Yesterday night, I came across this article of Huffpost India, Retweet-endorsed by the second-most popular pulp-writer of India, and one of my personal favorites (up to this point, that is), Durjoy Datta. The title read, “Why Every Feminist Should Refuse to Say Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. Though the article, in itself, is around 7 months old, but that in no way means that it does not need a proper, structured rebuttal- especially now that a ‘star’ in his own right, Durjoy Datta, has suddenly woken up to its endorsement.
The article opens with the incident of a Maharashtra MLA being suspended for refusing to say “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, which the writer Sanjukta Basu equated to “street-level bullying” and “college ragging”. I cannot even start describing how revolting this analogy sounds. Street-level bullying? Ragging?? Really?? Lady, first off, using “street-level” as a negative adjective shows your own elitist narrow-mindedness, in which ‘streets’ are the hallmark of ugly/bad/disdainful, and hence associating it with what you deem negative.
In the same breath, she establishes that, like the college bullying, “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” is driven by three motivations: a) get voyeuristic pleasure, (b) establish their power over the person, and (c) make the outnumbered student, the minority, a subject of ridicule.
I don’t know whether or not do you know Hindi or not, Sanjukta (if you don’t, do let me know how do you manage to survive in Delhi, ’cause that’d be a feat in itself), but “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” simply means “Bharat (India) is my country, whom I consider my mother, and I love/respect it the same way I respect my biological mother”. Now, I truly fail to see how, where or why are these simple four words, akin to saying “’love you, ma” could in any way be considered bullying. And how in the hell could “’love you, ma” be a source of voyeuristic pleasure, power establishing or ridiculing?? (I can’t even start venturing into the answers to these. The mother-child relation is something I still hold sacrosanct, no matter how ‘backward’ it might make me sound like, in the liberalism-means-find-sex-in-everything world)
Following that, she takes out excerpts of both Hindu mob and Muslim mob from two art-movies, in a pseudo-attempt at secular objectivity. She fails in secularism, and excels at pseudo-secularism, at multiple levels.
First off, the instance of the Hindu mob is followed by a bold-and-engorged “What’s next? Forcing Muslims to eat pork and chant Har Har Mahadev to prove they are not ‘anti-national’?”, whereas any such “shout-text” remains absent below the Muslim mob.
Secondly, she deliberately chose such incidents that showed Hindu mob actually committing a murder, whereas the Muslim mob just laughs off… and then the narrative is again back to the writer, without the Muslim mob being shown to commit any violence.
Then she starts with her propaganda, spreading lies and spewing venom against nationalism and patriotism. Look at these words, “Mob violence is now the greatest mark of nationalism and patriotism in our country. Gang up against the minorities, bully them, beat them to death because of something they said or didn’t say, something they ate or didn’t eat and you are the greatest nationalist.”
You couldn’t have lied any more, lady. Not tolerating liars and shameless, ungrateful traitors like you is what is ‘the greatest mark of nationalism and patriotism in our country’. (Now, before ripping her off any further, I want to point out to this usage of “our country” by her. She defiles the idea of nation- as you’ll see soon- but still uses the possessive pronoun for the same country. Such hypocrisy, and double standards!!)
Then she moves on- to give a gender spin to the whole thing (“I want to focus here on the gender angle.”) Note again her hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance; here, she uses the term “gender”, when it is in her convenience, but rejects the whole idea of gender later, along with nationalism and sexuality… (“Nationalism is not natural; it is a social construct, a performance just like gender and sexuality”)
“Birth of a nation”
Sanjukta Basu tells you that “In India the nationalism discourse is strongly built upon the Vedic civilization and it is claimed by nationalists that India is a nation for and of Hindus.”
You are lying again, Ms. Basu. The notion of Indian nationalism is NOT based on religious exclusivity of Hindus- the nationalistic party of this country made a Muslim its most popular president, converted a Muslim actor SRK into the “most famous superstar of India” and Abdul Hamid is, arguably, one of the most talked about war-time hero of this NATION. So, no; Indian nation is not a Hindu-only homogenous concept- nor it ever was, even in the eyes of most controversial nationalist figures like Veer Savarkar and Nathuram Godse. We just want an equal legal, constitutional and socio-cultural footing of Hindus and non-Hindus- something that we have constantly been denied, ever since the Slave dynasty of 1200s’ starting.
Then Sanjukta Basu argues that “since dinosaurs came to this earth before humans”, and “the human civilization was born actually in Africa than Asia”, so the “Whose legitimate land this is and who is an invader is an utterly vague concept.”
Ms. Basu, Biology 101 (for mature conversation and people): Humans are not “born” in Africa; they evolved, from loads of stages of evolution to Homo sapiens (aka humans) that we are today. And even though humans have technically indeed been around since 200,000 years, but NOT as civilized people- the civilization is just 8000 years old– and it did begin in Indian subcontinent, not Mesopotamia or Egypt. SO, we, of Indian consanguinity, are NOT INVADERS. That “India as a nation was born in 1947 with the end of British rule.” is not a truth but a lie. The name- as well as the description as the nation (Indian nation is a cultural and emotional union, not a linguistic or political one, unlike Europe) – can be dated to even pre-Christ era, where the writings of even Magasthenes use the term: well before Europe was to even coin the term ‘nation’.
“Women’s role in the idea of a nation”
When Sanjukta Basu once again begins her rant of “nations are built upon a common identity”, it comes across as nothing but either a malicious, or pathetically misinformed, attempt to again superimpose the idea of European nation-states on the Indian context, where it clearly doesn’t fit.
In a blatant and repeated display of hypocrisy once again, she terms a woman’s womb “the factory where the national identity is produced and reproduced.”
Sanjukta Basu, THAT IS CLEARLY YOUR OWN NOTION- DO NOT TRY TO PIN IT ON NATIONALISTS, HINDUS OR NATIONALIST-HINDUS. I dare you to give me one- just one- mainstream nationalist or nationalist-Hindu, who endorses/propagates this view. It’s indeed people like you who try to manifest their own mental ugliness into this world, by pinning it on someone else- and then get to talk about it incessantly.
She says, “Thus we have Indian nationalists asking every Hindu woman to give birth to 10 children, preferably male (others recommend kindly that four will do).” This is again both a rabid Hindu-hating rant (because it was an already-refuted statement on a Hindu cleric, which wasn’t accepted by the Hindus themselves), and a ‘communal’ attempt to limit the national identity and unity to just Hindu religion (If not, what was the point of extending the blanket of this to all the nationalists, if not to incite anti-Hindu hatred and paint all the nationalists as Hindus?).
She further tries to amalgamate Hinduism and nationalism by “the Hindu nationalists want to control Hindu women’s right to choose their sex partners, relationships and marriage by seeding the concept of ‘Love Jihad‘ into public consciousness.”
Again, it was a pro-Hindu statement (that it was a real fact, established by hundreds of instances, including that of a national-level sportster; is perhaps subject of another discussion), which had NOTHING to do with INDIAN NATIONALISM.
“Women as the embodiment of nation”
She compares the feminization-allegorizing of India as “Bharat Mata” to be on the same par as BOLYWOOD FOCUSING ITS CAMERA ON WOMEN’S BREASTS, BUTTOCKS AND WAIST!!
You… YOU might be the one seeing Bharat MATA as an object of sexual conquest (Is it what people see in their mothers?) – This is INCESTOUS FANTASY… For us, Bharat Mata is our mother– revered, respected, and protected; ’cause we are born from its flesh, she nurtured and protected us when we were weak, and continues to look out for us even today- in the form of the soldiers getting decapitated, and being tortured to death if captured.
She alleges, “Bharat Mata, the image that is supposed to represent India before which everybody is supposed to bow down, is a Hindu upper-caste, upper-class, domestic, married, northern woman, with superior moral character, akin to a Goddess (as can be deduced from the amount of gold she’s usually represented as wearing, the colour of her skin, the way she ties her sari and so on).”
This, once again, shows nothing but her own stereotyping prejudice and lack of awareness of contemporary realities.
So ONLY upper-caste people can have fair skin?? I guess you might not have heard of Roshmitha Harimurthy when you write this joke of an article, but she’s NOT the only one.
What’s the connection of upper-class and fair color?? Don’t you know- or are you deliberately ignoring- the impossibility of effectively changing the skin color by ANY beauty product that the upper-class’ money can buy??
What gives you the notion that she’s married?? I can’t see ANY vermillion or mangal-sutra on the very image that YOU refer to.
Domestic because she wears a sari?? Lady, the FEMALE scientists of ISRO- way too much IQ above your pay-grade and intellectuality- wear SARI. It’s simply an Indian attire- stop stereotyping it by your prejudice-reeking mindset.
“Why can’t Bharat Mata be a burqa-wearing woman?” Be my guest. Take a plane ticket to Iraq, Syria or ANY OTHER BURQA-ENFORCING COUNTRY. Go and see what Burqa actually is, before endorsing it. It screams oppression.
“Nationalism as performance”
“Nationalism is not natural, it is a social construct, a performance just like gender and sexuality are.” Right. And so are clothes and public modesty. How about people stripping off, and start having sex in public?
“It is an imaginary notion that is instilled in young impressionable minds using rituals and symbols. Celebrating the national flag, Independence Day, singing national songs, chanting Bharat Mata ki Jai are part of these rituals” Imaginary or not, it is necessary. Mankind cannot exist as either 7 billion-odd group of people, OR one (way too) big group. They have to be segregated, and differentiated- for practical-administrative reasons, as well as psychological-emotional-cultural ones. And nation is the least bad basis- just like democracy is the least bad system of administration.
What’s so bad in it- to instill the notion of loyalty towards your government, your people, your land?? When you carry a passport, the GOVERNMENT AND THE NATION VOUCH FOR YOU- for your identity, for your credentials. And you too swear, on the paper, to have loyalty towards your people. What’s wrong in asking you to walk your talk- and your signature?
“Nationalism feeds on fear and hatred. The idea survives on a persecution syndrome which makes an enemy out of everybody; it tries to survive by destroying every other identity.” NO. That’s leftism- one which you are a big fan of. It is what plays fear-mongering game- like the one you tried, with this verbal diarrhea.
“As a proud Indian woman, I refuse to let my identity be dragged in this performance of violence and hatred, and I refuse to worship a dubious image of my country.” More than hypocrisy, this sentence talks about a massive leap in cognitive dissonance- after writing so much against the concepts of nation and national identity, she calls upon the same Indian-ness and national identity to dispel her own cooked-up and vulgar fantasies. She called gender “an imaginary construct”, but refers to herself as woman??
Durjoy Datta- who brought this to my attention, by sharing/retweeting/endorsing it
For those rare of you who have recently returned from Mars, and are thus unaware of who Durjoy Datta is, he’s one of the most famous pulp/popular fiction novelists of the country- second to just Chetan Bhagat. His niche is romance, and he’s dubbed “romance king” by fans and publishers- just like the original Hindu-loathing “romance king” Shah Rukh Khan.
It was Durjoy Datta’s sharing the article, prompted by one Rituparna Chatterjee, deputy editor of Huffington India and ‘burnt’ for abusively trolling on Twitter.
Dear Durjoy Datta,
If I- and a lot of people like me- keep buying your repetitive story plots over and over again, somewhere we do deserve a respect of our feelings by the person who lives off our feelings.
I’ll remember this retweet/share the next time I’m about to pay money for something being done by you (Isn’t your next novel coming this May itself??)
Huffpost India
Why exactly is Huffpost being allowed to continue its operations in India?
News media isn’t a regular ‘business’- like any other ones. It is as much about politics as money. Why do we, and our government, allow foreign newspapers and news channels to have outposts in India? The only difference in today’s news media and political parties is that the former does not contest elections?
The journalists today have clear and outspoken party and ideological preferences, and Huffpost India is no exception. Letting our domestic news media influence our politics is one thing; but allowing media of other countries also get away with the same??
Isn’t it, partly, like inviting Democrats-Republicans, or Labour Party-Conservatives, to open offices in India, and start interfering in Indian elections and affairs?
It might not even be too difficult diplomatically even, to send Huffpost India packing- since Huffpost US’ partial and prejudiced journalism against Trump means that even US State Department might not be too willing to pursue this matter, beyond crossing off a checklist.
The Indian NATION guarantees a lot of rope, of freedom and liberty- but only to those who aren’t aiming it at turning it against us only.
And we love Bharat Mata more than perhaps anything else in the world. Period.
– Mailed to us by:Mrinaal Prem Swarroop Srivastava
