Kashmir should top the Indo-Pak agenda

Hand-in-hand: Sharif-Modi Bromance

Narendra Modi has taken a bold decision to visit Pakistan and meet Nawaz Sharif. This spontaneity will undoubtedly lead to a breakthrough in thawing the relations between the neighbours; it’s about time for India and Pakistan to make a new beginning.

It’s a calculated risk that the Indian Prime Minister has taken, one that is fraught with inherent risks, and one that will certainly draw flak from his own party. But it’s a step that all sane people in the subcontinent will support, and encourage.

However, beyond the optics, and the people-to-people bhai-chara, it will be necessary for both sides to deal with concrete issues. For any meaningful forward movement, the Kashmir situation should be on the top of the agenda.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership has given the dark days of Emergency (1975-77) under Indira Gandhi nearly the same status as the Quit India movement (1942), because its leaders were part of the nationwide struggle to fight and overthrow Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s autocratic misrule; and they have always considered Jayaprakash Narayan, the socialist leader who led this fight, as one of their political philosopher.

Jayaprakash Narayan

It would do Narendra Modi a great deal of good to read what Jayaprakash Narayan had to say about the Kashmir situation (which has changed for worse since JP issues this press statement more than 50 years ago in December 1964; it’s reproduced here from Makers of Modern India, Edited by Ramchandra Guha, published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011; Guha has reproduced it from Balraj Puri’s JP on Jammu and Kashmir, Gyan Publishing House, 2005): 

“The question we must squarely face is whether constitutional integration of Kashmir with India is more important in the national interest than friendship with Pakistan and justice to the people of the Valley of Srinagar. Legal technicalities will not provide the answer. What is needed is a mature and realistic reckoning. As far as I can see, the disadvantages of the present policy far outweigh the advantages.

“Let me take up first the issue of justice to the people of the Valley. There has been no credible proof yet that they have freely accepted the legal fact of accession. Constitutional integration has little meaning in the absence of emotional integration. In this age and time, it is impossible to hold down by force any sizeable population permanently. If we continue to do it, we cannot look the world straight in the face and talk of democracy and justice and peace. Nor, on account of the historical circumstances, can we take shelter behind the internationally recognized limitations of the right to self-determination. Perhaps the most harmful consequence of the policy of forcible integration would be the death-knell of Indian secularism and enthronement of aggressive Hindu communalism. That communalism is bound in the end to turn upon the Hindu community and destroy it.

“As for friendship with Pakistan, let us calculatedly determine how dearly we need that friendship. No country can afford to buy friendship at any cost. So let there be a reckoning of gains and losses. First of all, let us be mature enough to understand that we persist in our present Kashmir policy, there can be no friendship with Pakistan. The leaders of that country have not left us in any doubt on that score. If we disbelieve them, we shall have only ourselves to blame.”

After analyzing the geopolitical fallout of the differences between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, JP concludes with a sharp observation on the emotional division the rift has perpetuated between the people of subcontinent.

Modi at JP anniversary celebration program

He says, “The last and in some way the most disastrous consequence of the quarrel is its human and moral cost and the alienation of peoples that it threatens to bring about…These conditions would be sure to cause mass human degradation on both sides. The political division of the subcontinent cannot hide the fact that the peoples of India and Pakistan are really one people. This is not the first time that India has been divided politically. But there had always been a feeling of oneness and identity among the people divided between kingdoms and republics. Today, Bengalis of the West and the East are one people, irrespective of region; so are the Punjabis. In like manner, the Bengalis and Punjabis and Sindhis and Pathans and Jats and Rajputs and others of both countries make up one single Indian people, who are distinct from all other people of the world. States are passing shows, but people are eternal. Therefore, I would consider this alienation of the people of India and Pakistan from one another to be the most disastrous consequence of the present quarrel.”

Images: 

http://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/modi-leaves-lahore-for-delhi-after-meeting-sharif-115122500527_1.html

http://www.kamat.com/database/content/pen_ink_portraits/jayaprakash_narayan.jpg

Gandhi Before India

Gandhi & Tolstoy

“Gandhi and Tolstoy were akin in good ways and bad. Both were indifferent fathers and less than solicitous husbands.” - Ramchandra Guha

Ramchandra Guha was in Toronto recently to launch his latest offering – Gandhi Before India – the first part of a two part biography of the Mahatma. The volume deals with Gandhi’s life from birth to 1915 – the year he returned from South Africa. It is a chronicle of his transformation from a failed lawyer to a leader of people. 

Guha is an erudite scholar who speaks as well as he writes. He had his audience spellbound for the better part of an hour as he narrated the highlights of the Mahatma’s life in South Africa.

Guha spoke about Leo Tolstoy’s influence on Gandhi.  In the book Guha says, “Leo Tolstoy (at this time) was certainly the most famous writer in the world. (He was) admired for his novels and stories, and in some quarters, even for his attempts at simplifying his life. In his early fifties he had a conversion experience, following which he gave up alcohol, tobacco and meat. His vegetarianism became so well known that he was asked to write an introduction to a book of Henry Salt’s. He took up working in the fields, and splitting wood and making shoes in a bid to empathize with his serfs. From a martial background, he now began to preach the virtues of pacifism. Although born and raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, he developed a deep interest in Hinduism and Buddhism.

“Of the many transitions, the most painful was his embrace of celibacy. In his youth he had been (in his own words), a ‘radical chaser after women.’ His wife went through more than a dozen pregnancies. He had affairs with peasant women on his estate. A man of ‘wild passion,’ he sought in middle age to give up sex along with the other pleasures he had forsaken.”

The Russian writer was Gandhi’s intellectual mentor. His was the most decisive intellectual and philosophical influence on Gandhi. Although Gandhi hadn’t read War and Peace, and Anna Karenina, he had minutely read and re-read Tolstoy’s religious and philosophical texts.

He read Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You in 1893 in Johannesburg. The title of the book is a line from the Bible and Tolstoy used it to make an eloquent case for interfaith dialogue and for individuals to reach their personal, conscience-driven path to God.

Tolstoy claims in the book that the spiritual truth or the essence of Christianity is not what the archbishop or the pope says; the essence of Islam is not what the grand mufti tells you what it is; and the meaning of Hinduism is not what the Shankaracharya tells you. You must find your own path to God.

Tolstoy’s The First Step (translated into English in 1906) also influenced Gandhi immensely. In this book, Tolstoy says that any person who wants to contribute socially and politically to the society’s transformation, and who wants to devote his life to the service of society must abstain from idleness, gluttony and carnal desire – the three cardinal sins of the Russian aristocrats.

In Gandhi’s case, idleness and gluttony were not a problem. He was always hardworking, and he was a vegetarian. The real problem was carnal desire and he adopted a vow of celibacy, detached himself from his family and his children to simplify his life.

Tolstoy’s pacifism has played a significant role in formulating Gandhi’s ideas for non-violent struggle in Transvaal in South Africa. After reading, understanding and interpreting Tolstoy nearly two decades, Gandhi finally is inspired to write directly to Tolstoy in 1909 – a year before Tolstoy died.

Gandhi wrote to Tolstoy about what he was doing in South Africa, and Tolstoy was delighted to find an Indian disciple in South Africa. He replied immediately. During the course of this correspondence Gandhi  in an extraordinary display of self-confidence tells Tolstoy that what he and his group is doing in Transvaal (which is partly inspired by Tolstoy’s ideas of pacifism) is going to have a positive impact on the whole world. Guha observed, “It is an extraordinary confident claim to make of a nebulous movement that involves just a few thousand people – that it is going to transform the whole world.”

Celebrating India

Bharat Mata by MF Husain

I suppose remembering India is in inverse proportion to the time and distance.

I've been out of India for a very long time. And Canada is far, too far. So remembering India is easy and effortless. Of course, with Facebook, time and distance have ceased to matter. The best way to remember India is to read books on India. I recently re-read Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and The Moor’s Last Sigh. I don’t think any writer can equal Rushide’s love for India.

Here are two short paragraphs from these books that reveal his passionate love for India.

“August in Bombay: a month of festivals, the month of Krishna's birthday and Coconut Day; and this year-fourteen hours to go, thirteen, twelve-there was an extra festival on the calendar, a new myth to celebrate, because a nation which had never previously existed was about to win its freedom, catapulting us into a world which, although it had five thousand years of history, although it had invented the game of chess and traded with Middle Kingdom Egypt, was nevertheless quite imaginary; into a mythical land, a country which would never exist except by the efforts of a phenomenal collective will-except in a dream we all agreed to dream; it was a mass fantasy shared in varying degrees by Bengali and Punjabi, Madrasi and Jat, and would periodically need the sanctification and renewal which can only be provided by rituals of blood. India, the new myth – a collective fiction in which anything was possible, a fable rivalled only by the two other mighty fantasies: money and God.”

Midnight’s Children

“…the dawning of a new world, Belle, a true country, Belle, above religion because secular, above class because socialist, above caste because enlightened, above hatred because loving, above vengeance because forgiving, above tribe because unifying, above language because many-tongued, above colour because multi-coloured, above poverty because victorious over it, above ignorance because literate, above stupidity because brilliant, freedom, Belle, the freedom express, soon, soon we will stand upon the platform and cheer the coming of the train…”

The Moor’s Last Sigh

And then there are special occasions to remember India, especially when you’re outside India. In Toronto, the Panorama India and the Consulate General of India Toronto organize the India Day parade. It’s a feel-good event when Indians come together and have a few hours of fun at Toronto’s Dundas Square (which celebrated its decade this week). Indians from different provinces group together and take a walk around the block.

This year, the floats were missing and had been replaced by Kolkata-style hand-pulled rickshaws. Even tiny Manipur was represented. And the most vibrant groups were – expectedly – from the southern states, although the Gujaratis with their garba didn't do too badly either. A couple of years ago it was the Rajasthani group which played Lata Mangeshkar’s Meerabai bhajans (read about it here).

The human rights groups, along with groups opposed to the Indian state, including Sikh separatists, stand on the other side of the square, raising slogans.

Despite ‘voting with my feet’, so to speak, in favour of Canada, I've participated in the parade for the last five years that I've been here in Toronto because, that cliche about taking an Indian out of India but never India out of an Indian is very true. I'm the first to point out an 'incorrect' map of India (which excludes part of PoK / Azad Kashmir from India), despite being generally in favour of the Kashmiri right to self-determination. I know this at variance with my conviction that nationalism and patriotism have little relevance in a post-colonial, globalizing world.

These concepts had a special significance in the colonial era. Nelson Mandela succinctly explains it in his autobiography. In his Long March to Freedom, Mandela quotes Anton Lembede (1914-1947):  “The history of modern times is the history of nationalism. Nationalism has been tested in the people’s struggles and the fires of battle and found to be the only antidote against foreign rule and modern imperialism. It is for that reason that the great imperialistic powers feverishly endeavour with all their might to discourage and eradicate all nationalistic tendencies among their alien subjects; for that purpose huge and enormous sums of money are lavishly expended on propaganda against nationalism which is dismissed as “narrow,” “barbarous,” “uncultured,” “devilish,” etc. Some alien subjects become dupes of this sinister propaganda and consequently become tools or instruments of imperialism for which great service they are highly praised by the imperialistic power and showered with such epithets as “cultured,” “liberal,” “progressive,” “broadminded,” etc.”

Mandela affirms: “Lembede’s views struck a chord in me. I, too, had been susceptible to paternalistic British colonialism and the appeal of being perceived by whites as “cultured” and “progressive” and “civilized.” I was already on my way to being drawn into the black elite that Britain sought to create in Africa. That is what everyone from the regent to Mr. Sidelsky had wanted for me. But it was an illusion. Like Lembede, I came to see the antidote as militant African nationalism.”

In my very humble opinion, in the present context, and with specific reference to India, unbridled nationalism is harming India because it’s being used as a means to segregate Indians on the basis of religion, and exclude the minorities from the mainstream (see photograph).

BJP poster welcoming Modi to Hyderabad (August 2013)

Ramchandra Guha concludes his classic India After Gandhi thus: “Speaking now of India, the nation-state, one must insist that its future lies not in the hands of God but in the mundane works of men. So long as the constitution is not amended beyond recognition, so long as elections are held regularly and fairly and the ethos of secularism broadly prevails, so long as citizens can speak and write in the language of their choosing, so long as there is an integrated market and a moderately efficient civil service and army, and – lest I forget – so long as Hindi films are watched and their songs sung, India will survive.”

And in India’s survival and prosperity, I don’t think nationalism and patriotism are of any particular significance. 

Image: Barefoot across the nation Maqbool Fida Husain & the Idea of India Ed: Sumathi Ramaswamy

Independence Day musings

It requires some distance and a fairly long separation for one to realise the significance and the importance of a milieu.

I’m in India on August 15 (India’s Independence Day) after a three years

And it feels good!

August 15 is when India remembers Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, khadi.  

The following are some impressions of the day.

• The early morning speech by the Prime Minister from Delhi’s Red Fort (no prime minister has ever equalled Indira Gandhi’s soul stirring Jai Hind!)
• Doordarshan remains firm in the depiction of the official version of Indian nationhood. I find it exasperatingly irrelevant, especially now, when India has the confidence to straddle the global stage (although AR Rehman singing Vande Matram is guaranteed to give gooseflesh, always; and the full version of the national anthem, shown for the first time, is interesting only because of the stanzas are sung by stalwarts) 
• The Times of India has its annual review of the Indian nation on the editorial page (Patrick French today), and glowing tributes to Shammi Kapoor, the legendary actor who passed away yesterday; sadly none of these mentions his Govinda Ala Re (from Bluff Master, I think) which is a quintessential Bombay song, shot in the city’s chawls)
  
• A listless parade and flag hoisting by the young merchant navy cadets of the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) outside my window. The cooperative where I live used to hold a flag hoisting till some year ago; it’s been abandoned, I guess
  
• Patriotic songs wafting in from a Sarvajanik Satyanarayan Mahapuja pandal (a pandal is a makeshift platform) in a slum nearby (heard Jai Jai Maharashtra Maazaa! after a long time; to me, a Maharashtrain is a combination of Shivaji Maharaj and Sant Dnyaneshwar)
  
• The Satyanarayan Mahapuja could well be Bombay’s second most popular all-inclusive publicly observed religious festival. The first is – without question – the Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav (unfortunately, I’ll be back in Toronto by the time that festival begins)
  
• Independence Day is also when the truly secular and multicultural ethos of the Indian nation really sinks in. A woman in a black burqa is as much a part of the urban landscape as a man with his forehead pasted with sandalwood and a large red tilak (religious mark) – both impatiently awaiting their turn at the ticket window at Ghatkopar station along with some 500 other Indians; I’m awaiting my turn, too. India teaches patience

In the evening I attended a book launch event in Thane.

Sharada Sathe is an activist with a lifetime of work for the underprivileged and the underrepresented millions in India. She has translated Ramchandra Guha’s India After Gandhi into Marathi

The large hall in Thane is overflowing with people. Guha is present and so are filmmakers Amol Palekar and Ashutosh Gowarikar.

Kumar Ketkar, free spirit advocate and intellectual, is the master of ceremonies, sets the tone for the evening by speaking in English and Marathi.

In his introductory remarks makes a telling point that India is both a democracy and a republic, which has a few parallels.  

Sharada Sathe, the book’s translator, believe the present seemingly terminal decay in the Indian society is perhaps because her generation preferred to follow instructions instead of asking questions

Amol Palekar, actor and filmmaker, is an erudite speaker in both English and Marathi.

He asks why only theatre and cinema are pre-censored in India. But clarifies that once the censors clear a film for release nobody has any right to prevent or disrupt it.

Palekar quotes Ambedkar (from the book) who had said that extra-constitutional measures such as satyagrah, used effectively against the British, should have no place in a newly independent republic.

Ashutosh Gowarikar, filmmaker, take a quick poll of the audience – is media in India good or bad. Nobody raises their hand to say it’s good; many do to say it’s bad.

Gowarikar observes that 1992 shattered the belief of the post-independence era generation that the excesses of the Partition wouldn’t be repeated in independent India.

But clearly, the evening belonged to Ramchandra Guha – who called himself a Nehruvian Indian; which, he said, meant a confused Indian. The Nehruvian Indian believes he can belong to any part of India, but his enemies are convinced that he doesn’t belong to India.

Paying fulsome tributes to the Maharashtraian intellectual traditions, Guha said a meeting such as this one wasn’t possible anywhere except in Maharashtra, where a social activist, two filmmakers, an urban planner and a journalist along with an historian are releasing a book.  

He said while he had lived and worked in all parts of India, somehow, he hadn’t in western India. However, his three passions – cricket, Hindustani classical music and history – were intricately linked with western India.

Guha observed that every visit to Maharashtra is a triple pilgrimage for him because of “Tendulkar, Tendulkar and Tendulkar – cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, playwright Vijay Tendulkar and the Mahatma’s biographer DG Tendulkar.”

An enthralling evening, where I briefly met a couple of friends from my journalism days.