Shashi Tharoor - Riot

Later, back in India, whenever I tell this story to my Muslim friends, I add something: “For me it’s the opposite. We’re Muslim, but there are Muslims in a hundred countries. If we’re not Indian, what are we?”

The danger is that Hindus like Ram Charan Gupta will get Muslims like me thinking differently. This is why the change in the public discourse about Indianness is so dangerous, and why the old ethos must be restored. An India that denies itself to some of us could end up being denied to all of us. This would be a second Partition: and a partition in the Indian soul would be as bad as a partition in the Indian soil. For my sons, the only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts. An India neither Hindu nor Muslim, but both. That is the only India that will allow them to continue to call themselves Indians.

Mrs. Hart and Mr. Das

October 12, 1989

“I don’t know how to ask you this, Mr. Das, but it’s really important to me. You see, I’m trying so hard to understand the circumstances of my daughters death.”

“Of course, Mrs. Hart, of course. Please be asking anything you want. Anything you want. If I am knowing the answer, I shall of course be telling you vithout any hesitation. Any hesitation.”

“Well. [Deep breath.] Did Priscilla have a special friend here in Zalilgarh?”

“Miss Priscilla was so much popular, Mrs. Hart. Ve were all being her special friends. Special friends.”

“No, you don’t understand. I mean I haven’t made myself clear. Did she have a special personal friend? An intimate friend?”

“I am regrettably not understanding you, Mrs. Hart. Not understanding.”

“Did she have a boyfriend here, Mr. Das?”

“Oh dear, Mrs. Hart, what question you are asking! Miss Priscilla was a weritable angel. She was helping poor women, vorking wery hard. Wery hard. Where from she was to find the time for boyfriend-shoyfriend? Chhi!”

“Mr. Das, I have no doubt she worked very hard, but I assume she had some spare time for herself. I found these among her things. They’re birth-control pills, Mr. Das, as I’m sure you know. Why was she taking them?”

“Ah, I see. I see. But why must you assume she was taking them herself, Mrs. Hart? You are knowing we are population-control awareness project. Awareness project. She may have been having them to show the poor women. To show the poor women. Please do not imagine the worst of your poor daughter, Mrs. Hart. The worst.” “Oh, for God’s sake…. Never mind, Mr. Das. Thank you.”

“Mrs. Hart, I am understanding wery veil your anxiousness to be knowing more about this great tragedy Great tragedy. And to have reminders of your lovely daughter. Lovely daughter. Alas, this is all I am being able to find for you in the office.”

“What is it?”

“A briefing paper, Mrs. Hart. Briefing paper. On population awareness and women.”

“It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but I do appreciate your kindness, Mr. Das. Thank you.”

“You are being most welcome, Mrs. Hart. Most welcome.”

“You haven’t come across anything of a more personal nature in her desk, have you?”

“You are meaning? Excuse me, I don’t follow. Don’t follow.”

“I’ve always known Priscilla to keep a sort of scrapbook, with her impressions, poems, sketches. It wasn’t at the apartment — the room she rented. No one seems to have seen it.”

“Scrapbook? Hmmm — I am not recalling any such thing, Mrs. Hart. Any such thing. If she had a scrapbook, she was not producing it at the office, isn’t it? I am truly sorry I am being unable to help, Mrs. Hart. Miss Priscilla was not really having the facilities here to keep anything, only project files. Project files. But we will certainly look again, Mrs. Hart. You are also being most welcome to look anywhere in this office by your goodself. Meanwhile, you are wishing to take this paper of Miss Priscilla’s? This paper?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of something you need for your work, Mr. Das.”

“Oh, that is perfectly all right. It is a spare copy. Spare copy. And so well-written. What a wonderful writer Miss Priscilla was, Mrs. Hart. Here, you must listen:

“ ‘The case for the HELP-US population-control awareness projects is founded on the clear and demonstrable relationship between high fertility rates and the subjugation of women. This is particularly apparent in India, where women are placed under considerable social and family pressure to bear more children, which in turn reduces their autonomy as decisional agents in society. The fact is that women who are largely confined to, and in a real sense shackled by, the repeated bearing and full-time raising of children suffer a loss of freedom and agency that restricts their abilities to fulfil their life potential. Young women must be a particular target of HELP-US because raising their consciousness can have a much wider impact on their families and on society as a whole. Women who resist repeated childbearing will exercise greater authority within their family units which, in turn, will reduce fertility rates and thus reduce the strain on the limited economic and environmental resources of a developing country like India…

“You see, Mrs. Hart? What a vision your daughter was having? What a vision!”

Ram Charan Gupta to Randy Diggs

(translated from Hindi)

October 12, 1989

You look at me politely enough, but I can see you are not convinced. You have doubtless been reading the opinions of these so-called secularists in Delhi who say there is no proof that the Ram Janmabhoomi temple stood where the so-called Babri Masjid now stands. What do they know about proof who only know what Western textbooks have taught them? It has been known for thousands of years that that is the Ram Janmasthan, the exact place of birth of our Lord Ram. Knowledge passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth is how wisdom was transmitted in India, Mr. Diggs. Ours is an oral tradition, and our tradition tells us that this is where Ram was born. In any case, does it not strike you as strange that Ayodhya is full of temples, but the most coveted spot, the most hallowed spot, the spot with the best site on a hill, is occupied by a mosque? Do these secularists think that was an accident, or a simple coincidence? Or might it be, instead, that Babar, the Mughal invader, demolished the biggest, the best, the most important temple of the Hindus and replaced it with a mosque named for himself, just to rub the noses of the conquered in the rubble of their faith?

This is not just supposition, Mr. Diggs. There is plenty of historical evidence for our claims. Joseph Tiffenthaler, an Austrian Jesuit priest who stayed in Awadh between 1776 and 1781, wrote about how the famous temple marking the birth of Ram had been destroyed 250 years earlier and a mosque built with its stones. A British court even pronounced judgment in 1886, and I quote: “It is most unfortunate that a masjid should have been built on land specially held sacred by the Hindus.… But as the event occurred 356 years ago it is too late now to remedy the grievance. All that can be done is to maintain the status quo.… Any innovation could cause more harm and derangement of order than benefit.” What does that mean, I ask you, Mr. Diggs? Does it not imply that the British acknowledged that a mosque had been built on the site of the temple, but they felt they could do nothing about it because they did not want to risk a law-and-order problem?

I have no doubt where the truth lies. What is more important, Mr. Diggs, is that millions of devout Hindus have no doubt either. To them this accursed mosque occupies the most sacred site in Hinduism, our Ram Janmabhoomi. Who cares what proof these leftist historians demand when so many believe they know the truth? Our faith is the only proof we need. What kind of Indian would support a structure named for a foreigner, Babar, over one consecrated to the greatest Indian of them all, that divinity in human form, Lord Rama?