Ayodhya Verdict: Secularist vituperation

Dileep Padgaonkar

I had noted in my earlier piece on the Ayodhya verdict, written less than 24 hours after the verdict, that some of the secularists are in denial that it is a slap in their faces. Others were undergoing a subtle shift in their worldview. Yet others are still belligerent and demand stinging humiliation to Sangh Parivar “goons”.
I have since been going through more reactions of secularists on TV and Internet. I still stick with my analysis that the verdict created a split in secularist ranks. Those who were in denial on first day are now joining the ranks of belligerents and have started trashing the verdict and seething with desire that Sangh Parivar noses be rubbed into the ground. Somehow, anyhow!
But some are yet to join them. This lot is seen asking some very embarrassing questions to the Islamists. The chief one being – why don't you forget the past and move on! Their wishy – washy, muddled thinking that was directed to the Hindus in the past (Oh! but why do you live in the past, will you never enter modern times?!) is now getting directed to the Muslims!!
It is very gratifying for me to see both types. The belligerents are full of hatred at the loss. And seeing them thus brings some thandak to my kaleja. The moderate ones (if we can call them that yet) have their attention directed towards Muslims. It is somewhat better days for Hindu Nationalists.
Now to a prominent secularist and what he is saying.
Dileep Padgaonkar, all dignity and maturity earlier, pontificating to the “Hindutva types” on the virtues of modernity and moderation (which advice, somehow was never directed to the most virulent Islamists), lost his cool and vituperated in TOI thus: “The verdict ….. makes you wonder whether anything straight can ever emerge from the crooked timber of the majoritarian mind”.
Amazing loss of temper from a man we thought had such high dignity!! This tells you another secret about Indian secularists. When you see them on a pedestal, very mature, calm and teaching all about the virtues of moderation, it is really a put on. They are showing a bogus persona of themselves to the world at large so all accept them as persons of stature.
In reality, they have no stature. They have never really connected with ground realities. They never displayed real leadership qualities. Real leaders connect with common folks first. At times it would risk suffering indignity, e.g. uncouth behaviors from some of the common folks, yet the real leaders handle that situation too with grace and poise and conduct themselves so that not only they but all those who interact with them and observe them, rise in stature.
The likes of this Padgaonkar are what I call hollow leaders, if the word leader can at all be used for them. They probably have never done anything to dirty their hands. They have never really motivated people towards any cause. They have not nurtured and raised anyone's station in life. They obtained their status simply by virtue of being who they were – firsts to learn English language in an environment servile to western culture, firsts to travel abroad, firsts to learn whatever bits of western culture they could so they could drop names not known to Indian masses and thereby create an aura for themselves. But they have no real leadership capabilities. And now it is evident. One serious setback to their worldview, and they are all vituperation – crooked timber of majoritarian mind! This not about Sangh Pariviar but the judges of High Court (oddly, one of them not from majority community at all!).
He has more in similar abusive vein - “Once faith and belief are factored into a resolution of a legal tangle, you embark, swiftly and surely, on the slippery slope of majoritarian conceit”!!
Majoritarian conceit?! How the hell did he reach the conclusion that the judges were full of majoritarian conceit, one of them, to repeat, a Muslim who studied at AMU!!
Let me record more vituperation from this Padgaonkar in the hope that readers of this article will be less likely to be impressed by an affected demeanor of respectability and stature and will be able see through the real mettle (or lack of it) of a person.
Here goes some more: “The biggest infirmity of Thursday's verdict, therefore, is that the court treated Lord Ram as a 'juristic person'. ….. The sheer brazenness of this stand, which belittles the exalted stature of Hinduism's most revered divinity, makes you wince.”
Again notice the abusive language – “sheer brazenness”, “makes you wince”. Again forgetting that he is talking about High Court judges and not political leaders. I need to check this point, but as far as I can see, it is a norm in Indian courts to allow divine figures to be represented in courts of law in case of disputes related to faith related properties. I really find it hard to believe that the judges allowed Ramlalla to be a party to the dispute out of “brazenness” and more likely, they were simply following Indian legal norms.
Here is still more: “The verdict therefore smacks of a majoritarian arrogance which, one hopes, will be jettisoned root and branch by the Supreme Court”
Apart from the language not matching the exalted status these personalities seek to give themselves, the logic given by Mr Padgaonkar too is flawed. He takes objection to Ramlalla (the deity) being made a party to dispute. This could well be the norm in India. We need to check.
He trashes the Archaeological Survey report that established the existence of a large temple at the site Ramjanambhoomi site. His argument – it has been disputed widely by “experts”!! And who are those “experts”? Romila Thapar? Bipan Chandra? Irfan Habib? A more honest commentator would have acknowledged that disputing “experts” are highly partisan themselves and would base his opposition to the report on more objective evidence.
Finally, he says that even if Babar did destroy a highly revered temple of Hindus to build the mosque, why should the “sins” committed by Babar (in 16th century) visit his co-religionists today? Well, actually, that is the crux of the matter. Will we altogether exempt the present generations of all religions, castes, other ethnic identities from the “sins” of their ancestors? Do we accept this as a principle? Does Padgaonkar understand the consequences of doing so?
I don't think he does. He aims, like all secularists in India, for that principle which favors his point of view. If this principle (past “sins” not to visit present generations) favored caste Hindus for instance, he and his tribe would be quite willing to try to uphold an entirely different principle for settlement of the matter. The use of the word tribe for these worthies is indeed very appropriate. These people have essentially a tribal mentality whereby there is no universally applicable principle, no universal ethics, and all do whatever is needed to advance the interests of their tribe, in the present case, the tribe being westernized elite of India that feels threatened by the rise of a Hindu nationalist India.
They aren't modernists or modern in the real sense of the word. They act to take the society to a backward period when there was no laid down equitable law applicable to all human beings. They want every modern institution that seeks to remove subjectivity and power based considerations in management of human affairs, to become their own handmaidens always favoring their points of view.
I would like all of India not to be impressed by their exalted demeanors and see their real persona – men of straw belonging to pre-modern times!