FOCUS
BANKRUPTCY OF INDIAN LIBERALS
Pawan K. Varma, is a brilliant IFS officer. He was a student of St. Stephens in Delhi. Post retirement, he was taken by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, as his advisor, with a cabinet rank. Later, he became Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). An intellectual by his own right, he grew in stature in public space for his candid & fair observation during TV debates. Post CAA-2019 enactment, he fell out with his mentor Nitish Kumar due to his stringent opposition to CAA, which Nitish Kumar & his party JD (U) had accepted as the need of evolving India. Of course, it is not clear, if it was political compulsion, since JD (U) is part of the NDA, or JD (U) and its members, from Nitish Kumar to all else, have appreciated the spirit of CAA. However, Nitish Kumar and his supporters in JD (U) are on board unequivocally with the ruling NDA with respect to CAA 2019 enactment.
On March 7, Times of India carried an article in its editorial page “Where Indian Liberals Err”, authored by Pawan K Varma. I must profusely thank him for writing this piece for its sheer relevance in the contemporary context India is passing through and how he made it easier for this write-up, since he too is a part of this ‘Liberal Brigade of India’.
However, at the outset it has to be mentioned that these so called rightists or ultra-rightists from Sangh and allied outfits are not paragon of virtues. There are many of them, who are a disgrace to India’s democratic & secular polity and they deserve unalloyed condemnation. Having said that, how good, better or worse are these Liberals of India?
Varma starts his piece, by stating that liberalism is under threat due to the rise of ultra-right in India. While stating that ultra-right is on ascendency all over the world. Clearly his understanding of right or ultra-right is wrong, at least as far as India is concerned. The so-called ultra rightists in India as compared to the rightists in other parts of the world are a small fringe who cannot influence any course of events in India, likes of Pramod Muthalik of Sri Ram Sene and his ilk. Vast majority of Indians are centrists, who are not with this band called liberals. Indian liberals are mostly left of the centre ideologues. In India, being liberal is a bit of a fashion, like our own so-called secular brigade for whom, running down Hindus, or their traditions is a norm, and media rushes to anoint them as true secular.
He talks about ‘relevance of our national ethos, civilizational legacy of our country, its belief in pluralism, respect for all faiths, a just social order, equitable economic progress, tolerance of different opinions, acceptance of dissent, social peace and harmony, a civilised discourse, avoidance of shrill & extremist views as essential idea of India’. All these qualities, which are prevalent in India of the yore since the days of unwritten history, Varma attributes these qualities to liberals, who are products of post 1950 India. But in the same breath he also accuses ‘these liberals of being selective in their opposition to the illiterate aggression of the ultra-right that weakens their credibility’. Mark his words “illiterate aggression of the ultra-right”. And he calls himself as one of them, the so-called tolerant liberals. Surely, like all else these ultra – rights too have their freedom of speech, not just seditious “Tukde Tukde Gang”!
Some over 10 years ago, Indian Express in its editorial had written “One of the more dangerous paradoxes of public discourse in a democratic society is that some ‘liberals’ are often the most ‘intolerant’, some ‘intellectuals’ are often the best practitioners of smear campaigns and some media are often willing carriers of such ‘liberal intellectual concerns’. It was generally commenting upon the intellectual witch hunt when Sonal Shah, a PIO economist, was inducted into US President Obama’s transition team.
Sometime in December 2011, a Mumbai datelined report informed “3 held for hurting religious beliefs”. Reportedly three persons from filmdom, Director, Producer and Publicist were arrested under different section of IPC, like hurting religious sentiments and malicious intention to insult religious beliefs etc, besides violations under Cinematograph Act, which are non-bailable offences. Police were acting on complaints by some catholic groups. Reportedly, the posters and publicity materials contained offensive depiction of stabbing Jesus Christ. On the face of it, if there was indeed a ‘depiction of Jesus being stabbed’, it is highly reprehensible and deserves to be condemned. It would certainly hurt the sentiments of all Christian faithfuls as well as disgusting to those with a larger canvas of thoughts. Fortunately, those who were arrested for the blasphemous depiction were non-Hindus. Or else it would not be surprising for the entire media going hammer & tong condemning the three in superlative terms. And strangely no-body came to the defense of artistic freedom or against the arrest as a blatant attack on creativity. Yes occasionally as it happens, media men and women are caught with no garments on. That’s Indian media for you.
Just to keep the memory fresh or rather to refresh it, readers are invited to Baroda University Fine Arts Department exhibition held in the department premises, as a part of the university examination. The exhibition was open for public for a few days. This was when paintings became a public knowledge and media covered it. Some years ago around May 2007, a student had painted naked Jesus urinating from the cross into a W.C. Jesus was painted on a boxlike cross with hands dangling from either side so were feet at the bottom. At the first glance it appeared like a straight forward picture, but there was a small hole from where phallus was shown with urine dripping into the commode at the bottom. It was extremely disgusting. Naturally Christians protested. There was also a couple of paintings of Durga giving birth to a demon through vaginal delivery and piercing the infant with a trident and some other equally sickening paintings. The Hindu goddess was shown squatting in birthing position with child (supposedly demon) coming out of the vaginal opening. All in the name of freedom of expression and freedom of artistic creativity! It was obnoxious to the core. Hindus too protested.
Here in Baroda both Christians and Hindus protested jointly at some point. Media was in a quandary. Anupama Katakam of the FRONTLINE fortnightly from THE HINDU stable, even questioned this joint protest.
“In April, the Tate Modern Art Gallery London had an exhibition of works by…..some works were sexually explicit in the extreme. The show closed with rave reviews early this month”, this Katakam had written in the FRONTLINE, reporting on Baroda exhibition. Now, have we to take lessons from London School of Nudity or Sexuality? Before the white man even knew of civilizational norms, our frescos, paintings and carvings were of high order. Hence the comparison is silly and stupid. But what this Katakam did not tell was, if those paintings were of Jesus or of Mary or any other objects of worship. More often than not, these white artists do display a measure of sensitivity in dealing with their objects of worship.
But sadly, Indian artists have a tendency to take it for granted, this so-called freedom of expression. They stoop to any extent. But they do take care, to paint only Christian and Hindu God or Goddesses, like Maqbool Fida Husain, who started it all years ago. In their freedom of expression, Indian artists have completely excluded all objects of Muslim worship. Even this maverick Maqbool, who is a Muslim himself does not dare to take potshot at his own faith or his people. These artists and their stupid defenders realize in their basic intelligence not to tinker with Muslim feelings or else they may have to run for their life, as when Deccan Herald office in Bengalooru was burnt down by an irate Muslim mob protesting against a short story deemed offensive to Islam, originally published in Malayalam and life had gone on in Kerala, where nothing happened. But in Bengalooru many died in the violence that erupted). So the freedom of expression is used only when other (aggrieved) person does not hit back violently.
Thus, this Katakam was at pains, describing all thru, Sangh Pariwar in Gujarat as the bad boys. She had written “Some Christian priests teamed up with BJP MLA Jain and VHP activists to take on Chandamohan, the student and Panikkar, the Dean. This despite the fact that Gujarat’s Hindu fundamentalists are known to attack Christian missionaries on the slightest pretext”, has exposed her clearly. It is journalists like this Katakam who divide the society and tries to keep it divided. The question here is, if there is a common cause, why shouldn’t both fight together? What is Katakam’s problem? Media and a whole lot of it condemned Hindu outfits, for being violators of artistic freedom and all that crap that goes with it. None wrote anything about Christian protest. In fact Anupama Katakam pilloried Christians for having joined the Hindu groups to protest on these extremely tasteless and boorishly nauseating paintings, which truly exposed her. What do you do with such media men and women!
Going further Varma writes. “I believe for instance, that liberal should have emphatically and unitedly opposed the overruling by the Congress government in 1986 of the Shah Bano judgement. It was a blatant act of minority appeasement for vote bank politics”. Sadly Varma woke up so late in the day, while knowing fully well that Indian liberals, most of whom are Hindus, prided themselves as critics of Hinduism and its practices so that world calls them seculars. Here Varma forgets to mention the lone Muslim voice of sanity Arif Mohammed Khan, who resigned, in the prime of his youth, as a matter of principle, from the Rajeev Gandhi cabinet, as Union Minister, in protest against this decision of Rajeev Gandhi to play crass vote bank politics of appeasement of Mullas. He was only 35 years of age. Neither Varma or India’s liberal brigade including media came to Arif Mohammed Khan’s defence. His principled stand, neither Indian media celebrated nor Congress party appreciated or used his services since then. He had resigned his cabinet post in 1986. One of the most respected face of Muslims in Indian politics, Congress did not use his services for some 35 years, Arif Mohammed Khan remained in wilderness until NDA decided to recognise him for his liberal outlook. A very well educated and a considerate rational human being with deep knowledge of Indian Constitution and Indian scriptures was appointed the Governor of Kerala by the NDA government led by BJP in 2019. This was indeed a tribute to India’s syncratic culture, which neither liberals nor media positively commented, except seeing muck in it.
So it was left to BJP, the party of rightists & ultra rightists, to recognise a gentleman like Arif Mohammed Khan, and he, just the other day, was pushed around by ‘intellectual liberal ‘historian’ of Indians liberal brigade Prof Irfan Habib on the stage program of Indian History Congress in Kerala during February 2020, which was clearly an expression of frustration by the ‘celebrated’ historian, for the recognition Khan received from the liberals’ beite noire, BJP. This happened in the Left government sponsored Kerala government programme.
Just to revisit another scene of double speak and double standard the following is recollected. On 15th February 2012, Indian fishing vessel St. Antony, sailing 14 nautical miles off the Kerala coast was fired upon by the personnel of Italian flagged tanker Enrica Lexie. Two Indians, Valentine and Pinku were killed by the firing. Kerala government rightly termed the killing as murder and arrested two Italian personnel of the tanker. Being an arrogant white regime, Italian government went hammer and tong at the arrest of their nationals by Indians. They didn’t express any remorse for the killings. Vatican jumped in to influence churches in Kerala and strangely the clergy in Kerala took-up the gauntlet on behalf of Vatican to opt for mediatory course in this sorry episode. Now this was purely a law and order issue happened within the Indian waters involving two Indians and the personnel of an Italian registered tanker. Where does the question of them being Christians come in? Surprisingly Indian media or liberals didn’t voice its disapproval. Even Vatican’s intervention was not called as communal or racial by our press, when it was clearly communal and even racial.
Varma further writes “Liberals should have far more forcefully condemned the purging of Pandits from Kashmir in the 1990s”. World is privy to the genocide, Varma calls it purging, of peace loving Kashmiri Pandits. Now, that post article 370 abrogation, lots of videos of the atrocity of Kashmiri Muslims on Kashmiri Pandits are surfacing, these liberals like Varma are opening up, expressing their failures to talk for Kashmiri Pandits. In fact this almost 3 decades old silence represents the complete bankruptcy of liberals among both Hindus and Muslims, while Christians & others may say we are not concerned. Varma writes about the double standard of liberals saying “The valid condemnation of the open incitement to violence in Delhi by BJP leaders should be accompanied by an equally strong denunciation of the incendiary speech by AIMIM’s Waris Pathan and others like him”. This is a standard practice of our liberals every time they have to take a stand.
They will generally condemn BJP and Sangh outfits in strong language and go quiet when it is non-Hindu violence, actions or utterances. In fact, the English print media, who tag along the liberals are ‘the best practitioners of smear campaigns’. The Times of India exposed itself when, the other day, it published in front page “India paying for not sending Muslim to Pak during partition’, attributing to Union Minister Giriraj Singh, while consigning to a corner of the 4th page “15 crore hai lekin 102 crore pe bhaari hai bhai’ by this joker called Waris Pathan. That was one more case of bankruptcy of TOI.
Remember the infamous Jhabua nuns’ rape case in Madhya Pradesh! When Indian English media published it without knowing the genesis of the whole issue, the entire world, including Pakistan called Indians barbarians, implying Hindu outfits. Media played it up to the hilt with their liberal brigade accusing Bajrang Dal and other Hindu outfits. To know the truth, Kerala team of MLAs visited Jhabua since those nuns were Malayaalis and the team made an on the spot investigation of the whole episode and their report concluded that it was the Christian tribals who committed the heinous crime. Unfortunately the whole media kept quiet and did not disclose the investigation report or wrote about it in the media. This is India’s liberal brigade, when truth stares at them they go dumb.
Varma, then talks about Indian secularism, which is distinct from others according to him. Expression of personal faith in public has nothing to do with being secular or otherwise. By being overtly religious, does not make the practitioner of any faith non-secular. He writes on how Mahatma Gandhi made no secret of his Hindu piety, while inferring that ‘we must respect all faiths’. Isn’t it the same as we Indians profess ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhava’! This concept is alien to Nehruvian concept of secularism which was closure to agnosticism and for our liberals; Nehru was the model and therefore generally looked down upon Hindu rituals and practices, while being blind to so-called miracles in other faiths.
Varma further writes, “Many liberals are not sufficiently rooted in the culture of the soil. India is a deeply cultural nation. You cannot condemn the deplorable distortion of the use of the slogan “Jai Shri Ram’ unless you have some knowledge of Valmiki’s Ramayana or Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, which brings out the Maryada Purushottam character of Lord Rama as the very epitome of ethical and caring conduct”. While he acknowledges the bias of this so-called liberal brigade for their ignorance of India’s ancient history, before embarking to attack the alleged distortion of slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’, his language “deplorable distortion” by Sangh followers, without explaining what is ‘deplorable distortion’ by the sloganeers of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, shows his own unreasonableness or may be even intolerance.
While criticizing the arm-chair bravado of liberal brigade Varma tells “It is not possible to counter the lumpen ultra-right while sitting in drawing rooms”. Mark his words he calls Sangh parivar or those who do not agree with liberal as “lumpen ultra-right”. This is a clear indication of his intolerance of opposite view, he clubs all in the same bunch of disagreeable people. Freedom of thought, speech and action is reserved only for liberals and their fellow travelers. Varma also admits in course of his writing, “Extreme left wing ideology often hijacks the entire debate”, which truly speaking is the bane of Indian politics. Look at CAA debate, or Look at abrogation of article 370, or Ayodhya Masjid / Temple imbroglio and the latest Supreme Court judgement, or even Triple Talaq issue or Uniform Civil Code, all of them have been hijacked by extreme left narrative to attack BJP led NDA at the centre. Entire Left combined with Congress went hammer and tong against CAA in different parts of the country. However the latest is the Kapil Sibal statement, “we never said CAA will take away anybody’s citizenship. CAA won’t take away anybody’s citizenship”, while adding ‘CAA is not anti-Muslim’, during the debate in Rajya Sabha on the latest Delhi riot. That is a huge climb down, a clear loss of face for those who supported Shahin Baug and other protestors.
There have been a plethora of writings on the abrogation of article 370 where liberal spoke in favour of Kashmir as against the rest of India instead of decrying the very existence of article 370 in the constitution. Interpretation of Ayodhya judgement by Supreme Court, favouring the construction of Ram temple, was a reflection of perverted thoughts of liberals, where they even made fun of apex court judgement. It is true, all judgement from any court can be tested on the crucible of fairness and justice. Courts are required to be fair & just, but not necessarily its always the case. But, there should be clarity and prevalence of truth combined with fairness and justice. Having given to understand the history of Babri Masjid, the conclusion by the apex court was eminently sensible, just and fair. Yet liberals went to market shouting it was a miscarriage of justice.
Dr. David Frawley is an American hippy who became an exponent of Vedic teachings, one who has been in India for over 3 decades. According to him “You cannot criticize Islam in Pakistan, because it is the majority. You cannot criticize Islam in India because it is a minority. Yet you can criticize Hinduism in India because it is a majority and in Pakistan because it is a minority. Yet Hindus are said to be intolerant”. He had tweeted. This statement of this American turned Indian can be stretched far and wide to describe how Indian liberals have been bad Indians. U R Ananthamurthy, Girish Karnad, Arundhati Roy and their ilk representing liberal discourse in the public space did not prove themselves as fair Indians.
Nahid Afrin, is a singing sensation from Assam. Sometime in March 2017, she took part in a TV show, Indian Idol Junior. Reportedly Islamic clerics issued a fatwa. Believe it or not some 42 of them. They were irked less for singing in a TV show, but she sang a Bhajan.
Fortunately there was a groundswell of support for the teenage singer, from within the film industry and even from outsiders. But surprisingly, four KHANS from the Bollywood were tongue-tied in their silence. Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir Khan & Saif Ali Khan, none of them had anything to say in supporting the girl. Fortunately unlike the Kashmiri girl Zaira Wasim, Nahid Afrin stood her ground! She had to be congratulated and celebrated, especially when the entire Muslim intellectual brigade of Prof Zoya Hassan, Prof Irfan Habib, Prof Ayesha Kidwai, Dr Gauhar Raza including Shabnam Hashmi lost their gumption to stand up to these fatwa jokers. These are the liberals of India.
Then you have a Pakistani Khalid Umar, going viral in social media and he has stated “Muslims demanded a separate homeland of Islam in the Indian sub-continent. They got Pakistan but unfortunately the majority of Muslims stayed back. A bloody mess was created across the border. This continuous squabbling is a drag in the progress of 1 billion people. Muslims don’t deserve democracy. Show me one democratic Muslims country out of the 52 odd & you win the argument. Let the Muslims accept that Islamic faith is intrinsically anti-democratic. Muslims live in peace, only under despotic rulers. It’s not Islamophobia, but it is history of Islam. I invite Pakistan to enact a Pakistani version of CAA & take all the persecuted Muslims from India. Let the dream of Muslim League & Jinnah be fulfilled in its entirety?”
Isn’t this statement almost like a Sangh leader making in the streets of Delhi! Yet truth can be stranger than fiction. Reasonable thinking Pakistani Muslims are any day better than Indian Liberals. And there are ‘N’ number of instances where liberals and their media friends have exposed themselves as petty, intolerant and even perverse. Do you hearken Mr. Pavan K Varma!
Pawan K. Varma, is a brilliant IFS officer. He was a student of St. Stephens in Delhi. Post retirement, he was taken by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, as his advisor, with a cabinet rank. Later, he became Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). An intellectual by his own right, he grew in stature in public space for his candid & fair observation during TV debates. Post CAA-2019 enactment, he fell out with his mentor Nitish Kumar due to his stringent opposition to CAA, which Nitish Kumar & his party JD (U) had accepted as the need of evolving India. Of course, it is not clear, if it was political compulsion, since JD (U) is part of the NDA, or JD (U) and its members, from Nitish Kumar to all else, have appreciated the spirit of CAA. However, Nitish Kumar and his supporters in JD (U) are on board unequivocally with the ruling NDA with respect to CAA 2019 enactment.
On March 7, Times of India carried an article in its editorial page “Where Indian Liberals Err”, authored by Pawan K Varma. I must profusely thank him for writing this piece for its sheer relevance in the contemporary context India is passing through and how he made it easier for this write-up, since he too is a part of this ‘Liberal Brigade of India’.
However, at the outset it has to be mentioned that these so called rightists or ultra-rightists from Sangh and allied outfits are not paragon of virtues. There are many of them, who are a disgrace to India’s democratic & secular polity and they deserve unalloyed condemnation. Having said that, how good, better or worse are these Liberals of India?
Varma starts his piece, by stating that liberalism is under threat due to the rise of ultra-right in India. While stating that ultra-right is on ascendency all over the world. Clearly his understanding of right or ultra-right is wrong, at least as far as India is concerned. The so-called ultra rightists in India as compared to the rightists in other parts of the world are a small fringe who cannot influence any course of events in India, likes of Pramod Muthalik of Sri Ram Sene and his ilk. Vast majority of Indians are centrists, who are not with this band called liberals. Indian liberals are mostly left of the centre ideologues. In India, being liberal is a bit of a fashion, like our own so-called secular brigade for whom, running down Hindus, or their traditions is a norm, and media rushes to anoint them as true secular.
He talks about ‘relevance of our national ethos, civilizational legacy of our country, its belief in pluralism, respect for all faiths, a just social order, equitable economic progress, tolerance of different opinions, acceptance of dissent, social peace and harmony, a civilised discourse, avoidance of shrill & extremist views as essential idea of India’. All these qualities, which are prevalent in India of the yore since the days of unwritten history, Varma attributes these qualities to liberals, who are products of post 1950 India. But in the same breath he also accuses ‘these liberals of being selective in their opposition to the illiterate aggression of the ultra-right that weakens their credibility’. Mark his words “illiterate aggression of the ultra-right”. And he calls himself as one of them, the so-called tolerant liberals. Surely, like all else these ultra – rights too have their freedom of speech, not just seditious “Tukde Tukde Gang”!
Some over 10 years ago, Indian Express in its editorial had written “One of the more dangerous paradoxes of public discourse in a democratic society is that some ‘liberals’ are often the most ‘intolerant’, some ‘intellectuals’ are often the best practitioners of smear campaigns and some media are often willing carriers of such ‘liberal intellectual concerns’. It was generally commenting upon the intellectual witch hunt when Sonal Shah, a PIO economist, was inducted into US President Obama’s transition team.
Sometime in December 2011, a Mumbai datelined report informed “3 held for hurting religious beliefs”. Reportedly three persons from filmdom, Director, Producer and Publicist were arrested under different section of IPC, like hurting religious sentiments and malicious intention to insult religious beliefs etc, besides violations under Cinematograph Act, which are non-bailable offences. Police were acting on complaints by some catholic groups. Reportedly, the posters and publicity materials contained offensive depiction of stabbing Jesus Christ. On the face of it, if there was indeed a ‘depiction of Jesus being stabbed’, it is highly reprehensible and deserves to be condemned. It would certainly hurt the sentiments of all Christian faithfuls as well as disgusting to those with a larger canvas of thoughts. Fortunately, those who were arrested for the blasphemous depiction were non-Hindus. Or else it would not be surprising for the entire media going hammer & tong condemning the three in superlative terms. And strangely no-body came to the defense of artistic freedom or against the arrest as a blatant attack on creativity. Yes occasionally as it happens, media men and women are caught with no garments on. That’s Indian media for you.
Just to keep the memory fresh or rather to refresh it, readers are invited to Baroda University Fine Arts Department exhibition held in the department premises, as a part of the university examination. The exhibition was open for public for a few days. This was when paintings became a public knowledge and media covered it. Some years ago around May 2007, a student had painted naked Jesus urinating from the cross into a W.C. Jesus was painted on a boxlike cross with hands dangling from either side so were feet at the bottom. At the first glance it appeared like a straight forward picture, but there was a small hole from where phallus was shown with urine dripping into the commode at the bottom. It was extremely disgusting. Naturally Christians protested. There was also a couple of paintings of Durga giving birth to a demon through vaginal delivery and piercing the infant with a trident and some other equally sickening paintings. The Hindu goddess was shown squatting in birthing position with child (supposedly demon) coming out of the vaginal opening. All in the name of freedom of expression and freedom of artistic creativity! It was obnoxious to the core. Hindus too protested.
Here in Baroda both Christians and Hindus protested jointly at some point. Media was in a quandary. Anupama Katakam of the FRONTLINE fortnightly from THE HINDU stable, even questioned this joint protest.
“In April, the Tate Modern Art Gallery London had an exhibition of works by…..some works were sexually explicit in the extreme. The show closed with rave reviews early this month”, this Katakam had written in the FRONTLINE, reporting on Baroda exhibition. Now, have we to take lessons from London School of Nudity or Sexuality? Before the white man even knew of civilizational norms, our frescos, paintings and carvings were of high order. Hence the comparison is silly and stupid. But what this Katakam did not tell was, if those paintings were of Jesus or of Mary or any other objects of worship. More often than not, these white artists do display a measure of sensitivity in dealing with their objects of worship.
But sadly, Indian artists have a tendency to take it for granted, this so-called freedom of expression. They stoop to any extent. But they do take care, to paint only Christian and Hindu God or Goddesses, like Maqbool Fida Husain, who started it all years ago. In their freedom of expression, Indian artists have completely excluded all objects of Muslim worship. Even this maverick Maqbool, who is a Muslim himself does not dare to take potshot at his own faith or his people. These artists and their stupid defenders realize in their basic intelligence not to tinker with Muslim feelings or else they may have to run for their life, as when Deccan Herald office in Bengalooru was burnt down by an irate Muslim mob protesting against a short story deemed offensive to Islam, originally published in Malayalam and life had gone on in Kerala, where nothing happened. But in Bengalooru many died in the violence that erupted). So the freedom of expression is used only when other (aggrieved) person does not hit back violently.
Thus, this Katakam was at pains, describing all thru, Sangh Pariwar in Gujarat as the bad boys. She had written “Some Christian priests teamed up with BJP MLA Jain and VHP activists to take on Chandamohan, the student and Panikkar, the Dean. This despite the fact that Gujarat’s Hindu fundamentalists are known to attack Christian missionaries on the slightest pretext”, has exposed her clearly. It is journalists like this Katakam who divide the society and tries to keep it divided. The question here is, if there is a common cause, why shouldn’t both fight together? What is Katakam’s problem? Media and a whole lot of it condemned Hindu outfits, for being violators of artistic freedom and all that crap that goes with it. None wrote anything about Christian protest. In fact Anupama Katakam pilloried Christians for having joined the Hindu groups to protest on these extremely tasteless and boorishly nauseating paintings, which truly exposed her. What do you do with such media men and women!
Going further Varma writes. “I believe for instance, that liberal should have emphatically and unitedly opposed the overruling by the Congress government in 1986 of the Shah Bano judgement. It was a blatant act of minority appeasement for vote bank politics”. Sadly Varma woke up so late in the day, while knowing fully well that Indian liberals, most of whom are Hindus, prided themselves as critics of Hinduism and its practices so that world calls them seculars. Here Varma forgets to mention the lone Muslim voice of sanity Arif Mohammed Khan, who resigned, in the prime of his youth, as a matter of principle, from the Rajeev Gandhi cabinet, as Union Minister, in protest against this decision of Rajeev Gandhi to play crass vote bank politics of appeasement of Mullas. He was only 35 years of age. Neither Varma or India’s liberal brigade including media came to Arif Mohammed Khan’s defence. His principled stand, neither Indian media celebrated nor Congress party appreciated or used his services since then. He had resigned his cabinet post in 1986. One of the most respected face of Muslims in Indian politics, Congress did not use his services for some 35 years, Arif Mohammed Khan remained in wilderness until NDA decided to recognise him for his liberal outlook. A very well educated and a considerate rational human being with deep knowledge of Indian Constitution and Indian scriptures was appointed the Governor of Kerala by the NDA government led by BJP in 2019. This was indeed a tribute to India’s syncratic culture, which neither liberals nor media positively commented, except seeing muck in it.
So it was left to BJP, the party of rightists & ultra rightists, to recognise a gentleman like Arif Mohammed Khan, and he, just the other day, was pushed around by ‘intellectual liberal ‘historian’ of Indians liberal brigade Prof Irfan Habib on the stage program of Indian History Congress in Kerala during February 2020, which was clearly an expression of frustration by the ‘celebrated’ historian, for the recognition Khan received from the liberals’ beite noire, BJP. This happened in the Left government sponsored Kerala government programme.
Just to revisit another scene of double speak and double standard the following is recollected. On 15th February 2012, Indian fishing vessel St. Antony, sailing 14 nautical miles off the Kerala coast was fired upon by the personnel of Italian flagged tanker Enrica Lexie. Two Indians, Valentine and Pinku were killed by the firing. Kerala government rightly termed the killing as murder and arrested two Italian personnel of the tanker. Being an arrogant white regime, Italian government went hammer and tong at the arrest of their nationals by Indians. They didn’t express any remorse for the killings. Vatican jumped in to influence churches in Kerala and strangely the clergy in Kerala took-up the gauntlet on behalf of Vatican to opt for mediatory course in this sorry episode. Now this was purely a law and order issue happened within the Indian waters involving two Indians and the personnel of an Italian registered tanker. Where does the question of them being Christians come in? Surprisingly Indian media or liberals didn’t voice its disapproval. Even Vatican’s intervention was not called as communal or racial by our press, when it was clearly communal and even racial.
Varma further writes “Liberals should have far more forcefully condemned the purging of Pandits from Kashmir in the 1990s”. World is privy to the genocide, Varma calls it purging, of peace loving Kashmiri Pandits. Now, that post article 370 abrogation, lots of videos of the atrocity of Kashmiri Muslims on Kashmiri Pandits are surfacing, these liberals like Varma are opening up, expressing their failures to talk for Kashmiri Pandits. In fact this almost 3 decades old silence represents the complete bankruptcy of liberals among both Hindus and Muslims, while Christians & others may say we are not concerned. Varma writes about the double standard of liberals saying “The valid condemnation of the open incitement to violence in Delhi by BJP leaders should be accompanied by an equally strong denunciation of the incendiary speech by AIMIM’s Waris Pathan and others like him”. This is a standard practice of our liberals every time they have to take a stand.
They will generally condemn BJP and Sangh outfits in strong language and go quiet when it is non-Hindu violence, actions or utterances. In fact, the English print media, who tag along the liberals are ‘the best practitioners of smear campaigns’. The Times of India exposed itself when, the other day, it published in front page “India paying for not sending Muslim to Pak during partition’, attributing to Union Minister Giriraj Singh, while consigning to a corner of the 4th page “15 crore hai lekin 102 crore pe bhaari hai bhai’ by this joker called Waris Pathan. That was one more case of bankruptcy of TOI.
Remember the infamous Jhabua nuns’ rape case in Madhya Pradesh! When Indian English media published it without knowing the genesis of the whole issue, the entire world, including Pakistan called Indians barbarians, implying Hindu outfits. Media played it up to the hilt with their liberal brigade accusing Bajrang Dal and other Hindu outfits. To know the truth, Kerala team of MLAs visited Jhabua since those nuns were Malayaalis and the team made an on the spot investigation of the whole episode and their report concluded that it was the Christian tribals who committed the heinous crime. Unfortunately the whole media kept quiet and did not disclose the investigation report or wrote about it in the media. This is India’s liberal brigade, when truth stares at them they go dumb.
Varma, then talks about Indian secularism, which is distinct from others according to him. Expression of personal faith in public has nothing to do with being secular or otherwise. By being overtly religious, does not make the practitioner of any faith non-secular. He writes on how Mahatma Gandhi made no secret of his Hindu piety, while inferring that ‘we must respect all faiths’. Isn’t it the same as we Indians profess ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhava’! This concept is alien to Nehruvian concept of secularism which was closure to agnosticism and for our liberals; Nehru was the model and therefore generally looked down upon Hindu rituals and practices, while being blind to so-called miracles in other faiths.
Varma further writes, “Many liberals are not sufficiently rooted in the culture of the soil. India is a deeply cultural nation. You cannot condemn the deplorable distortion of the use of the slogan “Jai Shri Ram’ unless you have some knowledge of Valmiki’s Ramayana or Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, which brings out the Maryada Purushottam character of Lord Rama as the very epitome of ethical and caring conduct”. While he acknowledges the bias of this so-called liberal brigade for their ignorance of India’s ancient history, before embarking to attack the alleged distortion of slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’, his language “deplorable distortion” by Sangh followers, without explaining what is ‘deplorable distortion’ by the sloganeers of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, shows his own unreasonableness or may be even intolerance.
While criticizing the arm-chair bravado of liberal brigade Varma tells “It is not possible to counter the lumpen ultra-right while sitting in drawing rooms”. Mark his words he calls Sangh parivar or those who do not agree with liberal as “lumpen ultra-right”. This is a clear indication of his intolerance of opposite view, he clubs all in the same bunch of disagreeable people. Freedom of thought, speech and action is reserved only for liberals and their fellow travelers. Varma also admits in course of his writing, “Extreme left wing ideology often hijacks the entire debate”, which truly speaking is the bane of Indian politics. Look at CAA debate, or Look at abrogation of article 370, or Ayodhya Masjid / Temple imbroglio and the latest Supreme Court judgement, or even Triple Talaq issue or Uniform Civil Code, all of them have been hijacked by extreme left narrative to attack BJP led NDA at the centre. Entire Left combined with Congress went hammer and tong against CAA in different parts of the country. However the latest is the Kapil Sibal statement, “we never said CAA will take away anybody’s citizenship. CAA won’t take away anybody’s citizenship”, while adding ‘CAA is not anti-Muslim’, during the debate in Rajya Sabha on the latest Delhi riot. That is a huge climb down, a clear loss of face for those who supported Shahin Baug and other protestors.
There have been a plethora of writings on the abrogation of article 370 where liberal spoke in favour of Kashmir as against the rest of India instead of decrying the very existence of article 370 in the constitution. Interpretation of Ayodhya judgement by Supreme Court, favouring the construction of Ram temple, was a reflection of perverted thoughts of liberals, where they even made fun of apex court judgement. It is true, all judgement from any court can be tested on the crucible of fairness and justice. Courts are required to be fair & just, but not necessarily its always the case. But, there should be clarity and prevalence of truth combined with fairness and justice. Having given to understand the history of Babri Masjid, the conclusion by the apex court was eminently sensible, just and fair. Yet liberals went to market shouting it was a miscarriage of justice.
Dr. David Frawley is an American hippy who became an exponent of Vedic teachings, one who has been in India for over 3 decades. According to him “You cannot criticize Islam in Pakistan, because it is the majority. You cannot criticize Islam in India because it is a minority. Yet you can criticize Hinduism in India because it is a majority and in Pakistan because it is a minority. Yet Hindus are said to be intolerant”. He had tweeted. This statement of this American turned Indian can be stretched far and wide to describe how Indian liberals have been bad Indians. U R Ananthamurthy, Girish Karnad, Arundhati Roy and their ilk representing liberal discourse in the public space did not prove themselves as fair Indians.
Nahid Afrin, is a singing sensation from Assam. Sometime in March 2017, she took part in a TV show, Indian Idol Junior. Reportedly Islamic clerics issued a fatwa. Believe it or not some 42 of them. They were irked less for singing in a TV show, but she sang a Bhajan.
Fortunately there was a groundswell of support for the teenage singer, from within the film industry and even from outsiders. But surprisingly, four KHANS from the Bollywood were tongue-tied in their silence. Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir Khan & Saif Ali Khan, none of them had anything to say in supporting the girl. Fortunately unlike the Kashmiri girl Zaira Wasim, Nahid Afrin stood her ground! She had to be congratulated and celebrated, especially when the entire Muslim intellectual brigade of Prof Zoya Hassan, Prof Irfan Habib, Prof Ayesha Kidwai, Dr Gauhar Raza including Shabnam Hashmi lost their gumption to stand up to these fatwa jokers. These are the liberals of India.
Then you have a Pakistani Khalid Umar, going viral in social media and he has stated “Muslims demanded a separate homeland of Islam in the Indian sub-continent. They got Pakistan but unfortunately the majority of Muslims stayed back. A bloody mess was created across the border. This continuous squabbling is a drag in the progress of 1 billion people. Muslims don’t deserve democracy. Show me one democratic Muslims country out of the 52 odd & you win the argument. Let the Muslims accept that Islamic faith is intrinsically anti-democratic. Muslims live in peace, only under despotic rulers. It’s not Islamophobia, but it is history of Islam. I invite Pakistan to enact a Pakistani version of CAA & take all the persecuted Muslims from India. Let the dream of Muslim League & Jinnah be fulfilled in its entirety?”
Isn’t this statement almost like a Sangh leader making in the streets of Delhi! Yet truth can be stranger than fiction. Reasonable thinking Pakistani Muslims are any day better than Indian Liberals. And there are ‘N’ number of instances where liberals and their media friends have exposed themselves as petty, intolerant and even perverse. Do you hearken Mr. Pavan K Varma!
Comments