Tag: humra quraishi

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Why Gandhi is relevant in today’s times

Humra Quraishi reviews a valuable new book released on Gandhi’s martyrdom day, which is relevant especially in today’s turbulent times.

I sit writing this piece clutching a book that was released on January 30. I’m not able to let go of it, and I’m feeling a bit possessive about it. Why? Because it’s an important volume in the turbulent times we are living in.

The book is titled Faith And Freedom: Gandhi in History (Niyogi Books) by well-known historian Professor Mushirul Hasan focusses on those aspects of Mahatma Gandhi’s life, those aspects that are crucial to us Indians. How did he move millions with such seemingly little effort? Why did he succeed in most cases, but not when it came to engaging with Muslim nationalism? Is it not ironic that the messenger of non violence lived through Partition, one of the subcontinent’s most violent events?

Apart from these vital questions, Professor Hasan has also focussed on Gandhi’s reading and interpretation of Islam, his relationship with the Muslim community and his strategy of dealing with them. I’m just going to quote a few observations from the 550-page volume: ‘Gandhi considered all religions equally good, for they teach the very same truth, and point to the very same goal and spiritual regeneration of man. The method of worship was important to him, but the spiritual force of a religion counted more and its power to uplift the soul and to transform man. “Our temple is in our ashram,” Gandhi quoted Kabir, “nay, it is in our hearts…” Also, “It was a denial of God to revile one religion, to break the heads of innocent men, and to desecrate temples or mosques…”

Also these lines, ‘Gandhi portrayed Islam as a religion of peace in the same sense as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism…whenever he came across coarse intolerance or religious bigotry, he reacted sharply rather than remaining a detached onlooker.’

Hasan relays the bond between Gandhi and Ghaffar Khan: ‘On 4 December, Ghaffar Khan returned to Wardha with his twelve-year-old son and fourteen-year-old daughter. Often, he read the Quran in the evening prayer and joined in reading Tulsidas’ Ramayana. He loved the tune and listened intently. “The music of the bhajan fills up the soul,” he once proclaimed. He served the sick, and, what is more, helped Gandhi wash his feet. Once Badshah Khan came along with his two sons. At the midday meal , one of them asked, “Isn’t it your birthday today?”

“Yes, it is. Why?”

“Well, you see, I thought…there might be something special to eat – cake and chicken pilau perhaps. But there is simply plain boiled pumpkin, just as usual!” Gandhi chuckled and made the children laugh. Afterwards he took Frontier Gandhi aside and suggested that, “We ought to get something they would really enjoy, some meat or something.”

“No, no, they were only joking; we always eat gladly whatever our host provides.” The children agreed. This was an affectionate parental-like tie; a young boy or girl turning to him for advice and Bapu, in turn, showering his affection and blessing!”

After I finished reading this book, I have been thinking: Why are such books not introduced at the school or college levels? I sure that such readings will help people bond. Credit must go to the author for putting together a gamut of voices, opinions and  facts, and quoting extensively from Indian and non-Indian academics, scholars and poets, combined with his own historical inputs. What I found extremely refreshing is that he has relied very little on today’s politicians for inputs to this volume, instead focussing only on the absolutely serious and authentic.

To you readers, I can only suggest that you should start this new year reading books of this kind so that the coming months could usher in some cheer and the hope that you and I are no longer used by today’s politicians to further the divides between us. Gandhi would agree.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant. 

(Picture courtesy finewallpaperss.com)

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What really happened in Dhule?

A Citizens’ Fact Finding Committee alleges that timely police action could have prevented the incident from escalating out of control.
by Humra Quraishi

Former DGP of the Gujarat Police, RB Sreekumar once said, “Rioting cannot go beyond two hours without police connivance.” Why is it, then, that the police machinery takes days to control and settle communal clashes and riots?

A recent report put together by a group of the country’s well-respected activists on the recent rioting in Maharashtra’s Dhule sheds light on the events that actually transpired there. Says Ram Puniyani, former IIT Mumbai alumnus-turned-full time-activist, “Dhule has been in the news for the past 10 days. It has been reported in the media that a small altercation in Dhule led to an event leading to violence between Hindus and Muslims. As such, the deaths of six innocent youth and injuries to several more, and massive loss of properties, burning of houses has taken place.”

Others say that the worst part of the episode is that all this allegedly took place with the police force being present. Contrary to official reports, the people in the area stated that the behaviour of the police was very biased against the Muslim community. “In the light of these disturbing reports from local activists, we decided that a citizen fact-finding committee should visit the Dhule, to investigate and present the facts objectively,” says Ram.

The Citizens Fact Finding Committee comprises Shabnam Hashmi, social activist, ANHAD Delhi, Professor Ram Puniyani of the All India Secular Forum, Professor Apoorvanand of Delhi University, Advocate Nihalsing B Rathod of the Human Rights Law Network, Manan Trivedi, Dev Desai, Tanvi Soni and Arma from ANHAD, Gujarat and Azhar from Jalgaon. The Committee visited  Dhule on January 13 and 14, 2013.

The detailed report puts forward the Committee’s crucial findings. “ This violence could have been prevented had the police acted in time,” says the report. “While stone pelting was done by members of both the communities, police action was selective and directed against Muslims only. The police did not follow the prescribed protocol to control the mob. Police firing was excessive and was done with an intent to kill.

All bullets were fired above the knee, a majority of the bullets were fired above the waist, many of them in the chest, neck and face. All six deaths were because of police firing.     Majority of the victims of the police firing were left unattended by the police and were taken to hospitals by friends.”

Furthermore, the report says, “159 police personnel were taken to the hospital out of which only 18 were admitted is evident from the record of the civil hospital (attached with the report). All the injuries suffered by the police were minor in nature due to stone pelting… No relief camps were set up for those Muslims and Hindus who lost their houses (approximately 40 Muslim families and four Hindu families), no immediate relief was provided by the State. Some food grains were distributed by the Red Cross.  The victims were threatened when they tried to register FIRs and no FIRs were registered.’

(Picture courtesy dawn.com)

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Has Rahul Gandhi really grown up?

Rahul Gandhi will have taken a step up in politics if he changes the future of children pulled into crime.
by Humra Quraishi

Tell me, does it make a difference to you if Rahul Gandhi gets a higher rung in the Congress party, or if Nitin Gadkari gets ousted from the top slot in the BJP? You could make them kings or call them emperors of India, but the ground reality will not change. No, this is not cynicism, but it is the reality of our daily life. We Indians are currently surviving by force of sheer willpower, destined to go through the daily grind of our lives till our allotted time is up.

December’s gang rape made some heads roll, but women are still being raped and brutalised, and so are young children, both boys and girls. In Delhi itself, you can see beggars and hapless children with them; the children may not be their own in all probability. The children are often battered – just two days ago I witnessed a child being  beaten with a stick by two elderly beggars because he wasn’t begging the way he was taught to!

Last spring, I saw a really pathetic sight…outside the Chandni Chowk metro station, several middle-aged and aged beggars sat with little children in their laps. The children were weak, almost lifeless, and were probably bought or abducted.

What is the administration doing about this? Surely the area’s cops know of the gangs operating in the area of their jurisdiction, of the several rackets flourishing right under their noses? And when these same children grow up and take to a life of crime, we catch them, they who are the foot soldiers for actual criminals, and we hang them and pat ourselves on the back. Or else, like Britain’s Prince Harry, we sit back and proclaim with some pride that we killed several terrorists!

What is the future of these street children? They are treated worse than stray dogs, and yet we do nothing, smug and secure in our own sheltered lives. Can Rahul Gandhi or his aides walk around the New Delhi or Old Delhi railway stations, or the metro stations and bus depots, and see the hundreds of unfortunate children there? If and only if Rahul Gandhi, or any of today’s top civil servants or politicians take up these as priority issues would I consider that he or she has truly grown up as a leader.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Picture courtesy pardaphash.com)

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Writing as therapy

Humra Quraishi explores why writers write – and why some of their best work comes out in times of stress.

While we hear of some new therapy being discovered or practiced in some part of the world on an almost daily basis, we have lost sight of the very word – therapy – and what it actually implies and means. In fact, each city in this country should host a regular get-together of authors and poets and writers. Give it any name of your choice; after all what’s in a name! Full credit should go to the Jaipur Literature Festival for taking the lead, and in these last couple of years, cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai have also begun hosting their very own Literature Festivals.

Why can’t other cities and towns follow suit and host such meets? Probably they’d have to catch hold of a sponsor or two and a few willing writers who wouldn’t mind organising the event. They needn’t be large meets to begin with, and within a year or so, they could be broadened in scope and reach.

For years I been writing that if the jailor janaabs could try therapy on hapless jailed inmates, there’d be little need of those disciplining sessions that are sometimes conducted in prisons. In fact, if diary-writing be made available as an option to inmates in hospitals, jails, asylums, refugee camps, night or day shelters and other such places, then their stress-related symptoms would lessen, since writing has been proved to have the potential to heal.

In this connection, it is pertinent to remember the words of Mulk Raj Anand, who said that writing helped him recover from a series of severe nervous breakdowns. He’d once told me, “Each time my love affairs failed, I suffered a nervous breakdown and the only thing that helped me recover and brought me some relief was writing. My meeting with Sigmund Freud just after my first nervous breakdown in 1927 helped me to some extent, but it’s actually writing novels that helped me towards total recovery.”

Assamese writer and Jnanpith Award recipient Indira Goswami was also one of those writers who did not shy away from pouring out her heart into her writing, and from admitting that after her husband’s premature death that left her a young widow, the writing process anchored her and helped her regain the confidence to move on.

Writing has rescued several other writers as well. As poet-writer JP Das said, “Once, when I was going through terrible depression, I had engaged myself in translating some of my old love poems and it had a cathartic effect on me…I do not know if writing heals, but sometimes when I am not able to tell something which is weighing on my mind to anyone, I have written a poem or story about it and that has helped…”

Little wonder that JP Das is one of those bureaucrats who had the grit to take premature retirement from the Indian Administrative Service to become a full time writer. Recipient of the Saraswati Samman and the Sahitya Akademi Award, Das says that the  turning point in his life came around 1979-1980 when he was awarded the Homi Bhabha fellowship to do research on the paintings of Orissa, which he’d later published in the book Puri Paintings. “Those two years set me thinking along a broader perspective. I’d enjoyed that sense of freedom to the extent that I decided to quit the Administrative Service and take to full-time writing.’

During an earlier interview, Srinagar-based engineer-poet Syed Anwar Owais had told me that the best literature comes out of turmoil. “I have seen troubled times and my mind has had its share of trouble. Yes, the best literature comes out of social or personal turmoil. Doris Lessing wrote The Golden Notebook when she was under great strain. Poets such as Robert Graves were produced by World War I and were called war poets. Karl Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies is a war work.’

On a personal level, I consider some volumes and the verses they carry as healers of a lasting kind. Some truly great works, some lovely poetry, all of them have helped me survive several everyday struggles, and some very harsh times.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

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Choose whom you honour

Humra Quraishi wonders why we’re not talking more about the young man who stood by the Delhi gang rape victim. We’re choosing, instead, to focus on rubbish statements by politicians.

For three consecutive weeks, I have been writing on rapes and its offshoots, but there’s little else in focus even now. Pushed aside for the moment are corruption scams and scandals, together with those men who were crying themselves hoarse over black money that others have stashed away. Anna Hazare has been quiet for a long time, and so have his key associates.

In the midst of this, those who are opening their mouths are speaking plain rubbish. The Samajwadi Party’s Mumbai man Abu Azmi wants the young generation to not have boyfriends and girlfriends, and he thinks couples should not step out at night. I wish Abu Azmi would try imposing his ideas on his son and actress daughter-in-law Ayesha Takia. Jumping into the fray are others, so-called leaders from various regions, proclaiming that women should don overcoats and be fully covered at all times! No more jeans and short tops! As per these men, women should be coy, dressed in saris, tending to their homes, submitting to their husbands’ never-ending demands, and doing little else.

What is noteworthy is that politicians of the capital city seem to have matured. Maybe they have been around for far too long to be reckless in their statements. Or because they have sensed the mood of the masses and cannot afford to add to the growing unrest. Whatever the reason, politicians here have not much contributed to these rubbish thoughts by their counterparts elsewhere. There was no overreaction even to Shashi Tharoor’s suggestion – that if the parents okayed it, the rape victim’s name be made official for an anti-rape law to be named after her – and it was recognised to be an earnest statement, not a malicious one.

This one gang rape has opened the clichéd Pandora’s Box. Women are not just hitting  out, they are also trying to connect. But we cannot lose sight of the young man, the victim’s friend, who not just stood by her, trying to save her from the rapists, but even now has the courage to refute the police’s theories, after fearlessly declaring that the cops were not there in time to rescue the girl.

It isn’t easy to go against the establishment, especially the police and the very machinery at their command. But this young man has done exactly that, at a time when he has suffered tremendously after battling the rapists and getting injured in the process, then losing his steady friend.

If any attention is to be paid to anyone’s statements, it should be this young man’s. If anybody is to be honoured, it should be him.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journaliast. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Picture courtesy telegraph.co.uk)

 

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Death is not the answer

Humra Quraishi writes on why the death penalty could be a dangerous tool in the hands of the guilty powerful.

Even as I write this column, news reports are coming in of a 17-year-old raped by her friend in South Delhi’s posh Safdarjung Enclave. And just a day ago, there were more reports of women molested and burnt and killed. Yes, we ushered in the new year amidst tremendous hopelessness and simmering anger. As each single day passes, more women are being violated and killed, yet our politicians come up with more stale assurances and do little else.

And in the midst of this, we sit raping the very issue of rape. Politics has taken complete charge – not just between the Congress and the Right Wing, but also between the civilians and the military.

I don’t want to waste this space in battling either. For the basic crux is this – none of the tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, rich men, poor men, beggars, thieves, mantris or their attached santris, has any business or legal right, officially or unofficially, to condone or try to explain why rapes happen and how it could be the woman’s fault. No sarkari ploys or camouflages can shield them when they do this.

It’s even more bizarre to hear these politicians pass those statements that were probably last heard in medieval times: they speak freely of chemical castrations or hangings-to-death. Some Right wing politicians are currently behaving like the kings and queens of a bygone era; but where the latter said, ‘Off with his head1’, these politicians are ‘Off with his pen*s!’

As I have been writing all along, the death penalty or castration orders are not the solution to the problem. In fact, it will lead to absolute anarchy as hundreds of innocents could potentially be hanged or their vital organs harmed forever. With corruption seeping into every single sphere of the government machinery, it’s a well-known fact that even in cases involving thefts, the actual culprits have been seen hobnobbing with the high chairs of power, whilst ordinary citizens are detained and sit languishing as undertrials in the jails and prisons of the country.

So there’s little guarantee that innocents would not be charged with rape and hanged to death to shield the culprits who may be close to powerful persons who can protect them. And we would realise this only years later. In my opinion, it is not just the actual perpetrators who are the offenders in a crime, it is the bunch of communal politicians who help protect such offenders and who wield complete power over the police machinery that are the more dangerous.

This could be just the very tip of the never-melting iceberg. Seeing our track record of the sheer misuse of power and all that it drags along with it, meting out the death penalty to all and sundry could have serious, dangerous offshoots which could rip off whatever remains of our ‘modern, developed society’.

At the cost of sounding repetitive, I want to emphasise that it’s the mind, the psyche of the rapist which ought to be set right before we do anything else to him. But first, we need to set right the minds of all those Bollywood producers and film directors who go about making third rate films complete with cheap item numbers and horribly vulgar dance movements. It’s about time we focus our attention on the very cause of what is turning men into beasts when it comes to women.

Whilst Bollywood flourishes along with the political ruling class, there seems to be no attempt made  to book the film industry under charges of spreading vulgarity or provoking hundreds of impressionable minds to think that women are ‘easy’ in real life as well, that all they are good for is to entertain men in whichever way they desire, and that if a woman says ‘no’, she actually means ‘yes’.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

 

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