For tomorrow, remain together

It won8217;t be a good year to remember. We died so many times this year. It was not just the carnage in Gujarat, the lynching of Dalits in...

It won8217;t be a good year to remember. We died so many times this year. It was not just the carnage in Gujarat, the lynching of Dalits in Haryana, the impropriety of the judges in some states or the UTI scam that made us feel humiliated. It was the entire atmosphere 8212; more sombre, more dismal, more depressing than when we entered 2002. We find we have slipped down many rungs. We have become smaller as a people.

We believed that certain problems were behind us. That secularism, which we chose despite partition on the basis of religion, was a settled fact. It suited the diversity of our society. Our constitution, promulgated in 1950, proclaimed our determination. But a new situation confronted us towards the end of the year. The elements we thought we had repulsed long ago, reappeared, haranguing us in the name of religion. Their language was never to our liking. Nor was their ideology of hate and prejudice. We had won the battle against those who would say that Hindus and Muslims were separate nations. How did the defeated forces creep back?

Gujarat shook us to the roots. First, Godhra happened. Then the bloodshed at Godhra was shamelessly used to unify the Hindu majority as if they were under threat from Muslim extremists and Pakistan. We are being dragged once again into the fires of the Hindu-Muslim divide.

Communal polarisation is too horrible a prospect to comprehend in a country that is already divided on the basis of caste, language, region and standard of living. Anti-minority forces are not new. They were there even before Independence. You have only to think of the Kolkata and Bihar riots in the late forties. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru fought them effectively. Their discourse was different. They were clear in their mind that one nationality and one religion were not synonymous. Gandhi said: 8216;The Hindus, the Mohammedans, the Parsis and the Christians who have made this their country are fellow countrymen and they will have to live in unity if only in their own interest.8217;

Such thoughts are being stifled now. We find that there are people who even abuse Gandhi and all that he stood for. The future looks gloomy because not many dare to challenge those in power. To see the communalists prospering deepens our disgust. The Dalits have never been given their due. But we were beginning to believe that the various laws and affirmative action through reservations had made a dent in the thick wall of discrimination, though they couldn8217;t pull it down altogether. But the Haryana killings, with the connivance of the authorities, have punctured our confidence. Dalits are still humiliated, beaten or killed at will by the upper castes. One may not like Mayawati8217;s government in Uttar Pradesh in many ways but hers is the only state where Dalits have the confidence that the wrong done to them will not go unpunished.

We had won the battle against those who would say that Hindus and Muslims were separate nations. How did the defeated forces creep back?

Never before had one heard about corruption in the judiciary so persistently as in this year. Two successive chief justices of India have admitted this. What relevance do court judgments have when there are allegations of lack of probity against judges? Some recent judgments by the Supreme Court and the high courts could be criticised on many counts. One is surprised at the Vajpayee government8217;s silence on this issue. It should have appointed a joint parliamentary committee JPC to go into the working of the high courts and Supreme Court and the conduct of certain judges.

The rule of law is supposed to govern the state8217;s affairs. With the virtual collapse of the executive and corrupt bureaucracy, the role of the judiciary, built around the rule of law, becomes crucial. The committees the outgoing chief justice constituted to go into the cases of some judges have raised serious doubts about the judiciary. They bring no credit to the nation. It is already in the dock for having different standards of justice for different communities, different castes and different individuals.

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Apparently, the priorities of the rulers are different. The jamboree in Ahmedabad at the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi as chief minister sent out an unhappy message. A maharaja was anointed in the presence of his durbaris and subjects.

Then JPC, constituted to probe the securities scam, took a long time to prepare the report, and it has indicted the ministry of finance. When the matter was discussed in Rajya Sabha, I stood up and said that all the provident fund money I had got after my years of service in journalism was lost because of the UTI scandal. The then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha mumbled something unconvincing. He did not accept moral responsibility.

After 55 years we should have developed some ethics of governance if not of our behaviour as communities. Tyrants have sprouted at all levels. Their swagger is based on their proximity to the seat of power. They increasingly flaunt, not only their contacts, but also their bigotry.

At the end of the year one finds that the desire for self-preservation has become the sole motivation for actions and behaviour. The only anxiety is to survive at any cost. In a situation like this, it is not surprising if values begin to count for less and less.

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The most dangerous thing about this situation is that we are on the brink of losing our pluralistic image and values. Many people have now been brainwashed into thinking that 8216;Hindutva8217; will do everything for us. It won8217;t. The design for living is not the raised, but the outstretched, hand. Love, not hate. Friendship, not enmity.

India is home to so many kinds of people. The country has all religions and cultures. People here have to live together in friendship and harmony. There is no other way. As the Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai, says in one of his poems, 8216;If we don8217;t remain together, we won8217;t remain at all8217;.