Of Burkha, minarets and women bishops: Part1

While we in India struggle on with ourselves – a different war wages in the west.
Towards the end of last year the Swiss voted out loud prayer calls from Minarets. This year the French are steadily moving towards legislation banning covering of face in public. And after much deliberation the British church have finally allowed women to be promoted to be Bishops.
Who owns the soul, if there is any such thing? The central question remains if you can decree revolution.

There is a debate about whether Burkha is essential part of Islam – as apparently there is no compulsion for covering face in the Quran. The other logic is from symbolism – covering face being an image of thousands of years of female subjugation. In a Sunday morning televised debate broadcast from BBC there was an interesting exchange where a burkha clad participant was questioned about the rationale for covering herself. She answered that the Islamic perspective would be that women should not stimulate lust in male onlookers (obviously presuming that the entire class of female onlookers are heterosexuals and none in the world is given to the voyeur of being turned on by covered women). The co ordinator asked what about men..........is it acceptable for women to be turned on by men, because clearly the requirement to cover up the face, do not extend to men.

In primitive societies, the time when most of the religious texts would hail from: it would be generally presumed that while men have the strength to resist and take charge of themselves, women were clearly too weak to do so. Polygamy was allowed. Men were mostly excused from not being able to resist temptation. Clearly women did not enjoy the same privilege. In the present day and age there is a need to move away from such male centric world.

In yet another televised discussion programme another burkha clad woman, probably brought up in the west from her accent, had yet another logic. She felt that covering her face gave her a sense of identity. There was no compulsion involved – she wore it out of her own free will. This does bring us squarely back to the logic: which of the primitive practises are we allowed to carry into our current century, because they impart a sense of belonging? Witch hunt, Crusades, Stoning adulterers, blinding scientists, burning down libraries.........the list is endless. But covering face is different. It does no harm, which the others clearly do. Except to the countless women who are forced to wear them, whose silent protest has no means of reaching the public space!

Yet I firmly believe – you can never sponsor a revolution. You end up creating defiance. This is an evil that needs to change. But probably the state is not the best catalyst.

Of minarets and women bishops another day

The maoist struggle : Solution may be too simple for a national government: Part2

This update has been overdue.
Things have moved on since March.
There has been more casualties on either side. You would almost pause and think whether you can call this a change. Or an update or an evolution. It would certainly seem that it is a state of perpetual war. The only numbers that change is the number of fatalities. The stands do not. The government hardtalk waxes and wanes past cabinet meetings and televised debates. The collective demand for tougher action emerges and disappears between issues.

The issue is grey - and yet the approach presumes a black and white problem. The impossible ambition is to solve the issue. As if it were a riddle. To render a master stroke after which all would be well. Perhaps by annihilation. As was done in ‘70s. That would be a victory. And historically victory is not peace. At every defeat is the beginning of a new battle. Hence here we are. Long after we had thought we had wiped the slate clean in ‘70s.

A modest beginning may probably be the recognition that there is no “solution”. Management is a more correct approach. In small baby steps every single discontent has to be addressed. Poverty, lack of education , lack of health and hygiene - each region has its own set of discontent. In some dark depth of a forest in Andhra some corporate is exploiting natural wealth and the gullible dependents of the forest – is a issue splitting the community in that corner, but cannot be addressed by an all encompassing “national solution”.

When the national and local society starts addressing these issues at every pocket of discontent – the “ solution” will begin to emerge. I am too simple, to make sense of large steps taken in National parliament, that in some distant future in some concocted logic is expected to touch my life. Only when I find that the society is interested in the upkeep of my backyard, do I start to feel the urge to participate in the process.

The execution of this is far from simple. Local problem solving is impossible without universal participation. And sacrifices. This is very tricky indeed. Here the line is thin between the exploiter and the representative of the state. We expect generations of deprived government workers and election winners, used to prosperity out of corruption and exploitation of their poorer neighbours, to be the prime movers in this venture. Convincing them is not easy. Once you get used to profit from exploitation, it is difficult to wake up one morning and walk away from it all.

We survive on hope. Once this impossible mountain has been scaled -in the way of managing : there will be mistakes. In a country where political point scoring from failures is a way of life – there has to be enough tolerance to allow to learn from mistakes. And move on. This is yet another seemingly impossible task.

Only then we, the state as well as Maoists, can “win” this grey war.