#1931 Kanpur Riots

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The Kanpur communal riots broke out while the Karachi Congress session was on in 1931. 400 people were killed in this riot. The Congress leadership appointed a committee to look into the riot. AG Noorani refers to the report by this committee in his article on hate speech and the SC. Bhagwan Das was the chairman of this committee. Purshottam Das Tandon, Mazhar Ali Sokhte, Abdul Latif Bijnori and Zafarul Malik were the members. It must also be recalled that Sardar Patel was the President of Congress then. The committee came to this conclusion: 'It will be noted that all the main controversies which at present embitter and have latterly divided the two communities, for example, the cow question, Ramlila and Moharram, and other religious occasions or processions, music before mosques; as also the question of representation in services, in municipalities and councils, joint and separate electorate; safeguards; redistribution of provinces and federal, as opposed to a unitary, basis of the constitution - all these did not and could not have existed during the Muslim period. They are all products of the British period and British policy.' It is this statement that should be the guiding light for Indian democracy.

Vazhipokkan, ‘What we are doing to Bilkis Bano and the women in this Country’, Mathrubhumi

#Mathrubhumi #Vazhipokkan #India #1931 Kanpur Riots #AG Noorani #Bhagwan Das #Purshottam Das Tandon #Mazhar Ali Sokhte #Abdul Latif Bijnori #Zafarul Malik #Vallabhbhai Patel #Ramlila #Moharram #British policy #Indian democracy

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For instance, Samkhya philosophy, that belonged originally to the Vedic tradition, developed a strong strain of atheism and naturalism. This is paid scant attention. Also excluded from metaphysical conceptualisations of Hinduism is the heretical materialist school of Carvaka philosophy that nurtures a robust anti-Vedic materialism. Other sceptics refused to accept the claim that the Vedas code absolute knowledge. The construction of a hegemonic tradition has spectacularly marginalised critical philosophies within and outside Hinduism.

For instance, Tharoor reiterates Vivekananda’s thesis that Buddhism completed the work of the Vedantic tradition.

But Vivekananda’s thesis neatly flattened out the challenge that Buddhism had posed to Brahmanical power, the monarchical state, ritualism, and caste discrimination. It simply assimilated Buddhism into Hinduism.

The exclusion of critical and rational philosophies from Hinduism gives us cause for thought. If a rational, materialistic, empiricist and sceptical philosophical school such as Carvaka had been given prominence in the forging of a Hindu tradition, perhaps India would have escaped being slotted into the spiritual versus materialist dichotomy. India with all its material inequities, communalism and casteism has been stereotyped as exotic and other-worldly. This has not helped us forge an equitable future. Till today our society fails to accept the enormity of rampant inequities, fascinated as we are with the metaphysical spirit.

It is not surprising that the precise point at which Tharoor’s defence of Hinduism weakens, is when he tackles caste discrimination. He resolves the dilemma by suggesting that oppression is not sanctioned by sacred texts, and that educated Indians know better than to practise caste discrimination. Yet today, our tolerant and inclusive Hindu silently watches the public humiliation of vulnerable sections of our own people. The privileging of a highly metaphysical tradition as the public philosophy of India has led us away from acknowledgement of social oppressions and power. Will it be able to critique Hindutva?

Whether Hindutva can be deactivated by a return to the texts and practices of Hinduism is debatable. Consider that politics and religion are fundamentally incompatible. Politics seeks power, religion gives us thick conceptions of the good. Politics searches for control over society and the way it thinks, religion shows us the road to personal salvation. The Hindutva brigade is hardly interested in the complexities of the religion that Tharoor elaborates for us. It is focussed on mobilising the Hindu community for unlimited power.

Scholars in other countries, shuddering under the impact of religious politics, have tried to appeal beyond politics to texts and syncretic practices. The strategy has simply not worked. We might have to counter and dare dominant formulations with alternative forms of politics. That is precisely what the leaders of the Indian National Congress did in the early 20th century. They introduced the language of minority rights in the 1928 Constitutional Draft and secularism after the major Kanpur communal riot in 1931, as a part of constitutional democracy. Shall we think of politics as a radical critique of an inequitable religion as well as religion as politics?