Ayodhya verdict: Epochal leap of faith

The responsibility laid on man as a rational being, to integrate himself, to relate the present to the past and the future, to live in time as well as eternity has become acute and urgent -- S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads.

THE Supreme Court has taken off the poison in the air with its unanimous Ayodhya judgment. The political class had failed in its principal mandate to reconcile social contradictions. The religious leaders lacked mandate to rise above their identities. The politics of India used religion to polarise communities. Minorityism nursed identity politics, while the people were pushed into ghettos. Demographic transformation afterwards transcended identities. Political might of minorityism was firmly put down on the mat. The stage was set for the Supreme Court to shun judicial shyness to tread on the tricky path of faith and pronounce verdict to conclude explicit acrimony of over three decades. 

UNION Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had brought leaders of the Muslim community face to face with a few top functionaries of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). The objective was to prepare grounds for the acceptance of the impending Supreme Court verdict on Ramjanmabhoomi title suit. Both sides talked necessities of the co-existence. One Muslim scholar 's word, however, hung on to the ears of the RSS functionaries.

"Mulk bachega to Mazhab bachega (Religion will survive only if the nation stays)," said the Muslim scholar. Four days later, the RSS functionary, while recalling the remark, noted: "The Muslims always professed their religion above the nation. That remark was significant, signalling change in thoughts even if shared by only a few. We've to see how does it go forward,"  said the RSS functionary.

The saffron outfit would await the Muslims to take further initiatives for dialogue. The RSS and its various socio-cultural-politico wings now genuinely argue that they want dialogue with the Muslim community leaders. It's not that they've just been talking. They have, indeed, been doing this for a while behind the closed doors. They just want that secrecy to go away.

Mohan Bhagwat, RSS supremo, after the Supreme Court verdict.

INDIA'S partition is still fresh in the collective memory of the people. That was on the basis of religion. The liberal politicians of India embraced the Muslims who chose to stay in India. The Congress leadership, drawing from the pool of the battery of freedom struggle leaders, steadied the nation on the path of peaceful coexistence of all communities. The talent pool fast became depleting, and the demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri brought curtains on the golden age of India's selfless politics. The consequent phase saw the birth of self-centred politics. The Muslims harbouring minorityism were the convenient hunting grounds for the proponents of identity politics. The Congress in 1970-80s evolved potent potion to win elections, with Muslims at the core of the social engineering consisting also of the upper castes and Dalits. The 1990s saw the arrival of aggressive politics around social justice. The Congress' potent electoral potion passed on to scores of identity based political outfits. They firmly pushed the Muslims into the ghettos.  

The BJP patriarch L K Advani has claimed that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement was the second biggest mass mobilisation after India's freedom struggle. He's seemingly not far from the truth, though JP (Jaiprakash Narayan) may disagree for having given India the third generation of leaders with his clarion call for 'Sampoorna Kranti'.             

Yet, the spate of communal riots across the length and breadth of the country for one and a half decades since 1989, with a few sporadic reported from the western Uttar Pradesh very recently, was by all accounts due to the virulent explosion of  the politics of exclusion. Both the secularists and the BJP practised the politics of exclusion to perfection. The idea of India conceived by Mahatma Gandhi was unmistakably dead.

LORD Ram is India's foremost cultural icon. He transcended religion. His celebrations in the East Asian culture despite majority Muslim population are loud testimonies to Ram's transcendental appeal. Ram breaths in lives of the people who were shipped to scores of islands by the British for sugarcane cultivation in faraway lands. Thousands of such people clung on to the copy of Ramayana. Indian life is incomplete without Ram.    

Ram is an embodiment of supreme sacrifice. He weaves magical spell with His unconditional acceptance of all on the path of Dharma. That man has to coexist in harmony with animal, plants and all is an overwhelming lesson of Ramayana. There's no other cultural icon in India who comes closer to Him in transcending scores of India identities, including caste and creed. Mahatma Gandhi swore by Ram.

If Ram can't have a temple at His birthplace in Ayodhya, then where else was the question which electrified millions of youth across the country in the early 1990s. The Muslims already co-opted by the identity politicians proved myopic. They threw their weight behind Babur, who despite the best efforts of the NCERT book was seen by the majority of the population as an aggressor whose successors unleashed religious persecution of not fully documented proportions. That there stood a mosque in the name of Babur at the birthplace of Ram was seen as an affront to the collective cultural conscience of the Hindu population.

The Muslims in the early 1990s could have owned up India's greatest cultural icon and handed over the land to the Hindus. That would have shut the political shops of many. India wouldn't have missed two decades to the communal embers. They missed the bus in 1990s. Second chance rarely comes in lives of the mortals. The Supreme Court verdict has imposed a choice on the Muslims, which by and large has been accepted by the community. But they can't by a bystander. They must board the bus.

PEOPLE in secular countries don't live in ghettos. Indian interests are harmed by communities embracing exclusion. The Supreme Court has only opened the doors. Hindus and Muslims now must walk in together.

Hinterland onslaught

POLITICAL STABILITY HAS PITFALLS TOO. It allows shift of attention to issues unattended for years or decades. Such issues could have potential to disturb social amity. Some of them are well known to those who matter, but they refuse to open their eyes for fear of consequences. 

Larger worries for cascading effects of political instability preoccupied people for two and a half decades. And they ignored social upheavals taking place in their backyards. In those years of collective social disbelief, nature-loving tribals in Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh were lured by benefits of education and healthcare along with other material gains to become Christians. The governments, both at the Centre and states, knew well of the goings-on, but chose to become silent approver or collaborator at some places.  

That the Christian Missionaries savoured poverty of tribals in India's hinterland is a fact commonly known. And the manner in which tribals of Jharkhand and other states turned Christians is brazen to speak the least of the Missionaries. Also, to say that Missionaries broke all the rules of the book will be just an under-statement, for they in the process showed that they had least respect for India's Constitution. 

In Congress they found a benign political patron. And, the Missionaries went about their proselytizing jobs in the hinterland with impunity, while Sonia Gandhi remote-controlled the Manmohan Singh government for a decade. The Congress rule earlier in a few of the states directly (Andhra Pradesh) and in proxy (Jharkhand) gave them the kind of hunting ground for proselytizing they just dreamt for.   

Yet, tipping point came after the emboldened Missionaries began targetting Dalits for conversions. And their brazenness brought them at staring glance of those who sought out to defeat their designs through their own trade in the tribal land.

Incidentally, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an affiliate group of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS), had been trying to slow down conversions of tribals with their educational activities in Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. Former Jharkhand chief minister Babu Lal Marandi is a product of this RSS offshoot, besides many others. However, it could not match the wherewithal of the Missionaries who could afford to bribe the poor in lieu of change of religion with the might of foreign fund flow. And the foreign fund flow ballooned in the last one decade, with Sonia Gandhi making the Manmohan Singh government bend to the extreme.

Ironically, Manmohan Singh had questioned the NGOs getting foreign funds after they tried to stall the Koodankoolam Nuclear Power Plant and many such bodes came under the scanner of the FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act). The Centre ensured fund flow squeeze. But no such clampdown happened on those brazenly carrying out conversions by the UPA government for a decade.

HOWEVER, the BJP with Narendra Modi changed the status quo. And the Christian zealots had since been angry with Modi. They are yet to fathom how could a Hindu "hawk" become Prime Minister of the country. 

K V Thomas

Prof. K. V. Thomas is one such Christian Congress leader from Kerala. He became Union minister in Monmohan Singh Cabinet by taking care of Sonia Gandhi's taste buds. Congress leaders would tell gleefully, that Thomas would bring freshwater fishes to 10, Janpath straight from Kerala for years, and the reward later ensued in him becoming a minister. 

Now, he's an angry man.
  
"He's a dictator. Can you believe, this government sent non-Catholics to represent India when two Indians were canonized by the Pope. Earlier, only Catholics were sent. I called up Sushma Swaraj to tell her that never ever non-Catholics had been sent to Pope, but she was unaware of who had made the decision and was helpless. Only one man calls shot in this government and he's is Modi," ranted Thomas.

Incidentally, Thomas is not a solitary angry bird. Sonia Gandhi had been more angry than him and any other Congress leaders. Her eagerness to rally her MPs and those of the Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha to create ruckus has been noticed on numerous occasions.   

And she finally succeeded during the Winter session of the Parliament to paralyse the Rajya Sabha, with the CBI stung Trinamool Congress more than willing to eat out of Sonia Gandhi's hands. The Mamata Banerjee brigade along with the Congress paralyzed the Rajya Sabha on an alleged incident of re-conversion,which allegedly took place in Agra in Uttar Pradesh. Taking part in a discussion on the same issue, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav refuted any tension in his state and wondered why was it being discussed in the Lower House. 

COMING Coming back to the issue of conversions and simmering tensions, the Congress must take credit for exponential rise of Christian population in the country. The Congress prepared the grounds for the Missionaries for their proselytizing activities by keeping education and health care infrastructure moth-eaten.   

Children in this country are at the mercy of the Missionary schools for their education. The poor in the hinterland can not access reliable health care except for those offered by the Missionaries. And there is no free lunch in the world is not lost on these evangelical zealots. They've extracted the price by swelling their numbers. And the governments, both at the Centre and in the states, have done just lip services to these twin areas, which make people, especially the poor, vulnerable. And, it's to the credit of the Congress, that people in this country largely are at the mercy of the Missionary schools and nursing homes for the basic needs.

Going forward, there may be more confrontation among the offshoots of the RSS and the Christian zealots. The design to proselytize can not be defeated by replicating the modus operandi for lack of financial muscle. So, the war will need to be won at the psychological level, that by the use of the muscle.

And, it's true, that the lack of monetary wherewithal could well be compensated by that of the muscle. That seems to be the strategy now to turn away the tidal wave of religious conversions.

Postscript:

ARTICLE 25 of the Indian Constitution grants the freedom to practice and preach one's faith. No right comes without reasonable restrictions, which in the case of preaching (and promoting religion) is that there should not be any inducements. The Central government never bothered to codify these restrictions. But the state of Odisha did it first followed by Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand would soon do it. 

"My freedom ends when my elbow touches someone else's body,"

Bhartruhari Mahatab

said erudite BJD MP in Lok Sabha Bhartruhari Mahatab, while taking part in a discussion on the issue of conversion. 

He detailed extensive conversions of tribals in South Odisha carried out by the Missionaries and explained how the anti-conversion law enacted by the state has now become a role model for other states.  

The elbow has not just touched, but bruised others. 

And that calls upon the Centre to enact a strong law to define and codify room for the elbow to swing.

Besides, there is a strong need with the right intention to block the foreign fund flow for religious conversions and let there be a CAG audit of all the religious bodies receiving donations from abroad in the last one decade.