Arun Shourie
"Dear Arun", writes Mr. Som Benegal, the sharpest of pins to many a baloon, "Why do you always equate the Urdu press with Muslims? I write a 600 word editorial every single day in TEJ which is in Urdu -- and which is neither Muslim, nor communal in any way. (I hope I am not pseudo-secular!) There are other Urdu papers which are not Muslim; indeed some are very, very anti-Muslim. May be sometimes you should also read some voices of 'sanity' (or pseudo- sanity!)".
A telling point. Even in ordinary times we tend to generalize. When tensions rise, when controversies sharpen, we tend to do so all the more - even though that is precisely the time when we should be keeping every possible exception, every distinction in mind.
"There must be an end to appeasing Muslims," we hear that said. In point of fact the Muslims are not the ones whom governments and politicians have been appeasing. They have been appeasing brokers of Muslims -- politicians and priests who set themselves up as the leaders of Muslims. The telling point about that appeasement has been that it has done nothing for the average Muslim. In fact, it has brought great harm upon him: his real problems remained unattended; a massive Hindu reaction was stoked; he was led by that appeasement to believe that these brokers were the ones who were powerful, that they would be his deliverers -- he was thereby, disabled even further for the future.
Of course, the politicians would not have pandered to these brokers if the community had been deaf to the latter. And so there is a sense in which by bending to Bukhari or Shahabuddin governments and politicians were not just bending to the brokers but to the community -- that is, it is not just that these brokers out of the blue took up issues like Satanic Verses or Shah Bano which had little to do with the real problems of the community, the latter itself looked upon these issues as the real ones. That is true. But only up to a point: the community fell in line behind these brokers all the more blindly as the attention that leaders like Rajiv and VP Singh and a succession of governments paid them signalled to the community that these brokers were indeed the ones who were influential.
By not making the distinction between having appeased Muslims and having appeased brokers of Muslims we therefore wrongly imagine that Muslims have been hogging too much of the chapati. Worse, we blame the wrong entity and thereby plummet for the wrong remedy. The cause is not the ordinary Muslim -- it is the broker, and the leader who props up that broker, and the latter happens to be a Hindu more often than a Muslim.
Consider the infiltrators from Bangladesh. Who has been smuggling them on to the electoral rolls? Who has been legitimising their residence by pressurising local administrations to issue them ration cards? True, some of the ones who did this most systematically in Assam were Muslims -- Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, Moinul Haq Choudhury, Anwara Taimur. But the ones who have been master-minding this in Delhi for instance are Congress leaders, and these happen to be Hindus.
The fact that new voices are being heard since 6 Decemeber warrants an even finer distinction. Hindus should distinguish, that is, not just between ordinary Muslims and Muslim leaders but, among the latter, between the familiar leaders -- who the Muslims themselves today see have brought such cost on their heads -- and the ones they may turn to in the future. Ayodhya has demolished, for the time being at least, the brokers who became important after 1977 -- Bukhari, Shahabuddin, Owaisi, Suleiman Sait etc. Which political leader today would be seen sending his emissary to Bukhari for points to be included in his party's manifesto? It is true of course that a few hall meetings of intellectuals, a few articles in newspapers by them do not mean that a new leadership is in place. But it is equally true that if we continue to lump the familiar old leaders and the possible new leaders together, even more so if we continue to focus only on the old leaders, we may nip a possible -- and very consequential -- change in the bud.
The Media
The media has a vital role to play in this matter. "Who created these leaders in the first place?", a leading Muslim intellectual remonstrated with me in Bombay in the wake of 6 Dec. "Don't just blame the politicians who dealt with them. You fellows in the press are the ones who made these fellows synonymous with the very word 'Muslim'. They had little following among the Muslims. It is the importance you gave them which convinced the ordinary Muslim to fall in line behind them. And now the poor, ordinary Muslim is being punished for what these leaders have been saying and doing."
"And you continue to give such persons the same sort of importance even today," he added. He gave the example of another "Imam" in Bombay whom he named. The man had been patronised and built up by a politician very powerful in Maharashtra then - a Hindu, whom he also named. The politician had patronised the "Imam" by bestowing land upon him. The "Imam" had built flats on it, and sold each flat to several Muslims. The defrauded purchases had taken him to court. In fact so intense was the hostility to the man that the "Imam" had to flee Bombay. He had been living in Goa all these years. The cases were still going on. But come the riots, the man had come back, and his statements and posturings -- all intransigent -- were suddenly again being given banner headlines by the newspapers. The politician-patron being important once again, the man had been given jeeps with whirling red lights to escort him. This sort of attention by the State, said the liberal, will without doubt lead the ordinary, frightened Muslims to believe that this was the man who could secure protection for them. The much was the result of what the politician was doing. But the result was left in no doubt by the newspapers giving so much importance to the statements of the man -- a man who had been so decisively turfed out by the community so recently.
As a result on the one hand ordinary Muslims are misled, and on the other the wrong stereotype of them is formed in the Hindu mind. Over the last few years, the stereotype among Hindus of the average Muslim has been the visage of Bukhari, the intransigence of Shahabuddin and Suleiman Sait, the bargains of Owaisi. The media has contributed to reinforcing this stereotype. When stories have had to be done and obtaining "the Muslim point of view" has been thought necessary, the reflex in newspaper offices has been to contact Shahabuddin or Bukhari and report their view as the views of Muslims in general.
Imagine if the stereotype of the Muslim in the Hindu mind today were not Bukhari, imagine if the role model in the mind of the Muslim himself were not Shahabuddin, but Mr. Abdul Kalam. He is a Muslim too, and few have done for our rocket and space programmes, and therefore for the defence of our country, what he has. The Hindu would not react the way he does to Muslims as a category. The Muslim would not conclude that the options for him are to follow Bukhari or nothing. Of course, the real remedy is to have many, many more Abdul Kalams -- for a stereotype cannot be conjured on exceptions. And that reminds us of the need for Muslims and the rest to do everything possible for improving the educational and technical standards of Muslims. But simultaneously the media can help that very upgradation by putting every Abdul Kalam at the center of the stage.
Further Distinctions
The example of Mr. Abdul Kalam points to an even more vital matter: even worse than confounding these brokers with ordinary Muslims is the tendency at such moments of tension to brand an entire group -- Muslims in this case -- as disloyal to the country. Bal Thackeray's rhetoric is an extreme example of such branding.
Many of our rulers joined up with the French, the Portugese, the English to do in their immediate rivals. There were many Hindus among them. That pattern continues to this day. To take a current example, persons who have been secreting away money in Swiss banks have been, among other things, undermining our economy; they have been making our country vulnerable by leaving it all the more dependent on foreign aid etc. Are these primarily Hindu or Muslim? The ones who engineered the bank scam -- they undermined a vital institution and much else, and thereby made our country more vulnerable. How many Hindus, how many Muslims?
It is true of course that supra-nationalism is one of the hallmarks of Islam. And there IS a sense in which Muslims here identify with what they come to see as an Islamic issue or Islamic State elsewhere. But the way out of that is not Thackeray's. The way is to inform them about the real condition of the people in these Islamic countries, to give them facts about the nature of these Islamic regimes -- about the corruption and venality, about how the enormous earnings from oil have been squandered by profligacy and mismanagement, about the woeful condition of women and minorities, about the fratricide among these regimes all supposedly belonging to a common identity. Assume for a moment that the oft-repeated charge is true -- that some persons in Muslim localities celebrate the victories of Pakistan's teams over Indian cricket teams. That a few burst crackers cannot be taken as proof of the sentiment of an entire community. But assume for a moment that Muslims in general have their heart in Pakistan and those crackers are but a symptom. Surely, the way to deal with that is not Bal Thackeray's -- of clobbering the entire community each time some one bursts crackers. The way that will work is to inform the community about the condition of mohajirs in Karachi, about that of the Ahmediyas and of women all over Pakistan, about the murderous jostling among Punjabis and Sindhis. And to have an invincible cricket team!
Things to do
Simple distinctions, and yet the more strained the times the more important it is that we keep them in mind. And there is another thing. As tensions intensify, as diferences sharpen we tend more and more to exchange views only with persons who share our views. But that is just the time when we must reach out beyond our circle.
So, lots and lots of meetings at which Muslims and Hindus speak what is in their mind and heart. And there are three keys:
*
Muslims and Hindus - whether they be intellectuals or priest -- should talk to each other directly, and not through politicians, nor through secularists who set themselves up as referees;
*
They must speak out everything that is in their hearts;
*
And the two must in a sense ask themselves diametrically opposed questions.
Hindus for instance must ask themselves what exactly the benefits are which the Muslims have wrested disproportionately from the State. The Muslims on the other hand must ask themselves whether the "victories" their leaders won in their names brought them anything, whether these "victories" are not the precise thing that convinced the Hindus that Muslims were wresting undue advantages from the State. Muslims must see that if they make a fetish of separateness -- of some chimerical "separate identity" -- they will be consigning themselves not just to separateness but to discrimination. The Hindus on the other hand must be always watchful that the well-reasoned arguments of Mr Advani do not become the occasion, that they do not come to be used as license by some local bully to wreak vengeance. Muslims must remember that irrespective of what Hindu scriptures may have said, the Hindus too will become a bit "Islamic" if Muslim leaders make intransigence the badge of commitment to the Faith. The Hindus on the other hand must keep the opposite in mind: the "victories" of Shahabuddin etc. stoked such a mighty reaction among Hindus; will the rhetoric of Bal Thackeray or Ritambhara not legitimise a reaction too?
From 'A Secular Agenda'
Showing posts with label hindus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hindus. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
What a Precedent to Cite!
Arun Shourie
Who wrote the book, Sri Ramachandra, the ideal King? Who wrote that he was "Not simply a great warrior, a mighty King. He was an Avatara, a divine incarnation, and a divine incarnation of a special kind." "All men are divine incarnations," the person wrote. "But when we speak of an Avatar we mean more than this. An Avatara... is a special incarnation, a human form being taken in which the Divinity veils Himself and through which shines forth His glory. Not in germ, in 'divine fragments', as in us, but in full radiance of Deity, God reveals Himself in man to man."
Who wrote that the reason Sri Rama had taken form is the one which has been stated by Lord Krishna in the resounding verse of the Gita, "Yada yada he dharmasya... "? Who wrote that sometimes the purpose of Divine incarnation is to teach -- as in the case of Lord Krishna "whose divine 'song' is still the world's wonder"? That "Sometimes He [the Avatara] is also an Example; and as an example for men of the world... Ramachandra stands supreme, the ideal man in every relation of life... "? Who wrote that in Sri Rama's instance there was the additional mission -- "to shew forth the ideal Kshatriya", and that this is the ideal that India needed most at the time?
Who founded the Central Hindu College which became, in the words of a distinguished biographer, "a nucleus radiating the Hindu culture and ideals", and which eventually became the nucleus for the formation of the Benaras Hindu University? Who brought out -- in association of one of our most learned philosophers -- the Sanatan Dharma series to impart both knowledge of our religious traditions as well as reverence for and pride in them? Who wrote in association with that great philosopher what is till today one of the most instructive translations of the Gita? Who brought out a series of publications narrating the heroism of our Aryan ancestors to instill pride in our past?
The very Annie Besant whom sycophantic Congressmen are citing as precedent today! There literally cannot be a greater contrast between her and the one these sycophants seek to legitimize by invoking her. She did not alight into the Congress presidency from a helicopter. She had been in the forefront of Indian public life for two decades before she was anointed President. Indeed, for twenty years before she came to India, she had been in the forefront of almost every struggle for reform in Britain. It has been well said that the history of reform in Britain from 1874 to 1893 -- the year she came to India -- is coterminous with her biography of those years.
Struggles to improve working conditions of workers? She was in the forefront -- from the conditions of work of women making matches to those of municipal workers to those of dockers. The heartless eviction of tenants? She was the vanguard in the movements against the Coercion Act in Ireland. The establishment of the National Secular Society? She was the co-founder. The work of the Fabian Society? The spread of socialist ideas and the socialist movement in Europe? She was in the forefront. The rights of women? She was in the vanguard...
From architectonic measures to the minor things that we do not even think about, her role was of the first order. We live under that impact to this day. Consider a matter which seems simple in itself but has had a vital place in the evolution of freedom in regard to religious expression and belief. When a person assumes high office in India today -- from becoming the President to Prime Minister to Chief Justice to member of Parliament, whatever -- she or he has to take an oath. Our Constitution and laws provide that he may take an oath in the name of God or he may swear an oath of affirmation. Where does this option come from?
From a great agitation -- in which Annie Besant played a central role. The fighter and reformer that she was, she began working with Charles Bradlaugh. Both of them became anathema to the establishment -- in particular to the clerical establishment. Bradlaugh stood for Parliament. They were heckled, they were set upon. They were soon imprisoned for republishing a proscribed pamphlet advocating contraception -- they felt that, whether one agreed with its contents or not, it is important in the cause of free speech that it be printed and circulated. Her former husband, a narrow-minded clergyman, sued to snatch custody of their children: the case itself became one of the spurs to remedying the law that favoured husbands in such matters.
Bradlaugh won the election to Parliament. But he refused to take the oath in the name of God. The clergy and others seized this. A committee of Parliament was appointed to determine whether he could take his seat in Parliament by making a solemn affirmation. The House voted to disallow him. Declaring that its order was contrary to law, Bradlaugh refused to comply with it. The Sergeant-at-Arms was directed to remove him. Demonstrations flared up everywhere. The House rescinded its resolution. The opponents took the matter to court. The court held against him.
The seat was declared vacant. But Bradlaugh won again. A vast crowd, with Annie Besant in the lead, marched to enable him to enter the House. As they had forsworn violence, Bradlaugh was forcibly removed from the precincts. A huge protest movement erupted: a petition bearing a quarter million signatures was presented to Parliament. The movement was stoked by the incessant tours and writings of Annie Besant as much as by anything else: Sir C P Ramaswami, from whose brief biography of Annie Besant facts about this episode have been taken, recalls Mrs Besant writing that by the great wrong which has been inflicted on him, Charles Bradlaugh has become the incarnation of a great principle.
Bradlaugh was elected a third time -- this time in a general election. He introduced, and the House eventually passed an Oaths Bill -- from which flows the option we have today -- to take an oath in the name of God or to solemnly affirm...
It was this enormous work on a entire array of issues which had made Annie Besant one of the most conspicuous reformers long, long before she came to India. How considerable her reputation was can be gauged from the effect that the mere news of her accepting Theosophy had on Gandhiji at the time. Sir C P reproduces Gandhiji's observation:
"When I was studying in London in 1888 and after, I had become, like many like me, an admirer of Bradlaugh and Besant. Imagine my excitement when one fine morning I read in the London press that Annie Besant had become a Theosophist under Blavatsky's inspiration. I was a mere boy practically unknown to anybody. I would have been more than satisfied if I could have touched the hem of the garments of Madame Blavatsky and her distinguished disciple. But I could not, though some friends had kindly taken me to Blavatsky Lodge. When Dr Besant came to India and captivated the country, I came in close touch with her and, though we had political differences, my veneration for her did not suffer abatement."
Back in India, with the triumphs in South Africa on everyone's lips, Gandhiji broke journey in Benaras more than once just to pay his respects to Annie Besant. Even when they had parted ways because of political differences, Gandhiji's words for her remained reverential. Introducing her to the audience in Ahmedabad in 1918, we find him saying: "I have often said that there have been, and there may still be, differences between her and me; there are quite a few even today... Having said this, I admit I cannot but look up to her with reverence, honour her, pay tribute to her for her excellent qualities, for she has dedicated her very soul to India. She lives only for India -- to live thus is her sole aspiration... In my view, Ahmedabad has covered itself with unsurpassed honour by honoring one who has rendered such great services as she has... "
Pandit Nehru described his first meeting with Annie Besant as "one of the outstanding events in my life." "Her personality, the legends that had already surrounded her heroic career and her oratory overwhelmed me," he wrote. "With a young boy's admiration and devotion I gazed at her and followed her about." In his autobiography, Panditji writes of his going to attend her lectures in Allahabad: "I was deeply moved by her oratory and returned from her speeches dazed and as in a dream. I decided to join the Theosophical Society, although I was only thirteen then...." Mrs Besant herself conducted the initiation ceremony, he records, and adds, "I was thrilled." This was the impact she had on persons before her great work in India reached anywhere near the heights it eventually did.
Because of her, "Home Rule" has become a mantra in every village, Gandhiji said of her political work. She worked ceaselessly for an array of reform movements. Her contribution in restoring pride in Hindus for their own culture, religion, history was of the highest order. She crafted legislative proposals of far-reaching significance: from manifestos, statements, declarations, resolutions, which led, among other things, to the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms; from these to the Commonwealth of India Bill of 1925, one of the first attempts within India to draw up the principles of a constitution for the country.
Where is the comparable record of Sonia in public life? On every issue of the day, Annie Besant's view was known, it was thoroughly thought-through, openly and widely expressed: she was a prodigious writer, and an even more prodigious speaker -- her voice was incomparable, carrying to ten thousands in the open air even at that time, writes a biographer who heard and saw her for decades. On what issue do we know Sonia's view? Is there any indication at all even of the possibility that on any issue whatsoever she has a view of her own?
Indeed, by recalling Mrs Besant, Congressmen remind us how in every particular, she was the exact opposite of the one for whom they make her out to have been a precedent.
Writing: In his memoir of her, Sri Prakasa, the son of Dr Bhagvan Das, the erudite philosopher who was her collaborator for decades, and one who himself knew her since he was a toddler, writes, "All her letters... are in manuscript. She wrote all her articles, whether for newspapers or learned magazines, herself. The manuscript of all her books is also in her own handwriting... " Yes, two collections of letters have been put out as if they have been edited by Sonia: the letters were written by Panditji and Indira Gandhi, they were collated by others, the explanatory footnotes -- a few words a piece about persons and events alluded to in the letters -- have been compiled by the staff of the Nehru Memorial Library!
Speaking: Annie Besant gave thousands of lectures. She would speak for an hour or more. Audiences used to be mesmerized by her eloquence, her knowledge, to say nothing of her immersion in our culture and religion. Sir C P recalls as acerbic an appraiser as Bernard Shaw saying of her that she was the greatest orator in England and possibly in Europe. "I have never heard her excelled. She was then [he was writing of the time she took to socialism] unapproached." Just a single detail will speak to the distance between her and what we see today: Sri Prakasa writes, " ...She never carried any notes. She never consulted any papers as she spoke. Her memory must have been remarkable, and I believe she just rehearsed her lectures to herself once, before going into the lecture hall; and that was enough for her. She never faltered for a word and her voice never broke..."
All testified to the extreme generosity of spirit: she never spoke an ill-word of anyone, she bore calumny -- and much was heaped on her throughout her life -- without any thought of avenging it. Sir C P's observation is typical: narrating her isolation in the years when she had fallen out of step with the national movement, he writes, "Easy it is, if success blesses us, to possess some facile virtues and to prove and demonstrate them. But it is difficult for one living amidst calumny and obloquy, at all junctures to remain sweet-tempered, patient and forgiving, long-suffering, and yet hopeful of the future. As one who came across Mrs Besant very often during these years, I can say that I did not see one bitter expression on her face, nor did I hear from her lips one vengeful word."
Contrast the appropriation by Sonia of one governmental Trust after another, their conversion in effect into family Trusts with Mrs Besant making over the Central Hindu College to the Benaras Hindu University. Contrast it with what Sir C P writes of Mrs. Besant's uniform practice. She received large sums, he recalls, all of these she distributed in scholarships, in charitable gifts, in donations to worthy institutions. He writes that he "is personally aware of the circumstance that, generally speaking, at the end of each year, Dr. Besant used to draw cheques on all the banks in which monies were deposited to her credit and denude herself of all property..."
On every occasion, as at the Resurrection speech in Talkatora Stadium, all we hear is "Me and my family." Even in the Address she delivered at the very occasion these Congressmen cite as the precedent, the one she delivered on assuming the presidentship of the Congress in 1917, what is it that Mrs. Besant said? "....I have no words with which to thank you," she told the delegates, "no eloquence with which to repay my debt. My deeds must speak for me, for words are too poor. I turn your gift into service to the Motherland; I consecrate my life anew to Her worship by action. All that I have and am, I lay on the Altar of the Mother, and together we shall cry, more by service than by words: Vande Mataram!"
The very expressions -- Motherland, Mother, worship of the Mother, the Altar of the Mother, and of course Vande Mataram -- communal anathemas in the eyes of our Congressmen.
Every act, every thought had been in the public domain for forty years in Mrs Besant's case. Every act, every thought has been shrouded behind the speech-writer's script, the PR advisor's sheen today.
The Congress-presidency came after twenty years' unremitting labour in the service of India in Mrs. Besant's case. It has come as a measure of desperation by persons who have no other way of acquiring office today.
Even more important, indeed it is ludicrous to even have to recall it, was another fact. Even as she laboured for India, the Congress transformed -- under the Lokmanya, under Gandhiji. Mrs Besant withdrew to Adyar. It is too harsh to say that her foreignness was the inevitable factor, but something like it was. She could never reconcile herself to the demand for complete independence, the apogee of her aspiration for India remained Home Rule as part of the British Empire. So also her adoration for Hinduism. Even so adoring a devotee as Sri Prakasa expresses this -- ever so delicately. In one lecture at Benaras he heard her extol Hindu ceremonies for their ancestors, he writes. I don't believe any of this, he remarked to his neighbour. He was roundly reprimanded. But has she ever made offerings for her own ancestors?, he wondered...
Even during her lifetime -- she died in 1933 -- the Congress had moved far away from the 1917 in which it had elected her President. And that too for a year only. Today we are being told that because she was the President eighty years ago -- for one year, it is all right to have Sonia as President -- for life!
Every detail an opposite. And yet the claim, "We have a precedent."
And the one thing that enables them to get away with such travesty: the near-total ignorance of the rest of us.
India Connect
June 6, 1999
Who wrote the book, Sri Ramachandra, the ideal King? Who wrote that he was "Not simply a great warrior, a mighty King. He was an Avatara, a divine incarnation, and a divine incarnation of a special kind." "All men are divine incarnations," the person wrote. "But when we speak of an Avatar we mean more than this. An Avatara... is a special incarnation, a human form being taken in which the Divinity veils Himself and through which shines forth His glory. Not in germ, in 'divine fragments', as in us, but in full radiance of Deity, God reveals Himself in man to man."
Who wrote that the reason Sri Rama had taken form is the one which has been stated by Lord Krishna in the resounding verse of the Gita, "Yada yada he dharmasya... "? Who wrote that sometimes the purpose of Divine incarnation is to teach -- as in the case of Lord Krishna "whose divine 'song' is still the world's wonder"? That "Sometimes He [the Avatara] is also an Example; and as an example for men of the world... Ramachandra stands supreme, the ideal man in every relation of life... "? Who wrote that in Sri Rama's instance there was the additional mission -- "to shew forth the ideal Kshatriya", and that this is the ideal that India needed most at the time?
Who founded the Central Hindu College which became, in the words of a distinguished biographer, "a nucleus radiating the Hindu culture and ideals", and which eventually became the nucleus for the formation of the Benaras Hindu University? Who brought out -- in association of one of our most learned philosophers -- the Sanatan Dharma series to impart both knowledge of our religious traditions as well as reverence for and pride in them? Who wrote in association with that great philosopher what is till today one of the most instructive translations of the Gita? Who brought out a series of publications narrating the heroism of our Aryan ancestors to instill pride in our past?
The very Annie Besant whom sycophantic Congressmen are citing as precedent today! There literally cannot be a greater contrast between her and the one these sycophants seek to legitimize by invoking her. She did not alight into the Congress presidency from a helicopter. She had been in the forefront of Indian public life for two decades before she was anointed President. Indeed, for twenty years before she came to India, she had been in the forefront of almost every struggle for reform in Britain. It has been well said that the history of reform in Britain from 1874 to 1893 -- the year she came to India -- is coterminous with her biography of those years.
Struggles to improve working conditions of workers? She was in the forefront -- from the conditions of work of women making matches to those of municipal workers to those of dockers. The heartless eviction of tenants? She was the vanguard in the movements against the Coercion Act in Ireland. The establishment of the National Secular Society? She was the co-founder. The work of the Fabian Society? The spread of socialist ideas and the socialist movement in Europe? She was in the forefront. The rights of women? She was in the vanguard...
From architectonic measures to the minor things that we do not even think about, her role was of the first order. We live under that impact to this day. Consider a matter which seems simple in itself but has had a vital place in the evolution of freedom in regard to religious expression and belief. When a person assumes high office in India today -- from becoming the President to Prime Minister to Chief Justice to member of Parliament, whatever -- she or he has to take an oath. Our Constitution and laws provide that he may take an oath in the name of God or he may swear an oath of affirmation. Where does this option come from?
From a great agitation -- in which Annie Besant played a central role. The fighter and reformer that she was, she began working with Charles Bradlaugh. Both of them became anathema to the establishment -- in particular to the clerical establishment. Bradlaugh stood for Parliament. They were heckled, they were set upon. They were soon imprisoned for republishing a proscribed pamphlet advocating contraception -- they felt that, whether one agreed with its contents or not, it is important in the cause of free speech that it be printed and circulated. Her former husband, a narrow-minded clergyman, sued to snatch custody of their children: the case itself became one of the spurs to remedying the law that favoured husbands in such matters.
Bradlaugh won the election to Parliament. But he refused to take the oath in the name of God. The clergy and others seized this. A committee of Parliament was appointed to determine whether he could take his seat in Parliament by making a solemn affirmation. The House voted to disallow him. Declaring that its order was contrary to law, Bradlaugh refused to comply with it. The Sergeant-at-Arms was directed to remove him. Demonstrations flared up everywhere. The House rescinded its resolution. The opponents took the matter to court. The court held against him.
The seat was declared vacant. But Bradlaugh won again. A vast crowd, with Annie Besant in the lead, marched to enable him to enter the House. As they had forsworn violence, Bradlaugh was forcibly removed from the precincts. A huge protest movement erupted: a petition bearing a quarter million signatures was presented to Parliament. The movement was stoked by the incessant tours and writings of Annie Besant as much as by anything else: Sir C P Ramaswami, from whose brief biography of Annie Besant facts about this episode have been taken, recalls Mrs Besant writing that by the great wrong which has been inflicted on him, Charles Bradlaugh has become the incarnation of a great principle.
Bradlaugh was elected a third time -- this time in a general election. He introduced, and the House eventually passed an Oaths Bill -- from which flows the option we have today -- to take an oath in the name of God or to solemnly affirm...
It was this enormous work on a entire array of issues which had made Annie Besant one of the most conspicuous reformers long, long before she came to India. How considerable her reputation was can be gauged from the effect that the mere news of her accepting Theosophy had on Gandhiji at the time. Sir C P reproduces Gandhiji's observation:
"When I was studying in London in 1888 and after, I had become, like many like me, an admirer of Bradlaugh and Besant. Imagine my excitement when one fine morning I read in the London press that Annie Besant had become a Theosophist under Blavatsky's inspiration. I was a mere boy practically unknown to anybody. I would have been more than satisfied if I could have touched the hem of the garments of Madame Blavatsky and her distinguished disciple. But I could not, though some friends had kindly taken me to Blavatsky Lodge. When Dr Besant came to India and captivated the country, I came in close touch with her and, though we had political differences, my veneration for her did not suffer abatement."
Back in India, with the triumphs in South Africa on everyone's lips, Gandhiji broke journey in Benaras more than once just to pay his respects to Annie Besant. Even when they had parted ways because of political differences, Gandhiji's words for her remained reverential. Introducing her to the audience in Ahmedabad in 1918, we find him saying: "I have often said that there have been, and there may still be, differences between her and me; there are quite a few even today... Having said this, I admit I cannot but look up to her with reverence, honour her, pay tribute to her for her excellent qualities, for she has dedicated her very soul to India. She lives only for India -- to live thus is her sole aspiration... In my view, Ahmedabad has covered itself with unsurpassed honour by honoring one who has rendered such great services as she has... "
Pandit Nehru described his first meeting with Annie Besant as "one of the outstanding events in my life." "Her personality, the legends that had already surrounded her heroic career and her oratory overwhelmed me," he wrote. "With a young boy's admiration and devotion I gazed at her and followed her about." In his autobiography, Panditji writes of his going to attend her lectures in Allahabad: "I was deeply moved by her oratory and returned from her speeches dazed and as in a dream. I decided to join the Theosophical Society, although I was only thirteen then...." Mrs Besant herself conducted the initiation ceremony, he records, and adds, "I was thrilled." This was the impact she had on persons before her great work in India reached anywhere near the heights it eventually did.
Because of her, "Home Rule" has become a mantra in every village, Gandhiji said of her political work. She worked ceaselessly for an array of reform movements. Her contribution in restoring pride in Hindus for their own culture, religion, history was of the highest order. She crafted legislative proposals of far-reaching significance: from manifestos, statements, declarations, resolutions, which led, among other things, to the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms; from these to the Commonwealth of India Bill of 1925, one of the first attempts within India to draw up the principles of a constitution for the country.
Where is the comparable record of Sonia in public life? On every issue of the day, Annie Besant's view was known, it was thoroughly thought-through, openly and widely expressed: she was a prodigious writer, and an even more prodigious speaker -- her voice was incomparable, carrying to ten thousands in the open air even at that time, writes a biographer who heard and saw her for decades. On what issue do we know Sonia's view? Is there any indication at all even of the possibility that on any issue whatsoever she has a view of her own?
Indeed, by recalling Mrs Besant, Congressmen remind us how in every particular, she was the exact opposite of the one for whom they make her out to have been a precedent.
Writing: In his memoir of her, Sri Prakasa, the son of Dr Bhagvan Das, the erudite philosopher who was her collaborator for decades, and one who himself knew her since he was a toddler, writes, "All her letters... are in manuscript. She wrote all her articles, whether for newspapers or learned magazines, herself. The manuscript of all her books is also in her own handwriting... " Yes, two collections of letters have been put out as if they have been edited by Sonia: the letters were written by Panditji and Indira Gandhi, they were collated by others, the explanatory footnotes -- a few words a piece about persons and events alluded to in the letters -- have been compiled by the staff of the Nehru Memorial Library!
Speaking: Annie Besant gave thousands of lectures. She would speak for an hour or more. Audiences used to be mesmerized by her eloquence, her knowledge, to say nothing of her immersion in our culture and religion. Sir C P recalls as acerbic an appraiser as Bernard Shaw saying of her that she was the greatest orator in England and possibly in Europe. "I have never heard her excelled. She was then [he was writing of the time she took to socialism] unapproached." Just a single detail will speak to the distance between her and what we see today: Sri Prakasa writes, " ...She never carried any notes. She never consulted any papers as she spoke. Her memory must have been remarkable, and I believe she just rehearsed her lectures to herself once, before going into the lecture hall; and that was enough for her. She never faltered for a word and her voice never broke..."
All testified to the extreme generosity of spirit: she never spoke an ill-word of anyone, she bore calumny -- and much was heaped on her throughout her life -- without any thought of avenging it. Sir C P's observation is typical: narrating her isolation in the years when she had fallen out of step with the national movement, he writes, "Easy it is, if success blesses us, to possess some facile virtues and to prove and demonstrate them. But it is difficult for one living amidst calumny and obloquy, at all junctures to remain sweet-tempered, patient and forgiving, long-suffering, and yet hopeful of the future. As one who came across Mrs Besant very often during these years, I can say that I did not see one bitter expression on her face, nor did I hear from her lips one vengeful word."
Contrast the appropriation by Sonia of one governmental Trust after another, their conversion in effect into family Trusts with Mrs Besant making over the Central Hindu College to the Benaras Hindu University. Contrast it with what Sir C P writes of Mrs. Besant's uniform practice. She received large sums, he recalls, all of these she distributed in scholarships, in charitable gifts, in donations to worthy institutions. He writes that he "is personally aware of the circumstance that, generally speaking, at the end of each year, Dr. Besant used to draw cheques on all the banks in which monies were deposited to her credit and denude herself of all property..."
On every occasion, as at the Resurrection speech in Talkatora Stadium, all we hear is "Me and my family." Even in the Address she delivered at the very occasion these Congressmen cite as the precedent, the one she delivered on assuming the presidentship of the Congress in 1917, what is it that Mrs. Besant said? "....I have no words with which to thank you," she told the delegates, "no eloquence with which to repay my debt. My deeds must speak for me, for words are too poor. I turn your gift into service to the Motherland; I consecrate my life anew to Her worship by action. All that I have and am, I lay on the Altar of the Mother, and together we shall cry, more by service than by words: Vande Mataram!"
The very expressions -- Motherland, Mother, worship of the Mother, the Altar of the Mother, and of course Vande Mataram -- communal anathemas in the eyes of our Congressmen.
Every act, every thought had been in the public domain for forty years in Mrs Besant's case. Every act, every thought has been shrouded behind the speech-writer's script, the PR advisor's sheen today.
The Congress-presidency came after twenty years' unremitting labour in the service of India in Mrs. Besant's case. It has come as a measure of desperation by persons who have no other way of acquiring office today.
Even more important, indeed it is ludicrous to even have to recall it, was another fact. Even as she laboured for India, the Congress transformed -- under the Lokmanya, under Gandhiji. Mrs Besant withdrew to Adyar. It is too harsh to say that her foreignness was the inevitable factor, but something like it was. She could never reconcile herself to the demand for complete independence, the apogee of her aspiration for India remained Home Rule as part of the British Empire. So also her adoration for Hinduism. Even so adoring a devotee as Sri Prakasa expresses this -- ever so delicately. In one lecture at Benaras he heard her extol Hindu ceremonies for their ancestors, he writes. I don't believe any of this, he remarked to his neighbour. He was roundly reprimanded. But has she ever made offerings for her own ancestors?, he wondered...
Even during her lifetime -- she died in 1933 -- the Congress had moved far away from the 1917 in which it had elected her President. And that too for a year only. Today we are being told that because she was the President eighty years ago -- for one year, it is all right to have Sonia as President -- for life!
Every detail an opposite. And yet the claim, "We have a precedent."
And the one thing that enables them to get away with such travesty: the near-total ignorance of the rest of us.
India Connect
June 6, 1999
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