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source: Is violence the primordial Indian nature? - upiasia.com
Is violence the primordial Indian nature?
By Bijo Francis
Published: June 08, 2009
Hong Kong, China :— A man was chopped to death in broad daylight in full public view on Monday last week in Thiruvanandapuram, the capital city of India’s Kerala state. The victim, Binish – a suspect in more than a dozen criminal cases – was murdered by a member of a rival gang, who stayed at the scene for about an hour after the incident and then left. The incident happened barely 50 meters from the state police headquarters.
A few days later the governor of Kerala, R. S. Gavai, gave permission for the Central Bureau of Investigation to prosecute the state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Pinarayi Vijayan, for corruption. The bureau accuses Vijayan of illegally profiting from a government deal with a private contracting company, SNC-Lavalin, in 1998 while Vijayan was a minister.
Within hours the CPI(M) organized a protest march against the governor's decision and burned his effigy in front of his house. The governor even received death threats. On Monday the CPI(M) called for a protest throughout the state.
In some areas, especially Vijayan’s home district of Kannur, vehicles stayed off the roads while government and public offices remained closed due to the inability of officers to travel. Even hospitals had to function with minimum support for the day. Instances of violence were reported around the state where the CPI(M) cadres destroyed public and private property.
So what is the connection between the murder in the state capital and the permission to prosecute the CPI(M) state secretary?
In India, political parties sponsor mafia gangs and violence. The state of Kerala is no exception, although the number of such instances is relatively low in the state. Violence is part of India's political culture as well as its social fabric.
Many would dispute this argument. Yet when a Sikh preacher was killed in Austria two weeks ago, Sikhs in the Indian state of Punjab resorted to violence in their homeland. The entire incident is an irony. Sikhism is a religion that officially denounces caste-based discrimination, which is yet another form of violence that runs through every Indian’s veins.
Followers of Sikhism have resorted to violence in the past. The attack on two visiting preachers in Vienna, one of whom belonged to the Dera Sach Khand sect, was allegedly by members of a rival sect. When the news reached Punjab, followers of the Dera Sach Khand sect in the state, despised by the so-called upper-class Sikhs, resorted to violence.
Thousands of Dalits, or “untouchables,” in Punjab burned and destroyed public and private property on May 25. A curfew had to be imposed to contain the violence.
It is a cruel twist of Indian society that Dalits, a community of millions that have faced the worst forms of violence, ranging from being labeled untouchables to denial of the right to exist, resorted to violence to vent their feelings.
When Indians protested in Australia against racial attacks on Indian students, their friends in India organized rallies and shouted at the Indian government to invade Australia.
The Mumbai terror attacks last November were just one more excuse for some so-called Indian intellectuals and policy analysts to call for an Indo-Pakistan war. According to these people, it was an opportunity dropped from heaven to test nuclear weapons and also to annihilate “terrorist neighbors” on their soil and solve the “world's problem” forever.
So behave the descendents of a generation that was able to gain independence from the British through a civil disobedience movement. But within hours of realizing that the “external” threat of higher severity was set to go, Indians brought out their inherent affinity for violence by killing each other, in the name of two religions, in the Hindu-Muslim clashes that followed.
Some interpret the philosophical basis of the country's largest religion, Hinduism, to revolve around violence. The Bhagavad Gita, literally translated as “Song of God,” one of the cornerstones of this religion, tells of the justification offered to a warrior by his counsel for the use of violence. The warrior is told to fight the rival factions, who are brothers, as it is justified as "dharma" or duty.
The overarching effect of this religion and its philosophy upon the people of the country is as a catalyst to the primordial Indian nature to resort to violence to settle disputes and disagreements. Many religious groups in the country, whether Muslims, Christians or P{censored}es, have at times resorted to violence to vent their feelings and views, particularly disagreements.
Mainstream politics in India are merely harvesting the natural crop that violence breeds. All major political parties in India resort to violence. Dissent and discord is silenced with violence and the use of force. Violence is used not only in the literal sense, but also in all its temporal manifestations.
In this milieu politics, state practice and the very concept of democracy itself have become the celebration of violence. Those who disagree with this argument could easily find worse examples in other countries like Sri Lanka, Burma or China. But this is only like comparing relative bargains in a cheap market.
-- (Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)
Is violence the primordial Indian nature?
By Bijo Francis
Published: June 08, 2009
Hong Kong, China :— A man was chopped to death in broad daylight in full public view on Monday last week in Thiruvanandapuram, the capital city of India’s Kerala state. The victim, Binish – a suspect in more than a dozen criminal cases – was murdered by a member of a rival gang, who stayed at the scene for about an hour after the incident and then left. The incident happened barely 50 meters from the state police headquarters.
A few days later the governor of Kerala, R. S. Gavai, gave permission for the Central Bureau of Investigation to prosecute the state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Pinarayi Vijayan, for corruption. The bureau accuses Vijayan of illegally profiting from a government deal with a private contracting company, SNC-Lavalin, in 1998 while Vijayan was a minister.
Within hours the CPI(M) organized a protest march against the governor's decision and burned his effigy in front of his house. The governor even received death threats. On Monday the CPI(M) called for a protest throughout the state.
In some areas, especially Vijayan’s home district of Kannur, vehicles stayed off the roads while government and public offices remained closed due to the inability of officers to travel. Even hospitals had to function with minimum support for the day. Instances of violence were reported around the state where the CPI(M) cadres destroyed public and private property.
So what is the connection between the murder in the state capital and the permission to prosecute the CPI(M) state secretary?
In India, political parties sponsor mafia gangs and violence. The state of Kerala is no exception, although the number of such instances is relatively low in the state. Violence is part of India's political culture as well as its social fabric.
Many would dispute this argument. Yet when a Sikh preacher was killed in Austria two weeks ago, Sikhs in the Indian state of Punjab resorted to violence in their homeland. The entire incident is an irony. Sikhism is a religion that officially denounces caste-based discrimination, which is yet another form of violence that runs through every Indian’s veins.
Followers of Sikhism have resorted to violence in the past. The attack on two visiting preachers in Vienna, one of whom belonged to the Dera Sach Khand sect, was allegedly by members of a rival sect. When the news reached Punjab, followers of the Dera Sach Khand sect in the state, despised by the so-called upper-class Sikhs, resorted to violence.
Thousands of Dalits, or “untouchables,” in Punjab burned and destroyed public and private property on May 25. A curfew had to be imposed to contain the violence.
It is a cruel twist of Indian society that Dalits, a community of millions that have faced the worst forms of violence, ranging from being labeled untouchables to denial of the right to exist, resorted to violence to vent their feelings.
When Indians protested in Australia against racial attacks on Indian students, their friends in India organized rallies and shouted at the Indian government to invade Australia.
The Mumbai terror attacks last November were just one more excuse for some so-called Indian intellectuals and policy analysts to call for an Indo-Pakistan war. According to these people, it was an opportunity dropped from heaven to test nuclear weapons and also to annihilate “terrorist neighbors” on their soil and solve the “world's problem” forever.
So behave the descendents of a generation that was able to gain independence from the British through a civil disobedience movement. But within hours of realizing that the “external” threat of higher severity was set to go, Indians brought out their inherent affinity for violence by killing each other, in the name of two religions, in the Hindu-Muslim clashes that followed.
Some interpret the philosophical basis of the country's largest religion, Hinduism, to revolve around violence. The Bhagavad Gita, literally translated as “Song of God,” one of the cornerstones of this religion, tells of the justification offered to a warrior by his counsel for the use of violence. The warrior is told to fight the rival factions, who are brothers, as it is justified as "dharma" or duty.
The overarching effect of this religion and its philosophy upon the people of the country is as a catalyst to the primordial Indian nature to resort to violence to settle disputes and disagreements. Many religious groups in the country, whether Muslims, Christians or P{censored}es, have at times resorted to violence to vent their feelings and views, particularly disagreements.
Mainstream politics in India are merely harvesting the natural crop that violence breeds. All major political parties in India resort to violence. Dissent and discord is silenced with violence and the use of force. Violence is used not only in the literal sense, but also in all its temporal manifestations.
In this milieu politics, state practice and the very concept of democracy itself have become the celebration of violence. Those who disagree with this argument could easily find worse examples in other countries like Sri Lanka, Burma or China. But this is only like comparing relative bargains in a cheap market.
-- (Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)
