It’s sad that certain individuals and retired professionals who had held exalted positions in the country and gained everyone’s respect regardless of religious affiliations, have begun talking of discrimination
I first thought of writing (this article) with regret, since an 86-year old outstanding IPS (retired) officer, widely admired and respected by right-minded Indians, (including millions of Hindus) owing to his professionalism and probity, wrote a mindlessly scathing piece in an Indian daily, taking a brazenly religious fanatic-like stand. He concluded that being a Christian of/in India, he felt like he was on a “hit list”. One can perhaps overlook this comment owing to his age, which could be the reason for this illusory and misplaced idea.
One thought it was a one-time action of a veteran; it was not. Soon thereafter, a retired Admiral, who was appointed Chief of Naval Staff by former Defence Minister George Fernandes, who had ignominiously and unceremoniously sacked one of the most capable and brilliant Admirals, publicly expressed his religious unhappiness and anger (through the high-profile ‘prime time’ electronic media) on the recent “religious” happenings which, according to him, could affect the morale of the Armed Forces of the country.
He also gave a clear impression that, being from a ‘minority religion’, he was deeply affected by such ‘tamasha’. Surely, as a former Navy chief for a full three years, from December 1998 to December 2001, he does have all the credentials and qualifications and should know things better than anyone else.
Yet, questions and lingering doubts arise. Thirteen years and three months after retirement, it is astonishing that he appears to be in tune with a non-professional subject like the religion of men in barracks and officers of the mess, much more than even the best of Admirals like AK Chatterjee, RH Tahiliani, Madhvendra Singh, Arun Prakash, DK Joshi and Vice Admiral MP Awati. That indeed is the height. let us remember in this connection that, despite several threats and provocations from time to time, the Indian Armed Forces and the men and women thereof are inherently too professional and apolitical to dabble either in sporadic chaotic politics or be affected by erratic religious incidents and accidents of the countryside led by some superstitious, roguish fools.
Unfortunately, however, ‘minority’ and ‘religion’ suddenly appear to be the two favourite topics, bywords and passwords for certain eminent professionals of yesteryears. Additionally, anyone and everyone seems to be keen to debate and discuss the subject in the public, thereby giving a clear indication that, while all things may remain the same, their religion reigns supreme! They seem to have conveniently forgotten that they constitute the crème de la crème of society, who had held top positions in the Government, represented India in every possible forum, have been the undisputed rulers over the majority who gladly and happily never had any ill-feeling and always obeyed their command. Can one imagine this happening elsewhereIJ
Indeed, it would, therefore, be in the fitness of things first to clarify and re-enlighten the teeming secular and liberal urban elites of India that one life is not enough to know and understand India. Denigrating and castigating the nation as a whole for the wrong-doings of a handful of rotten elements amounts to turning a molehill into a mountain. To begin with, one may ask: How many of the privileged Indian elite have visited all the States and all the Union Territories of IndiaIJ They might be more comfortable in the shops, salons and cafes of london, New York, Paris, Rome or Frankfurt, but have they ever bothered to see the interiors and the countryside of the Indian state, availing of their regular professional deployment or personal visits to areas east of Mughal SaraiIJ Or for that matter tried to explore the remote areas to have the taste of ‘real India’ which is inhabited by millions who constitute the spirit and soul of the countrysideIJ
Can they identify with, or have ever followed, the clarion call of the monk-philosopher, Swami Vivekananda, to come forward to address the problems faced by the ‘illiterate Indian, poverty-afflicted Indian and the so-called untouchable Indian’ who are ‘our brothers and for whom every Indian, attired in small shorts, should jump into the fray and come out to help and assist, and loudly declare from the roof-top with pride that you and I are all Indians’IJ
That is not all. For, today, a new ‘religion-sensitive’ chapter has opened, affecting the judges of even the Supreme Court of India. Suffice it to state that perhaps it is time to be real and point out the reality to the hyper-sensitive English educated, enlightened and erudite Indians that religion is not the only fault-line of this vast continent-like country. There are several others like caste, language, ethnicity and illegal migrants. They need to also know that our States and Union Territories have their own unique individual features and characteristics which, more often than not, give rise to violence and consequential litigations.
let us take the case of the language riots of 1950s and 1960s in Assam, when the bona fide Hindu Bengali-speaking populace/citizens got a battering for several years. In fact, this writer too personally faced numerous taunts for being a Bengali over the years. Thus, when a Union Public Service Commission member, on March 7, 1972, asked yours truly whether I was a Naxalite (under the guise of a bona fide candidate) or not, “as Bengalis usually are”, the subsequent retort-cum-retaliation understandably showed him the door. Again, when a Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Defence in June 1987, in public view, made it clear that “since the National Defence College delegation heading to Dhaka is to be led by one of the seven Indians in the group, no Bengali originally hailing from Dhaka (pointing at this writer) is to be selected as that person might join hands with his Bengali-speaking compatriots of the river Padma to malign India”!
Despite these shocking utterances by a senior civil servant of India, this writer continued, and continues, to be a proud Indian. These things happen in India. It must be remembered that one rotten element in India is invariably taken care of by an antidote of at least a hundred-and-one Indians. The problem is: Indians still do not really know or understand other Indians. The defeatist mentality, and the negative psyche, born out of and flourished during hundreds of years of colonial subjugation, will take time to recede and heal.