HVK Archives: Slandering religion
Slandering religion - Mid-Day
M V Kamath
()
May 21, 1998
Title: Slandering religion
Author: M V Kamath
Publication: Mid-Day
Date: May 21, 1998
A persistent memory of a day, some 70-odd years ago, when I went
to the weekly market in my small town only to get upset over a
minor incident. Even as I was walking past a line of vegetable
hawkers I saw a Christian padre addressing a bunch of people who
were standing idly by.
The padre had unrolled a largish picture of what passed for
Hanuman and was saying: ou worship Hanuman? You worship a
monkey? Is he God? and words to that effect Petrified at this
sight, I found I could hardly move. Then, in a rush of tears, I
ran to my home to tell my mother what I had seen. No one, of
course, worshipped Hanuman. But we thought of him as the last
word in loyalty to Ram.
Strangely enough we never thought of him as an animal but as a
human being! My mother's reaction was to rebuke me for going to
the market and to tell me not to go there in future. The
principle obviously was that what one didn see or hear, didn
hurt. I was thinking of that Hanuman of over 70 years ago when I
read the story of M F Husain's painting of Hanuman and Sita. And
I don know whether to laugh or to cry.
For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would want to
hurt the feelings of others. The denigration of Hinduism and
Hindu gods by missionaries in my district stopped some time in
the '30s. But, especially after the Saraswati episode, I would
have thought that Husain had grown wiser. Obviously the man is
sinking into senility.
>From what I understand from an article in The Hindustan Times
(May 10) by Dr Rafiq Zakaria, Husain's masterpiece of
secularising Sita and Hanuman has horrified Muslims and has
invited strong criticism in the Urdu press. One of the leading
and most influential Urdu dailies, Inquilab carried a scathing
editorial against Husain and writing in Urdu Times, Faruq Ansan
went on to describe Husain's painting as "the most lurid
exhibition of art which has brought nothing but disgrace to
Muslims=94.
But how many Hindus read the Urdu press? The media has played up
the story, not bothering to give the Muslim reaction to it.
Comments Dr Zakaria: ven those who swear to communal harmony
and secularism, have never cared to understand, much less to
explain to their followers, that an anti-Hindu act of some
misguided Muslims, be they rulers or the ruled, whether in the
past or the present, are manifestly condemned by the Quran.
According to Dr Zakaria, an authority on the Quran, "Husain, a
non-practising Muslim, who is better versed in Hindu mythology
than in the tenets of his own religion, has violated the Quranic
injunction which clearly states in surah Ahzab verse 59 that
women should always be presented in the public with their 'outer
garments over their persons'." Several Muslim organisations, too,
have criticised Husain, whose biggest defenders are Hindu
secularists.
It is because Hindus are so supine and willing to take any insult
>from anybody that foreigners, especially, feel they can take a
pot shot at Hinduism. Recently, one Peter Popham, correspondent
of the London weekly The Independent had this to say about Atal
Behari Vajpayee inaugurating a Krishna Temple in Delhi with an
appeal to Hindus to work harder. Wrote Popham: "It was an odd
message to hear in the precincts of a temple built by the
devotees of Krishna, the lover god, whose most famous exertions
are devoted to satisfying the sexual appetites of Gopis, his
cowherd mistresses." Popham then went on to dismiss Hinduism as a
ggregation of rites, superstitions, texts and practices with
little internal consistency".
If I were Sushma Swaraj, I would call up the British High
Commissioner in India and tell him to ask Popham to leave the
country within 48 hours; if he will not oblige, saying that that
is none of his business, I would ask the editor of The
Independent, Rosy Boycott, to recall her correspondent. And if
she would not oblige, I would then have Popham declared persona
non grata and sent home by the first available flight to London.
And I couldn't care less what my fellow journalists may think of
me.
The Independent is a lively paper and it is welcome to its views
on Hinduism, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Iskcon. What it
is not entitled to is denigration of our gods in print. If it
insists on doing so, it must face up to the consequences. Popham
obviously does not approve of Vajpayee inaugurating a Hindu
temple. He writes: "It was left to the Communist Party to object
that in a secular state such as India, the prime minister has no
business attending the opening of temples. But the BJP has few
such inhibitions and with a name like Glory of India, the
invitation must have been impossible to resist.
I do not know whether Popham believes that Britain is secular.
Its ruler has to be anointed king by the Church of England.
Vajpayee has not been anointed PM, nor has K R Narayanan been
anointed President, by any Hindu priest, let alone a
Shankaracharya. There is something wrong with these Englishmen.
I understand that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has protested
and has sent a complaint to the British Press Complaints
Commission. I don't think anything will come out of it. I further
understand that the VHP has MW complained to Boycott. I don't
think much of any editor who allows the kind of rot Popham wrote
to be published. If the government of India does not throw out
Popham at the earliest, I would have a poor opinion of Vajpayee
too.
This has nothing to do with press freedom. This a question of
utter bad taste on the part of some raw reporter. Had Popham
written the kind of nonsense that he has written about Krishna
about any other religion he would probably have got into serious
trouble. He should try writing in that vein about the Prophet in
Pakistan, or Iran or Saudi Arabia and see what would happen to
him. In India, he apparently thinks, anything goes.
Incidentally, to revert to my original point about
proselytisation efforts by missionaries, I was quite taken aback
by an Associated Press report from Jerusalem that said that
"representatives of 50 Christian evangelical groups have agreed
to make an unprecedented joint statement promising not to carry
out missionary activity in Israel". The Christian groups, their
statement said, "rejoice in the presence of the Jewish people in
this country of their ancestors," and agree to avoid "activities
which... alienate them from their tradition and community". This
was evidently in response to an Israeli legislator's effort to
get an anti-proselytising bill passed in the Israeli parliament.
Christian groups got the message. Such a thing would be unheard
of in India. We are secular, you see.
We are a good people, quite willing to be kicked around by the
likes of Popham and Husain, with secularists applauding from the
sidelines.
(M V Kamath, veteran political commentator, takes on all comers)
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