India And The Clash of Civilizations

Sipping his sweet milky tea, Jaiprakash was reading in a local Hindi newspaper the news and comments on the latest Hindu-Muslim riot at Shantinagar, a prosperous town of half a million. It was the latest riot since the demolition of the Babri Mosque. Thanks to the graphic and frenzied coverage of its gory details by the media, in less than six months the demolition had become one of the three or four most publicized and momentous events in the history of India after the end of the British Raj. The weeklong violence had already taken 157 lives and resulted in injuries to 306, according to a government press note, which was dismissed by everybody as a well-intentioned lie concealing higher casualties. This particular outbreak in a riot-prone State of the country ruled by the professedly secular Congress Party, Jaiprakash like most Hindus almost unconsciously believed, would have been provoked by Muslims and escalated by Hindus with the help of the Hindu police. Exasperated at being called out now and again to disperse rioting communal mobs by tear-gassing and then firing and afterwards being routinely accused by the media and the politicians out of power of having used excessive force, the Provincial Armed Constabulary would have given way to their deep-rooted prejudice against Muslims, particularly the bearded and skull-capped ones. Not only the almost exclusively Hindu police but even many secular Hindus found this garb outlandish and teasingly reminiscent of the invaders who periodically descended from Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran to rob and destroy Hindu temples and shed Hindu blood. It distracted attention from the fact that the majority of Indian Muslims were converts from the Hindu low castes and now suffered from discrimination and degradation not only from Hindus but also from their no less feudal and caste-ridden co-religionists. The immediate provocation for the riot was the verdict of a Tribunal headed by a sitting Hindu High Court judge that neither of the two militant Hindu outfits, Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh and Bajrang Dal was guilty of any act to justify the ban imposed on them by the Central Government for allegedly having instigated the karsevaks to pull down the “decrepit structure”, as a Hindi newspaper had contemptuously described the historic monument. According to the police sources, a shower of stones from a mosque on a victory procession by the Bajrang Dal on a Friday, after the Imam had delivered a fiery speech to his congregation against Hindu communalism in general and the Hindu judge’s verdict in particular, had led to the riot. The verdict had predictably outraged the Hindu leftist politicians, intellectuals and media persons, driving them to pour out conscience-stricken speeches, articles and broadcasts, urging the Muslims to frustrate the evil designs of Hindu communalists by exercising restraint. The Muslims, regularly exhorted by their fundamentally bearded and dressed Imams at the post-Namaz Friday sermons to be particularly wary of these ineffectual and bogus sympathizers, and to counter the kafir menace and establish the supremacy of Islam produce as many children as they could, depending on Allah to provide for them, had responded by staging violent demonstrations, stone-throwing and street-fighting in different parts of the country. According to the unofficial briefing of pressmen by the State Government’s official spokesman, the Hindu-Muslim clashes over the demolition of the Babri Mosque, which were likely to spread again to the other parts of the state and the country, mightn’t have taken place but for the unnecessarily extended focus on the Judge’s verdict in the media. The journalists had retorted that it was their duty to elicit the opinions of the different political parties about the verdict for the enlightenment of the people and it was the responsibility of the government to maintain law and order, in which it had failed miserably. All of a sudden, he was stunned to read a news item on the third page which it occurred to him with a pang he might have missed! With bated breath he read it again. Yes, it was she! It said that even after more than a month the police had failed to discover any clue to the mystery of the suicide by Mrs. Chandrmukhi Narayan, a wealthy and famous socialite-intellectual of Delhi. He wondered why neither his uncle, Dr Awasthi, nor her husband, Vishnu, to whom he had been very close, had informed him about her death. Then he remembered his friend Charles Smith. He had also failed to do so. To learn about the circumstances of her death, Jaiprakash quickly ate his breakfast, put on his safari suit, a gift from Chandrmukhi on his last birthday, and left for the Patna University library. He had been her and her husband’s personal assistant for more than two years until three months ago. He felt sure that the Delhi press would have covered the sensational event in circumstantial detail. He first went through those newspapers whose editors, correspondents and columnists were her friends. He was not disappointed. Something or other about her life, character, circumstances, health and activities indicative of her state of mind prior to her death, had been reported every day for a week in all of them. And once or twice a week on the following days. Particular stress had been laid on the fact that for weeks together until her last day she had been regularly seen at the Gymkhana Club, India International, Sriram Kala Kendra and other elite centers of the Capital. She was invariably accompanied by her equally popular husband, Mr. Vishnu Narayan. On these occasions both had been observed as usual discussing with their friends the current affairs, the merits of an artist, a classical musician or the latest best seller while lunching or dining. According to her husband as well as those who claimed to know her closely, she had no financial, emotional or health problems except high blood pressure due to pregnancy. Handwriting experts had authenticated her suicide note and her friends had minutely analyzed it. Its unambiguousness was baffling.