The Communist Who Supported Indira Gandhi

Mr. Ruben Banerjee is the real gentleman of Indian journalism. Despite the ‘both-sides’, even Salik Ahmed won’t disagree with me on this. (Perhaps) 

I still haven’t read his latest book #EditorMissing but I have followed Outlook after he took over. Also, a few friends worked with the magazine who tell me how difficult it was for even a big player like Outlook to survive after 2020. They all have left the magazine, just like Mr. Banerjee has. 

I saw his interview with The Wire where he talks about the corporate model of media being the root causes of all problems. Before saying anything, a bit of context is necessary. Banerjee was pushed to resign as the editor of Outlook in extraordinary circumstances. He says that the owners, the Rahejas were under “pressure that they could not handle”. This happened after Outlook published a ‘controversial’ magazine cover in May 2021 with title “Missing” and with the blurb, “Government of India”. The cover went viral and things changed overnight for this gentleman of Indian journalism. The print magazine cover was not uploaded online, thus the owners of Outlook “cannot say they were not under pressure”. 

Meanwhile in the interview, Banerjee broke the myth of the editor, reiterating how vulnerable editors are who survive on the mercy of the owners. Not a very enlightening thing to hear, to be honest, for somebody who has spent three years in AB P News. Toothlessness is something that is admired in the mainstream media today and Banerjee simply reiterated it. 

He then said something striking that took me back to Chiplun, my hometown. He said that editors doing things for the sake of their owners is not a new phenomenon repeating Advani’s famous taunt for “crawling journalists”; that even in the 70s during the Emergency, certain media outlets stood by the government’s side. 

As soon as he said this, only one name rang in my head, that was of late Mr. Bhalchandra Diwadkar, the editor of Konkan’s leading newspaper, ’Sagar’. He was a small heighted man who was full of convictions. About India’s and local politics. He had seen Maharashtra’s politics from close quarters during the Chavhan-Pawar era and had seen the state’s socialist politics. He had told me about him being a “hādā chā communist” and having a radical view of life. 

Although Diwadkar was the editor, ’Sagar’ never got published before it was overlooked by Nishikant Joshi, whom we lovingly call Nana Joshi - the owner of the newspaper. Nana was a Congress MLA who was loyal to Sharad Pawar. His son today is a prime businessman from the region. 

Although a lot younger, Nana loved calling my father a friend as both of them loved discussing politics for long hours. Their friendship also tells us a lot about the pre-internet times, in the late 90s, early 2000s. Because my father worked with Bhaskar Jadhav, a direct opponent of Nana Joshi, but neither of them had a problem. 

Meanwhile, Diwadkar never lost faith of ‘Sagar’ despite his sympathies with the left. Not even during the Emergency of Indira Gandhi. Rather, when I visited him, he was hell bent of explaining how Emergency was needed as the opposition simply was power hungry without really having an agenda. This was said during a long discussion in 2017. 

I remember that discussion today as I listen to Mr. Ruben Banerjee. I listen and I think if Diwadkar sir’s take had anything to do with Nana’s muffling with the Congress and if two sides really exist or is it really only the owner’s side? 

The Age of Generalisations

It was a normal (haha) Saturday morning, when I woke up and went outside the house to get hold of my daily Indian Express. The front page said that today’s was an editorial written by Harsh Mander. As I had the chance of meeting and knowing Mander, I was excited at first to see what the man had to say.

The editorial was about the marginalization of Muslims in India and how the Muslims in India have become politically crippled post-2014. I was sitting in my house in Sukhdev Vihar and reading about the lynching of Muslims in India. Sukhdev Vihar is less than two kilometers away from a Muslim ghetto named Jamia Nagar. A place about which the people of Sukhdev Vihar are absolutely ignorant. Little do they know about what is happening in their neighborhood.

Coming back to the editorial, as Mander argues about his point of Muslims being cornered. His arguments are largely generalized, popular and without giving ample substance to what he speaks. He tries to fit the whole of a community into just one bracket that of being a Muslim. When will the people of this country realize that the problems of Muslims in UP are not at all similar to the problems of Mulsims in Maharashtra, Kerala or say, West Bengal.

While all the other issues in the country are given credit based on their merit, issues relating the Muslims (be it non communal) are always seen just as ‘minority’ issues, especially by the main-stream media. Mander, by his style or way of writing again sees Muslims in India as a single entity. This, according to me is very problematic. “You don’t look like a Muslim.” is a statement I get very frequently from my ‘urban’ friends. Little do they know about how the Muslims in Konkan (my native place) are different from that of Muslims in Delhi or Mumbai. The editorial subconsciously follows the same rhetoric. It solidifies the typical ‘Indian Muslim’ image in the minds of an average city-based reader.

 He says that Sonia Gandhi always followed the ‘secular’ values in her 19-year old political career. This statement itself is a contradiction. The mismanagement of the Gujarat riots case, even after coming back to power in 2004 is one of the major examples. He also talks about the BJP not having a single Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha currently. It is not just about having political leaders at the center of decision-making. What better is a Muslim MP who does no good for the people of his constituency from a Hindu or Christian MP? 

Guha’s pretentiousness?

Who better to put forward a ‘liberal’ reply to Mander than Ramchandra Guha? Except for the fact that the point of view was an overuse of the words, ‘secularism’ and ‘liberal’, without really asserting the liberal values of respecting ones choices of life and his/her way of controlling it.

I would admit in saying that I liked the article at first. But later on while I introspected it and gave it a thought, it felt like Guha had just blatantly stated things just to counter the argument of Mander. The article lacked research, and had one of the similar problems that were found in the article of Mander. It was overtly generalized, and felt as if the writer was anyone but Ramchandra Guha.

I would have never imagined Guha drawing comparison between a burkha and a trishul. He appeared as just another branch of this huge tree of anti-intellectualism creeping in our society. The fancy words of the academia coupling with quotes of previous Muslim reformers like Hamid Dalwai, were the meat of the whole article. It looked like a forceful attempt by a famous historian to fit in the bracket of ‘liberals’ defined by the society.

It was actually sad, (as the title of both the articles suggest) to see someone like Ramchandra Guha speaking in the defense of the liberal population by giving definition and examples only known to them. In a way, he genuflected to the majoritarianist narrative by saying that the Muslims should let go off their identity if they have to survive in a multi-cultural society. I differ with this opinion of Guha. I think India has for long survived peacefully over the years because of its ability to accept and incorporate different cultures and traditions. We cannot be like one of those Western democracies, religion and faith has a huge role to play in the policy making of our country. I feel a certain pride while saying that no country with such huge diversity has been successful to the extent that India has been. Guha is a staunch follower of the ideas of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru would have never settled for the kind of liberalism and secularism that Guha is advocating.

He also talked about how Sadiq Khan would not have become the London mayor if he would have worn a skull cap, or his wife would have worn a burkha. This statement from Guha shows the increasing Islamaphobia in the society. Can we imagine in 2018 anyone questioning the practice of Sikhs of wearing a turban? We had a PM for ten years who carried his Sikh identity with him wherever he went, and not once was he questioned for wearing a turban. (Which was the ideal thing) But could we even imagine an Indian leader going everywhere wearing a skull cap and going un-noticed?

Then the next talking point in the article is Hamid Dalwai and his quotes translated in English from Marathi. Hamid Dalwai belongs to Chiplun, which is my hometown. He was a great social reformer and one of the earliest persons to speak up against the infamous triple-talaq. Now, Dalwai worked amongst people and wrote about the problems faced by the Muslims, especially of Konkan and of the western coast. His writings cannot be set as a bench mark for introducing social reforms amongst Indian Muslims, as the problems of every place are distinct and need a separate solution. Guha’s article fails to see this.

Irena Akbar’s ‘refusal’

A former journalist brought yet another perspective to the debate where she says she won’t let the ‘Hindu liberals’ patronize the ‘Muslim liberals’. Even here she speaks as a victim who has done it all, right from watching BBC, to dining at restaurants and working in ‘mainstream’ media organisations, but even then that’s not being termed as enough.

She gives Emran Hashmi’s example to put forth an argument where he was denied an apartment for being a Muslim. She isn’t completely wrong in stating that. Even I was denied a place to stay, first in Hindu Colony, Mumbai and then at Sukhdev Vihar, Delhi, for being a Muslim. But that doesn’t justify the formation of ghettos, as I later on got an apartment in the same neighborhood in both the cities. The Muslims areas in North-India, especially of Western UP and Delhi (areas which have seen large Muslim mobilisations) are seen as an example for determining the policies of Muslims all over the country. Partly because these places are very close to the Center.

I personally am against the idea of ghettos as they create closed spaces, where the mindset and the ideas cannot flourish. One gets stuck in the monotonous and a very linear world.

After reading all these three articles and the readings related to those on social media and elsewhere, I couldn’t draw any conclusion except that the writers and the gate-keepers of our country are forming opinions based on generalizations, than by research. This is causing more and more dilemma for people, especially young people like me who are already confused about their political ideologies in this world of mixed economy and polity.  

The Hate Mail

      Campuses in Delhi are massive hubs of debates, discussions and opinions. For a student coming from Mumbai, it is a fascinating experience. One such debate was about the increasing violence against rationalists and liberals. The death of Gauri Lankesh shook everyone. The period will be marked as the time when the whole media fraternity came together in one voice. Now, amongst other things the discussion was about people like Ramchandra Guha, who are quite famous and yet voice out their voices against the government. How safe are people like Guha, who can come in the public domain very easily? Well, I am of the opinion that the people who’d be attacked or would probably come in the harm’s way are the lesser known people like Gauri Lankesh. No one would risk hurting the comparatively known liberals.

     Anyway, the article isn’t about the killings and the fear associated with it. After the discussion, I read a piece by Guha, which was called, “The Hindutva Hate mail” where he had made a collection of abuses that people threw at him on e-mail. (This is a much older piece, when the social media hadn’t kicked in as yet; thus, hate ‘mail’) And I started to relate to that article; paragraph after paragraph, word after word. The amount of hatred spewed on social media is tremendous. You write something criticising the government; the next thing you know is, your wall or the comment section is filled with long messages of hate and abuse. The rhetoric is more or less the same, ‘Lord Modi is the only Messiah of the living people of Hindustan’. Now, there is a considerable difference in the abuses which Guha faced and the ones which we see today, on social media on every other post. The group of tolerant civilians has gone down drastically. Everything has to be addressed, every statement needs to have a counterstatement today, and every discussion has to end with personal bashing. This is not restricted to the right wing only. Even the left is accused of being less tolerant towards the ‘stupid’ right as they like to call it. We on social media are forced into believing things. We are constantly bombarded with information that creates strong perceptions for or against something or someone. The only difference, and probably a massive one is that the, politically right people tend to believe these ‘things’ on social media more than the people with liberal ideas. This bombardment of information, and many a times the wrong one pushes this group of people more towards the right, and thus the hate comes in extensively. Intolerance, dissent, Freedom of expression, etc.; these are just fancy terms. These people have a romantic affair with the RSS-BJP!

      Now there’s a process and pattern to it. It isn’t as simple as it looks. There’s a huge team of people with mobile phones and Jio’s internet ready to attack any idea that goes against the narrative of the government. They will copy-paste the same message over and over again on multiple posts, until people start believing it. Ever wondered why the top comment on every news post on Facebook does have to be a pro-BJP one? People are paid to like the comments so that, that particular comment is displayed at the top. And usually the top comment garnishes more attention than the post, itself. I and many of my friends face this problem of hurling abuses from unknown people on social media. Some asking us to go abroad to our neighboring country, some are so bad that I can’t mention them here. They paint every one with the same colour, Muslims are called names like ‘mullah’, etc. I have a very different set of religious beliefs, thus these abuses don’t affect me much. But, there are people who are fundamentally attached to their beliefs which makes all the more difficult for them to deal with these abuses. BJP has been bagging on this formula for quite some time now. And they have been successful at polarising the opinion. The information flow which is supposed to be multi-dimensional on social media has subconsciously become unidirectional with a limited few acting as gatekeepers.

  It is a very disturbing situation that many of us face all throughout the day. The culture of defaming people on social media is perpetrating in the system very fast. People talk about each other in a very insensitive way, and it’s not just about the psychology of the people. We apparently are being played. The BJP wants the Hindus to believe that the Muslims are an immediate threat to their existence in the country, and also they pretty much succeeded in making Muslims think that they are cornered in the society. The question arises is why is the BJP playing it so defensively? Why are they not allowing an alternative voice gains space in the society? Why are they so selective about what’s right for the country and what’s not? Why are rationalists like Lankesh murdered? (Although I do not directly blame the RSS-BJP for this) Even after having won a lot of states in the previous year, why are they still politically vulnerable? I think the BJP is getting uncomfortable with the upcoming elections and there’s fear of losing some states before 2019 general elections.

     One cannot perfectly predict the future, but the cheap social media tactics are going to increase tenfold as the election season approaches.

     An Egyptian friend of mine, asked me that how come India is one even after so much diversity in culture. (Looks like a cliché’ question but she had a fair point because Egypt has a very monotonous culture, yet the problems and violence that the country is facing is tremendous) Very frankly I didn’t have an answer to her question. I guess we are structured that way from generations. We have learnt to live along with different kinds of people, and the ‘secularity’ which our scholars like to define every now and then is actually hereditary. I really hope that this “Go back to Pakistan” trend ends. But making hopeful statements isn’t a wise thing to do!

Thoughts While Chasing A Mirage

The following excerpt is a collection of perspective and ideas which I gathered while reading Tarek Fatah’s ‘Chasing a Mirage’. 

 

I was reading this book for the second time. My first encounter with this book was very prejudicial and thus, I was not able to have a clear picture of what I really wanted to see and read. Chasing a Mirage is a book with a parallel view of the Islamic world. Also, Fatah’s way of presenting history in this book would be excruciating for some, still they won’t be able to look beyond it because the events mentioned are very close to reality. Now, I won’t talk much about the book and how bad or good I thought it was, I would rather try to talk about what I felt while and after reading the book. 

Knowing about the history of Islam, I thought even this would be a similar experience just as any other book. But the perspectives were very appealing which made me think altogether in a different way. Let’s start with what the people today know about Islam and the Muslim world? For Indians (including the complete sub-continent), it is restricted to few ‘autocratic’ rulers who invaded India which allegedly played a big part in losing their ‘identity’ as the natives of India. For the Europeans, Muslims were tools to manipulate their colonies before the twentieth century. Americans hardly cared about them before World War 2, but later this community became the center of interest of America to generate power in various forms, Russia was hardly different. All these references don’t necessarily relate to today’s generation. Because, all the modern day generation knows is that after the Prophet’s death, there was absolutely nothing until the 70’s when the Jihadi groups like Taliban were formed to destroy the world. So, overall people in general don’t have basic understanding about how and when the religion which is the most talked subject in the contemporary world was formed. Just to make people understand, even Muslims aren’t aware of the histories of their own religion. Some due to ignorance, and some due to utter blind faith. Now because the base about Islam is so unclear, let me just summaries a bit before going in to the article: Prophet Muhammad was born in the early 7^th century in  present day Saudi Arabia’s Mecca, in a tribe named ‘Quraysh’, he declared that he would be the last of Prophet’s that would step on the planet. He gathered tremendous support from the people of Mecca, Medina and other places like Yemen, Omen and thus he became the undisputed leader of the huge Muslim community which was coming to existence. Prophet Muhammad all throughout his life was an admirer of Greek and Jew philosophies. His ideas were very peaceful. After his death, Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq was chosen to be the caliph of the people and to lead the ever increasing Muslim community, followed by Umar and then Uthman (who was considered unpious and materialistic by many Islamic historians). In this process, Ali who was a direct relative of the Prophet, and also the most loyal one who had pledged an oath to serve Islam was kept far from the caliphate, due to politics for three successive times. Even after he being the caliph of the Ummah (Islamic population), he was assassinated in a Shakespearean manner. The followers of Ali, thus became the second largest Islamic sect; the ‘Shia’! Whereas, the majority decided to have their loyalties to Abu Bakr and co who are known as Sunnis. 

I shall restrict my article to just one major subject matter. As we live in India, the other common faith which came into light in the 12^th century was Sufism, and it has continued to be an integral part of Islam in India. Sufism has been challenged and threatened to be ruled out of the Islamic culture due to the emerging conservative and Wahabi groups. The big question is why? When the Wahabis themselves follow a bunch of rulers of Arabic origin who manipulated Islam according to their beneficiaries, who cared less about what the Prophets ideas about Islam were, who considered them to be the rulers of the population, who differentiated not only between non-Arab Muslims and Arab Muslims, but also a hierarchy race was seen between Meccan groups and Medina groups. One big example of how different the ideas of Prophets were from today’s Ahmedis and Wahabis: Prophet’s youngest wife, Aisha was falsely accused of adultery by Prophet’s associates who wanted to dethrone him. Prophet Muhammad calmly handled the situation after this incident, mentioning in the Quran that any accusation of adultery against women shall not be considered true unless there are four witnesses to support the cause. The ideas of, I would not say Feminism but a sense of respect for women could be seen unlike the modern day conservative Islamic groups’ ideologies. 

So, my question is how can people in India just blindly follow a certain path which is fueled by the people who seldom care about the original ideas of Islam? Some of us don’t mind following Uthman, who was just a ruler with flaws like any other man. Following an autocratic ruler is okay for some but following someone who guided the subcontinent towards Islam by peaceful and beautiful means is a crime and ‘shirk’. It’s very dispiriting to see such a downfall in the thoughts of the people who are supposedly taking the religious ideas ahead. Just take a moment to see the sheer beauty Sufism had. The qawwali and the ghazal culture, the teachings of universalism, the teachings of secularity in the midst of heavy ideology transfer is nothing but something to be obliged for. The system of disciples and the way they portrayed their message to the masses, through poems, rubbaiyats, nazranas, etc. How can anyone not like this culture of universal Islam? When the middle-easterners can be loyal to the people who ruled them, why can’t we at least appreciate the work of the people who taught us how to love and how to find God in this chaotic world? My father always says me that, ‘never forget where you come from.’, but the Indian Muslim today has forgot his beautiful roots. I don’t want to sound venerable here, but it is just simple frustration of us living under the guidelines given by people who hardly know the life here. No one should try to fit in the things of 7^th century in 21^st century. Also, it’s high time that the Sunnis accept that injustice was served to Ali and Shias accept that the caliphs were just rulers who wanted themselves to be seen as Godly to take further their dominance.

In Inference, I feel more work should be done in popular culture or in contemporary to unfold the open truths from the history pages. Probably, the Jihadi groups become the difficulty in putting across a work relating to Islam. Even greats like Majid Majidi are not exempted from the conservative onslaught regarding his movie “Muhammad: The messenger of God”.

Also, a look back on the writer and the book because of which I thought of writing this article; Tarek Fatah has now become a household name in India due to his interviews during the heated period of “surgical strikes”. Yes, Pakistan is a failed state and debating about it itself is a stupid thought, and I support Fatah when he says this, but a drastic change is seen when he talks about Modi and the modern day BJP. Why does he sound to me like a paid right winged illiterate media spokesperson of the RSS and BJP? His argument regarding Modi completely go against his ideas about state and administration. How can a historian say “it’s past” when asked him about Modi’s role during the 2002 riots? His actions are highly questionable. And for someone, who understands how the media works, it was evident and visible that he was brought by the BJP PR to show Modi in good light. So who better than a Pakistani who hates Pakistan. (The reasons for the latter are really justified) I wish Tarek Fatah again becomes the old Fatah who can be excruciating yet, significant and worthwhile!