The year that was

Was also a year that is best forgotten…

This column will appear on the last Sunday of 2014. And as I sit down to write it, I can’t help but think back on the year gone by. But hard as I try to look for something positive, all the images that flash before my eyes are of violence and grief; sadness and despair.

I guess that is only to be expected. The aftershocks of the ghastly Taliban attack on a Peshawar school still have me shaking with sadness, anger, and the realization of our impotence in the face of crazed madmen who subscribe to a murderous ideology. Those gory pictures of bullet-ridden children and a blood-soaked school auditorium will live with me forever, no matter how much I try and erase them from my memory. And maybe that’s how it should be. None of us should ever forget the evil that monsters inflict upon us – and more tragically, on our children.

But even when I look beyond the horror of Peshawar, the theme of violence and grief refuses to recede. The riot victims of Muzaffarnagar continue to live in makeshift homes a year later, looking for justice that seems forever out of reach. Communal riots in the Trilokpuri area of Delhi have revived the traumatic memories of the 1984 pogrom against the Sikhs. And in Uttar Pradesh, communal clashes have become so common that they barely merit mention in the national papers. And yet, every such incident leaves indelible scars in its wake.

More significantly, what every such clash represents is an attack on the idea of India itself. That idea – of a secular, inclusive, tolerant India that treats every citizen equally, no matter what his or her religion – has increasingly come under attack as the lunatics scramble to take over the asylum. The first weapon deployed in that fight was the idea of ‘love jihad’: a ‘jihad’ in which Muslim men were apparently targeting Hindu girls and marrying them after converting them to Islam. Thankfully that campaign was junked after it didn’t get much traction in the UP polls.

Ever since then, though, we have had a long line of loonies jostling one another in the competition to be most outrageous. First off the mark was Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, a BJP minister, who announced that the people of Delhi needed to decide if they wanted to be ruled by ‘Ramzadas’ (children of Ram) or ‘H****zadas’ (bastards). Next up was BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj, who claimed that Nathuram Godse was as much a ‘deshbhakt’ (patriot) as Mahatma Gandhi. Both of them retracted these statements after a public outcry (and presumably, a private bollocking from saner elements in the government).

But despite their climbdown, Godse, the killer of Gandhiji, continues to be the flavor of the season with various offshoots of the Sangh Parivar. Some fringe outfits in Mumbai celebrated November 15, the day when Godse was hanged in 1949, as Shourya Divas. The Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha asked the government to install busts of Godse in public places across the country. And the same outfit is now threatening to release a film, Desh Bhakht Nathuram Godse, on 30 January, the same day on which Godse gunned down the Mahatma in 1948.

Ironic, isn’t it, that an organization that styles itself as the ‘Hindu’ Mahasabha is attacking what is best about Hinduism – its values of tolerance, brotherhood, and universal peace – by glorifying an assassin who killed a man we venerate as a Mahatma? This really is violence of the worst kind; violence that tries to destroy the very values that make Hinduism the great religion that it is.

And that’s before we even start on the biggest controversy of our day: conversions. If there is any one thing that characterizes Hinduism it is its non-proselytising nature. You have to be born a Hindu; you cannot become one by conversion. That is one of the essential differences between Hinduism and both Islam and Christianity. Hindus don’t believe in converting others to their faith. And you can’t really be a Hindu if you do that.

Ah, but the right-wing crazies have a way out of that. They are not converting anyone, they say, they are just welcoming them back into the Hindu fold. It is not ‘conversion’ when Indian Muslims and Christians become Hindus, they explain, it is merely a ‘gharwapasi’ (homecoming). Never mind that the ‘home-comers’ are complaining on national television that they were misled/bribed/terrorized into giving up their faith.

All this banging on about religion; glorifying murderers and assassins: where have we seen all this before? Ah yes, in Pakistan, where that same sorry journey to religious extremism and militancy led to the massacre of 132 innocent children in Peshawar this month. There, but for the grace of Indian secularism, go we…

It is for all these reasons that I, for one, will not be at all sad to see 2014 go. Maybe we’ll have a better time of it in 2015. With that wish – and a prayer – I wish all of you a very Happy New Year.

A matter of faith

Let’s not allow Hindutva to destroy the essence of Hinduism: tolerance and open-mindedness

Over the last week, there was no escaping the controversy surrounding the Agra conversions. In case you have been hiding under your bed to avoid all the high-decibel, bad-tempered debates on prime time TV shows (and who can blame you!), an organization called the Dharma Jagran Samanvay Vibhag (an offshoot of the RSS and Bajrang Dal) recently converted a community of Muslim rag pickers to Hinduism in what is called a ‘shuddhikaran’ (purification) ceremony and what the Sangh Parivar has dubbed ‘ghar wapasi’ (returning home). But even as the two houses of Parliament went into meltdown, and the voices of the commentariat became shriller than ever, all I could think about was an incident that happened in my own childhood.

Like most kids of my background in those days, I studied in a school that was run by Christian missionaries. So, we would start the day with a Christian prayer in the morning assembly; we would say Grace before heading for our lunch break, and a small prayer would be said before we broke up for the day. There was a lovely chapel on the premises, and come exam time, we would all file in of our own volition, bend down on our knees and cross ourselves nervously as we prayed fervently for good marks.

No matter what our religion – and we had a smattering of Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists along with Hindus and Christians – we all went through this routine year in and year out. And yet, none of us felt that our own faiths – the religions we practiced at home – were compromised by a few ‘Hail Marys’ or ‘Our Father, who art in heaven…’

The only exception (that I knew of, anyway) was my second cousin, who lived in Agra. At age 12, she became fascinated by Christianity, read the Bible and other religious tracts, and decided that she wanted to become a Christian. So, she took her request to the great patriarch of our family, her grandfather, a Sanskrit scholar of some distinction himself. Instead of exploding angrily at her request, as a lesser man may have done, he listened to her patiently, and asked her why she wanted to convert. She told him what she admired and loved about the Christian faith. Yes, he said to her, all of that is true. But do you really understand what you would be losing by giving up on Hinduism? No, she did not, she conceded reluctantly.

No problem, said Bauji (as he was universally known). He would give her a few books on Hinduism that she could read over the month. They would meet and discuss what she had read every day. And if at the end of the month she still felt that Hinduism was not for her and she would rather be a Christian, then he would personally organize her baptism in the faith.

Well, to cut a long story short, in the end my cousin decided to stay in the faith she was born in. But to this day, I am struck by the strength and sagacity of Bauji. He didn’t yell at my cousin that she was being stupid to even think of such a thing. He didn’t patronize her by saying that she was too young to make such a decision. And nor did he lay down the law: you are born a Hindu; and a Hindu you shall remain till the day you die. Instead, he appreciated why the tenets of Christianity had appealed to her. But rather than say that one religion was inferior/superior to another, he encouraged her to study both, and then make up her own mind. And whatever decision she made, he promised to support her.

To me, Bauji epitomizes the essential tolerance and fair-mindedness that is the hallmark of Hinduism; the acceptance that there are many paths that lead to God, and no one path is better than the other. It is that tolerance and fair-mindedness that makes me proud to be a Hindu. And it is that essential truth of Hinduism that Hindutva seeks to destroy, with its insistence on conversions that are brought about with inducements and blandishments rather than a reliance on a genuine change of heart.

For me – as I suspect it is for most Indians – my faith is an intensely private matter. It is an integral part of my being, but it is not what defines me. I would still be the same person if I were a practicing Muslim or Christian instead of a practicing Hindu. At the end of the day, which God I worship comes entirely down to an accident of birth. Speaking for myself, I am happy that I was born in this faith. But an essential part of that faith is being tolerant of those who were born into others; and to respect the choice of those who wish to convert to another.

Hinduism was not weakened when Muslim invaders came and converted thousands of Hindus to Islam over the centuries or the missionaries came proselytising. And it will not be strengthened if various affiliates of the RSS go around ‘re-converting’ thousands of Muslims and Christians in the 21^st century.

At the end of the day, Hinduism derives its strength from the philosophy of life it espouses. It is a great religion because it teaches us that the entire world is one family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam). And it will stay strong because of people like my Bauji, who teach their children and grandchildren that it doesn’t matter what the road is called, just so long as it reaches God.