Is Shaheen Bagh a ‘Clash
of Civilization Between Hindu and Muslim Identity?
The clash of civilization
came into prominence a few decades back to predict the conflicts that would take
place in the 21st century. It said the people’s cultural, religious
identities will lead to conflicts and give rise to mass movements. Samuel Huntington
even said prophetically that the war of the future will not be fought between
nations but over identity, centered around religion and culture.
Is the protest of Shaheen
Bagh then a clash of civilization between two different religious identities?
Is it that the Hindu
identity, in transition, finally is no longer willing to live under a baggage of
centuries of appeasement and facing an opposition from the ‘other’ who can’t accept
this new identity?
Conflicts around
religion are nothing new to India with innumerable violent riots having taken place
in every decade over past two hundred years. The partition was the biggest of
them all, a genocide like no other whose memory hasn’t left us. But perhaps this
is the first time in Indian history where the Hindu psyche is no longer willing
to appease for the sake of secularism. The Hindu of today thinks of his survival
first and is being self-preservative. What has brought on this unique moment in
our history?
The defining
moment in Tiananmen Square was the man standing alone in front of the tank and
the army. It was the silent courage of a lone man against a brutal authority.
The defining
moment when the Mothers who came to ask for their missing sons to the police at
Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, was the white scarf.
The defining
moment in Burma on restoration of democracy was the Monk who immolated himself
in front of the firing squad.
It has always been
the individual spirit of freedom that fought against the oppression. The
message of the individual has been that he is in the majority of one, though he
may be alone.
What does the crowd
protesting at Shaheen Bagh have to show? Do they have any remote similarity to any
movement that inspire and stand as memorial to man’s inhumanity to man? What do
the people of Shaheen Bagh show apart from arrogance, defiance and hatred telling
those who do not agree to not enter their space?
Why is it that the
women and children sitting in front at Shaheen Bagh fail to capture our imagination?
The answer lies in that they did not come to sit there out of their own free will.
Were they bored, living a meaningless life behind the veil in their homes and came
out for a few days of freedom on being asked for by the male members of their community?
In the beginning
stages of a fanatic movement, one will find sympathizers and supporters amongst
the bored than amongst the exploited and the oppressed. Boredom accounts for
almost invariable presence of spinsters and middle-aged women at the birth of fanatic
mass movements. Quoting Eric Hoffer, “Both in Nazi movement and those religions
which frown upon feminine activity outside home, it is women, in early stages, who
play the key role in coming out and taking the place of men.”
Hitler was financed
by the wives of the great industrialists of Germany long before their husbands had
heard of him, none of whom understood what his philosophy stood for. So much so
that he said admiring of their contribution to his movement, “…. ladies
thirsting for adventure, sick of their empty lives, no longer getting a kick
…..”
Why do women, who can’t
show their face outside home, need permission of their men to venture out, want
to lead a movement? A psychoanalyst, an expert on Arab mass spring had explained,
“These women imprisoned behind the veil in their homes suddenly jump from a sense
of total powerlessness to feeling enormously powerful blocking roads, standing
in front believing they are protecting their men. The pent-up aggression and
humiliation of years of domesticity comes out directed towards an external
enemy, visible and vulnerable to them.” Anyone remember Colosseum of ancient Rome?
Why do we see so
many children put in the front line against the forces say in Kashmir, in Shaheen
Bagh or in Palestine? Who coaches them? Why do their parents leave them unprotected?
Where does their parenting instinct disappear?
After the 2002 riots
in Gujarat, our organization had worked with victims on being asked by National
Human Rights Commission. The major camps were swarming with international media
personnel, each vying to write about atrocities, even exaggerating at times. No
one would write about how the violence started, when a train full of Hindu pilgrims
was put on fire by a Muslim mob with men, women and children burned to death. As
a journalist had told me that was no story.
While working in the
camps in Gujarat, children showed us pictures of how their homes were burnt, told
sordid stories and asked for monetary help. After sometime a pattern began to
emerge. In each instance the women and children said they were separated from
the men while running away.
It was while going
through one village that something seemed odd. Only one road connected the village
to the main road. How did the men then got separated from their families?
Back at the camps
when we asked them to explain the discrepancy, there was silence. Finally, one
of the children told us in the ear, “My father and uncle left us behind.”
“How did you come here
then?”
“We found our way
through to the camp.” He then said, “Most of my friends have the same story to
tell.”
It is only the
detached child, the vulnerable one who can be indoctrinated in a fanatic
ideology. Rejected of parental love, the only option for him or her is to join
a mass movement for a larger cause in service of a punishing god, shouting
slogans against a visible enemy to know he exists and has some self-worth.
The children are indoctrinated
in hatred to prepare them for sacrifice later. Does it rip them of their
individual identity by pointing out the enemy in front - the police, the leader
of the country, everyone who doesn’t belong to their way of thinking? The enemy
is shown, not taught from textbooks. He feels through slogans, identifies
somatically through fists raised and caricatures that mock.
The children who shout
violent slogans against the Prime Minister of our country see the enemy in not
just him, but in an entire culture, a whole civilization, a way of life that opposes
their ideology and way of thinking. There is no place for discussion or dialogue
anymore but raising through murderous slogans and acting upon it. What will they
grow up to be? A complete annihilation of their individuality towards a collective
that fights for ‘jihad’. Why don’t we see Hindus, Christians or Buddhist
children ever doing that?
The mass movement by
Hindus has emerged with the intention to destroy the ‘present’ where he now sees
himself as a victim due to historical forces and his contempt arises from being
at the receiving end. He therefore, is trying to reclaim a past where he was once
the king and lived with dignity. He is trying to reverse the wheels of a past that
humiliated him. In trying to rise he faces a civilizational battle where he is projected
as the persecutor by his adversaries. Once he crosses this barrier, he believes
it will give him the power that was snatched away from him long ago. Has Shaheen
Bagh been made a ‘no go zone’ today for this very reason?
It is a painful reminder
of a memory that is not over for him, the image of a Hindu woman in a hijab. This
image is being silently borne by the so-called intolerant Hindu. Ma Kali dressed
in a burqa completes the humiliation. But why so much humiliation for the ‘infidel’
woman? Is it to show what she will have to face like the infidel women of Kashmir
were told thirty years ago?
What is the message
that Shaheen Bagh will leave for the future generation? In my understanding it
will be that a significant number of Muslims of India would not like to live in
India if the Hindus assert their distinctiveness, reclaim their pride, their
uniqueness and feel the wholeness that a slave feels again after his slavery is
over. Is then the powerful Hindu, the assertive Hindu, an anathema to present
times and for the conscience of his neighbors? I hope our conscience leads the
way and gives us the answer.
After centuries of
slavery, the Hindu seems to be on a path to renewal and resurgence of his
identity. On the other hand, the mirage of immortality as Toynbee put it as the
hallmark of some Abrahamic civilizations and one, they hold on to, seems to be silently
ebbing away. I believe it only may come to us sooner than one can imagine.
Rajat Mitra
Psychologist, Speaker
and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
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