G
godara1967
Guest
here is a very thought provoking article which was published in tribune some days back. i think members of jatland can have a healthy debate on this.
Spiritual crisis in Haryana society
Need to probe historical connections
D.R. Chaudhry
Haryana society is in the grip of a deep and all-embracing spiritual crisis. The spiritual atrophy, moral decline and social disorientation that one notices in every walk of Haryana society is not a sudden development. It has historical connections that need to be probed. The recent peasant movement in Jind district and the lynching of five Dalits in Jhajjar district are the latest instances that speak volumes of the malaise.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) has been quite vocal in raising the demands of Haryana peasantry during the last several years. The prefix “Bharatiya” is highly misleading. There is nothing pan-Indian about this organisation. It is a badly splintered body with numerous factions in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP with no interconnection among them. One such faction launched an agitation in some villages of Jind and Rohtak districts recently on the issue of free electricity supply to farmers. The demand related not to free power supply for agricultural operations but for domestic consumption. The police fired at agitators in Gulkani village of Jind district and there were nine casualties.
There has been a number of localised peasant agitations in Haryana during the last one decade or so. The police resorted to firing and lathi charge at a number of places — Marhiali and Kadma in Bhiwani district, Nissing in Karnal, Tohana in Hissar and Gulkani in Jind district. About two dozen lives have been lost in the police action. With every round of killing, the tempo of the movement has gone down. The latest killing at Gulkani seems to have taken wind out of the sails of the BKU.
The BKU and other peasant leaders have never seriously taken up the issue of police high-handedness while dealing with the agitators. The emphasis has been on the monetary compensation to the bereaved families. At Gulkani, for instance, there is no evidence of any policeman having been injured in mob violence. Yet, the trigger-happy police of Haryana fired 400 rounds, injuring 40 farmers, nine of them fatally. Shockingly enough, there has been no agitation by any political party or some other organisation for punishing the guilty in the police after a high-level probe.
The main opposition party paid Rs 1 lakh to the nine bereaved families and the ruling party doled out Rs 5 lakh to six — the remaining three families were deprived on the ground that the cause of death in three cases had not been ascertained properly.
The only issue being raised by the BKU is about the compensation to these three families. The grouse of the BKU leadership at the moment seems to be that three corpses “did not fetch any price” and had to be consigned to the flames gratis. A leader of the main opposition party proclaimed that if his party came to power, they would pay Rs 10 lakh for each slain peasant. He seems to be saying. “The present government is inefficient and there is a slump in the market of the dead. The day we are in power, the market would pick up and the dead would command a higher price”. Financial aid to a family that has lost a bread-earner makes sense, but it should not become a substitute for human life which is the case now.
The scene is being replicated in the case of lynching of five Dalits. An amount of Rs 1 lakh has been paid by the main opposition party and Rs 5 lakh by the ruling dispensation for every slain Dalit. The matter should end here so far as the establishment is concerned. The demand for a high-level judicial or CBI probe has not been conceded. Every attempt is being made to save the police, the administration and the communal elements responsible for the carnage. The Haryana Government blocked the discussion on Dalit killings in the last Haryana Assembly session, and The Tribune rightly characterised it as “a day of state shame” (Oct 31).
The civilised nature or otherwise of any government is to be judged by the manner it treats its opponents, critics and dissidents. There was a prolonged student revolt in France in 1968 which was joined by workers and peasants as well, necessitating the takeover of the government by General Charles de Gaull, a hero of World War II. However, there was not a single casualty at the hands of the police in this countrywide turmoil. In India, the police kills at the slightest provocation. The situation is much worse in Haryana which has become a killing field and the police a killing squad.
The really worrying factor in Haryana is that the brutal face of the state power leaves the people cold. No stirring of conscience. No sign of any public ire. To quote a loaded phrase from Soren Kierkegaard, Haryanvis are living in a state of “tele-logical suspension” — a state of existence with no end or purpose in life. The sensibility has grown too coarse and crude. The people of Haryana seems to have proceeded on long leave from the realm of sensibility and are hibernating in the twilight zone of ethical emancipation. Do they constitute a comity of thinking individuals striving for the betterment of life or a throng of zombies in a state of trance? The question cries for answer. This necessitates a glance at the past.
The battle of Mahabharta, so valorised in our country, was essentially fought on the division of property in the plains of Kurukshetra in Haryana between two branches of a royal household. The reigning monarch of the time, Dhritrashtra, was blind both physically and metaphorically. He could see nothing but the interests of his progeny very distinctly. Women started losing in social status in this age. Yudhistra, the most virtuous of the Pandava brothers, staked Draupadi, the consert of five brothers, in the game of dice, treating her as an article of property. When an attempt was being made to unrobe her in the royal court, all the great warriors Bhishmapitamah, Dronacharya, Kripacharya and others — were mute spectators. It has been rightly characterised as a dark era by Dharam Vir Bharati in his play “Andha Yug,” an allegory on the futility of war.
Later on, when Shravan Kumar, a symbol of filial devotion in Indian mythology, reached Kurukshetra after taking his aged parents to many other pilgrimage centres in the country, he faced a sudden change of heart. His parents looked to be an encumbrance and he decided to discard them. It did not take much time for the realisation to sink in his mind that it was the jinxed and blighted land of Kurukshetra that was responsible for the evil brainwave and he resumed his journey. The process of moral decline and spiritual degeneration has been on since then.
In medieval times the institution of the state played an important role in the promotion of arts and culture. The Haryana region remained deprived of this. The impact of the Bhakti movement, a powerful liberating current in many parts of India, was quite weak in this region. The Indian renaissance, howsoever half-baked it was, barely touched this belt. The Arya Samaj was the only reform movement that influenced this region. Its positive contents like the crusade against untouchability, rituals and superstition fostered by the Brahminical priesthood and such other things have taken a back seat. As a consequence, a section of the Arya Samajists in Haryana today are as fanatical as some Hindu communal organisations in Muslim baiting. Haryana has grown in the shadow of Delhi and as such its growth has remained stunted. Examples can be multiplied to explain the moral depravity and cultural cretinism in Haryana society today.
The typical historical growth of Haryana has spawned a stratum at the top that is notorious for its crudity, aggressiveness and arrogance. Arrogance is in direct proportion to ignorance in Haryana. Things are taken for granted with a closed mind that leaves no scope for debate. In the self-seeking, self-serving and family-centric politics of Haryana, the state is laden with several modern Dhritrashtras who cannot see beyond their progeny. They treat the state as their personal fiefdom. Haryana has yet to see the growth of democratic culture and ethos. This is not possible unless the state passes through a phase of cultural renaissance. This makes it obligatory for Haryanvis to have a critical look at the past, evaluate it with ruthless objectivity and draw correct lessons, rising above caste taboos and totems. Only then can some meaningful social and political change be expected. This is a long haul. However, there are no short-cuts in history.
The writer is a keen observer of Haryana affairs.
Spiritual crisis in Haryana society
Need to probe historical connections
D.R. Chaudhry
Haryana society is in the grip of a deep and all-embracing spiritual crisis. The spiritual atrophy, moral decline and social disorientation that one notices in every walk of Haryana society is not a sudden development. It has historical connections that need to be probed. The recent peasant movement in Jind district and the lynching of five Dalits in Jhajjar district are the latest instances that speak volumes of the malaise.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) has been quite vocal in raising the demands of Haryana peasantry during the last several years. The prefix “Bharatiya” is highly misleading. There is nothing pan-Indian about this organisation. It is a badly splintered body with numerous factions in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP with no interconnection among them. One such faction launched an agitation in some villages of Jind and Rohtak districts recently on the issue of free electricity supply to farmers. The demand related not to free power supply for agricultural operations but for domestic consumption. The police fired at agitators in Gulkani village of Jind district and there were nine casualties.
There has been a number of localised peasant agitations in Haryana during the last one decade or so. The police resorted to firing and lathi charge at a number of places — Marhiali and Kadma in Bhiwani district, Nissing in Karnal, Tohana in Hissar and Gulkani in Jind district. About two dozen lives have been lost in the police action. With every round of killing, the tempo of the movement has gone down. The latest killing at Gulkani seems to have taken wind out of the sails of the BKU.
The BKU and other peasant leaders have never seriously taken up the issue of police high-handedness while dealing with the agitators. The emphasis has been on the monetary compensation to the bereaved families. At Gulkani, for instance, there is no evidence of any policeman having been injured in mob violence. Yet, the trigger-happy police of Haryana fired 400 rounds, injuring 40 farmers, nine of them fatally. Shockingly enough, there has been no agitation by any political party or some other organisation for punishing the guilty in the police after a high-level probe.
The main opposition party paid Rs 1 lakh to the nine bereaved families and the ruling party doled out Rs 5 lakh to six — the remaining three families were deprived on the ground that the cause of death in three cases had not been ascertained properly.
The only issue being raised by the BKU is about the compensation to these three families. The grouse of the BKU leadership at the moment seems to be that three corpses “did not fetch any price” and had to be consigned to the flames gratis. A leader of the main opposition party proclaimed that if his party came to power, they would pay Rs 10 lakh for each slain peasant. He seems to be saying. “The present government is inefficient and there is a slump in the market of the dead. The day we are in power, the market would pick up and the dead would command a higher price”. Financial aid to a family that has lost a bread-earner makes sense, but it should not become a substitute for human life which is the case now.
The scene is being replicated in the case of lynching of five Dalits. An amount of Rs 1 lakh has been paid by the main opposition party and Rs 5 lakh by the ruling dispensation for every slain Dalit. The matter should end here so far as the establishment is concerned. The demand for a high-level judicial or CBI probe has not been conceded. Every attempt is being made to save the police, the administration and the communal elements responsible for the carnage. The Haryana Government blocked the discussion on Dalit killings in the last Haryana Assembly session, and The Tribune rightly characterised it as “a day of state shame” (Oct 31).
The civilised nature or otherwise of any government is to be judged by the manner it treats its opponents, critics and dissidents. There was a prolonged student revolt in France in 1968 which was joined by workers and peasants as well, necessitating the takeover of the government by General Charles de Gaull, a hero of World War II. However, there was not a single casualty at the hands of the police in this countrywide turmoil. In India, the police kills at the slightest provocation. The situation is much worse in Haryana which has become a killing field and the police a killing squad.
The really worrying factor in Haryana is that the brutal face of the state power leaves the people cold. No stirring of conscience. No sign of any public ire. To quote a loaded phrase from Soren Kierkegaard, Haryanvis are living in a state of “tele-logical suspension” — a state of existence with no end or purpose in life. The sensibility has grown too coarse and crude. The people of Haryana seems to have proceeded on long leave from the realm of sensibility and are hibernating in the twilight zone of ethical emancipation. Do they constitute a comity of thinking individuals striving for the betterment of life or a throng of zombies in a state of trance? The question cries for answer. This necessitates a glance at the past.
The battle of Mahabharta, so valorised in our country, was essentially fought on the division of property in the plains of Kurukshetra in Haryana between two branches of a royal household. The reigning monarch of the time, Dhritrashtra, was blind both physically and metaphorically. He could see nothing but the interests of his progeny very distinctly. Women started losing in social status in this age. Yudhistra, the most virtuous of the Pandava brothers, staked Draupadi, the consert of five brothers, in the game of dice, treating her as an article of property. When an attempt was being made to unrobe her in the royal court, all the great warriors Bhishmapitamah, Dronacharya, Kripacharya and others — were mute spectators. It has been rightly characterised as a dark era by Dharam Vir Bharati in his play “Andha Yug,” an allegory on the futility of war.
Later on, when Shravan Kumar, a symbol of filial devotion in Indian mythology, reached Kurukshetra after taking his aged parents to many other pilgrimage centres in the country, he faced a sudden change of heart. His parents looked to be an encumbrance and he decided to discard them. It did not take much time for the realisation to sink in his mind that it was the jinxed and blighted land of Kurukshetra that was responsible for the evil brainwave and he resumed his journey. The process of moral decline and spiritual degeneration has been on since then.
In medieval times the institution of the state played an important role in the promotion of arts and culture. The Haryana region remained deprived of this. The impact of the Bhakti movement, a powerful liberating current in many parts of India, was quite weak in this region. The Indian renaissance, howsoever half-baked it was, barely touched this belt. The Arya Samaj was the only reform movement that influenced this region. Its positive contents like the crusade against untouchability, rituals and superstition fostered by the Brahminical priesthood and such other things have taken a back seat. As a consequence, a section of the Arya Samajists in Haryana today are as fanatical as some Hindu communal organisations in Muslim baiting. Haryana has grown in the shadow of Delhi and as such its growth has remained stunted. Examples can be multiplied to explain the moral depravity and cultural cretinism in Haryana society today.
The typical historical growth of Haryana has spawned a stratum at the top that is notorious for its crudity, aggressiveness and arrogance. Arrogance is in direct proportion to ignorance in Haryana. Things are taken for granted with a closed mind that leaves no scope for debate. In the self-seeking, self-serving and family-centric politics of Haryana, the state is laden with several modern Dhritrashtras who cannot see beyond their progeny. They treat the state as their personal fiefdom. Haryana has yet to see the growth of democratic culture and ethos. This is not possible unless the state passes through a phase of cultural renaissance. This makes it obligatory for Haryanvis to have a critical look at the past, evaluate it with ruthless objectivity and draw correct lessons, rising above caste taboos and totems. Only then can some meaningful social and political change be expected. This is a long haul. However, there are no short-cuts in history.
The writer is a keen observer of Haryana affairs.