Left, Right, Centre, Pseudo-Secular: The Mangalore Pub Incident
In the aftermath of the attack on the women in the pub in Mangalore, there have been some blog posts and articles protesting against the “secular” media’s characterisation of the Ram Sene as a Hindu Taliban, and of what happened as the “Talibanisation” of India. According to one blogger, the “liberal left” have gone into “mass masturbatory hysteria” over the incident.
Bloggers and journalists on the right of the political spectrum are protesting that Muthalik’s and the Ram Sene’s actions should not be conflated with either Hinduism or Hindutva and are objecting to the term “Hindu Taliban.” These writers are also distancing themselves from Yeduryappa’s statements. I make a distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva, as I do between the terms Islamic and Islamist, and I think it is a moot point about whether such incidents can be attributed to the rise of Hindutva, but that is not the point of this post.
As someone with “liberal left” leanings, I object to my opinions being lumped with those of NDTV and other big media houses. I object to the term Talibanisation, because in it’s very sensationalism it distracts from the all too frequent horrors of being a woman in India, which should be the main issue here. We get nowhere, comparing ourselves to the lowest common denominator. There are other reasons we should object:
Whenever there is an incident in India that involves women (and that receives attention), it becomes an argument about which religion is the more “fundamentalist,” who said what and when, in protest at which incident, often argued by men from different communities, of the geriatric politician/cleric/self-appointed moral custodian variety, from Shah Bano to Mangalore, rather than about the rights of the woman herself. A lot of us women get co-opted into this process, allowing it to become a question of protecting our religious identities.
It is now being argued that the government kept quiet when Taslima Nasreen was attacked, that the “secular” media was complicit in this. But there were a range of voices from across the “liberal left” who might otherwise disagree with each other, who protested at the way she was being treated, more than once, with damning criticisms of the CPM government in Bengal. I have only linked to a couple here. None of these “liberal lefties” have much love for the actions of the media or the government. To lump everyone with views that are “liberal left” into one category and apply the one size fits all sticker of “pseudo-secular” is as disingenuous as characterising all those with right wing political opinions as Ram Sainiks.
The “left” is a vast category, with lefts, rights, centres, liberals and illiberals of its own. There are huge disagreements amongst people on the “left.” One has to look no further than the issue of Nandigram.
Furthermore, the various “lefts” have a running battle with the media. There are leftist blogs dedicated to dissecting what the media comes up with, and they do not reserve their criticism for papers that support the right like the Pioneer, but take issue with most big media houses from the Hindustan Times, to the Indian Express to NDTV. To therefore think, that all on the “left” or all “liberals” or all those who believe in secularism are in accordance with the ill-thought out reports of our major newspapers and channels, or even consider them secular, is incorrect.
And here I am, wasting time writing about the right, the liberal left and the media, instead of what can be done to make India a safer place for women. For ever shall we be stuck, in our polarised views of the world, instead of changing it.
It was’nt such a big affair as it has been made one to be. No one was injured, no one was killed.
I dont think anyone is making a big deal out of the action itself, it’s the fact that a political party thinks their power + cultural world view give them the right to so much as raise a finger on a common person (a defenseless woman, at that) that is scary. No one was hurt, but if their assumption and behavior aren’t questioned now, someone might get hurt the next time round.
In any case, may I ask what sort of warped logic dictates waiting until someone gets really hurt to fix something that is so obviously wrong?
Sorry, i cannot stop WTFing at qualandar’s response. Seriously.
Sudha, I’m with you. I can’t imagine being randomly assaulted in public by strangers simply for going about my business, then having to listen to a bunch of morons try to deflect the entire thing into a religio-political debate. And WTF is this “no one was hurt” thing? Scars are emotional and psychological as well as physical. Jeez.
Sudha, I do not think any political party ” thinks their power + cultural world view give them the right to so much as raise a finger on a common person “. In fact, if this issue was politicized by the leftist media, there would have been much swifter action. After all, when something is obviously wrong no one supports it. The leftist parties have come to the party precisely because the issue has been framed as a political one.
While this instance was not unimportant, many things have happened during the same time that have much wider implications in terms of rights of women. For example, the madarsas in UP declared that they are going to ban co-education. Considering the number of muslim kids who rely on madarsa education, this decision will devastating affects on literally millions of young girls who will have a hard time going to school. The media neglected the story because it does not support the political narrative that they want to push.
In essence, any and all of these instance are important but the media picks and chooses stories that gives it viewership in the metros and pushes its political objective.
Well the media does what the media does. However the real problem comes with not treating this as a law and order issue and thus making the state complicit in the actions of the perpetrators. For all you know there could have been lot of local support for the action of the sena, because of the perceived ill effects of having a pub amidst them. Local support or not treating this as a law and order problem would have snuffed the politcal angle.
The fact the there were TV cameras present to capture this shows that Mr mutalik is appealing to some simmering discontent in the local community which will hand over power to him. He seems to follow a path to public office veru similar to what MNS and shiv sena in bombay are doing.
You might want to this column by Vir Sanghvi (http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=a270dd39-aa50-467d-a408-9c6b1ef2ed72). It appeared in editions yesterday and that’s what he says too. All this has nothing to do with religion and everything or at least a lot with oppressing women some more.. and that issue is getting sidelined.
You are of course right when you say that this is first and foremost a “woman” issue. But it seems (maybe i am mistaken) that the religious thing has also grown with time & things look uglier. Intolerence of all sorts has increased and politicians of all sorts are responsible.
And yes this is not only an Indian issue. During my last visit to Paris there was a manifestation by women: “Ni pute ni soumise” = neither prostitutes nor submissive. This in response to growing molestation (rape included) of girls in the poorer suburbia of Paris. Not new of course, pinching was always a “sport” there, but in past years took up a new and bad proportion. Not only in France of course.
Nowadays in Japan if a man happens to make a pass at a woman in the metro he can be taken away by the police and then things turn bad for him. But a world of respect is better….
It would be extremely problematic to say that the incident is consistent with “Hinduism” but it is a type of political religiosity that is getting uglier by the day, which is why one makes the distinction between Hinduism (and all its own contradictions) and Hindutva which has a homogenising tendency in its view of culture (as does Islamism)
Of course… I did not mean any particular religion in its pure state (basic moral foundation), but the various (newly, sometimes) selfapponited manifestations which you can call by various names. Religions have a way of getting distorted for various politico-economic means. And then intolerance only breeds intolerance…..as does violence
What is Ram Sena or Durga sena.. who gave them a permission to police the public without thier permission? They dare not touch another girl… if the leader is not married ask him to get marry or the fellows has problems ask them to take care of the family not the public. or if they dont have any other work to do and wants to protest something then protest terrorism. go and join the army.. can they.. no they cant because they are scared of their life.. its mentioned above that no one has to make an issue out of it.. did any of his or her family members got the hit.. then they will know the pinch..
This whole incident was a joint effort of PUB owner,Media and the shree ram sena for cheap publicity. The media had been called in anticipation of the incident. The pub owners were aware of the about to happen incident. If they had informed Police instead of Media the whole ugly incident could had been avoided. But Mr Muthalik wanted free publicity ( now he is famous enough to contest in Parliament elections).The Pub owner got his name in the prinnt and the Media got its bytes. THe poor girls got assaulted was a by product of this effort.
Media wnt to market blaming all HIndu centric parties as if it was organised by all the Hindu rightist parties and had a field day.
Much bigger incidents happen on daily basis no one reports a line about it. The Statesman office was vandalised by Zealot Muslim forces. They blocked the Road on three days. All for reprinting an article from “The Independent” . No media prints even two words about it.