” in the headline to this post. Well, I hesitated before doing so, wondering if such a strong word was advisable. Then I went to the Wikipedia entry on Fascism, and came across this excellent definition by Robert Paxton (from this book):

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

The Wikipedia article then quotes Paxton as summing up the essence of Fascism thus:

1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination.

All this sounds immensely familiar to me. And so I shall end by quoting the end of got bail, but I am informed that things are still tense in Baroda. The protest there has been called off, but is very much on in Mumbai at least.

The Devil’s Compassion

This is the 12th installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.

This is the transcript of a speech given by the demon Beelzebub at the 90th Annual Convention of Demonic Beings.

Comrades and Monsters,

Welcome. I can barely express my joy at the unspeakable horror of being present among such hideous monsters as yourselves – demonic beings dedicated to the ruin and damnation of humanity. In various ways, under the cunning guise of doing good, we have brought sadness and misery upon humanity. We have perpetuated poverty, hatred and ill-health. I wish today, for the sake of the young apprentice beasts present here, to speak about our primary tool of achieving all this: Compassion.

Humans, you see, are fooled by appearances. Come to them as a wrinkled monster with horns, and they recoil. Pretend to be a loving grandpa, and their defences are down. We senior demons realised long ago that to hurt the humans, we have to pretend to care for them. Even as we have nothing but their marination in mind, we must appear compassionate. Stating the most noble intent, we must unleash the very worst of policies. Even better, we must fool some humans, who themselves wish to appear compassionate, into pushing these very policies.

And how we have succeeded! Everywhere there are politicians sincerely pushing well-intentioned policies that are disastrous for the people they are supposed to help. Of course, some people see through our evil designs and protest, but they are dismissed as cruel and uncaring, for they are questioning compassion itself. The irony!

A good example of this comes from Kolkata, a city you must be familiar with. The government there is outlawing all rickshaws pulled by men, because they feel it is “inhuman for a human being to carry another in this day and age,” as their mayor recently said. How caring this seems! And yet, this policy will put 18,000 rickshaw pullers out of a job that they preferred to all other options available to them. Now, that is inhuman. Joy!

Hell be praised, the same logic has long been used to protest sweatshops and call centers and dance bars. The people working there are being “robbed of their dignity,” we are told. Those pretending to care about them would love to deny them of the best options available to them, thus pushing them into a worse existence, and they often succeed. When dance bars were outlawed in Maharashtra – another of my favourite weapons, morality, played a leading role in that decision – many dancers went into prostitution.

Ah, Maharashtra! Mumbai is particularly dear to me as a demonstration of what compassion can achieve: Just see the misery rent control has inflicted there. It was supposed to protect tenants from evil landlords, but by restricting the supply of housing, has driven up rents, made affordable housing scarce, and made slums inevitable. Even more, it has disincentivised landlords from looking after rent-controlled houses, some of which are close to falling apart. Gravity is an invention of hell, I am proud to remind you!

India has many such price controls, which inevitably distort our enemy, the free market. These apply not just to goods but also to labour – how noble these legislators feel when they bring about a minimum wage, or support labour laws that dry up the supply of jobs and hurt the ones they’re supposed to help: the workers.

India’s redistributive schemes are also a devilish masterstroke, based on the principle, “Steal from the Rich and Pretend to Give to the Poor.” Actually our unknowing stooges, India’s well-meaning and compassionate politicians and bureaucrats, steal from everybody, and the money they steal has a cost: It acts as a disincentive to those it is stolen from, and would often have helped the poor more if simply left with the taxpayer.

The social policies we promote are as much of a slow poison as our economics. Why redistribute only wealth when one can redistribute opportunities as well? Consider reservations in India: Under the guise of being compassionate towards castes that have been discriminated against, reservations perpetuate thinking along caste lines, and increase awareness of and animus towards other castes. Some individuals benefit at the cost of other individuals, and they cancel each other out. But the hatred that is spread at the injustice, ah, priceless! (They even call it social justice! How noble they feel!)

There is lots more to say, and I could speak of India for eons, so much harm has been caused there under the guise of compassion. But I shall end here, for I know that you are looking forward to your repast. Let us move onwards to the dining room, my friends, where India’s poor have been laid out on the dining table. Let us feast!

The committee decides everything!

Karan Thapar is grilling Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi on banning FTV. The following delightful exchange takes place:

Karan Thapar: When does taste become good and bad?

Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi: When the committee feels it’s good, it’s good, when it feels its bad it’s bad.

Haysoos! This is a parody of itself. What comment can writers like me possibly make?

(Link via email from Gautam John.)

Discarded poetry causes terror alert

Actually, the dark skin of the poetry discarder was the problem here. Not the poetry, which would be entirely more understandable, given how most poetry is.

Imagine if one day everyone wakes up to find that their skin colour has changed. All the whites are black, all the blacks are white, all the browns are also white, all the yellows are also white, even chimpanzees and gorillas are white. What fun, no?

(Link via Amitava Kumar.)