Frontline

March 2000
Comment



Arun Shourie ko gussa kyon aata hai?

MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

Arun Shourie does not wish to eat beef. No one is asking him to. But that is not enough. Shourie does not wish to eat beef because the ancient Aryans did not eat beef. There are however, some historians, some even of considerable eminence, who are aware that the Aryans were in fact beef eaters and adduce evidence of a kind acceptable to the academic discipline of history which would suggest that some Aryans at least, at some periods of history at least, might indeed have been eaters of beef, possibly on a regular steak–and–chips basis, more likely on an occasional celebratory basis.

Whether this evidence is conclusive or not, I leave to the professional historian to judge. For my part, whatever the final verdict of history, I respect Arun Shourie’s right not to eat beef. I respect even more the scriptural or spiritual basis on which he feels so strongly on the subject. But I am unable to appreciate why he believes so passionately that history has to validate his dietary preferences. So what if the Aryans did indeed eat beef? Is that going to make Shourie take off to the nearest butcher’s for a slice of the most toothsome entrecote? And what if history proves that not a morsel of cow’s meat passed the sacred lips of any Aryans? Does that reinforce the moral validity of Shourie’s decision to not partake of a filet mignon — rare, medium or well–done?

So with the rather more arcane matter of what happened to Buddhist viharas in India. There are very few of them left. Yet, for a thousand years, from Emperor Asoka to Emperor Harshvardhan of Kannauj (now represented by the Mulayam Singh dynasty — what a fall there was, my countrymen), Buddhism was the state religion over much of the country. Where have all the viharas gone?

Some historians say it was Hindu revivalism, first under the Guptas and later after Adi Shankaracharya, that resulted in a mass of Buddhist places of worship being converted into Hindu temples. Others say that it was the incorporation of Buddhism into Hinduism (as witness the inclusion of the Buddha in the Vaishnavite dasavatharam tradition) that caused the seamless merger of Buddhist places of worship into the temples of the Hindus. Yet others claim it was the idol–breaking Muslim invaders of the 10th to 16th centuries who indifferently smashed Hindu temples and Buddhists viharas alike.

The argument continues. It is a fascinating debate. But is it relevant to secularism today? If, indeed, Manuvad was responsible for this cultural and spiritual genocide, should the Hindus in the 21st century be getting up to more of the same? If, on the other hand, it was the Buddhists themselves who were responsible for quietly submerging their identity in the Hindu identity, does that extinguish the right of Mayawati and other Ambedkarites to build their viharas anew? And if, as Shourie believes, it was all the handiwork of Islamic fanatics, does the answer lie in emulating these marauders, as Shourie’s best friends did in Ayodhya?

As a subject of historical debate, I welcome all contributions to the investigation, the more maverick the better. But whatever the historical truth, and however many "cunning passages" history may have devised for us (the phrase is T.S. Eliot’s), we should be deciding whether we want a secular Bharat or a Hindu Rashtra in terms of the imperatives of our contemporary nationhood. True, the India of our times has emerged out of 5,000 years of civilisation. Research and reflection, debate and controversy over that heritage is to be welcomed. But surely the decision about the kind of nation we wish to be should not be blindly dictated by the historical record. That is a decision for us of this age to take.

Yet, for Shourie and his ilk, politics is history and history politics. That is why he is determined to prove that all Muslims from the Prophet to today’s Mohammed–in–the street are bigots, and to hold that any Muslim who is not a fanatic is not a true believer. This, in his view, invalidates the secular view and legitimises his belief that Islam is a clear and present threat. Not Islamic fundamentalism but Islam itself — because Shourie’s meretricious study of Islam has persuaded him that Islam is fundamentalism and, therefore, a reasonable Muslim is a contradiction in terms. And so he does not want to fight Osama Bin Laden because the man’s a nut with a gun to avenge himself on Mahmud of Ghazni. If, therefore, the historian Romila Thapar has any extenuating circumstances to unearth relating to the Ghaznavid’s razing of the temples at Somnath a thousand years ago, out, says Shourie, with these dangerous Marxist subversives from the hallowed precincts of the Indian Council of Historical Research.

Shourie also thinks it is a matter of contemporary political relevance that Aurangzeb imposed the jeziya tax on the Hindus. He, therefore, believes it to be unpatriotic to point out that Aurangzeb’s right–hand man, like Atal Behari Vajpayee’s right–hand man, was one Jaswant Singh. Moreover, Shourie’s current political stance is threatened when a historian of Bishambar Nath Pande’s standing fascinatingly reveals that Aurangzeb took his sword to the Vishwanath mandir at Kashi because a group of pandas in the temple had violated the honour of a Hindu princess whom Aurangzeb had been charged to escort safely to Nepal.

Shourie is unable to comprehend that whether Aurangzeb savaged the Vishwanath mandir because he was an Islamic zealot or because he was a man of piety outraged by the impiety committed in a place of worship, for all of 350 years since then no Hindu worshipper has been able to ring the temple bells in the Vishwanath mandir without peeling of the bells being heard in the mosque. Or the azaan sounded in the Gyan Vapi masjid without its dulcet quarter–tones entering the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.

Then, Shourie does not like the communists. He hates them because they did not participate in the Quit India movement. On the other hand, Shourie loves the sangh parivar. Let alone the Quit India movement, the RSS did not participate in the freedom movement at all. So much so that when he was wrongfully arrested in August 1942, Atal Behari Vajpayee volunteered a recorded statement in court (which contributed to the incarceration of others) that far from heeding Gandhiji’s call, Karenge ya Marenge, he, Vajpayee, had caused the Brits "no harm at all" (maine koi nuksan nahin kiya). But that does not stop Shourie from adoring Vajpayee and loathing the communists. Indeed it does not even stop him from joining Vajpayee’s council of ministers.

Shourie has written a book exposing the nefarious role of the communists in secretly supporting the British in their opposition to the freedom fighters. However, he was not written a book exposing the nefarious role of the RSS in openly endorsing the British in their opposition to Congress freedom fighters. And so he (and his government) are seeking to convert the Indian Council of Historical Research into a star chamber where the communists are arraigned and the RSS exculpated by "historians" who say what the government wants them to say and shut up when told to shut up. We protest. Is liye Shourie ko gussa aata hai.

(Mani Shankar Aiyar is a Congress MP and a well-known columnist)



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