Burka, not Trishul, just lynched historian (??) Guha - I

Above lines are from an article “Sadly, Ram Guha Wants Muslims To Be More Like Him” (I can’t figure out who is he insulting here, Guha or Muslims?) by Secular Mani Shankar Aiyar on 27 March. Interestingly Indian Express website lists him as there columnist. Anyway, the debate he mentions was started from an article by Harsh Mander titled aptly “Sonia, Sadly” and was published on 17 March.

Mander’s article was as usual full of garbage e.g. “Muslims are today’s castaways, political orphans with no home, for virtually every political party. This despite India being home to a   tenth of the world’s Muslims, around 180 million people, making it the largest Muslim country after Indonesia and Pakistan. There has never been a harder time to be a Muslim in India, not since the stormy months that followed India’s Partition.”

I am wondering if Aiyar, a St. Stephen's alumni refused to publish his article in Indian Express after reading the above-mentioned paragraph!!!. Or did he refuse because the opportunity to defend Sonia Gandhi was first given to Guha rather than him by the publication?

Anyway, garbage of Harsh Mander was responded by historian (??) Ramachandra Guha in an article on 20 March titled ‘Liberals Sadly’. The article started with a one-paragraph apology to Harsh Mander. 

In the next paragraph, he wrote, “While a burka may not be a weapon, in a symbolic sense it is akin to a Trishul.” (fifty percent of his article is a quote from Hamid Dalwai’s work).

My guess is that at this point in time someone in Indian Express realised it that it could be a good Hindu bashing opportunity and the whole thing was converted into “iDEAS SERIES”. Funnily, “iDEAS SERIES” is printed in communal colour i.e. saffron. 

But before it could be a series of Hindu bashing, it actually lynched the secular credentials of Ramachandra Guha, the only credential he had left at 60 years of ripe age.

Following is the chronological listing of the articles appeared in the series so far in Mumbai edition. (If I have missed any of them then it is purely unintentional)

 

The two authors who wrote in series after Ramachandra Guha, have Hindu sounding names but they didn’t object to Trishul being reduced as an object of slavery/oppression called burka. They ignored Trishul and focussed on burka and Muslim upliftment.

Maybe they realised that Ramachandra Guha was actually defending the queen Sonia Gandhi and Trishul and burka were incidental.

But Irena Akbar turned the table. She took Guha and Trishul head on.

She hinted at Ramachandra Guha in the first paragraph of her article saying “The left-wing ‘liberal’, who scoffs at overt religiosity and derides the burka as ‘being out of place in modern society’. She further wrote: “Liberal” historian Ramchandra Guha made clear his disdain for the burka, likening it to a Trishul and endorsing its absence from political rallies.

She again wrote, “Guha’s comparison of the burka, a symbol of a besieged minority, with the Trishul, a symbol of aggressive majoritarianism is thus, callous and insensitive.”

She goes on and on and ends with calling Ramachandra Guha, someone who “mocks the rights of individuals too.”

Then appeared Mukul Kesavan another Historian (???). He also got it right, that Guha was proxy for Sonia Gandhi. He writes “By becoming the politicians proxy, Guha takes on the burden of arguing..”. He ended his piece with advising Guha, not to “offer bad stereotypes”

I am wondering did he jump in out of professional rivalry, after all when foreign funding is being squeezed and government dolls are hard to come by, it makes sense to have one less historian (???) in competition.

I have no idea why Ashutosh Varshney’s article could not qualify for the iDEAS SERIES and appeared on the editorial page. Maybe, because he did not abuse Trishul even once in his write-up. Rather he wrote in the first paragraph itself that “Most of the commentary has focussed on whether it was analytically proper for Guha to compare Trishuls and burkas”.  

Next article in the series by Abdul Khaliq, a former civil servant found a place in the “iDEAS SERIES”. The former civil servant writes “As a Muslim and functionary of a party in the ruling alliance, I know what Mander is talking about when he says that never before has the Muslim felt more bereft and forlorn” (just in case you didn’t notice, you have just read one of the finest examples of oxymoron)

Abdul Khaliq has following to say about Ramachandra Guha:

1.         Latches on to the phoney pennant

2.         Is guilty of the most fallacious equivalence. In his jaundiced view.

3.         Twists facts to make space for his assertion

4.         Expounds on a falsehood to buttress his theme

I wonder if after all this any credibility of a questionable historian Guha is left?

As if all this was not sufficient, India Express on 31 March, iDEAS SERIES has changed the name of Ramachandra to Ramchander, completing the lynching.

As if lynching was not sufficient, Outlook magazine has gone ahead and published an obituary of Guha. In the 29 March 2018 issue Shajahan Madampat, in his article ‘Burka Is Not Trishul’ writes: Guha made some controversial remarks, including a shocking comparison of the burka, a dress, with Trishul, a weapon. These not only diverted attention from his core thesis but also made him look insensitive to a commun¬ity. 

So in the end, it is burka which has just lynched historian (???) Ramachandra Guha and not Trishul.