Encounter with diversity

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Bharatiya Janata Party claims that its Hindutva ideology is based on cultural nationalism and not connected with the Hindu religion. However, its concept of culture is closely related to Hindu values, more particularly values promoted by sections of the community that dominated the society for long.

Consequently, in the Hindutva discourse, religious minorities constitute the “other”. The BJP and other Hindutva entities have criticised measures by previous governments to safeguard their interests as appeasement.

However, religious pluralism is only one aspect of the wide variety in Indian society which has given rise to the concept of unity in diversity.

The Narendra Modi government, which was swept into office by a pro-Hindutva upsurge, encountered another aspect of India’s diversity when it instructed officials of the central government who have official social network accounts to post messages in the Hindi language.

According to the census report, Hindi, which belongs to the Indo-European group of languages, is the mother tongue of about 45 per cent of the people. The figure has been arrived at on the basis of information provided by householders to the enumerators.

Both the BJP and its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, are known to have campaigned among people speaking various allied dialects like Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi, Magadhi and Maithili at census time to declare Hindi as their mother tongue to boost its claim for recognition as the national language.

According to the findings of a recent survey, Indians use more than 780 languages and 66 different scripts. During the freedom struggle the Congress party, under Gandhi’s leadership, sought to promote Hindi as the national language. However, when the Congress government in the Madras presidency, provided for study of Hindi in schools, the anti-Brahmin Justice Party’s protests forced it to drop the move.

Vigorous opposition by non-Hindi speaking people, especially the Tamil-speaking people, foiled the efforts of Hindi enthusiasts to get the Congress-dominated body which framed India’s Constitution to grant Hindi the status of national language. It, however, provided for replacement of English with Hindi as the official language of the central government by 1965.

Tamil belongs to the Dravidian group of languages spoken mainly in the south. Tamil speakers are intensely proud of their language and many of them are against exclusive use of Hindi by the Centre.

Protests broke out in Tamil Nadu in the early 1960s when the Centre announced certain steps to promote the use of Hindi on the basis of the recommendations of the Official Languages Commission. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured the protesters that Hindi would not be made the sole official language without the concurrence of the non-Hindi states.

In 1963, parliament enacted a law to give effect to Nehru’s assurance. It provided for continued use of English by the Central government, in addition to Hindi, after 1965.

Even so, the Centre took certain steps to promote the use of Hindi in 1965. Protests in Tamil Nadu, spearheaded by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, took a toll of more than 60 lives. The agitation subsided only after prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri went on air and declared that the government would honour Nehru’s pledge to retain English as alternative official language.

The anti-Hindi agitation played a big part in the DMK’s phenomenal growth and its replacement of the Congress as Tamil Nadu’s ruling party in 1967. Since then the state has been continuously under the rule of the DMK or its offshoot, the All India Anna DMK.

The intense feelings of Tamil speakers on the language issue stem from their pride in its antiquity. While Hindi is only five or six centuries old, Tamil boasts of a history of more than two millennia

The BJP-led government’s directive to officials to use Hindi in social networks was ill-timed and imprudent inasmuch as a campaign on these platforms, conducted primarily in English, had made a significant contribution to the party’s electoral triumph.

Both DMK supremo M Karunanidhi and AIADMK leader and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa opposed the government’s action. So did the BJP’s allies in the state.

The BJP’s first prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, had addressed the UN General Assembly in Hindi. Media reports have indicated that Modi plans to talk to world leaders in Hindi, with the help of interpreters. Such steps can be justified in terms of patriotism.

Promotion of Hindi at home in a manner unacceptable to speakers of other languages cannot be viewed in the same light since it betrays unwillingness to respect India’s diversity.

Modi has not cared to speak on the language controversy. One hopes the lesson that the government has to be sensitive to the sentiments of all sections of the people has not been lost on him.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, June 24, 2014.

Women's security: Time to establish accountability

B.R.P.Bhaskar
IANS

Leaderless and unorganised groups of young men and women have been demonstrating demanding women's security and just punishment to perpetrators of the Delhi gang-rape.

They have defied ban orders and braved repressive police action. The death of the rape victim Saturday appears to have strengthened their resolve. But punishment in criminal cases, just or otherwise, comes only at the end of trial and hearing at three levels, which, with the best will to fast-track the process, will take time.
Ensuring security of women calls for toning up of the police machinery and reforming society -- tasks that will take even more time. The protesters cannot be hanging out at Jantar Mantar and in parks in other cities while these processes go on.

Knowing this, the government is resorting to time-tested dilatory measures like constitution of judicial commissions and promises of action. While the protests have been ignited by one incident which received considerable mass media attention, what has also brought young people into the campaign is the feeling that the political system is not responsive to the issue.

Their exasperation is evident from the way they are steering clear of all political elements.

On their part, the ruling parties and the opposition are viewing with deep suspicion the protest movement run by those who are not under the control of any party. Their misgivings are shared by middle class intellectuals who fear the movement may lead to anarchy.

Figures show a crime against women is reported every two minutes. When we take into account the fact that many women do not file complaints and even when complaints are filed, police may not register them, the actual crime rate must be higher.

The nation's concern over the issue, which the protesters are articulating, is therefore justified. The protesters cannot be blamed for their distrust of the political class.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not speak out on the issue for days. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde opened his mouth mainly to defend police action against the demonstrators.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushama Swaraj, who demanded the death penalty for rapists, had been silent on the rape of women during the Gujarat riots.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Brinda Karat, who paid visits to India Gate, was an accessory to her party's decision to settle sexual harassment charges against two of its leaders in Kerala and shield them against prosecution.

Jaya Bachchan, who broke into tears at a Mumbai protest rally, is an MP of the Samajwadi Party that has fielded men facing rape charges in elections.

The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Trinamool Congress, two parties controlled by women leaders, too, have put up rape case accused as candidates.

How can such leaders be relied upon to address the issue sincerely?

Former Indian Army chief, Gen V.K. Singh was among those who publicly associated themselves with the protest. While serving as army chief, he showed no sign of concern for rape victims. Army personnel in Kashmir attracted rape charges in his time.

He had no word of sympathy for Irom Sharmila of Manipur, who is on an epic fast seeking lifting of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which provides immunity to servicemen involved in rape cases.
While the record of the politicians and the former officials is not inspiring, protesters must understand we are running a democratic system and such a system cannot be run without political parties. But they are entitled to demand that the politicians remain accountable to the people.

Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), said on Saturday: "We have heard you".

If she has heard the protesters' voice, why is there no action?

The constitution envisages a government responsible to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. That body owes its special status to the fact that it is directly elected by the people, who, going by the preamble, are both makers and keepers of the constitution.

In a democratic dispensation, when things go wrong, someone must assume responsibility. Half-a-century ago, Lal Bahadur Shastri assumed moral responsibility for a rail accident and resigned as railway minister.
When a sex crime in the capital awakens the nation's conscience to the vulnerability of women, must not someone assume moral responsibility and bow out?

If no one does so voluntarily, does not the UPA chairperson have a duty to fix responsibility and call for the resignation of the person concerned?

Two persons present themselves as likely candidates: the prime minister, who remained silent when he should be have spoken out and acted; and the home minister, whose words only added insult to injury.

The exit of either gentleman will not bring the government down since it is open to the Congress and the UPA to find a replacement from their own ranks.