LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -16

FIGHTING COMMUNALISM

There is an element of legendary Vaital in my friend: even when he goes satisfied he comes the next day waving a new straw as a new-found weapon. “You charge, they wrote a history not suited to your taste with ulterior motives, while the fact is, they wrote it to fight input of communal-ism increasing in our textbooks of literature and history. They did it as an urgent move to save national integration.’

“And they as per their claim fought the nationalist historians, as if nationalists aimed at disintegration?”

“They could be inaccurate in presentation of facts with a tilt towards communal-ism.”

“What in your assessment is communal-ism, you explain first. do you mean nihilism Is another name of secularism?”

He did not answer. I added further, “do you want me know what National Integration is ? how all of a sudden it got relevance? Not that I know anything which you do not know, I only do not allow you to ignore the fact that it was a weapon of emergency to suppress those who rose to oppose it. It is an old song sung at different turns of our history from the last quarter of 19th century till imposition of emergency by the power that had no legitimacy to remain in power; from the slogan of Hindus and Muslims are two beautiful eyes of mother India but only so long as the Hindus although in dominant majority, do not forget that Muslims have been ruling them for thousand years, that they have ability and experience to handle state affairs; that the British replaced Muslim rulers and after they depart, the power should go to those from whom it was snatched; and that Muslim culture and Urdu language, Arabic script in which it is written is refined, civilized and has to be accepted for maintaining the beauty of the two eyes, solidarity of Indian society and unity of the country.

“This was the first ever proposal of integration of India as put forward by Syed Ahmad Khan and resented among others by Bharatendu and Madan Mohan Malaviya. Our own authors have discussed through hundreds of pages of their book to prove that the conditions laid down by Syed Ahmad were secular and those who wanted Hindi written in Nagari script as well to be accepted as medium of instruction were communal, and have duly been awarded for their service.

“A scenario in which even Hindu leaders like Advani could find Jinnah to be secular, and held back the other half that Gandhi and Congress were communal which the League headed by Jinnah chanted throughout I have no courage challenge anyone of them. But the dictionary meaning of the word integration is.’The intermixing of people who were previously segregated.’

“While the textbook writers undertook to vitiate the entire social fabric by pumping down the heads of their readers that Hindu is bad, its history is devoid of any positive achievement on its own and all it owes has come from the west, naturally from its western neighbor Iran. The accumulating fume against this intellectual barbarity fed and irrigated the ground in which the forces which symbolized Hinduism benefited the most in a Hindu society which was secular enough to make adjustments through this insult.”

As I turned round to see how he had received what I said, I found him gazing at the mating birds at a distance with rapt attention. I nudged him reprimanding, “you idiot. I have been explaining you the meaning of…”

“Despite my attempt I went listless because you were tellibg nothing new. I have heard this bhajan hundreds of time.”

“And you have acclimatized yourself to it? Is it? People living close to sewage drains lose the sense of smell, in fact they feel uncomfortable in healthy surroundings. That is what secularist acclimatization to cultural degradation means.”

He laughed to make it light. It enraged me all the more. “And know you why they feel uncomfortable? The nitrogen has toxic effect and that they miss in changed atmosphere.” I rose in displeasure to leave.