Commentary/Dilip D'Souza
Black marks everywhere
The black marks in the book are quite crude, but there's no doubting their
intent. They carefully block out a few specific words from the minutes of a
meeting that was held in November 1992. The words that are left still make
sense, though clearly not the sense the minutes originally intended. This
little misdemeanour seems to have gone unnoticed till over a year later.
The minutes of a meeting held in January, 1994 state blandly that the
earlier scoring out has been noticed. Since it was blocked out then, the
resolution that was adopted at the earlier meeting was adopted once again.
'Any member wishing to sell his flat,' it says in its restored glory, 'will
not sell to a Muslim.'
That's it, as simple as that. Now I'm trying to decide what makes me more
nauseated. Is it that my neighbours have adopted such a resolution? Or that
one of them, even though clearly unhappy about it, didn't have the guts to
stand up and object at the November meeting, nor even the guts to put his
name to the black marks?
I live in a co-operative housing society, that uniquely Indian institution.
The flat actually belongs to my uncle, whom my wife and I have lived with
for a little less than three years now. Nearly deaf, unsteady on his feet,
my 89-year-old uncle has not attended meetings of the society for some
years. That's why I'm gradually finding out the joys of housing societies,
of exactly how 'co-operative' they are.
I can report to you that that book
of minutes of the meetings, with its record of acrimonious running battles,
accusations, counter-accusations and, of course, peculiar resolutions, is
far more interesting than any novel.
So why did this collection of generally placid, nondescript citizens
suddenly decide on this despicable resolution, never mind its dubious
legality? I can't answer that, but I do know that my neighbours are in no
way unique. Some weeks ago a Bombay newspaper carried a series of stories
about societies all over the city that turn away Muslim buyers routinely.
The stories were written with some concern for this state of affairs.
But several letters to the newspaper's editor followed, angrily denouncing
the articles. If Hindus choose not to sell flats to Muslims, they said,
that cannot be seen as evidence of communal feelings. After all, they went
on, Hindus have suffered injustice at the hands of Muslims for centuries.
Besides, Muslims slaughter goats in their flats, don't they? Some
vegetarians find that repellent. So why should they not object to Muslims
in their buildings? Nothing communal there!
Illogic apart, the letters, the articles, the resolutions, they all show
just how far we have allowed the rot to creep. Years of lying, vicious
propaganda, never countered strongly -- or at all -- has worked its way
deep into the minds of millions of us. No longer are the people who feel
the hatred for the other religion some shadowy, far off sorts.
''I hate
Islam like poison,'' a well-known journalist told me not long ago. ''Not
Muslims, but Islam." Whatever that may mean, such feelings have become
respectable. The people who harbour them are our neighbours. They are us.
This is the backdrop that explains why we lurch from one non-issue to
another, the national psyche that is now fertile ground for those
non-issues to take root and overwhelm urgent priorities. Only in such a
climate could two hundred thousand louts have been persuaded that smashing
a dusty mosque was an act of national pride. Only in such times could an
obscure painting by M F Husain, unnoticed for two decades, be elevated into
yet another sign that all Muslims are anti-Hindu, anti-national.
And only at such a time could so many otherwise ordinary, sensible and
perhaps even educated Indians applaud these efforts. This is where we are
today.
What happened to Husain is just one more sign of the times. The offensive
painting is actually a line drawing of the goddess Saraswati. She's topless
in it, a state she is in in more than one sculpture on our temples. But
because Husain is a Muslim, this painting was suddenly picked up and used
as a stick to beat him and all Muslims with. How could he defile Hinduism
by painting Saraswati 'naked'? No matter that several of his other
paintings show a deep understanding and respect for all religions, Hinduism
included. No matter that this one is really an elegant, graceful tribute to
the goddess.
Now I am convinced that had the people who made such a fuss over Husain
tried to do the same even twenty years ago, they would have been laughed
off as the kooks they really are. But twenty years ago might as well be
prehistory today.
Today the most powerful man in this city, a man our movers and shakers
think nothing of fawning over, has ridden to where he is on a gravy train
of lies about Muslims. In the revolting rag he edits, Bal Thackeray
published an unsigned -- unsigned, please note -- article about Husain's
painting. Among other pearls of wisdom in it was the opinion that Husain's
fingers 'will have to be cut off' to punish him.
If that wasn't
enough, a later article by the rag's executive editor announced that now
Muslims would have to 'join Hindus in their relentless campaign against
Husain. Or else the ordinary Hindu will get confirmed in his belief that
what Husain is doing is the culture and tradition of Islam.'
What is truly revolting about all this is not that it sees print and so the
light of day. No, what's worse is that the rag -- it's called Saamna -- is
read and treated as a newspaper like any other by thousands. None of them
think it even strange -- quite apart from promoting enmity between
religions, the offence Husain was accused of -- to be reading suggestions
like this. Or that a painting has been
transformed into one more hoop for Muslims to leap through to prove
themselves.
Or that the painting, this 'crime' Husain is accused of, is an issue at
all.
I feel like a stuck CD saying it, but it doesn't need some fabulous vision
or insight to identify issues we really should be concentrating on. Every
second Indian cannot read his own name. Six of every ten Bombay residents
live in slums or on the streets, in horrifying conditions that shame us
all. Indians who have no water to drink number in the hundreds of millions.
And if it's crimes we are concerned about, over a thousand murders of
innocent Indians four years ago in Bombay remain unpunished, just as over
three thousand murders of innocent Indians twelve years ago in New Delhi
remain unpunished.
What is it that has persuaded so many of us to believe that these are
acceptable situations that need no comment at all, but a painting by a
Muslim is deserving of all the outrage we can muster? Why is it that the
misery of millions is not seen as defiling religion? Nor the slaughter of
thousands?
Those are some more questions I cannot answer. But I have a strange feeling
their answers have something to do with what's in that book of minutes.
Dilip D'Souza, a computer scientist by training, is a frequent contributors to Indian newspapers.
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