The closing of the of US academic/ religious mind?
Your report on the MIT workshop on the minorities in India ( India Abroad, April 30) and the scorn poured on Hinduism by Reverend Franklin Graham (May 14) gives the impression that some of the US academic and religious elite have a closed mind. Both seem to be partisan and one-sided. The MIT work shop could have invited people with other perspectives on the issue and Rev. Graham would not have made sweeping remarks on Hinduism if he had some nodding acquaintance of the fundamentals of Hinduism.
In the workshop, two issues seem to have been highlighted – violence in Orissa and in Gujarat. The violence erupted in Orissa after the murder of a swami who was doing social service to the poor through educational and health facilities. Why the Maoists, who are supposed to be for the poor, have killed him but not the missionaries, who also are working for the poor along with 'saving the souls'? Is there a link between the Maoists and Missionaries? I wish the work-shop had thrown some light on that aspect. Is the right to practice and propagate religion also includes the right to disturb social structure that served the tribal community for a millennium? Why kill a culture and a way of life? Does God Almighty have only one name and only one book? Are you not limiting HIM?
Godhra has become a cause for minority rights activists and secularists to bring disrepute to Indian democracy, secularism and condemn the chief minister of Gujarat. Nobody mentions the burning of 68 kar sevaks ( volunteers) , who were returning from a pilgrimage to Ayodhya, the birth-place of Rama, the Righteous? Nobody mentions that delayed response of the police and the administration almost in every such event including the one in 1984 in Delhi and in 1993 in Mumbai. Nobody mentions that 250 Hindus were shot by the police out of about 1000 killed during the riots. Nobody was shot by police in Delhi when some 3000 people were killed. Ghastly atrocities have been fed to the media which are now being scrutinized by the SIT ( Special Investigating Team) appointed by Supreme Court.
Whether it is violence or corruption, it is a failure of the state and the central governments and the bureaucracy including the police to uphold the rule of law. The police need functional autonomy which is denied to them. The bureaucracy should be serve state, not the ruling politicians. Politicians should be prevented from interfering with the rule of law.
India has been engaged in a great effort to improve the living standards of its billion plus people for the last sixty-three years in a democratic frame-work. Rising expectations are giving rise to million mutinies. The identity politics of caste and religion are part of the rising expectations and mutinies. They are also part of the vote-bank politics. The increased economic growth since 1991 if combined with equity ( directly helping the poor) is likely to derail the identity politics and vote-bank politics. That would be the triumph of the ideals of the Indian Constitution – liberty, equality and fraternity.
May 13,2010.
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