Hindu Vivek Kendra
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA
   
 
 
«« Back
archive: Message from a mother and a lawyer

Message from a mother and a lawyer

Saeed Naqvi
The Indian Express
July 23, 1999


    Title: Message from a mother and a lawyer 
    Author: Saeed Naqvi  
    Publication: The Indian Express
    Date: July 23, 1999 
    
    It is universally acknowledged that Pakistan stands exposed in Kargil
    and in the corridors of diplomacy world-wide. But are we in the
    process of defeating the "idea" of an extremist Pakistan?
    
    Mir Taqi Mir said : Chashm ho to aayina khana hai dahar/Munh nazar
    aata hai deewaron Ke beech. (If you have that inner eye, this world is
    a hall of mirrors; you can see your face in what the physical eye sees
    only as a blank wall).
    
    I saw the idea of Pakistan take a drubbing when a composed and
    dignified Begum Hema Aziz received the body of her son Lt.
    Haneefuddin, of the Rajputana Rifles, who was killed in action in
    Kargil. Brigadier Prakash Chaudhary made sure that the body of the
    24-year-old officer was recovered at all costs, under intense firing
    in the Turtuk sector.
    
    I saw the "idea" corrode when Indian jawans raised their hands for
    Fateha over the Pakistani dead on the Kargil hills -- also with pious
    dignity. Images of returning soldiers, dead or alive, have an emotive
    appeal which sometimes transcends reason. That is why it is important
    to locate instances of victory over the "idea" in the normal
    intercourse of our daily lives. Well, I saw the idea trounced in the
    courts of Lucknow on Wednesday when Shabihul Hasnain, a young and
    distinguished lawyer, won a keenly contested election as senior vice
    president of the Avadh Bar Association.
    
    The significance of this victory deserves explanation. During the
    Babri Masjid fiasco of December 6, 1992, the section most severely
    gripped, intellectually, by the prevailing mood of madness was the
    legal community of Lucknow. The RSS and the BJP were not only on the
    ascendant, they had taken charge. They remain the dominant group.
    
    The electoral college consisted of 1,100 senior lawyers of the high
    court of whom only 125 are Muslims. P.N. Mathur, 65, won the contest
    for president without much fuss. But Shabihul Hasnain, 41, was in the
    field with nine other candidates. And he defeated all the others by an
    impressive margin. Obviously, political parties are not directly
    involved in a bar association election, but, as Shabihul admits "there
    is no way I could have won without overwhelming support from the
    majority community a sizeable number of whom are privately affiliated
    with the BJP. The reason why Shabihul's success, and his reasoning for
    it, comes across as a bit of surprise is the decades of "secularism"
    versus BJP indoctrination people have been subjected to in which the
    BJP is portrayed as the ogre out to devour the Muslims.
    
    In hindsight, it may be possible to infer that much of the communalism
    of the past decades was on account of the political contest between
    the BJP (which itself was an advance on the Jana Sangh) and the
    Congress which cast the "secularism" net to retain the Muslims as a
    vote bank. Since the Congress was in power for most of these years, it
    was politically expedient to portray this captive vote bank as the
    "pampered" minority. This came in handy for greater Hindu
    consolidation. Once this consolidation began to take shape Indira
    Gandhi gave that famous twist to the elections in Jammu. One thing led
    to the other until a confused Rajiv Gandhi, rather simple-mindedly,
    opened the locks of the Ram temple in Ayodhya to please the Hindus and
    handed Shah Bano to the Muslims.
    
    By the time P.V. Narasimha Rao appeared on the scene, backward caste
    politics as a result of Mandalisation made it essential for both the
    Congress and the BJP to rush for upper caste support. This competition
    in saffronisation between the two reached its climax with the fall of
    the Babri masjid. The "pampered minority" defected en bloc from the
    Congress. The rest is history.
    
    But the consequence of all these developments has been that the
    minorities have been freed of their past immobility. They are now
    creating a room for themselves free of political prejudice. Shabihul
    Hasnain, an active member in his community's numerous religious
    festivities and observances, is a metaphor for the new, "freed"
    Muslim. He is not a "westernised", non-religious secularist either. In
    his private life, he is a deeply religious man. It is in his social
    interaction that he is the quintessential Indian whom, earlier, his
    Hindu supporters elected to the executive committee of Lucknow
    University as well.
    
    The Shabihul Hasnain episode is but a tiny strand in the complex
    tapestry of a harmonised, tolerant, democratic republic on the move.
    It is this harmony, with minimal false notes, which will eventually
    defeat the "idea" of Pakistan.
    
    It is a delicate business because defeating the "idea" does not, by a
    long shot, entail the erasure of our neighbour. It entails applying,
    by example, pressure on its institutions which are lurching towards
    extremism and intolerance in the name of Islam. We need in our
    neighbourhood a tolerant, democratic society, where land reforms are
    overdue; where the Mohajirs, Sindhis, Pashtun, Baluchis are all
    groaning under a Punjabi yoke. A society which, to keep itself
    together, harps on Kashmir as its only focal point; a society which
    exports terrorism so that our tapestry is frayed, so that Shabihul
    Hasnain does not win elections but retires into a Muslim ghetto, so
    that Begam Hema Aziz is not celebrated as the proud mother of a
    martyr.
    



Back                          Top

«« Back
 
 
 
  Search Articles
 
  Special Annoucements