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| Neeti Nair |
Book Discussion
The epigraph of Neeti Nair’s book, Hurt
Sentiment [see previous two posts for more on the book, links below], is
a quote from Pakistani poet Fahmida Riaz (1946-2018).
In
the past I used to think with sadness
today
I laughed a lot as I thought
you
turned out exactly like us
we
were not two nations, brother!
‘We’ refer to Pakistan and India. India
has now become a Hindu Pakistan with a Hindu Jinnah as prime minister. It is
said that we tend to become like our enemies. The Hindu Jinnah’s India has
proved that even nations can become like their enemies.
Neeti Nair’s book has only four
chapters plus an introduction and an epilogue. I discussed the first two
chapters in the last two posts. This post concludes the book discussion looking
at the last two chapters.
Has India really become like
Pakistan?
Pakistan defined itself as an Islamic
Republic in its Constitution, an Islamic state that would enable the citizens
to order their lives “in accord with the teachings and requirements of Islam as
set out in the Holy Quran and the Sunna.” Is India going that way when it wants
to draft a new Constitution for itself defining the country as a Hindu Rashtra
with Manu Smriti as its guiding light and the Gita as its
official scripture?
To be secular is to belong to a
country or society fearlessly. And to be religious is to divide people in the name
of gods. Is India now a country where people of other religions feel a sense of
belonging at all? Is India now dividing its citizens in the name of gods?
I’m not going to answer those
questions. The answers are obvious, aren’t’ they?
Bangladesh, originally part of
Pakistan, sought freedom when it was fed up of the narrowmindedness of the Pakistani
religious leaders who governed the country in reality. Bangladesh didn’t define
itself as an Islamic republic. Its Constitution says Bangladesh is a “sovereign
people’s republic.” There was no mention of Islam or secularism in Bangladesh’s
draft-constitution when the country declared independence from Pakistan. But
when the Constitution was finalised, Article 12 defined secularism as the
absence of:
a)
Communalism
in all its forms;
b)
The
granting by the state of political status in favour of any religion;
c)
The
abuse of religion for political purpose;
d)
Any
discrimination against, or persecution of, persons practising a particular
religion.
Bangladesh, a country of Muslims,
went beyond what India had thought of vis-Ã -vis secularism. But, now, religion
has corroded that country too. Religion seems to be a contagious disease.
The other Islamic countries were not
chuffed with Bangladesh’s secularism. It took quite a bit of diplomacy to get
Saudi Arabia to provide Visas for Bangladeshis for the Hajj pilgrimage.
Neeti Nair also tells us about the immense
irony about Bangladesh’s national anthem being a poem composed by Rabindranath
Tagore whose works were banned by Pakistan. Even more ironically, Pakistan has had
to play that anthem whenever situations demanded it.
By the way, Fahmida Riaz, whose lines are quoted above, was arrested by Zia-ul-Haq for her outspokenness. Religions don’t like individual truths. Dictators don’t, either. Riaz escaped to India and returned to Pakistan only when Zia perished in a plane crash. The poem from which the above lines are quoted was written on 14 March 2014 against the backdrop of the rising intolerance in India. A couple of months after those lines were written, Narendra Modi was catapulted to the PM’s chair in Delhi. The rest is what prompted the title of this post.
PS. This is the third and
final part of a series on Neeti Nair’s book. The other two parts are:
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteIndeed - this is showing up all over the place. Disconcerting stuff... YAM xx