Bangladesh: Resurgence of Communalism

Ram Puniyani

The acts of violence led by the Islamists, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) are tormenting our neighboring Bangla Desh, more than 50 dead, injuries and destruction of Hindu, Budhha temples amongst other losses. Its spill over is also being felt in Kolkata to some extent (Feb-March 2013). In Kolkata a strong crowd owing allegiance to Muslim communalism, different organizations like Minority Youth Federation, and others went on rampage. All this in response to the death sentence given to Delawar Hossian Sayedee, the Vice President of JI by a war crimes tribunal after he was found guilty for mass killing, rape and atrocities during the nine month war against Pakistan.

He is the third office bearers of JI to have been convicted of the crimes during Muktijuddha (liberation war) of 1971 of the then East Pakistan people’s resistance against the atrocities of Pakistan army.  Sheikh Hasina Government has set up the tribunal from last three years and now the verdicts of the tribunal are being handed down. Currently in Bangla Desh a large number of youth, believing in democracy are demanding stricter action through protest at Shahbagh against those who were hands in glove with Pakistan army while Jamaat wings are out on streets opposing the sentence to the guilty of 71 liberation war. In India also the Jamaat-Islami has opposed the Shahbag movement and is opposed to punishing the JI elements that are guilty of 1971 war crimes. JI was opposed to the 1971 liberation war led by Mukti Bahini under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and supported by most of the people from Bangla Desh. The attack by Pakistan army led to the killing of nearly three million people, rape of nearly 200000 women, by rough estimates. During this period the East Pakistan’s intellectuals and many political workers were done to death.

The tragedy of partition has a long and painful tale, which is refusing to die down even now more than six decades after the painful event. India was partitioned on the strange ground, Pakistan in the name of Islam and India as a secular democracy, apparently to solve the communal problem. British have left a long and painful legacy of politics in the name of religion, violence in the name of religion, which is continuing to dog the sub-continent. The twin pillars of success of British policy of ‘divide and rule’ were the persistence of feudal classes, in the face of rising industrialization and the deliberate British ploy to recognize Muslim League as the representatives of Indian Muslims right since its formation in 1906. Muslim League was initially formed by the declining sections of Muslim Nawabas, Landlords and later was joined by the section of Muslim educated classes and elite. In no way it represented Indian Muslims. Similarly the Hindu Mahasabha, the body parallel to Muslim League, came up from amongst the Hindu Rajas, Jamindars and later joined in by the section of educated classes and elite castes. Their agenda was totally opposed to the one of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, which was the foundation of freedom movement of the country.

There are lot of parallels between both these communal streams (Muslim and Hindu), they could join hands in forming coalition ministries in Sindh and Bengal just before the partition, they kept aloof from freedom movement and opposed the social transformation of caste and gender relations of the society. Their lip service to some social reforms notwithstanding, they stuck to the status quo in matters pertaining to social norms and political relations.

After partition the Pakistan (East and West) came to be dominated by the West Pakistan economic and political elite who occupied important positions in the army, bureaucracy, economy and polity. In the elections held in 1970 the Awami League (East Pakistan) led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman swept the polls, and emerged as the majority party in Pakistan. Still, army backed by Zulfiqar Bhutto did not permit the formation of Awami League Government. Here one can see the difference between religion and politics. While Islam calls for ‘all men are bothers’ the politics in the name of Islam coming from Pakistani regime, discriminated not only against people of other religions, Hindus in particular, but also against the others Muslims. Muslims of East Pakistan were being dominated and suppressed by the dominant ‘Muslims’ of West Pakistan.

With Awami League being denied the formation of Government and in the absence of democratic channels of protest, alienation grew in East Pakistan and Mujibur Rahman launched civil disobedience movement. Massive protest erupted all over in East Pakistan and Pakistani army, cracked down on its own citizens. In East Pakistan, army unleashed a reign of terror; murders and rapes. Hindus and Muslims both were targeted. The citizens from East Pakistan were regarded as enemies and rampage went on till the Mukti Bahini, with the help of Indian Army succeeded in defeating Pakistani army to declare the formation of People’s Republic of Bangla desh.

The formation of Bangla Desh decisively and irrefutable proved the futility of the theory that Nations are synonymous with religions, that religion can be the basis of nationalism. The ‘Two Nation theory’ that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations met its graveyard in the formation of Bangla Desh. Still the communal elements were not wiped out from the country and they do keep coming up now and then. We had also noticed the response of Muslim Communalists from Bangla Desh when they wanted to march to India, in response to the demolition of Babri mosque. The plight of minorities in Bangla Desh is pathetic. Many of the Hindus and Muslims became refugees and came to different parts of the country. Part of this contributed to the Hindu communalist’s propaganda and creation of scare about Bangla Deshi immigrants. The issue of sub continental politics has been presented on communal lines.

Sixty years down the line the seeds of communal politics which came up from the declining sections of landlords, were given ideological veneer by section of elite-upper castes, and were cleverly nurtured by the British. As such actually it was these communal elements that fed in to the British policy of ‘divide and rule’ and led to partition of the country. In the three countries which emerged in the subcontinent, the degree of communal poison today; is of course very different in intensity. Pakistan suffered maximum at the hands of colonial-imperialist powers, the minorities there, Hindus and Christians are having intimidating time. In Pakistan the army has become the ally of communal forces and keeps opposing the democratic aspirations of large sections of society. In Bangla Desh, the democratically rooted parties have to face opposition from the communal elements.

India, not to be left behind is being gradually weekend by the Hindu communalists, who have been harping on the identity issue like Ram Temple. They have given communal hue to the ‘left over’ problems of colonial rule. Bangla Desh is seen as the source of infiltrators, despite the fact that the poor Hindus and Muslims who fled the country in 1971 had to leave to escape the brutality of Pakistan army. Kashmir, which again partly is a leftover colonial parting kick supplemented by the ultra nationalism of Pakistan-India on one side and communalism on the other. Tragically this issue is also seen through the prism of Hindu and Muslim alone.

Thus all the three countries in the subcontinent have to grapple with this communal demon. To obfuscate the difference between religion and politics has been the biggest ‘success’ of communalists, cutting across the religious divides. Criticizing these communalists can easily give you a label of being against that religion. Does it need a rethink on the part of the democratic people of these countries to collaborate with each other to bury the demon of communalism, politics in the name of religion? Will communalists, who are dominating the scene in India, or Pakistan or Bangla Desh let it happen? Communalists are adept at creating the tempest of hysteria in the name of their religions, and can do the intense breast beating that the secular democratic efforts are a threat to their ‘religion. The task to save or promote democracy in the subcontinent is a mammoth one. Can those elements yearning for a freedom and democracy in the sub continent come together on this agenda?  

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Standard of Conduct in the Materialistic School of Thought

Surama Dasgupta

In the different cross-currents of thought in the Mahabharata we have traced a positive trend of ideas commingled with the traditional, which has taken a more definite form and a different line in the Ayurveda. Both of these steer a middle course between the two different ideals; that of transcending the worldly experiences, and that of being in the world and enjoying life, and its various aspects, in a beneficial and pleasant manner. We may now turn to the materialistic school of thought where the positive attitude reaches its climax and taking an extreme form, completely dissociates itself from any traditional and scriptural injunctions. It formulates its own tenets in an open revolt against the orthodox systems; and it is interesting to note the growth and development of such revolutionary school of thought on Indian soil.

This materialistic philosophy is known as the Lokayata, the Carvaka or the Barhaspatya and, probably, had its origin in very ancient times. It does not believe in any such permanent entity as self that abides after death, rebirth, or the efficacy of karma, as determining the happy or sorrowful experiences in life. According to it, consciousness is but a product of matter or is manifested by the inter-action of atoms of air, water, fire and earth. It had different schools of adherents as the names, dhūrtta Carvaka, suśiksita Carvaka, Lokāyata, Bārhaspatya, suggest. No treatises of this school have come down to us, but their doctrines can be collected from the various other philosophical systems where they have tried to refute them.

Late Professor S.N. Dasgupta, in his very learned and scholarly account of the nihilistic schools in the appendix to his History of Indian Philosophy, vol. III, discussed in detail the materialistic doctrines from different sources and traced their origin as early as the Vedas or still earlier, as having been current among the Sumerian people of pre-Aryan times. Rhys Davids collected the Pāli passages referring to such doctrines which point to the important place occupied by these. Professor Dasgupta referred to the Buddhistic, Nyāya, Pāninian and other texts and to the stories about asura custom in the Chandogya Upanisad, the story of Virocana who took the ātman to be the same as the body and to the similar theories referred to in the Mahabharata, Visnupurana, and showed what these doctrine were. There might be slight differences as regards detail, the main contention was the same, namely, they all denied an after-life, effects of karma, good or bad, and admitted pleasure as the summum bonum of life. We shall briefly discuss their philosophic and ethical position.

The susiksita Carvakas hold that so long as the body remains, there is an entity as the constant perceiver and enjoyer of all experiences, but this does not persist after death. If there were such an abiding entity, travelling from one birth to another, then it should have remembered the incidents of past life just as a man remembers the experiences of his childhood.[1] By similar arguments they try to prove that no such entity can pass on to another body, nor can the consciousness belonging to a particular body be regarded as the cause of a different series of conscious states in a different body. The views of the Carvaka, as represented by Sriharsa, in his Naisadhacarita are that, since we often see the sinful men prosper and virtuous people suffer, there is no justification for thinking that virtue and vice are responsible for happiness and sorrow. One should, therefore, devote oneself to the fullest possible enjoyment of life.

Thus pleasure is the aim to be attained in life as the highest good, and therefore, the standard of morality. But the question arises whether the Carvakas restricted themselves to the pure sensualistic pleasure of the moment, like the Cyrenaics, or whether they regarded a total life of pleasure as the goal to be sought. There is a passage attributed to the Carvaka in the Sarvadaranasamgraha which states, yāvaj jivet sukham jivet, implying that a whole life of pleasure is to be attained. But the next line, rnam krtva ghrtam pivet, (one can eat butter by borrowing money) implies that the Carvaka did not care for the sorrow that might come, out of the debt incurred, and that it had a ring of Omar Khayyam, 

‘Ah, take the cash and let the credit go,

Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum’. 

It is indeed difficult to reconcile this Omaric ring with the more sober line of the previous line, implying that a complete life of pleasures is to be preferred to momentary enjoyment. It has often been held that because the Carvakas do not admit the existence of soul as a spiritual entity, they are committed to the view of pleasure as mere sensuality of the moment. But it is hardly tenable, because denial of a permanent self does not involve the denial of thoughts and ideas. If the soul were regarded as a mere epiphe­nomenon or a mere chemical product, even then mental pleasures could not but be admitted, for such a position does not imply the denial of the mind as a product of the body. We know that the Susiksita School admits the existence of a mind so long as the body remains. Pleasure as the ideal, therefore, may include both the sensual and the mental enjoyment. This world presents an admixture of pleasure and pain; our ideal of conduct should be to act in such a manner that we may reap the maximum amount of pleasure and minimum of pain and that we should prefer certain pleasures to uncertain ones. Thus the Kāmasūtra, quoting Brhaspati, says ‘varam adya kapotah svo mayurat’,[2]  i.e., it is better to have a pigeon today for certain than to have a peacock tomorrow, which is uncertain. It does not, however, seem that the Carvakas regarded mental pleasures to be superior to physical ones. It is of course difficult to form a correct estimate about their doctrines from the fragments of their literature that we receive from others. They certainly discarded the lines of conduct that depended upon the hope of a future life, simply because they did not believe in it. But it seems to be fairly clear that they regarded three qualities as important in determining the value of pleasure, namely, proximity, certainty and intensity. It may also be supposed that if they were asked they might also have assented to duration as being an important characteristic of pleasure as it appears from the saying - yavaj jivet sukham jivet - pleasure should pervade the whole life, i.e., be of a long duration. We cannot say whether purity could also be included in the list, and we are unable to say anything definite as to whether duration should play such an important part as to induce the Cāryāka to give up ‘proximity’ in its favour.

Again, the Cārvākas denied that there could be any pleasure from the mental equanimity such as is produced by meditation. Pleasures, according to them, imply continual desires and their satisfaction. They do not take the Stoic view and that of other Indian philosophers that desires unfulfilled produce pain and, therefore, it is better to reduce them. They hold that pains are indeed inevitable, but since satisfaction cannot be had without giving free scope to desires which involve pains also, it should be our aim to minimise the pains as far as possible and to attain the maximum amount of pleasure. Since we do not get any detailed account of the Cārvākas, we cannot say whether the desire of avoidance of pain could be pushed further so as to result in a paradox of hedonism, namely one should sacrifice pleasure for getting pleasure.

The Cārvākas, however, do not seem to have gone beyond the individual state and, therefore, we cannot trace the maxim of the greatest happiness of the greatest number in their pleasure calculus. They regarded artha (objects) and kama (desire) as the determinants of morality.

All that we can collect is that the Cārvākas laid emphasis on immediate sense-pleasures, without recognising any qualitative difference between them. There was no ring of pessimism, immediate sense-pleasures were all that they wanted, and any display of prudence, restraint or other considerations which might lead to the sacrifice of present pleasures had no value. If we could emphasise from other sources the suggestion that they wished for a whole life of pleasure, as implied by the line ‘yavaj jivet sukham jivet’, we could have contended otherwise, but from the scanty materials at our disposal we have no authority to do that.

---

[1] Nyayamanjari, Refutation of the Carvakas, Ahnika 7

[2] Kamasutra, 1, 2, 29, 30

The author of this essay on the whole takes the traditional view (expressed by those opposed to materialism) that Carvakas are sensualists and this opinion is based on a single verse from Sarvadarsanasamgraha. But this particular verse is, as Ramkrishna Bhattacharya has shown, a deliberate misquote on the part of the author of Sarvadarsanasamgraha.

This essay is an extract from Surama Dasgupta’s Development of Moral Philosophy in India (First Edition: 1961, Second Edition: 1994, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, New Delhi.

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Americaroopam: Kamal Haasan’s Flawed Scripting

Ram Puniyani

The release of Vishwaroopam, the latest film from Kamal Haasan was mired in controversies. (Feb 2013). Haasan decided to arrange a pre-screening for some groups, despite the film being cleared by the censors. These Muslim groups raised lots of objections and demanded for the ban on the film. As matters unfolded, these groups agreed for the release of the film after some cuts in the film, which the renowned actor-producer did and film went on to get very good response on the box office.

The demand for ban was totally out of place and unwarranted. The cutting of some scenes and the background recitation of Quran, before and after the acts of terror, was done by the producer. .Film all through creates the feel that Quran is the source of inspiration for violence. Though Haasan went on to say that the film is a tribute to Indian Muslims, as such the film falls in the trap of the Islamophobia created by America, American media and media here at home. Briefly, in the film the hero helps the US troops against Taliban forces and helps in the Americans in preventing the blast by Muslim group. An analysis of script of the film can be summed up by stating that the hero of the film, a Muslim working with RAW; is a very conscientious person out to save the World from the terror created by Muslim groups. Some writers have summed it up by saying that the film tries to portray ‘one good Muslims and all other bad Muslims’. It leaves an impression that the terrorist Muslim groups are creating problem all over and US is the savior, its agencies trying to protect US and the World from these dastardly acts. Film also roughly goes on to portray that Muslim children are given the arms training right from childhood, and Quran is their training manual for these acts of terror.

While one knows the impeccable secular credentials of both the lead actors of the film, Kamal Haasan and Rahul Bose; still the film is based on the script which is very superficial in its attempt with tackling the problem of terrorism. It’s not that it is the first film trying to grapple with the phenomenon of terror. There had been earlier attempts to deal with the theme, some of them doing a commendable job to go beyond the obvious in unraveling the deeper causes of terror then restricting to the understanding that terrorism is to Islam itself. Films like New York, My Name is Khan, Tere bin Laden Aamir and others did a good job as the script writers tried to break the shackles of the US propaganda and the ‘constructed social common sense’ that ‘All Terrorists are Muslims’. This film takes this formulation as the basic dictum adds to that the imagery that the terrorists keep carrying Koran, keep offering Namaz, and keep shouting Allah Ho Akbar while indulging in the acts of brutality.

How come such a serious film maker like Kamal Haasan falls in to the trap of the US inspired thesis which links terrorism with the teaching of Islam? Haasan claims to have 300 evidences for his script. Going by the story line of the film it seems that his sources seem to be lacking deeper scholarship. One guesses that what is paraded as evidence is mostly the propaganda of dominant global power, America. Look at the statement made in all seriousness that Americans don’t kill women and children! Will the script writer be able to defend it after going through the list of victims of US aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq to give the recent examples?

The film while caricaturing Mullah Umar, as Omar in the film, or the nature of whole Taliban gang, gives the impression that all this is due to what Koran teaches. Here the film gives the impression, the script goes out to elaborate that the hero stands as an exception to all the bad Muslims out to destroy the World. One can say the story line of the film is the passive acceptance of the dominant World view. Karl Marx remarked that the dominant ideas are the ideas of the ruling classes. One can modify it to state that the dominant groups-powers can and do manipulate the social thinking and hide the truth. They project the falsehoods, which the large sections of society go on to accept. Same thing was articulated by Noam Chomsky, the US human rights activists, in his classical formulation of ‘manufacturing consent’. The extensive study undertaken by Chomsky into the policies of US Empire showed its machinations to create the opinion in its favor while attacking other countries for its narrow political goals.

It’s not that there are no dissenting scholars and serious researched material on the subject. There is enough in the arena of serious scholarship and some dedicated websites, which show the deeper truth. One can very well mention the two profound works of scholarship on the subject, Mahmud Mamdani’s ‘Good Muslim Bad Muslim’ and Tariq Ali’s ‘Clash of Fundamentalisms’, which show the deeper connection of the current terror groups, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda outfits themselves being the product of the US attempt to dominate West Asia for controlling oil wealth. The US imperialists worked with the thesis that oil is too important a commodity to be left to Arabs for control. The deeper peep into the current history of West Asia will clearly show the role of CIA in promoting the Madrassas, which picked up Salafi version of Islam to indoctrinate the generation of Muslim youth to undertake acts of terror. The whole sequence of Mujahideen, Taliban and Al Qaeda had been the outcome of that. All this, was richly funded by the United States to fight against the Russians; occupying Afghanistan. Apparently later Al Qaeda turned its guns against Western powers and today is playing the Frankenstein’s monster. The whole formulation of ‘Islamic-terrorism’ was the creation of US media post 9/11 2001, linking Islam-Muslims with terrorism. Here one is not referring to the conspiracy theories, which are doing rounds through various films and social media.

It’s a tragedy of times that despite the large presence of social media and serious scholarship on contemporary history of West Asia, the popular conceptions are those dictated by the US media, and Kamal Haasan’s script neatly falls into the superficial trap laid by the global ‘social common sense’. How come the film mentions the involvement of Al Qaeda type groups into the acts of terror in Malegaon and other cities in India, while totally forgetting Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Assemanand and their ilk who are currently in jails accused of being involved in the series of blasts in different places in India! Why film makers and others remain confined to the superficial level of analysis, which in turn worsens the popular perceptions? Surely, deepening of these perceptions does suit the interests of the Imperialist powers and also the communal forces. This pattern of projection of terrorism leads one to conclude that the power of ideas propagated by America, the other dominant social groups with their prowess to influence and shape the opinions emerging from mainstream media and films like Vishwaroopam, is immense. Films like Vishwaroopam have their own right to be screened without any cuts but are disgusting for the poverty of their research and regressive values, which in turn strengthens the Islamophobia, being perpetuated all round, and is serving the Western powers to dominate the oil zone primarily and also other areas. It strongly helps the communal thinking also.

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Science versus Miracles: Spirit Phenomena

B Premanand

At a séance, four or more people sit around a table in darkness, with palms down on the table. The little fingers of their hands touched that of the people on both sides. All the volunteers concentrate on a dead spirit which is to raise or move it to prove its presence. Suddenly the table trembles, moves and rises up.

Experiment: 100

Effect: A spirit levitating a table.

Props: A light-weight square teapoy, four chairs and four volunteers.

Method: All occult or spirit phenomena happen in utter darkness. Put off the lights, ask the volunteers to sit on the chairs kept on four sides of the teapoy, and relax. Ask them to keep their palms down on the table, touching the small fingers of the other two volunteers sitting on either side. Ask them to concen­trate on the Spirits, requesting them to show proof of their existence by moving the table or raising it up. When their concentration is complete, to experience the phenomena of the table moving put one foot under the leg of the table and raise it a little and bring it down. While the table is raised by one leg because other volunteers keep their hands on the table, it will balance by itself.

Experiment: 101

Effect: Photographing the dead sprit.

The audience sits in a half-circle in utter darkness. You have a camera with you. Someone clicks the camera in the dark where you point out, and a spirit appears on the negative when it is washed.

Props:  A good camera, film, a cigar and matchbox.

Method:  The audience is asked to sit in a half-circle in utter darkness and you stand in the front, near the wall facing them. Then you take the lighted cigar, concealing it in your palm, and ask the photographer to take a time shot of the cigar. Immediately hide the cigar and put on the light. The audience will hear the sound of the clicking of the camera. When the film is developed and a copy taken, you will see a ghost with burning head appearing from smoke. Thee cigar looks like a spirit with a long robe. The burning end looks like its head, and it seems that the spirit has materialized from the smoke.

Experiment: 102

Effect: Spirit Photographs

The photograph of a dead person appears on a photo paper.

Props: Distilled water, mercuric chloride solution, hypo solution (sodium thiosulfate in water,), and black and white photograph on solio paper.

Method: After developing a picture of a dead person on print-out paper (solio paper), wash it in distilled water and bleach it in the solution of mercuric chloride. Then wash it and dry. Keep it in a dark place, ready for the trick.

To develop the picture, place it in a solution of Hypo and the original picture will appear.

Experiment: 103

Effect: A picture of Satya Sai Baba appears when you blow on a ring, a locket, or a glass plate.

Props: Glass plate, hydrofluoric acid, new steel pen, and distilled water.

Method: Wash the glass plate clean and dry. Draw a picture on it with a new steel pen using Hydrofluoric Acid. Allow the acid to remain on the glass for 8 to 10 minutes, wash it off with distilled water, and dry the glass with a soft clean cloth. Nothing will be visible on the glass. When you breathe on it the picture will become visible. It will fade out as it dries.

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Hanging of Conscience: Case of Afzal Guru

Ram Puniyani

The semi secretive hanging of Afzal Guru (Feb 2013) has come as a shock to some and as a feeling of triumphalism for many. Afzal Guru was hanged in early hours of morning and was buried in the prison yard. His mercy petition, which was pending with the President for long was finally rejected and even before the family of Afzal Guru could get a chance to appeal against the turning down of plea for clemency, Guru was hanged. While the ethical questions pertaining to death penalty are heavy on the conscience of many in the society, this is not regarded as the part of ‘collective conscience’ which has guided the judgment of Supreme Court and later the President turning down his petition for clemency. The section of society which thought that Guru’s sentence itself needs to be questioned also does not seem to form the’ conscience’ of the nation!

Kashmir valley was totally insulated from the news and TV channels gagged. The restive mood of the people led to the death of some. In the absence of the proper information, rumours are doing rounds and what disastrous consequences it can have needs a serious thought from the rulers in the corridors of power.

 Many a questions have been raised due to this hanging. Why hanging and why at this time?  Guru was one of the accused in the case of assault on the Parliament on 13 December 2001, in which, eight security personnel and one gardener were killed. Guru was not found to be part of any terrorist outfit, nor did he play any direct role in this attack. Supreme Court noted that there is no direct evidence of Guru’s involvement. The evidence was mainly circumstantial. All three courts including Supreme Court had acquitted him of the charges under POTA of belonging to either a terrorist organization or a terrorist gang. Court also noted that the evidence was fabricated.

At worst Guru was facilitator in the crime and not a part of directly perpetrating the crime, and the evidence against him was mere circumstantial and that the police lied about the time and place of arrest, fabricated evidence including arrest memos and extracted false confessions. Court noted that Guru was not a member of any banned organization, Court ruled "The conviction under section 3 (2) of POTA is set aside. The conviction under section 3 (5) of POTA is also set aside because there is no evidence that he is a member of a terrorist organization, once the confessional statement is excluded. Incidentally, we may mention that even going by confessional statement, it is doubtful whether the membership of a terrorist gang or organization is established." Further that since "The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender." So does it mean that the punishment is being given to assuage the collective national conscience? One must add what is presented as this conscience is the consciousness of the section of dominant sections of society, the assertive social-political groups in particular. The conscience manufactured by the likes of VHP, Bajrang Dal and company, have come to be labelled and accepted as national ‘collective conscience’ by many, It is these groups who are who are celebrating the death of Guru, exhibiting their triumphalism.

In their petition to the President of India, many social activists and academics point out “The fact that the Court appointed as amicus curiae (friend of the court) a lawyer in whom Afzal had expressed no faith; the fact that he went legally unrepresented from the time of his arrest till his so-called confession, the fact that the court asked him to either accept the lawyer appointed by the Court or cross examine the witness himself should surely have concerned you while considering his mercy petition.”

His personal history of being a surrendered militant, victim of harassment and torture at the hands of STF, as well as his statement in open court that he had indeed helped Mohammad, one of the attackers on the Parliament, find a house and obtain a car, the same car used in the attack, but at the orders of his STF handlers, should have spurred a full-scale investigation into the allegations. The citizens of this country do not know if one was ordered at all.”

 The base on which Supreme Court gave the judgment was built by the police with methods which are questionable, which have also been reprimanded by the court in this case. The argument on the other side was that if Guru is not hanged it will be an insult to those who have laid their lives for defending the parliament

While Supreme Court deserves all the respect, one has to see that the primary investigation done by the police, with all its flaws formed the base of the judgment. When that investigation itself had holes in it, should it be accepted as it is presented? When the primary culprits are either dead are some of them absconding, can 'the whole truth be out'? Or is it that somebody has anyway to be punished to quench the thirst for revenge, and who better than the one who has a Muslim name and happens to be from Kashmir. The whole trial of Afzal needed to be relooked; the flaws of the investigation, the weakness of and deliberate violation of norms by police authorities in particular.

The question which comes is why the other assassins, the one’s of Rajiv Gandhi and the Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh are being given a different treatment? The assemblies of Punjab and Tamil Nadu have passed resolutions against death penalties for these people, who were directly involved with the acts of assassination. The whole issue boils down to as to how Indian state has treated the Kashmir issue and how terrorism and Muslims have been associated in the popular thinking. This thinking has been deliberately promoted by the communal forces in the country. A section of media has played a very negative role in promoting the divisive thinking in the society. Section of media has acted as spokespersons for the police versions of investigation. So the ‘collective conscience’ is the common sense asserted by communal forces and imbibed by the others. It does reflect the state of our democracy overall. Can we call ourselves as a democracy and indulge in minority bashing; being high handed in matters of justice and citizenship rights in cases of the vulnerable minorities.

Kashmir had been limping towards better situation during last few years. While alienation amongst large section of Kashmiris remains deep set, there have been indications that people may reconcile to new situation, if democratization process in Kashmir is strengthened by and by. This hanging of Afzal Guru reminds one of the hanging of Maqbul Butt in 1984, which set the trail for a phase of enhanced militancy. One hopes that such an adverse thing should not happen this time. But still we need to take the issue of protest in Kashmir in a more balanced way. Congress should not join the game of aggressive jingoism launched by BJP and its affiliates. Such cases of yielding to the religious nationalism, promoted by BJP and company will surely be a recipe for disaster for the process of normalization and democratization in Kashmir. The communal mind set should not be allowed to rule the roost.  

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