white gown / red sari

The Archbishop of Canterbury visited Jallianwala Bagh earlier this week and expressed shame and sorrow for what happened there in 1919, exactly a hundred years ago. He came to India with a wish to make things better in the contentious world of Religion and, for that reason, met with leaders of other religions in India in his capacity as a spiritual leader.

Yesterday’s issue of The Times of India carried an editorial by Michael Binyon, the editorial writer for the The Times, London, about the Archbishop’s visit. One of the things he said is that the Archbishop ‘did not achieve any dramatic breakthrough in his meetings with Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and leaders of other Christian denominations in India’, which is rather sad. I hope that was only initial awkwardness, and that this initiative will be taken forward by all involved, though I can’t help wondering what exactly are the sticking points that these leaders cannot agree on.

In the last paragraph of the above article the Archbishop says, “One of the most profound, deep, philosophical civilisations, India has received into its life the many faiths that thrive in this country. India’s culture and history – except when manipulated – has been one of learning to value that diversity and this is so important.”

“Value that diversity”:

Now, this is true of all countries, not India alone. Every country is diverse because countries with tightly guarded borders are a fairly new phenomenon. India has been a country for only seventy-two years. Before that it was just a vast campsite for a whole lot of unrelated people who came from everywhere and stayed on in ethnic clusters that grew into towns, cities, principalities and kingdoms.

People teach themselves to value diversity when they have no choice and a tribal mentality proves counterproductive. It’s not really natural. The other option is to Brexit themselves out of the diversity I guess. In equivalent terms, governments in many modern-day countries accept legal immigrants and refugees, and their populations become diverse, sometimes to the dismay of citizens.

“Except when manipulated”:

Manipulation is exactly what has been going on for thousands of years all over the world! No country has escaped it. It’s a human trait that gets more pronounced when a mob or an exploitative bully are in control. Ever since the woman carrying the L3 mitochondrial-DNA walked out of Africa with the man with the Y-chromosome CT and started populating the rest of the world 70,000 years ago, that’s all that’s been happening!

Manipulating others, like overpowering the Neanderthals to make space for Homo sapiens, manipulating the environment, like destroying forests to make space for agriculture, driving entire animal species to extinction, torturing and killing conquered peoples, banning their cultural mores, imposing language, i.e. communication, restrictions on them, plundering resources by evicting, enslaving or killing the rightful inhabitants – this is the bad side of the history of us human beings, isn’t it (the good one being co-operation and progress as a species)?

And Jair Bolsonaro now says the fires raging in the Amazon rainforest are ultimately good for Brazil’s economy so don’t try too hard to put them out! Manipulation – everywhere, all the time, by anyone with a little bit of power – is the norm!  Manipulation is finessed nowadays because there are college courses on how to manage everything and everyone, and networking is a thing, so people think they aren’t being obvious.

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Like the Archbishop of Canterbury, there are others handling religious strife in their own way. Here’s a picture of a Catholic Bishop apparently trying to make it easier for Hindus to relate to Christianity. The Catholic Bishop is dressed up like a Hindu Swamiji: saffron robe, kumkum tikka on forehead, rudraksha mala around his neck. Behind him is one more person dressed the same way. As explained by the Archbishop of Goa, this is what the Catholic Church calls inculturation.

Hindus criticise this as cultural appropriation. As there are thousands of Christians in India, and people are quite familiar with Christianity, it was not necessary for the Bishop to adopt the inductive teaching method of going from the known to the unknown, if that was his intention. That’s why it came off as a parody of both Hinduism and Christianity, especially when it was reported that the tabernacle was shaped like a shivalinga! This much fusion simply cannot work when it’s a question of faith and tradition and what people hold sacred. A Christian bride will not get married in a black gown or a red sari, and a Hindu bride will not wear a white sari for her saath pheras around the sacred fire. Some things have a value and meaning beyond the practical and utilitarian, and I don’t think anybody has the right to violate them.

While I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s observation that India values her diversity I honestly think we paid a huge price for it. What looks like diversity in the present era of relative peace is the result of the terror, physical pain and loss of loved ones that our forefathers went through when they were raped, tortured and massacred by marauders over hundreds of years, when there were no borders, and no standing army. We all shook down together and made ourselves a country just a few decades ago.

Going back to what the Archbishop said, yes, we have been manipulated a lot over the centuries by all and sundry, but the resilient land that is India has survived the onslaught of an endless stream of invaders only because syncretism and adaptation are more natural to us than rigid beliefs that won’t budge to adapt. While we are aware that others have taken advantage of this quality in us for their ends, we can’t change that without losing a valuable part of ourselves. So we stand like coconut trees, we bend but don’t break in a storm, and hope the damage is rectifiable when the storm is over.

apologising for jallianwala bagh massacre

Jallianwala Bagh at present. I took this picture in December 2013.

Today is the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Exactly a hundred years ago, on this day, Col. Reginald Dyer and his army shot down thousands of Sikhs gathered at Jallianwala Bagh to celebrate Baisakhi. At the time the House of Lords in England lauded his action; however, a year later, the House of Commons – probably more decent folks ­­– condemned it, and he was dismissed from the Army.

Now Jeremy Corbyn has asked Teresa May to apologise to the Sikh community. The Sikh Federation UK has asked for an apology too. Among Indians, Shashi Tharoor and an MP from Kerala, M.B.Rajesh, have brought up the issue in the Lok Sabha. That’s it, two people out of one billion plus people! There could be another five thousand people I haven’t heard about, but even that would be a small number!

What purpose does this apology serve? Churchill already called it “a monstrous event”, the Queen called it a “deeply shameful event in British history” when she visited Amritsar in 1997, and Cameron expressed “deep regret” in 2013. All of them have dutifully mouthed the words they were required to. Maybe they even felt a twinge of sadness because, after all, they are human beings. But it might be too much to expect them to relate to the sufferings of ‘natives’ whom they never understood in the first place.

What value can an apology have if it is grudgingly given, when a fine distinction is made between “deep regret” and an “apology” just to make it clear to the receiver that it is only a formality, not a heartfelt expression of empathy? Doesn’t it humiliate the receiver even more? I believe an apology can only be from actual perpetrator to actual victim, in the spirit of what Jews call teshuva, so an apology by present-day Brits, even if it were offered, would be redundant. You can’t ask for an apology; it has to well up in a truly contrite heart, and has to be expressed without needing a nudge from someone else.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was just one event, like the Bengal famine, India’s partition, the Boer War, the uprising in Kenya, the partition of Iraq and Syria, the decimation of the aborigines of Australia. . . etc. Truly, how many misdeeds can one country apologise for, especially when there is a very long list of them? They need to be getting on with their Brexit, not tendering apologies around the world for their sins! From their point of view, this is no time for a debate on the feelings of a small community belonging to a developing country. Teresa May has to keep her eyes on the Brexit ball if she doesn’t want Nicola Sturgeon to start the process of balkanisation of her country.

Sikhs are among the bravest people in the world. Our Indian Army is full of them. So was the British Army, by the way! It’s possible they were sent out as cannon fodder into WW1 & WW2 on the more dangerous expeditions. I mean I wouldn’t put that past the Brits of those times. The remains of Sardars are still being unearthed in Europe and are sometimes sent back to India to be laid to rest in a more befitting and respectful manner.

This is a Sikh prayer written by Guru Gobind Singhji himself, shared by a Sikh friend. All it asks for is courage. Not for food, not for wealth, not for forgiveness, not even for God’s protection! Just more courage to add to their stockpile of it. Tell me, who else says a prayer like this?

I wonder how far back in history we can go with this Apology Drama. Should France apologise to the British for the Norman Conquest of the 11^th century? Should Italy apologise to them for the Roman atrocities of the 1^st century CE? Should Scandinavians apologise to the Scots for the Vikings of the 9^th century? The Portuguese have not apologised to me for torturing my forefathers through Francis Xavier’s Goa Inquisition in the 16^th century, but it doesn’t matter. Honestly. If the Bible is right about the sins of the forefathers being visited upon their descendants, we can leave retribution in His hands and move on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Temple and Jallianwala Bagh

We spent three days in Amritsar in Punjab last week.

The Golden Temple by night was a glorious sight. Volunteers took care of the temple and its ceremonies with much love and devotion. They made all visitors, Sikh or otherwise, feel welcome.

We visited it again the next morning. It shone in the pale winter sunlight, radiating peace and purity.

The massacre of Sikhs and Punjabis, the bravest of Indians, by the British is one of the many horrifying chapters in Indian history.

We visited the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial where the massacre took place on 13^th April, 1919.  On that fateful day in 1919, a group of people had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh near the Golden Temple to protest the arrest of two leaders. There were also thousands of pilgrims who were there to celebrate the Baisakhi festival.

Reginald Dyer, a British general, ordered his soldiers to fire on the crowd. The bullets were fired towards the narrow passages through which people were trying to escape. More than 1000 innocent people died, about 120 of them jumping into a well in panic. The bullet marks are still visible on the walls of surrounding buildings.

The exhibits at the Jallianwala Bagh museum and the stories they tell about what Indians were subjected to by the British makes one wonder: ‘How did it come to this?’

The British entered India as traders in the 1700s. Soon they got involved in our politics and turned our country into a colony. The rest is history.

And what have we learnt from this? Not much, going by what’s in the newspapers. Some excerpts from a recent article:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/dangerous-trend-india-a-major-destination-for-global-land-sharks/article1-1165488.aspx

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s invitation to China to set up special economic zones and industrial parks in India…
• Haryana is going all out to woo Chinese companies to buy farmland…
• Chinese investors have also visited Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu looking for probable sites.
• Chinese investors are being offered land for ‘purchase’ and they will have the right to re-sell the land.
• …policy of protecting national borders certainly needs a review considering that the Chinese are being allowed to purchase land within the country. But will Beijing ever allow Indian companies to buy such huge tracts of farmland in China?

My question is: Why do we have to sell the land to the Chinese? Shouldn’t it be leased for a limited number of years, if at all?

But then, there is this too, quoting from the same article.

Indian companies were buying land in Africa, Asia and South America. Of the 848 land grab deals concluded globally since 2008, 80 involve Indian companies that have invested in 65 deals to grow food grains, sugarcane, oilseeds, tea and flowers. And as a news report computed, India has already bought land abroad nine times the size of Delhi.

How are the countries in Africa, Asia and S. America okay with this?

The US National Academy of Science calls it ‘a new form of colonialism’, while mainline economists term it as a model of economic growth.

Which one is it?