Religiosity, Space-making, Exclusion: ‘Kanwar Yatra’ Celebrations in a North Indian City
Avishek Jha
Abstract
Introduction
Celebrating Kanwar Yatra
[ . . . ]
https://doi.org/10.1177/23210230241235368
Resources for all concerned with culture of authoritarianism in society, banalisation of communalism, (also chauvinism, parochialism and identity politics) rise of the far right in India (and with occasional information on other countries of South Asia and beyond)
Religiosity, Space-making, Exclusion: ‘Kanwar Yatra’ Celebrations in a North Indian City
Avishek Jha
[ . . . ]
https://doi.org/10.1177/23210230241235368
https://www.business-standard.
Food, community and elections
Bharat Bhushan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused Opposition leaders of displaying a "Mughal mindset" when videos surfaced of Lalu Yadav, Tejashvi, and Rahul Gandhi bonding over cooking mutton. Not only did he accuse them of deviating from Hindu dharma in the auspicious month of Sawan, but he also alleged that the display of bonhomie was deliberate.
The videos, the PM said, were reflective of the mindset of the "Mughal" invaders "who found perverse joy in the demolition of temples and defiling places of worship.
To dismiss this as election rhetoric would be to forget that creating controversies over meat-eating has been part of communal propaganda for over a century and a half in India.
Today's smear campaign is reminiscent of the strategy said to have been used against CM Stephen, who was contesting against Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1980 from the New Delhi Constituency-I. It was a close contest, and the right-wing organisations backing Vajpayee wanted to take no chances.
According to an apocryphal story, the cadre was deputed to join queues at polling booths and engage voters in conversation, alleging, "Aadmi achha hai par suna hai gau-maans khaata hai (He is a good man but we have heard he eats beef)." The whisper campaign is said to have cost Stephen the election -- losing by a mere 5,045 votes!
Today's political fight is nowhere as close as it was in 1980. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Modi said they are comfortably placed to win the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Then why are such cheap shots directed at the Opposition?
He had also earlier distorted Rahul Gandhi's remark about the Opposition pitted against the power (shakti) of the controversial Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)—calling it "a well-thought-out attack against Hindu religion," where goddesses are worshipped as Shakti. He labelled those who did not attend the temple inauguration at Ayodhya sinners, exhorting voters, "Ram Navami is coming, remember those who committed this sin."
By drawing parallels between the Congress manifesto and the demands of the pre-Partition Muslim League, two organisations separate in time and context are made to appear similar, divisive and only representatives of sectional Muslim interest.
While such iterations of religious identity will keep the BJP's vote bank consolidated in Northern and Western India, it is even more crucial in states where the BJP is desperate to make inroads. Hindutva is the platform from which the BJP hopes to counter the strong regional sentiment and distinct political culture in these states. Its success has so far been uneven.
The BJP has made major inroads in West Bengal, where its Hindutva rhetoric seems to have struck a chord in a state that has witnessed two partitions on communal lines. The BJP is tapping into that deep and rich seam.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it won 18 seats, and its vote share was only 3 per cent behind the ruling Trinamool Congress. In the state assembly in 2021, the BJP improved its tally from 3 to 77, becoming the main Opposition party. From Sandeshkhali to Ram Navami celebrations, all incidents and festivals are occasions to polarise the Hindu voters against the 30 per cent Muslim population of the state.
However, the BJP has not been successful in Tamil Nadu and Kerala so far. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP has aggressively argued that the Dravidian political parties and their allies are essentially anti-Hindu. 'Real' Tamil culture is postulated as having been part of a unified Hindu culture till Dravidian atheists hijacked it. This thesis was bolstered by the two Kashi-Tamil Sangamam organised by the Modi government in 2022 and 2023 and articulated in the Prime Minister's election campaign in Tamil Nadu.
The BJP's state president, K Annamalai, has also held forth about reclaiming Tamil culture from the Periyar-Dravida ideology, which he says is anti-Hindu and destroying 'true' Tamil culture and society.
In Kerala, too, the BJP faces a Hindu majority that is largely oriented towards Left and secular parties. The Hindu vote here is divided along caste lines. The marginalised and backward castes support the Communists, while the Congress has a proportion of the upper caste (Nair) Hindu vote and is seen as the party of the Muslim and Christian minorities. The Muslims are represented in North Kerala by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).
Kerala politics alternates between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) led by the Congress. The BJP aims to break this cycle by weaning away the Hindu vote.
It tried to woo the Dalit castes through the Kerala Pulaya Mahasabha and Kerala Peoples' Front, an organisation of 21 backward castes, but failed. Nor did its militant agitation against women's entry into Sabarimala Temple amount to much electorally. Now, a propaganda film, "The Kerala Story", is about a Hindu woman being converted to Islam and forced to join the Islamic State. The threat of 'love jihad' and 'narco-jihad' is also being propagated by the BJP to also mobilise the Christian minority.
Contrary to popular belief, the BJP is not bringing out its communal rhetoric because it is apprehensive about election results. It is an offensive strategy. Prime Minister Modi has learnt to successfully twist the meaning of his adversaries' statements and actions. The forms of distortion are sufficiently in tune with communal thinking so that his supporters can easily amplify them and influence voters. It also keeps the communal divide open against attempts by the Opposition to bridge it.
Most importantly, it is used to increase the BJP's Lok Sabha seats. Like all good businessmen, who consider anything below the previous financial year's profits a 'loss', the BJP wants each election to bring in higher returns.
Prime Minister Modi needs this more than the party because that alone can sustain faith in his charisma. Anything less will be seen as the onset of weakness in his leadership.
Disclaimer: These
are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion
of www.business-standard.com
https://www.youtube.com/live/ZvldhJRK-sc?si=4gJbJVCBvHPXLkT2
(https://thewire.in/health/the-business-of-godmen-how-ramdev-was-protected-and-even-promoted-by-the-system)
Supreme Court Snubs Baba Ramdev
Ram Puniyani
Last couple of decades; we have seen the rapid rise of many Godmen. They did have a social presence earlier also but lately their social influence and political clout was quite frightening. Many of them had a dark belly also, but by and large that has been overlooked and shadowed by the large divinity surrounding them. Shakaracharya Jayendra Sarswati was accused of murder of Ashram worker, Shankar Raman. In Satya Sai Baba’s Prashanti Nilayam also there was a murder case. Gurmeet Ram Rahim carried on with his activities, one journalist Chhatrapti Ramchandra was killed for bringing forward his black deeds. Finally with difficulty law caught up with him and currently he is in jail, rather most of the time on parole. Asaram bapu is another one who succeeded in escaping the clutches of law till a long time and finally he is behind the bars. Currently another one Bageshwar Dham baba is having a roaring success with devotees. These are the tip of the iceberg, and spread around the country many such people are mesmerizing the people in the trap of blind faith. The riches of most of these are enviable.
There are two others who are worth mentioning Sri Sri Ravishankar, who rampaged the Yamuna for his gala event. He was also associated with Anna Hazare’s RSS supported movement. He is in the news generally for subtly supporting Hindu nationalist politics. And then there is Baba Ramdev. He began his career as a Yoga Guru with great success and then made transition to business World with the brand of Patanjali. This firm, producing and marketing Ayurvedic products has brought Baba in the line of front ranking business tycoons, with huge assets. He and his close associate Acharya Balkishan have built up a massive empire, un-challenged till lately. All his ayurveda products were publicized with great fanfare and a large section of media went gaga for his achievements.
The academic qualifications of Acharya and Baba duo are not much known. Currently there are many Ayurvedic Medical Colleges, but it is doubtful if they have any degree from these. On the pretext that they are posing an indigenous challenge to the multinational corporations, many of their methods probably went unchallenged.
Matters came to head during Covid 19. On one hand the ruling government made hefty donations for the Pune based Bharat Biotech, Covaccine. On the other hand, within a month of the outbreak of Pandemic; Baba came up with the claim that they have developed a medicine for treatment and prevention of the disease, ‘Coronil’. The claim was that it has the approval of WHO. When challenged by the Ayush ministry, they corrected themselves to say that it has been developed on the guidelines of WHO. Ayush ministry distanced itself from the claims of Baba. The Combo pack of Coronil was introduced with great fanfare in presence of two Cabinet ministers, Dr. Harshvardhan and Nitin Gadkari. Dr. Harshvardhan himself is a trained medical doctor. There is currently a blind praise of ancient systems.
Baba claimed that the medicine has been tested on 100 patients of mild to moderate severity and the Corona test became negative in a few days. He had tied up with a few doctors for the testing of medicine. The protocol of introducing the medicines in modern medicine is preceded by biochemical analysis, animal testing and clinical double blind trial of adequate size samples. This was not followed.
Overawed with his commercial success, he not only accepted the praise from most of the Godi media, he took a step further to call Allopathic as a stupid science. Irked by this the Indian Medical Association (IMA) filed a case against him, which was heard recently. First he apologized to IMA for insulting the modern medicine. Just to recall when he sat on a hunger strike against corruption, he claimed that he has a ‘Yoga body’ and he can withstand the fast for a long time. Within a few days his condition worsened and was admitted to an allopathic hospital. Similarly a year ago Acharya Balkishan was seriously ill and had to be admitted to the ICU of an allopathic hospital.
After Court’ warning, his firm continued misleading advertisements. Court summoned him. He apologized profusely. Court refused to accept his apology and has asked him to mend his ways and come back again.
The details of the whole episode apart, how come such faith based knowledge and use of medications based on that have been rising for so long, what an arrogance to downgrade the modern system of Medicine? One concedes there is lots of empirical wisdom in some traditional medicines and even in Grandma’s medicines. The point however is that the modern system of medicine is based on evidence and peer review. The knowledge is ruthlessly subjected to review and criticism. And this is what leads to improvement leading to something close to what is useful.
The faith based knowledge, and thereby treatment systems are above criticism. Many Babas have their own system of treatment. The protocol of medical systems is evolved by adapting to better systems. The likes of Ramdev take the advantage of Holiness, to be above criticism and make many statements as they like. He had proclaimed that he has treatment for Cancer, Aids and what have you. He even claimed that Homosexuality is a disease and he can cure it!
So far he has the protection of ‘system’ and that gave him the arrogance to downgrade the allopath and make irrational claims about ‘his’ system. And why are such Babas having gala time with their faith based claims?
Last few decades have seen the rise of politics in the name of religion. This also harps on the ancient Indian knowledge systems. Taking these in a critical way is what science and rationalists will demand. This is what was demanded by the likes of Dr. Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh. They were done away for raising rational understanding. This is a period when rational thinking and methods are being undermined in the glare of ‘faith based knowledge’. Even in our educational curriculum in the name of ‘Indian Knowledge systems’ the faith based things will form part of curriculum.
Baba Ramdev is a symptom of the society
gripped by faith-blind faith combo. The Supreme Court has done well to put a
small stop to this ascending ‘Baba’ trend in the field of medicine.