random thoughts

Somewhat damp and cloudy Independence Day in Bangalore! What with the Swine Flu, inflation, recession and all, there is lack of enthusiasm in most people. The morning news paper says that there is a new outfit based in Dubai and UAE called the Malabar Mujahidin, demanding a separate state carved out of the small state Kerala, exclusively for the Muslims!! Is that the limit or not?

Religious frenzy and fanaticism are the prerogatives of the Indian Minorities! There is this small State of Kerala which has a history of a very peaceful and harmonious co-existence of different religions, tolerance and accommodation of various religious customs and traditions. The Malayali Muslim is known in the local language as Moplah (a term for brother-in-law) probably because the people from distant lands established themselves in Kerals as brothers-in-law by marrying the sisters of the locals! A well known ex-captain of the Pakistani cricket team once (jokingly) said that, the Moghuls established themselves in the Gangetic plains because the women of the region liked to be screwed by the invading Pathans! Probably the coastal women of Kerala also welcomed the trading Arabs who gradually became Moplahs. The Moplahs were treated with respect by the locals and they flourished in trading and other business with the full support of the Hindus of the region. But in their revolt against the British during the Khilafat movement (in support of the Caliph of Turkey) they went on a murderous spree of killing Hindu women and children of Malabar, which is termed as the Moplah mutiny of Malabar. Is there a crisis of identity? Being the pet minority of the country, the Government of India has wrongly given the Mutiny the status of freedom struggle against the British!

Identity! That is the problem created by the religious fervor. The Moplah women of Kerala never wore burkha until about 15-20 years ago. But today a majority of women wear full black burkhas in Malabar region of Kerala. Many Moplahs of Kerala have become rich in the recent past from employment in Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia, where Muslims get preference for jobs and they have bought land belonging to Hindus and built palatial bungalows all over Malabar and other places. With the new found wealth the Moplahs are buying properties even in distant locations like in Trivandrum where their numbers are few. Wealth has also brought political power for them and now they want a separate state!

Years ago, a Times of India columnist had predicted that the new found wealth and identity problem of the Moplahs would one day lead to such demands which have disastrous outcome in the end.

Independence from identity; that is what free Indians should strive for. Transcend all limiting identities and become world citizens. If he were still alive Mahatma Gandhi would have strived for that, because human beings are all the time striving for a higher state of consciousness, knowingly or unknowingly.

Discrimination and prejudices are facts of life but no one wants to accept that it exists. All of us discriminate at one level or the other and get discriminated too. When we get discriminated in some way, we feel hurt. Though the Americans have chosen a black man as their President, that did not stop an American cop from arresting a high profile black American professor mistaking him for a burglar, when he was actually entering his own house in a predominantly wealthy area. The cop arrested him without knowing his credentials and though the professor showed his ID he did not spare him. The professor is known to the president and when the matter was brought to the knowledge of the President, it is said, he dismissed the matter saying that the cop was stupid. Does the black President have to call a white cop, a stupid cop? Is he not hurting the sentiments of a lot of whites, who feel that the cop was innocent and did not do anything out of racial feelings but why does the President not see it in the same spirit and call him a stupid cop? Discussions, allegations and counter allegation will fly for many days!!

In India too we discriminate on many counts. Apart from colour, we have religions, casts and creeds, professions, gender, class, language and region etc to discriminate and divide people. Following the Vedas, Upanishads etc, the Hindu thought is the most egalitarian and universal of religions of the world but extreme types of discriminations were practiced by the Hindu Society, some of which are prevalent even today! Over a period of many years Hindus have discarded many of these prejudices and a majority of people who profess to be Hindus do not even know that many such prejudices existed till some 30 or 40 years ago. Discarding prejudices are part of growing and progress, transcending from a lower state of consciousness to higher. Well that is a different topic altogether!

Take for example the recent experience of a film personality of the “minority” community! He could not get an apartment in Mumbai in a building of his choice because he happens to be a Muslim! The entire media see it as a terrible case of discrimination. It is a rejection of the man’s fundamental rights as written down in the Indian Constitution. Wow!! But is it something new? This unwritten rule, denying membership in Housing Societies for some communities, is in existence in Mumbai from time immemorial. So the man has gone to the court to demand his rights by the constitution. Well, well! Is that something everyone would do? Is it uncommon for birds of the same feather to flock together and not allow other birds to cohabit in the same nest? If forty-nine out of fifty members in a society do not want you to be living in their midsts, why the hell do you want to live with them? I lived in Mumbai for 40 years and there were no Muslims in our building. Next to our building there was one where no Hindus lived. Whether it was due to some pressure or due to free choice, I never enquired and we used to intermingle without restraint. In fact, during the communal riots of 1992 in Mumbai the Hindu residents of our building went out of their way to protect the Muslims living in the adjacent building. There never seemed to be any problem for any one. Now there is the question of the rights of one man as against the rights of so many others. Are there no Societies where Hindus are not allowed? There are of course societies where Non-vegetarians are not allowed. Is that also aimed at bashing the minorities?

All over the world minority groups live together for various reasons, including safety. In Trivandrum where I grew up, there are three or four localities where only Brahmins live. No one from other communities would be allowed to live there. Their life styles and food habits are all different from the others and therefore they prefer to stick together, neither any one from other communities would want to be in their midst!! I do not know why anyone would want to go and live there asserting his right to be there? A Christian friend of mine put in all his savings and some borrowed funds to buy a flat in a Mumbai Suburb and moved in with much celebration. Within about 5 years he found that most of the flats in the building were occupied by Muslims from various backgrounds and soon he found it difficult to live in the building because their ways were different and he could not take it. He had no other alternative but leave the building which he did eventually. In this case can any one blame others just because he is denied his choice?

Discrimination per se is not bad, it depends on how one does it.