Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 21, 2004
Maybe, we have become too inured
by predictable images of a dharna. Maybe, our measure of outrage has become
unnecessarily conditioned by explosive images of
Falujah and Palestine. Or, maybe,
the battering ram of aggressive rationalism has pulverised our faith in
institutions that personify faith and tradition
Whatever the reality, the sight
of the BJP brass trooping out of Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday night and
sitting impassively on a dais in Patel Chowk on Saturday failed to convey
the magnitude of the occasion. To the uninitiated, they could well have
been demanding the inclusion of Maithili into the VIIIth Schedule or pressing
for compensation to the victims of Bihar's rampaging gangs.
The issue is not the choreography
of dignified protest in a made-in-media society. The real issue, to my
mind, is the bewildering lack of mass outrage to a cynical assault on one
of India's premier Hindu institutions.
Let us accept grim reality for whatever
it is worth. The Shankaracharya of Kanchi, a powerful symbol of the sanatan
dharma, was arrested on the night of Diwali and charged with murder. He
was produced in court the next day, dubbed an "undeserving criminal" by
the Public Prosecutor and remanded in police custody. He was allowed no
privileges and lodged in an ordinary jail. When he returned to court three
days later, he was mocked for his aversion to rahukalam and his unwillingness
to sign documents.
As devotees recoiled in horror,
police sources fed a hungry media with "evidence" of his mendacity. He
was accused of facilitating cash payments to supari killers, of being in
telephonic contact with goons and even of plotting an escape by helicopter
to Nepal. The junior Shankaracharya was said to have demanded a CBI probe
and, with hints of a monastic coup, it was said that his brother had turned
approver.
It now transpires that very little
of these grave charges can be substantiated. In fact, the police have not
even submitted their preliminary evidence to court. You would have imagined
that the authorities would have proceeded against a person as revered as
the Shankaracharya on the strength of watertight evidence. But no, they
arrested and humiliated him on suspicion.
The reasons lie in the vagaries
of Dravidian politics, particularly the competitive inclination to invoke
anti-Brahmin sentiment. Regardless of what happens in the trial, the anti-Hindus
have proceeded on the assumption that there is no worthwhile Hindu sentiment.
A Hindu nation, divided along caste, regional and denominational lines,
it is believed, will stomach any indignity.
Judging from the muted response
to the arrest, the secularists may well be right. There is disquiet that
the Shankaracharya was treated shabbily and there is pain that a premier
Hindu institution has been brought into disrepute. But equally, there is
astonishing passivity. The Shankaracharya of Puri may claim that the assault
on his Kanchi counterpart is a "blow to the existence and ideology of Hindus"
but the average Hindu still believes this is an overstatement. Hindus have
ceased to react as Hindus. Yet, Hindus have not ceased to believe and conduct
themselves as Hindus in their private lives. It is just that they have
abdicated the public space to secularists and organised minorities.
It is an abdication that has happened
by default. The claimants to the Hindu public space have erroneously focussed
on the traditional institutions of the faith. Unfortunately, institutions
like the Kanchi mutt have become identified with a narrow Brahmanical order.
In being wedded to orthodoxy, they
have never had the temperament to be defenders of the faith.
The popular energies of Hinduism
have traditionally vested in the little traditions, epitomised by the living
Gods. It is these sects, headed by the charismatic individuals who we see
on the Astha channel and on God TV, who are keeping popular Hinduism alive.
To be effective, Hindu politics has to connect with this evangelical Hindu
energy.
What we witnessed last week is either
a wake-up call to Hindus or proof that we can be kicked around with impunity.
The lessons are up to us.