Beware of Gurumurthyism and Gautierism

Words. More dangerous than bullets and bombs. Terrorists bank on the power of words to expand their cadre. The lone survivor of the Mumbai carnage was inducted into jihadi by a CD he bought from the roadside of Karachi. Decades back, words turned a whole nation’s value system topsy turvy resulting in the worst holocaust in modern times – in Hitler’s Germany. People in positions of influence – be it activists, politicians or journalists- must be held accountable for irresponsible rhetoric that trigger off violence.
Following the Mumbai carnage, Gurumurthy went on the rampage. In this, he had an able(?) lieutenant in Francois Gautier, that French “friend “of India. With his bigoted logic, Gurumurthy churned out a disgusting piece in The New Indian Express titled ISOLATE TERROR, DO NOT SECULARISE IT!(The NIE, Dec. 1, 2008). Here, he rightly points out the knee-jerk reactions of the government of India while the terror was on. If he had stopped there, it would have been OK. But then he forays into his usual anti-secular ravings in his perverted, hate filled but brilliant language throbbing with his customary revulsion for non-Hindu Indians. Referring to the PM’s rather strange invitation(or summons? that’s what it sounded like to me) to the ISI, Gurumurthy says: Did he(Manmohan Singh) think that the ISI has suddenly shed its enmity and turned its admirer under the secular leaders Sonia Gandhi, a Christian, and himself, a Sikh?
His tirade continues. It is the Indian Polity’s inability to say plainly that Islamic terror is a global phenomenon, and it is extending itself into India through global Islamic network. Result, instead of isolating terror, the national political discourse began secularizing it. And then in his usual God-is-love-love-is-blind-therefore-god-is-blind type of logic he goes on and on, hammering the secular forces in India for not coming down heavily in thoughts, words and deeds on Muslims. The article concludes with Terror stands secularized, not isolated in secular discourse! How will India fight terror with this cerebral paralysis?

What on earth does this fanatic want? Charge Indian political discourse with virulent communal sentiments? Posit a communal worldview as the ideal one for India? Does he realize that the demolition of Babri Masjid is the start point of the entry of jihadis in India? Does he want the government to harass Muslims in India, isolate them and start a communal war in the country? Does he want to see normalcy in the country completely destroyed so that predictability on a day to day basis is forever banished from the life of every Indian? Is that his idea of Ramrajya? Why doesn’t he understand the government(be it BJP or Congress) is always skating on thin ice and every patriotic citizen should refrain from making this task more difficult for them? Well, how can he when his brain in infected by communal bigotry leading to cerebral paralysis, which has rendered one portion of his thinking process non-functional?

The day after this article appeared came another one from Francois Gautier titled SONIA’S PRESENCE IN DELHI IS COSTING INDIA DEARLY (The NIE, Dec 2, 2008). Very much in bad taste on account of the very personal attacks on Sonia Gandhi, the atrticle gives the impression that this French man is trying to out herod herod to please this newspaper which has hired him, paying, no doubt, an obscenely fat fee in order to recruit a white man to lend greater credibility to its communal agenda. Gautier indulges in a litany of I accuse Sonia, which despite its mischievous intent, is uproariously comical by its very ridiculous, puerile melodramatic tone. For a sample:
I accuse Sonia of being responsible for the tragedy of Mumbai
I accuse Sonia and her govt.of having made NSG the laughing stock of the world
I accuse Sonia of having her Christian and Western background, in four years, divided India on religious and caste lines in a cynical and methodical manner
I accuse Sonia of weakening India’s spirit of sacrifice and courage - - -
I accuse Sonia of always pointing the finger at Pakistan when terrorism in India is now mostly homegrown.
I accuse Sonia of being an enemy of Hindus - - -
I accuse Sonia of taking advantage of India’s respect for women -
I accuse Sonia for exploiting the Indian Press’ obsession with her
After this hilarious litany fit for high school declamation contests, Gautier goes on to make vitriolic personal attacks on her.

Not that I am fan of Sonia Gandhi, but this is bad journalism. Will some one tell The NIE, that readers are discerning and when an obsession becomes a paranoia with a journalist, the reader only goes tut tutting in pity?

Why is NIE wasting its space on such maniacal assault on secularism while its editorials go tom tomming secular ideals? Why this Janus like position?

If the NIE wants to divide the country along communal lines, it should rope in journalists who know their job better, and do not lower the quality of the paper. Or is it quality at the altar of Hindutva?

Previous posts on Gurumurthyism : http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2006/12/gurumurthyism.html

The Delhi Blasts - On Treating the Disease

I know a group of people whose refrain after each series of bomb blasts is “Narendra Modi - that’s what the country needs”.

I strongly disagree with them. The effectiveness of every action should be judged by its long term results. Did the state engineered post- Godhra riots rid Gujarat of terror attacks? Most certainly not. In fact Gujarat, unfortunately, seems to figure on the hit list of terrorists, if one is to go by the turn of events since Godhra.

There was a time when I seriously thought that if BJP could discard communal politics, it would be a welcome change from the Congress which has grown into an effete political force on account of compulsions of coalition politics and appeasement policies. But after the communal riots in Orissa and now Karnataka (BJP ruled states), BJP at the centre is an absolute no no. The BJP ruled states believe in denying space to non majority groups. That denial, it appears, is to be achieved by elimination in installments. Hardly an ideal situation in a pluralistic democracy like India. One does not cease to be an Indian simply because she/he is a Christian or Muslim.

I suppose, in this context, it is necessary to talk about the code of conduct of minorities in a secular political set up. If conversion by allurements by Christian missionaries is practiced, it should be stopped. Gurumurthy recently wrote a piece in The New Indian Express on the Orissa riots, laying all the blame at the door of Christian missionaries who converted the Panas(an SC community) and turned them against the Kandas ( a Scheduled Tribe community) who did not get converted to Christianity. Now, how much of truth there is in this claim is a matter of dispute, for, Gurumurthy has a remarkable capacity of twisting facts and figures out of shape to rationalize his Hindutva agenda (http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2006/12/gurumurthyism.html) . But if we are to give credence to the proverbial wisdom that there is no smoke without fire, this matter needs to be investigated. If there is some truth in what Gurumurthy says – that conversion is setting tribes against each other – the issue needs to be taken seriously and addressed. And addressed by Christian groups who must take a decision not to indulge in unethical conversions by dangling attractive compensations for conversion. So also the Muslim community. The leaders should do some serious thinking on how Islam could be fitted harmoniously into the Indian cultural setting. But, most importantly, the minority groups should not indulge in anything that offends the sensibilities of the majority group. I think the former owes that much to the latter who have been infinitely tolerant of differences. The Minority Rights should not to exercised in any way that is detrimental to the peace and harmony of a secular society

I look back with nostalgia at the days when one did not have to be apologetic about belonging to a minority religion. I’m not talking of some remote past but a past in Kerala, very much present in my memory. On several occasions, I have been embarrassed by my friends whom I knew as my classmates in the seventies, telling me that I survive in India with no rights denied cause of the goodness of Hindus. I do not question this but there was a time when we took each other for granted, never saw ourselves as Hindus or Christians or Muslims but as friends and Indians.

Is it possible to recapture those days? A disease can be rooted out and cured only if the diagnosis is proper. It is imperative that representatives from all creeds in India sit together, admit mistakes, make earnest promises to change and take a solemn oath that “we are Indians first”.

Or India will be broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.

Gurumurthyism

My idle browsing this time took me to S. Gurumurthy’s articles. I used to read his columns in the IE and had always found his venom quite shocking. But my just completed exercise of reading article after article at one sitting as is possible on the net, compels me to react. Even though, I am fully aware, that it could possibly be a knee jerk reaction. If I put it off for another day, this blog might not happen. My diffidence, which has temporarily taken a backseat in the after math of what I read just now, might assert itself. So big a name is Sri Gurumurthy’s. So, braving the risk of being ridiculed for my presumptuous effort to react to so established and versatile a person, I am going to use this space to deconstruct (as the term is loosely used) Sri S. Gurumurthy or Gurumurthyism (my coinage).

What do I mean by Gurumurthyism? From what I understand, it comprises

• an intense resentment towards non Hindu communities in India for their locus standi as Indian citizens.
• equating patriotism with hatred for non majority communities.
• denouncing secularism as unpatriotic.
• intolerance of any remark against India, Indian culture, Hinduism
• a violent urge to justify anything Indian, be it good, bad or ugly

The long and short of it is: Gurumurthyism is an ideology of national exclusivism informed by a philosophy of hate.

But Gurumurthyism is a far cry from the celebrated, traditional Indian Weltanschauung. The Indian world view is an expansive, genial, generous, inclusive, tolerant, humanistic and spiritual one. Is it this worldview that Sri Gurumurthy is trying to resurrect and reinstate? No way! Gurumurthyism is the indigenous version of divide and rule. No. Exclude and rule.

I am a proud inheritor of what was the greatest of known civilizations – a civilization that produced a Buddha more than five hundred years before Christ, a Shankara who brought about a massive religious reform without shedding a drop of blood, for which more than half the credit goes to the practitioners of Hindu religion, and a Gandhi who , for a brief moment, could make Indians become intensely conscious of their identity as human beings by enabling them to go beyond their cultural identities. Ours is a civilization which made space for every persecuted race who turned to the subcontinent for refuge.

These are but some highlights of the great Indian civilization. I will not use past tense to refer to this civilization, for it still lives on in the hearts and minds of the ordinary Indian - in spite of Gurumurthyism, which I would describe as an aberration, a hiccup in the process of the evolution of a great people – an aberration the great people must confront, deal with and then overcome.

To the Gurumurthys of India, I would like to say this. While it is true there is no future without past, there is no future for a people trapped in the past too. One cannot put the clock back. If one must do it, who is to decide how far back it must be set? No one can appropriate proprietorship over history.