Topi Shukla

I read this brilliant book sometime back (about 4-5 months back). Might have read another 4-5 books after it but have been profoundly affected by it. I wanted to write about it just after reading it. But got distracted by the wedding etc :)

And today, I was talking to a friend of mine who is from Lucknow. And suddenly, Topi from Rahi Masoom Raza’s book quietly slipped into my consciousness. He was there and I could not ignore him. Iffan was also there of course. How can one be without the other? It is not possible to think of just the one of them. They are like the yin and the yang. Not really, they are more like two shades that go really well with each other. So much that you forget for a few seconds that other shades exist. And it is ok, because you are not missing the other shades really.

Topi Shukla, is a hindi-urdu-khichdi novella from the 50-60s. Though the context is post-partition India but the flavor is universal. It tells the story of people wherever they might be. It tells the story of who people have suffered separation/ loss due to events much larger than themselves. It tells the story of those who have loved in vain. It tells the story of innocence and realism. It tells your story and it tells mine. It does all that a good book is supposed to do.

I read the Khichdi version. Two reasons for doing so. I could just borrow the hindi version from a friend (who is coincidentally named topi as well) and throw return it if I did not like it. The other one being that I knew the language and there was no reason to read it in a foreign language. I would strongly urge you to pick up the hindi version if you can understand (not just read) the language.

Set in Aligarh, it is the story of two friends and the people around them. Raza deftly tells the tale of people who become hapless victims of history. The small ways in which partition affects conversations, silence, love, hate, friendship, daily actions, language, food and everything that might and might not matter have been superlatively captured. It did not want the book to end. In a long long time, this was a book that made me fear for its end. May be because the characters felt so close… may be because the characters felt so real…

You can read a sample of the book at Google Books

You can buy it at Rajkamal Prakashan. You can also buy the book at Rediff.com. Both Hindi and English editions available. You have the option of buying the book from Amazon/ Barnes and Nobles etc as well. But you cannot get the hindi version there.

About a Muslim & An Indian And the transformation of an academician

Brilliant Speech by Omar Abdullah supporting the Confidence motion. A speech that lasted hardly 5 minutes but conveyed a lot.

Also, check out the speech of Manmohan Singh. The video will be devoid of audio because our elected representatives did not bother themselves with the task of hearing him out. As a result, the speech was drowned in the boo-ing and demands for his resignation. But this speech is a must read. He takes on Advani, Karat and gang with great finesse. And nothing, absolutely nothing can take away the sharpness (and at times, acerbic) of the speech that ended with the following:

The greatness of democracy is that we are all birds of passage! We are here today, gone tomorrow! But in the brief time that the people of India entrust us with this responsibility, it is our duty to be honest and sincere in the discharge of these responsibilities. As it is said in our sacred texts, we are responsible for our actions and we must act without coveting the rewards of such action. Whatever I have done in this high office I have done so with a clear conscience and the best interests of my country and our people at heart. I have no other claims to make.

Do lookup some of the links on speeches of LK Advani and Pranab Mukherji. Very interesting reads indeed. Advani was all over the place. Though some will claim that he spoke of everything that mattered, I would like to say that his line of thought was unable to find enough buyers. Pranab Mukherji was brilliant. Especially in the way he took on all the allegations head-on and managed to avoid the rhetoric.

Nine Decades of Non-violence

Read this article, Nine Decades of Non-violence, in The Hindu (August 23, 2007). It is a piece about Baji Mohammed who is one of the last living freedom fighters of India. Sainath starts it off as a telling tale of our increasing religious intolerance but soon veers on to the journey of Satyagraha and our own freedom.

Some excerpts:

“We were sitting in the tent, they tore it down. We kept sitting,” the old freedom fighter told us. “They threw water on the ground and at us. They tried making the ground wet and difficult to sit on. We remained seated. Then when I went to drink some water and bent down near the tap, they smashed me on the head, fracturing my skull. I had to be rushed to hospital.”

Baji Mohammed is one of India’s last living freedom fighters — just one of four or five nationally recognised ones still alive in Orissa’s Koraput region. He is not talking about British brutality in 1942.(Though he has much to say on that, too.) He’s describing the vicious attack on him during the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, half a century later. “I was there as part of a 100-member peace team.” But the team was given no peace. The old Gandhian fighter, already in his mid-seventies, spent ten days in hospital and a month in a Varanasi ashram recovering from the injury to his head.

Are We Biased?

Three interesting ‘events’ that happened in the recent past makes me feel that the Law enforcement machinery is biased. Biased negatively towards the Muslim populace in the country (if not inclined towards the Hindu majority).

Event 1: Md. Haneef is detained under Australian terror laws and is subsequently freed after the public outcry in Australia

Event 2: Sanjay Dutt’s conviction in the Bombay Blasts case ends with a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for six years

Event 3: Sulaiman Memon is acquitted after spending 6 long years in jail as an under-trial whilst his wife is handed a life sentence

From Frontline on the Mumbai blasts case:

Zakir Hussain burst out in court that the judiciary was biased.
“If a Hindu does something, a commission is set up. But if a Muslim does something, he is hanged,” he shouted.

Outside the courtroom, family members of the convicted echoed this sentiment. “It was one-sided. What happened to the Srikrishna Commission report? Why was it not implemented? What happened to those who killed innocent Muslims during the riots?” asked an inconsolable Ismailbi, Abdul Khan’s mother

In the blasts case, 100 have been sentenced, 12 have been sentenced to death, 20 given life terms. I cannot help but wonder that if it were Salman Khan in place of Sanju baba in the ‘AK-56 possession’ case, it might have been a longer sentence. Someone would need to answer these questions that the media and a few in the society have been asking. The congress government that believes that they are the most secular of governments in recent times might want to hazard an answer to them. I think they will try and make some politically correct statements given the fact that the Loksabha elections are not too far now!

What is an act of terror? I do not know how the law defines it but I do believe that organized riots like the ones in Sikh riots (1984), Mumbai Riots (1992-93), Gujarat Riots (2003) are also acts of terror. However the Indian law enforcement machinery would not want to pass any sentence on any of these with such sense of idealism that we have seen in the Mumbai blasts case. Mind you, I am not saying that the judgments by Justice PD Kode were wrong. I hope that they are as righteous as such cases should be, especially in terms of setting the right precedent. But I cannot help but wonder what happened to the report submitted by Justice Srikrishna commission. The NDA government in power (Centre and State) did its bit to rubbish it but the present regime is not worried about it either. Was it because the ‘fish’ named were too big to be nabbed by the net of the Law?

Dr. Haneef’s episode is another case-in-point to illustrate the bias in our government machinery. It curiously refused to (re)act. I think the conclusions of team at the (Ministry of External Affairs) would have been in line with the English and the Australian government i.e. Muslim=Terrorist!! I fail to understand how MEA forgot that he is an Indian citizen as well. Was it not our responsibility to speak-up on his behalf? The lackadaisical requests that the government made (post the public outcry in Australia and their media) were lame at best. Though we did get loud once it was clear that he would be let off the hook. Our media acted in a similar fashion.

However, in Sanju Baba’s case the media (and some from political jamboree) is all over the place, shouting themselves hoarse about the ‘unfair’ nature of the sentence. We have spin doctors telling us how he has a heart of gold, how he shared a wonderful rapport with Abhishek Bacchan and Zayed khan and how he advised DJ Aqeel against the usage of dugs etc. I understand that they believe that these are reasons good enough for Mr. Dutt to be released or to be awarded a truncated sentence! These ‘supporters’ seem to believe that illegal procurement of arms from the chief conspirator and then their destruction to save oneself from the law does not warrant this kind of a sentence. Not to forget that he was named a co-conspirator in the initial phases of the case, a charge that was subsequently dropped.

Sulaiman saw his business destroyed in the 6 years he spent in Jail. His wife Rubina got a life sentence because her car was used in the bombing. Apparently there is no other evidence that she was a part of the planning or abetted the conspiracy. However, the lady behind the veil who might have not had any clue about what her Brothers-in-law were up to will spend the rest of her life behind bars.

While our law ensures that the guilty are punished, it should also appear impartial. We might find it increasingly difficult to include the Gen-next of muslims in our mainstream if they cannot trust the Government. They need to believe that the law is impartial and would punish the guilty irrespective of their religious moorings. A good starting point might be a quick closure on all riot cases that have been stowed away in cold storage. I hope it is not too much to ask for!

The (Ab)Use Of Power

Power Corrupts! We have known this aphorism since recorded history and beyond. But does it inject imbecility as well? George W Bush vows to veto the senate vote! Would like to issue an anticipatory apology to the imbeciles for the comparison. And interestingly, he is not the only person who believes that the war is justified. Almost half of the US senate believes the same as well. I hope someone does a VLCC style ‘Before’ and ‘After’ of Iraq for him. Common people across the globe are being affected in one way or the other. The brutal killing of Suryanarayana in the not so recent past reminds us how neutral countries might be affected as well.

River and her family are moving from Baghdad. This is what she had to say about leaving:

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

I still cannot believe that Oil and a slightly sluggish US economy prompted the US President and his coterie of yes-men into this conflict. As a bystander, I have the option of doing the helpless shrug and forgetting about this. But the problem is that I am not a bystander anymore. Such conflicts are increasingly polarizing the world. I believe this is the most significant threat to world peace since the cold-war and the nuclear arms race. Images like these can induce indignation and vengeance in the most gentle of souls. However, the political rhetoric around the conflict continues to instigate than to reconcile.

India faces a significant threat from this polarization. The Hindu-Muslim relations have been strained due to a variety of reasons. The report prepared by Justice Rajinder Sachhar highlights the failure of successive governments of assimilating the Indian Muslim into the Indian Social fabric. Given the porous borders and the strong presence of separatist elements in the country, we run a significant risk of disrupting the precarious peace in many parts of India. I do not know if we can afford the indifference of the Indian government on this issue. I do not understand the love-affair of our politicians with the technique of silent protests. What is the reason for this inexplicable silence? At least, the French had the gumption to speak-up!

At times, I think if this scenario is similar to the policy of appeasement that the European powers used during the rise of Hitler. Given the present nuclear balance, the next world war cannot be amongst nation states. It will be a wide-spread uncontrollable skirmish. Are we already into the Third World War? I really hope not!