“A 25-year-old Hindu man was allegedly strangled to death in Rajasthan’s Dausa district for trying to stop three men from applying colour on him during Holi celebration”. Every year on Holi, we hear news reports of molestation and non-consensual touches. Year after year these stories have become so widespread and familiar that now we have got subconsciously wired to simply ignore them and move on with our lives. “Holi hai!” (It’s Holi!) is a cry that is shouted, and like clockwork, anyone would come, apply colour to you and proceed further to the next person. Implicit in that cry is, all is well, or all goes on Holi. But in recent years, incidents of communal nature have added themselves to the long list of Holi complaints. Protecting law and order is the job of the police. A murder by a murderer can be stopped in two ways: either you control the situation such that the murderer does not get the opportunity to commit the crime, or you do the murder yourself, leaving the murderer no chance in hell to commit the crime himself. In the first act, the police protect the victim from being murdered and in the second, they protect the murderer. This is not to suggest that police forces are superhumans who can foresee all crimes and prevent them from happening. That is understandable. And precisely why, police are generally not blamed for the crime being committed. They are blamed for what they do once the crime has been committed. And what they do after the crime sets the stage for the next crime. Their actions gesture as to whether such crimes are allowed or not. 

The administration in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal covered 10 mosques, including the historic Jama Masjid, with plastic and tarpaulin sheets. Why were they covered? What did the administration fear may happen? And who will make it happen? And why would those who would make it happen feel they can do it and get away from the police?

A group of Hindus celebrating Holi festivities in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, were carrying the tree trunk to the temple as per tradition but decided on a detour, ramming it into the gate of a mosque several times while also raising provocative slogans. There are several videos of the act with identifiable faces. Police have registered an FIR but I’m sure nothing will come out of this. The record of the police does not suggest otherwise. Not because the police force is incompetent and cannot identify people from video. If wanted, police can pick you based on you being part of a Whatsapp group even if you never posted any text in the same. Those are the charges against Umar Khalid — being part of a WhatsApp group  — he did not post in those groups, not to suggest posting would have made his incarceration justifiable.

Ask anyone if they are against molestation or non-consensual touching and they will say yes, they are against it. Naturally so as anyone should be. Ask them if they believe Holi as a festival warrants such touching or if touching inappropriately is part of Holi tradition, as in if this is what the festival is about like lighting lamps on Diwali is a tradition. Is molesting and touching inappropriately part of the Holi celebration? They will probably laugh and say no. That some fringe elements do it. The impression is, these are outlaw incidents. People at large do not support these incidents. You want to believe this line of thought. But think about it from a distance. What do we do when someone does something wrong? Say, how do we react when we encounter a molestation video from Metro? Or from a college? How do we react? We seek punishment, we ask for police intervention, right? We do no such thing for Holi molestation. And we do so despite there being so many videos of these crimes, year on year. Does the school, college, workplace or even homes of these men, do you think they are held accountable for their waywardness? Have you heard of any such case where someone was held accountable for inappropriately touching some woman? We don’t. We tolerate it, we accept it. Suggesting what? What do we tolerate? Pouring milk on statues is stupid but we do so, why? Because it is tradition and part of our faith. If someone was pouring fresh milk on say middle of the road, we would call him mad. But inside a temple, it is part of faith. Same for animal sacrifice, pouring alcohol on gods, dropping oil lamps in rivers, and taking dips in poopy water, we know what they are, and we react to them differently in different contexts but we also tolerate them on special days and special places. Same way, molesting, and touching whatever body part of strangers without their consent on Holi is our tradition. It is indeed part of our festival. We have accepted it in past and we continue to accept it by immediately saying, Holi Hai, this is not the regular touch needing a law to take its course but a special Holi touch, outside the purview of law and order. This is an acceptable pouring of milk on rocks. This is part of our faith, and tradition and how it is celebrated every year.

A 48-year-old Muslim man was allegedly assaulted and killed by a Hindu mob while on his way to a mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao on Saturday after he resisted having colours thrown on him during Holi.

So, a group of Hindus want to play Holi with a Muslim man. They want it so badly that they — as is the tradition — force him to play Holi with them, without his consent of course. He resists, they insist, so much so that they end up killing him. Leaving apart the renowned good-intention-but-wrong-implementation, they wanted him to participate in their festival. India is a secular country where for generations most of our festivals have been shared with each other. Holi definitely is one such and these boys were only doing that. They wanted him to participate in their festival. That's not bad, it's sweet.

A Muslim youth was thrashed by members of a saffron outfit in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur town after he “tried to enter” a ‘garba, dandiya’ (dance event organised during the Navratri) event.

Here, a group of Hindus do not want Muslims to participate in their festival. On the other hand, Muslims want to carry on the famed secular traditions of shared festivals here but Hindus do not.

You then have to ask, what do the Hindus want? Why do they in one case, want Muslims to participate and in another don’t? The answer lies in the birth or definition of Hinduism.

Hinduism was born or defined in the backdrop of the British census exercise. Traditionally upper-castes have held power over masses by virtue of their birth in forward castes who derive power from the books written by their forefathers and whose readership was gatekept by their clans. But as the British held provincial elections and masses started to elect Muslims as their representatives, those who enjoyed power until then using caste saw the danger new tides were bringing for them. But they were disadvantaged by numbers. They were not in the majority. The people they oppressed, the lower castes, made up the majority population. And there was bonhomie between this population and Muslims despite there being differences in their practice and faith. Upper castes wanted to create a separate identity for themselves and other people. Which other people? Those who were not Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains etc. So they started identifying themselves and these others as ‘Hindoos’. So anyone who did not identify as Muslim, Christian etc was counted as Hindoo. Initially, many upper caste elites objected to them being clubbed alongside lower castes, they were different people they argued. And they indeed were in many aspects. These people had different gods of their own and many of these gods were exclusive and were not shared. Even today, many Hindus don’t know so many gods that other Hindus pray to. It was even more widespread back then. Many of these gods were meat-eaters, and many partake in alcohol. But slowly, the othering caught on. And so the upper castes successfully created the Hindu majority, out of thin air.

The Hindu religion then is defined not as what it is but as what it is not. What is the Hindu religion? Is it a collection of people that don’t eat beef? No. Those who eat beef? No. That pray to one god? No. Collection of god? No, many don’t even know the existence of very many gods of others. Hinduism is defined the other way. It is defined by way of saying what it is not. It is not Islam, it is not the faith of Christians. And so, it and its gatekeepers, constantly try and create tensions between two sets of people. They constantly create myths and stories and WhatsApp forwards that tell their adherents how bad, terrible, scheming, monster-like people Muslims are. The fear is created to stop Hindus from interacting with Muslims. If they interact, they will start to see similarities that the two share, similar struggles and anxieties they go through; they will see through the lies and appear like a single entity of people. Just like a beef eater and beef haters call themselves and identify as a monolithic Hindu entity without flinching once, Hindus and Muslims with interaction will identify as some shared block. What will this do? Who will this shared identity harm? Whose existence depends on the support of a hostile, feared, bigoted population?

#Holi #festival #Hinduism #tradition #culture #hatecrime #women #molestation #Muslims #uttarpradesh #India

Ayodhya Temple As Of Today. Courtesy: Newslaundry.com

I was just on a call with my distant neighbour who after the regular round of questions asked me if I had received the Ram-Mandir-Rice (akshata). For those who haven’t and don’t know about what’s going on, people associated with BJP-RSS have been going door-to-door and distributing some posters related to the new temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh along with some colourful uncooked-unbroken-rice in tiny plastic pack (hardly 20 gram).

Akshata basically consists of uncooked un-broken pieces of rice which is mixed with turmeric. It is sometimes used to bless bride and groom during weddings. Akshata is also sprinkled during other auspicious ceremonies. When Akshata is offered to a deity, it is believed to be the finest offering that a devotee can make. Akshata is believed to be equal to offering clothes, jewelry, food, or any other offering. Akshata is usually thrown over the head of the devotees during pujas and during functions like marriage and other auspicious events. 

The akshata attract the subtle frequencies of five principal deity namely Shiv, Shakti, Shri Ram, Shri Krishna and Shri Ganesh. Akshata is the central point of puja plate. If the rice grains used for preparing Akshatas are broken then their capacity to attract the principles of higher deities is automatically reduced. When the akshtas are offered to a deity the energy of the deity is transferred in it and favourable vibrations are generated in akshatas.  — Hinduism StackExchange

There is a lot that’s wrong in the above description but since all this is a matter of faith, let’s go ahead with it. Or just ask any Hindu person around you what ‘Akshata’ is. If the above description is right then how come RSS-BJP members have akshata even before the inauguration of the temple?

Returning back to my phone call.

I answered in the affirmative. I was then told to add some more grains to this 20-gram ‘akshata’ and prepare some sweet dish out of this mixture and have it. I was also told to take two to three grains from the 20-gram packet and wrap them in a piece of paper after writing ‘Shri Ram’ thrice over it and to keep this paper in my cupboard/locker.

Where is all this coming from? Who tells them? And even if someone does, how come people believe in this nonsense?

I have seen so many religious celebrations in my life. Never once am I aware of ‘akshata’ being used as this. In fact, unlike what that description claims, ‘akshata’ from the floor is just swept away like any other dirt. Few do collect it separately. At my place, since we have a river in the vicinity, they throw this rice in the water the next morning. I don’t know what people in cities do.

***

Let’s talk about this new temple now, shall we?

The temple will be inaugurated on Jan 22, 2024. The temple is not complete yet. By most estimates it would take at least two more years for its completion. Why so much hurry then? There’s a general election this year. By all predictions, RSS-BJP is going to sweep that election. Temple inauguration and these foot soldiers going door-to-door is merely to ensure it.

There have been many instances of people close to RSS-BJP profiting from temple construction. For one such example, read this:

It’s a prime property of 890 sq meters, a piece of land where the grand Ram temple complex will soon come up. Until February this year, it belonged to a mahant, Devendra Prasadacharya. On February 20, one Deep Narayan bought the land — gata number 135 — from the mahant for Rs 20 lakh.

Narayan is the nephew of Rishikesh Upadhyaya, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader who is the mayor of Ayodhya. Land records accessed by Newslaundry show that three months later, on May 11, Narayan sold the property to the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, set up by the Narendra Modi government to oversee the temple’s construction, for Rs 2.5 crore.   — Ayodhya: Whose Land Is It Anyway?

Forget questioning people in power over this loot, none in big media even bothered to report on this. I would be surprised if you wondered why.

I would not mention people, mostly poor, whose houses were demolished to make space for a grand home to lord Ram. By now I have completely understood how there is no value to a poor man’s life and livelihood. For instance, the government of Madhya Pradesh demolished the house of a Muslim person for spitting on a Hindu religious procession. He was jailed too. But in court it was found that no such incident had taken place. Police had made two people (police’s “witnesses” ) sign on blank papers. They denied seeing any such spitting incident in court. But did any of us ask what of that poor man’s demolished house now? No. Again, the media didn’t see it worth covering. It would puncture the popular narrative now, won’t it?

The domed structure was a 464-year-old mosque believed to have been constructed by or at the instruction of the Mughal emperor Babur. Babri Masjid, the lone structure of significance to Muslims in the area, stood surrounded by holy buildings built by Hindus later — Manas Bhawan, Sita Rasoi and Ram Katha Kunj Sagar. The mosque had existed for centuries and Muslims offered namaz there. Soon after independence, in December 1949, Hindus discreetly installed an idol of the deity Ram Lalla under the central dome, persisting with their claim that the plot on which Babri Masjid stood was the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama.

The conundrum had begun. Who should get the land title, Hindus or Muslims? The case travelled for years through the judicial labyrinth until finally, on November 9 this year, the Supreme Court gave away the title to Hindus.

It took the five judges who decided the case to travel back in time to 300 BC to explain why the land “probably” belonged to Hindus. The court categorically said towards the beginning of its 1,045-page judgement: “The court does not decide title on the basis of faith or belief but on the basis of evidence…The law must stand apart from political contestations over history, ideology and religion.’’ Yet, it ended up doing just that. It went on to rule that Hindus had a stronger claim to the title because of their belief.  — Ayodhya verdict: A conundrum of fact, fiction and faith

The idol of Ram was placed inside the mosque in 1949 — which VHP and Sangh claimed had miraculously appeared that night; but it is not this idol that the new temple will have. The Temple trust had arranged a fashion show of probable idols and chose one from the lot (Voting on Lord Ram Lalla’s idol today, temple trust to select best among three designs). Turns out, the new temple trust does not believe in miracles. Some scientific temperament there. Good for them.

Away from all this noise, I keep wondering, what if there was no mosque in Ayodhya, how would they then choose Ram’s place of birth? Before the British started spreading the rumour of the mosque being that place, so many temples to Ram in Ayodhya claimed that theirs was the spot at which their lord was born. In this context, it is a good time to rewind and remember how Hinduism as a religion was born under British rule as a reaction to Islam. What we today refer to as Hinduism was historically called or known as Brahmanvaad/Brahmanism/vedic-brahmanism etc. No one identified as Hindu before the British started holding provincial elections or census. How do you for instance digest the fact that the Vedas, the books that Hindus use to bolster their claim to state how old their religion is, does not mention Ram or for that matter any god that is worshiped today?

While temples are highly regarded today in Hinduism, our own old religious books disrespect them and write of them in poor light. Vishnu Smriti for instance “says that Vedic recitation should not be carried out ‘in a temple, in a cemetery, at a crossroads, or on a road.’ Placing a temple next to a cemetery is telling. Ritual specialists associated with temples were called devalaka. They were despised by the authors of Dharmashastras. The devalaka is listed among those who should not be invited to an ancestral offering (shraddha), Manu listing them between physicians and butchers.”

From my own limited reading, I have understood this much: Before Aryans migrated to what we today refer to as India, there were already people here. Harappans for one example. And they had their own beliefs and gods (don’t know how they viewed them and what they called them). For instance, Nataraja (who we today view as a form of Shiva) is imported from Harappans. Vedas were written by Aryans. These were the books that informed us about Brahman and their importance. Basically, those who wrote these books were Brahmans and they were superior in all kinds, had all rights and could not receive any punishment as per these books. They were, as per these books, mediators between god and people. Which god? The ones mentioned in the books they had written. They tried to enrol indigenous people into their religion but could not find great success. Another point to note here is how all these Vedic rituals involved large-scale offerings to gods which were impossible for common folk to undertake. All rituals required Brahman's help in invoking gods. These gods could not be prayed to on your own like we are familiar today. Side note: Vedas and early books mention meat eating including beef. In fact, brahmans themselves were extreme beef eaters. I’m not saying it, Ambedkar did. He wrote a detailed paper on this bit of history using Vedas and other scriptures. So in essence, it is not even Ambedkar saying Hindus were beef-eaters but Hindu books themselves. But then the question arises, why did we abandon beef-eating? The answer in all likelihood lies in Buddhism. There was a time when Buddhism and Jainism spread far and wide in India. People started enrolling in hordes. Many kingdoms in the north adopted Buddhism and in the south, they embraced Jainism. This left Brahmans staring at an existential crisis. Their whole thesis relied on them being superior to others in the caste pyramid but what would happen when no one remained under the bottom part of the pyramid? And so began the writing of Puranas and the invention of the very many gods. While some were invented from thin air, many were local gods prayed to by non-aryan locals who were given Vedic makeovers. And so gradually vedic gods whom local people refused to adopt were abandoned in favor of Puranic gods. It is these gods that we continue to pray today. People hated large rituals and yagnyaas where mass slaughter of animals used to take place and in reaction were flocking to Buddhism. To counter this, it seems Brahmans themselves abandoned eating beef. And went a step further by creating stories of bovine’s divinity. What was once the food of Brahman was now converted into a divine entity. It was a method employed to survive. And temples which were once decried bad were now embraced wholeheartedly because by now Buddhists had started to build large structures of their own.

This is the only explanation that answers why Hindus have so many gods, how two people who pray to two separate gods and who on varied occasions are even unaware of each other's gods could still claim to be part of a single religious entity.

This is also why caste is always defended in myriad ways since it is at the heart of the Hindu religion’s existence. Only for the sake of caste was this religion created or put more sordidly, to protect the superior position of Brahmans or upper caste over everyone else.

***

The four shankaracharyas have said that they will not attend the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22.

The shankaracharyas head the four Hindu mathas (monasteries) — in Dwarka (Gujarat), Joshimath (Uttarakhand), Puri (Odisha), and Sringeri (Karnataka) — that are believed to have been founded by the eighth-century religious scholar and philosopher Adi Shankara.

(Adi Shankara is one of the most important figures in Hinduism)

‘Can’t go against our Dharma Shastra’: Shankaracharyas to not attend Ram temple inauguration — ‘We cannot remain silent now and must say that it is a bad idea to inaugurate an incomplete temple and install the idol of the god there’

“The temple belongs to the Ramanand sect, and not to the Sanyasis, not to Shaiva or Shakta.” —  Champat Rai, general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust

So does Ram belong to Hinduism? Does Shankaracharyas belong to Hinduism? Is the answer to both of these questions the same? Then, what is Champat Rai saying above? Why is he hinting that this new temple does not belong to all Hindus? If he is out-of-line (that seems to be the only argument which could keep both Ram and Shankaracharya in Hinduism) then why have Hindus not been outraged, why have they not asked for Champat Rai’s removal? It’s not like Hindus are a tolerant lot — that’s not the image Modi-years have presented. Didn’t the same lot that took down Babri Masjid murder the original pujari of Ramjanmbhoomi Temple who destroyed VHP, RSS, and Advani’s arguments and condemned the Rath Yatra which killed thousands?

Let me repeat myself. It has now become impossible to project Hindus as peaceful lot. Or Hinduism as the religion of peace, harmony or love. Modi years have ensured that much. Modi years have done to Hinduism what ISIS/Taliban did to Islam. Mind you, Muslims could wash off taints of Taliban/ISIS from them but how will Hindus wash off RSS and Modi who are defended and bolstered by ordinary masses day in and day out. Unlike Taliban, RSS-BJP-Modi are not fringes. They are as mainstream as anything could be. Voted twice. The first vote was despite Gujarat 2002 and Babri Masjid demolition or because of these very facts. And so this is our reality now. We have to live with it. There is no running away from this taint anymore.

***

If you have reached here, do consider reading the below piece.

Shining example: What Golden Temple can teach Hindutva warriors using Ayodhya to whip up hatred: The shrine in Amritsar offers a lesson in how opposing narratives can coexist in harmony.

#Politics #Religion #Hinduism #NarendraModi #India

Every day when a Muslim person walks out of their home they come across or by the time they get back to their home in the evening, they invariably would have interacted with close to five or seven non-Muslims. This has been happening for generations and continues to happen even today with most Muslims, and to the most extent even without their own explicit knowledge. But in contrast, how many Hindus interact with Muslims on a daily basis? In fact, many Hindus end up knowing zero Muslim persons in the entirety of their life. Try to think of yourself, randomly ask elders at your home, how many Muslims have they interacted with and know personally. So Muslims interact with non-Muslims, especially Hindus on a daily basis while Hindus by and large do not. One mingles and the other does not. In fact, Hindus have gone out of their way to move Muslims away from spaces they previously existed in and where there was a chance for Hindus to encounter and interact with Muslims. Hindus have evicted and moved Muslims away from spaces thereby reducing or completely nullifying even the bare-minimum possibility of interaction with them. Secularism in India, unlike what’s practised in France, is tolerance and respect for all faiths. In schools, offices and almost every sphere of their life they participate in Hindu festivals that are celebrated there, they wish you on your festivals, they adjust their businesses to accommodate your religious beliefs, and they go out of their way to make you and your practice of faith possible without any hassle. There are Muslim poets who have written songs praising lord Krishna, Muslim qawwals who sing Hindu bhajans and a lot more. Clearly, Muslims (compared to Hindus) come out as more secular or better practitioners of secularism in India. If secularism is at the heart of Indian identity and the core ideal of the Indian republic then Muslims come out as its strongest practitioners and custodians.

Let’s travel back into the past for a moment. Few decades, to the time when the British were leaving the Indian subcontinent.

India and Pakistan both became independent dominions on the 14–15 of August 1947. While doing so, portions of the Punjab Province and Bengal Presidency of British India (which included present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) were divided through an imaginary line, now famously referred to as Radcliffe Line, after its architect, Cyril Radcliffe, who, as the joint chairman of the two boundary commissions for the two provinces, received the responsibility to equitably divide 175,000 square miles (450,000 km-squared) of territory with 88 million people. The demarcation line was published on 17 August 1947 upon the Partition of British India.

The regions affected by the extended Partition of India: green regions were all part of Pakistan by 1948, and orange part of India. The darker-shaded regions represent the Punjab and Bengal provinces partitioned by the Radcliffe Line. The grey areas represent some of the key princely states that were eventually integrated into India or Pakistan, but others which initially became independent are not shown. Courtesy: Wikipedia

At this point during the partition, the Muslims of India had to make a choice. They had two options to choose from. Two new nations, both ready to accept them as their citizens, required them to decide their fate regarding their domicile. They could either stay in India which had declared itself as a non-religious nation-state where all religions were accepted and respected, where anyone could practice the faith of their choosing and the state had pledged itself to respect faiths and people of all kinds; or they could choose Pakistan which had declared itself as an Islamic state, the faith of Muslims. So they could either choose to live in an Islamic state or a secular India. And Muslims of India chose India. They chose to be secular over Islamic subjects. Indian Hindus on the other hand never had any such offering. They never had to make any choice. They didn’t have anything to choose from. So retrospectively if you have to think, Muslims chose India, they became citizens of India by choice and they did so despite there being a state of their own faith inviting them to come and settle. In other words, Muslims of India rejected a theocratic state, and Muslims of India rejected a nation-state based on religion, their own religion. They wanted or at least they chose to stay with Hindus and other citizens of India. They chose diversity over narrow-mindedness. What does this mean? This means Muslims have already pledged allegiance to the Indian state, they have already spoken about their choice and so their patriotism, if you think of it, is not under speculation, suspicion or in question. But in comparison, Hindus of India never really asserted their allegiance to secular India, they never made it clear that they wanted to stay in a secular state and not a religious one, they never discarded a state of their own faith, Hindus never rejected a Hindu state. You might say, Hindus never had to make that decision, they were never offered such a choice. And you are right, they never were offered such a proposal. And I’m not saying we have to question the commitment of Hindus towards the Indian republic. We should not. But if it ever comes to that, if we ever come to a point where we have to doubt someone’s commitment to the nation vis-a-vis their faith then it isn’t Muslims who are to be questioned or seen through a lens of suspicion but Hindus. It is Hindus whose allegiance and commitment to the ideals and spirit of the Indian republic are under suspicion not that of Muslims. Muslims made the choice, when there was an opportunity they spoke their intentions, they rejected a religious state (of their own faith) and thus they are in the clear. The rest of us are not so much in there, not definitively.

#RSS #Hinduism #Islam #Muslims #Patriotism

From what I know and can remember Muslim girls in school (not all but some of them) have been wearing hijab (or headscarf) for ages now. It was just another piece of clothing that never bothered us, to the point that we never even noticed its existence. I even know of girls and even teachers who would arrive at school in niqab (or burqa, black outer clothing like a rain-or-sun-coat) and then they would remove it before entering a classroom. Again, this wasn't a point of conversation or of difference. The only time I have been thinking of these clothing choices and the faces of friends that wore them is now. Now when many schools in Karnataka (and even in Madhya Pradesh, another BJP ruled state) have banned young girls (and even teachers) from covering their hair with a cloth also referred to as 'wearing hijab'. It all started with Hindu kids sloganeering and hooting – all of a sudden – as Muslim kids passed before them. Or running to Muslim kids and shouting – Jai Shri Ram – a war cry of Hindus now. The lord Ram (or simply Ram) of Ramayana, if you have ever read, is a soft-spoken and light-mannered hero of the epic. He does everything in a measured and reserved manner. There is this soft tenderness to his actions and his approach to things. In the whole of epic, there is only once that we see Ram agitated and outraged – when the ocean god does not agree to his demand to make way for him and his army to go to Lanka and rescue his wife. It is this image of Ram that the militant Hindu organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has adopted on their posters and hate paraphernalia, and it is this Ram you see depicted elsewhere by Hindus that subscribe to RSS's worldview. The same is the case with Hanuman (there is no instance in the Ramayana of Hanuman displaying aggression but the monkey-god posters you see everywhere now show him in desperate anger and in all-red). The usual picture of Ram that we saw was of him smiling quietly and standing alongside his wife and his brother while Hanuman stood at his feet. The impression was of a feminine soft-spoken hero, not of a military general. And chant at his temples, say at Mathura and Vrindavan or Ayodhya was 'Siyavar Ramachandra ki Jai' (Victory to the groom of Sita, Ramachandra). He was not the centre of the chant but his wife was; he was invoked through her. That was the Ram from Ramayana, the one I knew until the mobs of RSS-BJP descended on streets, heckled and lynched to death the many Indians with chants of 'Jai Shri Ram'.

So we have Hindu crowds chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' and trying to scare Muslim hijab-wearing girls, then Hindu groups coming with saffron shawls and later the schools starting to object these girls wearing hijab and now courts debating whether the hijab is central to the religion of Muslims or not. Do you see the problem here? We have conspicuously and to our own benefit have forgotten-and-forgiven the majority community of its divisive-and-violent methods and instead, we are now questioning the basics of minority religion.

The school, high school and college I went to or even the offices that I worked at, all of them in their practises and culture never once felt alien to me or my way of living. Yes, they spoke English during events that were alien at my home. The food served at Hostel mess was strictly vegetarian except for the egg served on Wednesday. Now although having a vegetarian meal every day was alien, having vegetarian meals in itself wasn't alien. At our home, we are required to consume strictly-vegetarian food when there's any festival – like during Ganesh Chaturthi or Deepavali and even during weddings. A vegetarian meal and those who consume vegetarian meals always enjoy high moral value in the Hindu pantheon. It is strange how we the meat-eaters worship gods that despise our food, the one thing that sustains us and makes us capable of praying to them. Apart from these few non-harmful diversions, everything else was like at home. The school office, staff room, principal's room, all had pictures of our gods. Every function began with lighting lamps and chanting mantras. At school, the morning physical exercises started with Sanskrit prayer, then school assembly in the morning started with Sanskrit prayer, all meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner were initiated again with Sanskrit prayers. At my home this wasn't the custom, we never prayed before meals. So essentially I was praying and chanting mantras more at school than at my home. I was also having too many vegetarian meals. If anything I was being converted into a Brahminical specimen of saatvik purush. I don't remember my parents ever being asked about this. I don't also think they would've objected. For generations now local customs and gods have been sacrificed and replaced with Brahminical rituals, customs and food habits. The many vegetarians in India are not vegetarians of consciousness but their parents have forced this choice on them. Being vegetarian is a religious habit in India. And in comparison vegetarian prayer is considered in high regard versus a prayer from non-vegetarians. So what I was doing at school compared to at my home was practising a higher degree of Hinduism (I would say upper casteism but let's not go there). We celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi, Saraswati Puja and other festivals at school. On festival days it was welcome to dress in traditional – i.e., Hindu traditional dress. In offices, we not only celebrate festivals but on occasions like Dasara, in many offices, everyone is required to wear particular colour on a particular day. It is mandated. And there's more. So in essence, at schools and offices, we celebrate the Hindu way of life in and out, and unapologetically. We don't notice it since there's nothing abnormal or extraordinary for us to look at. What we do at school and in the office is similar to what we do at home. Might vary in degrees and sequences but at its heart, it is the same. But now imagine the life of a Muslim kid in India. Everything at school is alien to her and him. Posters on the wall of gods to prayers to festivities. Every day they are forced to question their faith. So many Hindus would object if school walls had posters say of a Dargah or of Kaaba 🕋. And yet Muslims have been enduring this infinite assault on their senses without any outrage. And we Hindus dare call Muslims the intolerants and extremists? Would we sing one of their Arabic prayers on one day of the week? If any teacher dared even once, we would inform our parents and they would quickly rush to the Principal's office to complain. In fact, the teacher would be dragged to a police station or maybe a mob would descend and lynch the poor teacher. And I'm not exaggerating this, we Hindus have lynched Muslims for just existing. “In Jharkhand, on 17 June 2019, a young man called Tabrez Ansari (22 years) was tied to a pole sometime around midnight and beaten by a mob till six in the morning. As he was being battered, Tabrez Ansari was asked to say 'Jai Shri Ram'. He did. It did not save him. He died four days later,” Ravish Kumar wrote of Tabrez's murder in his must-read book, The Free Voice: On Democracy, Culture and the Nation. We Hindus have never been accommodating of Muslims or people of other faith. Would we accept a Christian prayer in a government school? No way. But I know of my Christian friends that sang Sanskrit shlokas in school prayers and before meals every day including on Sundays. They did not object. Their parents did not too. They were accommodating and tolerant. Their gods weren't hurt by it, their faith wasn't shaken by their kids singing prayers of other faith. Or celebrating festivals of other faith. Most of the plays in schools that we acted in were stories from Hindu epics. We acted in them, we saw them and so did students from other faith including Muslims. I even remember a Muslim friend of mine playing Lord Krishna in one play in which I was playing some Hindu saint. I don't remember his parents objecting to it. Or even Hindus that saw that play then. In fact, the teacher who cast him was a Hindu upper-caste Brahmin. None of us saw it as problematic then but all hells will break loose now.

And what are the arguments against Hijab from the Hindu right-wing? You hear a lot of patriarchy-patriarchy then uniform-uniform. The first doesn’t cut it since these are the same Hindu bunch that parade their women everywhere including inside their homes with that noose aka mangalsutra around their neck, sindoor and bindi on their forehead; all prime patriarchal symbols. For most Hindus, the unspoken rule is that women who are menstruating are not allowed to enter temples, religious shrines or even prayer rooms. There are even certain temples in India, such as the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, wherein women who are within the age of menstruating are forbidden from entering. Girls who have not matured yet and women who have reached menopause are allowed entry into the temple. In some households, a woman on her period is not allowed to sleep on the bed, eat from daily kitchenware and must wash her clothes separately. In most rural households, they are not even allowed to enter the house. So it can’t be that Hindus who practise such thick patriarchy at home will have a problem with girls merely covering their hair to school on this ground. Is it then the case of imposition of uniform? Hindus want all children to follow the school uniform strictly? Or at least that’s what so many have been shouting about.

Now, why do schools require uniforms? I wouldn’t go into it since it’s a topic with both sides, and they both have their own merits. Also, note that uniforms are not uniform all over the world – we decide what would be our school uniform. Dupatta is part of the uniform in India but not so elsewhere in the world, mini-skirts are part of girls' uniforms in Japan but not so in India. So there's nothing stopping us from having a uniform that goes with everyone or better, let there be multiple options in uniform, students can choose whichever they feel comfortable in. Coming back to the site and state of outrage; Karnataka in fact has a rule against uniforms – the Admission Guidelines-2021-22 posted on the Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE) website not just states that the uniform is not mandatory, but also points out that some college principals and managements making uniform mandatory is a violation of rules. Are you able to get your head around this? That's not all. As Asaduddin Owaisi pointed out – In 2019, Ireland allowed hijab and turban in police uniform. The decision was welcomed by the Modi government, saying it was in the interest of the diaspora. If it was “historic” for Ireland, then why bother with the girls of Karnataka? Why is their dignity being blown away? So we don’t have a problem with the hijab as a uniform too. So the two primary arguments – uniform and patriarchy – don’t stand or are not the real reasons why Hindus are agitating. What is it then? Two of my friends, one on Twitter and another on Instagram were stressing about children and uniforms, like the uniform must be mandatory for children-children-children. And so my every argument would be countered with “but children and uniform”. Yesterday, the schools in Karnataka even made teachers of the school disrobe their hijab and burqa (outer clothing), at the school gate, in front of the whole gathered crowd (An English professor in Karnataka resigned today citing “self-respect” after she was asked to remove her hijab before entering her college). So the hijab ban isn’t about just children, at least not anymore. And in anyways, the primary goal of schools is to get more and more children into them to impart education and not propagate uniformity. If that was so, we would have had a uniform syllabus and a single language being taught to them. But that’s not the case, is it? That might be the aim eventually but right now at least, that’s not the case.

The only argument or reason that remains is the religion of the little girls going to school with hijab – their identity of being Muslims. And forget oppression, these girls, schoolgoing girls, stood out in open against school administration and against such a large mass of hyena-like right-wing forces and asserted their defiance. That’s no small feat. So many of us so easily bow to authority in offices and of course in schools/colleges out of the fear of being reprimanded by higher-ups. To stand up for one’s beliefs takes absolute courage. And that girl who came to school riding a two-wheeler herself, who parked it and then walked out of a mob that surrounded her and shouted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to instil fear in her psyche – she walked out of that with her head and fist held high towards the sky. That was extraordinary courage on display there. These are oppressed girls? Really? This is your definition of oppression? How many girls from your family are allowed to go to school riding bikes? How many women in your family are allowed to ride bikes? If anything, Hindu parents must learn from these Muslim parents and their girls. Maybe they could start a crash course on youtube that Hindu parents and their children can enrol. That would benefit them and also this nation.

Through almost four months of protest, photos from the streets of Sudan were rare. Aside from avid observers, few had access to visual documentation of the movement trying to force three-decade ruler Omar Bashir from power. All this changed with this photograph of 22-year-old student Alaa Salah.

Muskan who walked out of the Hindu right-wing mob became the fierce face of Hijab ban controversy

The mob does what it does. It terrorises, creates division in societies and alienates the already alienated. As Ravish Kumar pointed out so succinctly – A mob has its own constitution. It has its own country. It drafts its own orders and directives, and identifies its own prey. But you expect the state and court to abide by the constitution that was drafted by the founders of this republic. Especially the court. For instance, the South African Constitutional Court when a similar petition of a Tamil Hindu girl to wear nose-stud in school as a cultural practice came at its door, went about it in a progressive manner that expanded human values, the culture of diversity and nature of tolerance in their nation.

All the common arguments right-wing is giving today in India were struck down by the court there explaining why they think the other way. They decided in favour of the girl, her choice of wearing the nose-stud to school and her belief in her faith. You can find judgement here.

Our courts are debating (or factoring) if hijab is central to Islam as if to say what Indians do in their day-to-day life is derived from the religious books. If that was so, Hindus, all of them would continue to this day to be beef-eaters since the old scriptures and people who wrote them ate beef in plenty. We even have a great sage on record scoffing that he prefers meat of a tender calf!

Washington-based Pew Research Centre’s ‘Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation’ report finds that 89% Indian Muslim women cover their heads outside their home. But so do 86% Sikh women, 59% Hindu women and 21% Christian women. Moreover, 18% Hindus (mostly Brahmins) wear a janeu, while 53% Hindu men wear the tilak; 69% Sikhs wear a turban; and 51% of all people surveyed (including 51% Hindus and 50% Muslims) across religions generally wear “a religious pendant, such as an amulet, cross, image or symbol of god.” – The India Cable

So will court one by one strike all of these and other religious symbols down? At least from schools, colleges, offices and primarily from the parliament where we have MPs wearing saffron robes. Will they? Or is the proving of essential and non-essential practises only applicable to Muslims? Also, this is not the first time when the court has taken this route. Even in Ayodhya judgement court maintained that the masjid was demolished illegally and statues of Ram Lalla were placed illegally but then it went into the argument whether masjid was an essential aspect of Islam and awarded a verdict in the favor of Hindus who were the ones like in hijab case who started the mess, went on a rampage, resorted to violence or disturbed the status quo.

Hindu girls who came with saffron shawls in protest against Hijab – why now?

One of the most striking images from the scenes of Hindus chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' in these videos as Muslim girls in hijab walk by is of a group of Hindu girls supporting the male hooligans by wearing saffron shawls and saffron headgear. Do these girls not know how much it takes for a female child to venture out from home? Are they not aware of cultural policing? To begin with, most girls are not allowed to go to school. Then some who attend school are barred from going to college. And even if they are permitted, a small error like say someone snitching about her sitting or laughing with a boy will invite a ban on her further studies. None of these restrictions applies to boys. In colleges where there are no uniforms, girls still follow a dress code enforced by their homes and society at large. They can't wear just any dress as they please. And you will find them wearing these dresses that are approved by their parents despite their displeasure. If you ask them they will tell you these are minor giveaways so they could get the larger freedom that education enables them to have. So you find them accepting a certain degree of policing from their parents and society so they could attend colleges like their male counterparts. Hijab too exists and functions in this context. Some ladies even in their adult life continue to wear the traditional dress (they used to wear to colleges) just like some Muslim girls continue to wear hijab into their adulthood. Many even start wearing hijab in their adult life, on their own. Angshuman Choudhury  & Suraj Gogoi point exactly this in their scroll piece – the right to wear the hijab (or not) should rest with Muslim women. That choice should solely be their prerogative. This should be the beginning and end of any intellectual discussion on the use of the veil in schools, colleges or any other public space. Ruha Shadab wrote in HT, the immediate issue is not about whether Muslim women in India should be wearing a hijab. The issue is whether anyone should be deciding if they are “allowed” to do so. If people are interested in “liberating” women from wearing a hijab, they must recognise that forcing women to do anything in the name of liberation does not achieve their goal. If the argument is that religious symbols should be banned in India, then stop wearing the janeu, teekas, mangalsutras, and sindoor. What a woman can and cannot wear is a control tactic used to subjugate them. Forcing them to remove their hijab is an example of control tactics, which stokes fear and alienation, but perhaps most importantly, hatred. While the issue and people at its heart are Muslim school-going girls, the attack is solely not about hijab which Choudhary and Gogoi succinctly summarise -The sudden and rapid escalation of a non-issue like the hijab into a matter of national concern, that too by show of force, suggests an insidious and systematic attempt to de-Muslimise Indian Muslims through a mix of violent intimidation and socio-legal morality is underway. So, the anti-hijab argument today is being made in a predominantly sectarian context by a group of people who are avowedly anti-secular and have full sanction from the state. All said and done, it is heartening and utterly sad what we are doing to these girls who merely want to go to school. What's so wrong and criminal about allowing these girls into schools with headscarves which we have been allowing until recently anyway? We even allow, and rightly so, convicted criminals to finish their education from prisons. By forcing these girls to remove their headscarves in exchange for education we are not helping them in any way instead we are creating more problems for these girls. We are further complicating their already complex life. We will just end up depriving them of education. For some Hindus, this might be a hard pill to swallow. You see, they see the hijab as a symbol of oppression but they don't see the uniform with dupatta with the same lens. Dupatta to them is a 'common' culture but the headscarf is Islamic religious wear (and an oppressive one at that). When does one thing become a 'common' culture and until how long must the another remain restricted to just one community despite being worn by so many in the market and elsewhere. Why do Indian families ask girls to drape a dupatta whenever they venture out, even to the house door to collect a parcel? Is that not oppression? Not getting my point? Alright, have a look at the following dress.

Japanese schoolgirls in short mini-skirts. Wikimedia commons.

Would the Indian parents – belonging to any religion – allow this dress as a school uniform? Absolutely not. But why? Japanese schools have this as their uniform. Why would we have a problem? That old rape argument is hogwash. Japan has significantly fewer rape numbers than India. So no, mini-skirts don't cause rapes. Nor do hijabs stop them. That is, uniforms have nothing to do with rapes. Uniforms are merely pieces of clothes that we (school committees) have decided to be their chosen style of wear. And these school committees can easily include hijab in their guidelines. In fact, the school where this outrage first started and others that followed had hijab as a uniform. Girls used to wear hijab of the uniform colour and came to school for a long time now. You won't have to scratch your head a minute longer to guess why and who started this outrage now. No doubt it is political and those who started it with the chants of 'Jai Shri Ram' belong to a certain political ideology. Pitting two communities or cultures that have coexisted for long against each other, encouraging people to see how different others are and how both of them don't belong to the same entity (nation), to aggravate or scale-up minor feuds and differences into big issues, creating differences where none existed is the meat and potatoes of RSS-BJP politics. While in past they targeted adults, they are now straight-up targeting young kids because it's easier to rile these kids up. This is the militarisation of youth just the way Al-Qaeda and other terror organizations in Pakistan did at one point. And I can bet that parents of these kids watch godi media channels like Zee News or local variants of it. These parents haven't been told by their newspapers or television channels of sulli-deals and bulli-deals, two apps on which Muslim women were auctioned by Hindu men and women. Vishal Kumar Jha (21), Niraj Bishnoi (20), Shweta Singh (18), Mayank Rawat (21), Aumkareshwar Thakur (26), Neeraj Singh (28) – all Hindus – were arrested over these auctioning rings. Niraj tried to mislead the police by saying that the Sulli Deals app, which auctioned prominent Muslim women, was created by a Muslim man, Javed Alam, an engineering graduate from Uttar Pradesh. Shweta and Mayank, police said, intentionally used Sikh names on Twitter to promote enmity between Muslims and Sikhs. Creating divisions and enmity between two communities – which political entity benefits from this? It appears the open solidarity Muslims showed towards Sikh farmers in recent protests and Sikh solidarity for Muslims during anti-CAA protests hasn't gone well with the bigoted Hindus. Note also that the arrested men and women are young and educated and hail from different parts of the country. So the hate is no more concentrated in one state or one region and this is very alarming and bother us all. India is a microcosm of the entire world order. Unity in diversity isn't just a stray line to be taught in school but is the foundation on which this nation stands. If differences are left to grow like this then we will cease to exist in near future. The cost of communal politics played by RSS-BJP is paid now by the parents of these young children and our nation, whose next generation is growing as hateful timebombs waiting to be exploited by the Sangh-Parivar whenever they are in need of new divisions to be created for their electoral windfalls. The nominal Hindus, the ones you and I talk to and interact with, that casually spread this hate via fake news and propaganda material on social media and in their casual conversations don't realise that the hate that these politicians spew and spread comes with a real cost. And one of its brutal costs is the innocence of these children. The politics of RSS-BJP combine is imbuing the minds of young kids with hate towards their countrymen; many of the people they now hate because of their religion could have become their close friends but thanks to the divisive agenda, we instead now have ticking time bombs waiting to be triggered when next elections get announced. What Ravish Kumar of NDTV said long ago – Communalism turns human beings into bombs – is now happening right before our eyes. But some of us have decided to look the other way.

#communalism #bigotry #India #hijab #womensrights #feminism #choise #BJP #RSS #Hinduism