Final SACH August-October 2012-28 · 2017-12-14 · Of soul and nature, The awesome beauty of nature, The lovely Malam Jabba. AUGUST—OCTOBER 2012 SACH 3 Arshad Karim EPS, Swat (PAKISTAN)

SACHSOUTH ASIAN COMPOSITE HERITAGE

AUGUST—OCTOBER 2012 � VOLUME—1 � ISSUE—28

Editorial BoardArshad Karim

Pakistan

Kalipada SarkerBangladesh

Dr. Richard DevadossCornerstone

Chennai, India

Nobo Kishore UrickhimbamCentre for Social Development

Manipur, India

P. Bala MuruganIndia

P. Lalitha KumariAsmita Resource Centre for Women

Secunderabad, India

Sharifa SidiqquiIndia

Shruti ChaturvediInstitute for Social Democracy

Delhi, India

Suramya Smriti KujurCNI-SBSS

Delhi, India

Coordination byInstitute for Social Democracy

New Delhi, India

[email protected]

WEBSITEwww.sach.org.in

Glittering mountains, singing fountains, humming drops of rains,field full of grains and the valley telling the stories of gloriouscivilization that was home of Swat. Beautiful faces, young girlsand boys, roaming around and singing the songs of joy andcelebrations, aged and grown up sitting around fire places watchingthe younger ones, dancing on the tunes, the songs of the valley.Recounting past and telling the stories of glorious traditions ofSwat to the growing up generation. A valley which had never seenany violence is now drowned into blood of humanity. Gone are theroses and came in the guns. Gone are the smell of flowers andcame in the dirty smell, stinking smell of gun powder. Gone are thechirping of birds and came in the sound of bullets and rockets.Swat is crying. Its people are begging for peace but the vestedpolitical interest continues to kill the valley and its people. Let’srestore the past of Swat, bring back its glory again.

Poems on Swat By Shamsher Ahmad

Oh! My Glorious SwatOh! my charming dale,Where is your hypnotic tale?

Where existed plenty of grain,Now why every swan is in great pain?

Where existed clusters of trees,Why we breath a polluted breeze?

Where cuckoo sang a melodious song,Why the list of your sorrows is so long?

Where existed glistering of emeralds,Why hesitated your lords?

All were friends far or near,Why peace is so dare?

Where existed a lot of sublimation,Why Trouts feel suffocation?

Where existed Swasto’s transparency,Why livers shows deficiency?We will destroy ourselves,

2 � SACH � AUGUST—OCTOBER 2012

Because we hate ourselves,

Nature will remain,In fact it is the defeat of wise man.

Mankial MountainLook at the silence,Of the huge Mankial mountain,

Observe its towering passion,Stands firm in the chilly waves,In the beauty of nature,

Why invites men?To touch its wounded heart,

Why grief is felt?

Why tears drop?

An ambition always lies,To embrace a tall pine tree,

At the peak of winter,Silence, silence everywhere,

But not any glacier to fall,To quench the thirsty land.

Remains at ButkaraThese relics remind us,That previous nations enjoyed,

A moral and civilized life,But someone think them,

An old legend of the past,I think them superior,

Because they guide us,And Create light,

In our dark world,And always exhibit,

The spirit of hard work,But the question is,

Are they capable to disclose,The cryptogram of life?

Stay at GabralThe snow-covered Vale of Gabral,When cool layers blow,

And cool drops dance,Beside the restless waves,

Along the bank of the river,At dawn when the frozen drops,

Glisten in the thick bushes,And yellow moon sets,

I think that warmth is mercy,When the majestic sun appears,

My heart beats within my breast,It seems the pleasant event,

I welcome the day,To read and bask.

Roof of SwatLike saucer on the top,Amidst the dense tall pines,

In the corridors of silence,Beyond an allusive scene,

When aromatic breeze blows,Amidst the lovely flowers,

When the majestic sun sets,Then observe,

A pinkish mirage,Above the thick specks of snow,

And imagine the combination,Of soul and nature,

The awesome beauty of nature,The lovely Malam Jabba.

AUGUST—OCTOBER 2012 � SACH � 3

Arshad KarimEPS, Swat (PAKISTAN)

Peace, tolerance and interfaith harmony arethe most important human values. The worldas we know is in the dire need of tolerance.We need peace and tolerance to respect thedifferences of opinion, belief, gender, thinkingand appearance. We need and have to acceptthe fact that the people cannot be made bendto our will; we all, as a nation, accept thedifferences. We must be able to listen to oneanother’s point of view patiently, and respectit rather than fight them. We have tounderstand that there are people on earthwho will not have the similar beliefs andfaith, and to accept these differences, and trynot to change them to our liking forcefully.Because they are the differences that are inreality the beauty of the nature.

It is due to peace, equality andtolerance that we are living in our social lifepeacefully; everyone has to have fair chanceof doing what’s right for him/her. It is dueto non-discriminatory attitude that all humanbeings, whether they are of opposite gender,color, belief or thinking, are workingtogether to build a better peaceful future.

What We Can Do forThe promotion of Peace?

The book “SUVASTU” consists ofdifferent topics and shows us the culture,historical civilization, valuable and richarchaeological sites, communication, socio-economic condition, political, ruling hierarchy,spiritual and religious history of the region ofthe past, present; where we are living in thechaotic situation. So, we can understandeasily that the land of Swat is a “CompositeHeritage” and a cradle of the different strataof civilization and having much diversity.Now this is our obligation to work for thepromotion of peace to protect and preserveour ancient and historic sites for the cominggeneration.

Mr.Shahbaz Muhammad, poet and thewriter of the book, has shared and analyzed allthe above facts in new manner and skills in theform of poem for his learners, and I hope thatthe present one “SUVASTU” is a newenhancement in Pashto language and would bevery useful for the readers of history andspecially for Pashto books readers, historystudents, researchers, governmental and non-governmental organization as well as fortourists so that they will come forward for thepromotion of peace through composite heritage,in our mother land Swat.


Suvastu (History)

Shahbaz MuhammadEnvironmental Protection Society, SwatReviewed by : Prof. M Javaid Azhar

“In this world, hate never dispelled hate. Onlylove dispels hate. This is the law, ancient andinexhaustible.” This is a saying of the Buddha,and the bottom line of the book Suvastu, whichis an encyclopedic account of all that is relatedto the vale of Swat, both ancient and modern.The author, Shahbaz Muhammad, a teacher byprofession, is a prolific writer of both prose andpoetry in Pashto. He has a passion for history.He has to his credit four published works; Aeulogy on the untimely death of his only sonHaris, Marg de Zama da Armanuno Marg dey(Your departure is the death of my dreams)and a travelogue Yakh Yun (A Voyage in theSnow).The Pashto translations of tworenowned books, “The Story of Malakand FieldForce” and “Malakand: A Journey throughHistory” are unprecedented and remarkable.

The front cover of the dust jacket ofSuvastu has a scenic picture of the villageGhalegay (Shingardar), focusing on theenchanting stupa which enshrines the relics ofthe Buddha. It also has an insignia of the EPS,Swat. The back cover carries a brief note aboutSuvastu by Akbar Zeb, Executive Director EPS,Swat and a panoramic view of river Swat. Thefront flap has a blurb written by ArshadKarim, EPS, Swat, whereas the back flapcarries a list of the published and unpublishedbooks by the author.

The book is primarily divided into twoparts. It starts with a beautiful long poemwhich enunciates almost in a chronologicalorder the story of Suvastu. The author hasportrayed the entire story in such a magicalway, as if captured through a time-lapsecamera. The reader journeys through the

annals of Suvastu, spread over hundreds ofyears, in a few hours. The second part of thebook is the repository of knowledge, whichanswers almost all the queries that may arisein the mind of the reader. Through asuperscript number inserted into the text of thepoem, the reader is directed to thecorresponding note at the end for a detailednarrative.

In addition, the author has adoptedappropriate research techniques in this book.He has enlisted the requisite references andbibliography in the end using Chicago style offormatting references and bibliography.

The author has discussed in reflectivedetail the etymology of the word Swat, citingeminent writers in this connection.

“Rahi says, “It has been said that inancient times his area was referred to asSuvastu, and some linguists say that the termSuvastu is derived from the word Sweta whichmeans clear and fresh water; Besides numeroustravelers have mentioned the clear and freshwater of Suvastu.”

However, in the book “History ofHumanity: From the third millennium toseventh century BC”, edited by Ahmad HassanDani et al, it is said, “the word Suvastu,signifying ‘fair dwellings’ seems to indicate thatthere were Aryan settlements along its bank.”This connotes that the word Suvastu means“fair dwellings”.

The author has also narrated the arduousjourneys of Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hsien, SunYun, Hsuan tsang and Wu-Kung for the questof Buddhism and its teachings. He has alsopainstakingly mentioned the Aryan civilizationin the area and expressed his profound concernregarding the vanishing and devastation of therelics, and monuments of this rich civilization.

“A great number of relics of Aryan


civilization can be found in the mountains ofSwat… However, these are vanishing due tothe weathering effect. And certain ignorantpeople purposely destroy them as if committinga noble deed. It is feared that in a short spanof time this rich page of history will becomeobscure and then finally disappear.

His meticulous explanation of religiousscriptures such as Rig-Veda and BhagwadGeeta is very fascinating. However, hiselucidation of a plant named “Soma” issomewhat tantamount to digression.

The author ’s depiction of the Indiancampaign of Alexander the Great needs someclarification. According to the Wikipedia,Cleophis was the mother of the chieftain ofMasaga (suburbs of Swat) who had assumedcommand after his death. And according toCurtius, “Not only did Alexander slaughter theentire population of Masaga, but also did hereduce its buildings to rubble.” Hence theromantic encounter of Alexander the Greatwith the queen of Masaga sounds untrue.Moreover, Roxana was a Bactrian (Balkh,Afghanistan) princess and a wife of Alexanderthe Great. She accompanied him on his militarycampaign in India in 326 BC.

Shahbaz Muhammad has also written ashort biography of Siddhartha GautamaBuddha, the founder of Buddhism. He has alsohighlighted the sacredness of Swat forBuddhists.

“The Buddhist believes that thereincarnation of Gautama Buddha took place inSwat. He has stayed here for a long period oftime, roaming about. That’s why the Buddhistrevere Swat a lot and deem it a place of greatblessings.”

The remarkable story of various rulers ofGandhara from Chandragupta Maurya,Ashoka, and Kanishka, to the last Raja of SwatRaja Geera is very attention grabbing. Theauthor has been very objective in praising thepolicies of the Greek Bactrian king Menander.

“Menander was an enlightened andmagnanimous king. During his era all religionswere granted freedom. Buddists refer to him asMillinda, and he occupies an elevated statusamong their religious leaders.

The writer also refers to the controversyregarding White Huns, however, the mysteryregarding the origin and nature of White Hunshas been finally solved by Professor PaulHarrison of Stanford University on May 24,2007, when he translated and published ascroll, dated 492-493 AD from the Hephthaliteperiod, revealing the fact that Huns werepatron of Buddhism and their names wereIranian (archives.worldhistoria.com).

While mentioning the campaigns ofMehmood of Ghazna, the writer strives toabsolve him of the negative image portrayedmostly by the Western writers.

“The writers’ of Swat’s social geographyclaim that “the local Hindus of Swat embracedIslam as a compulsion; and some fled to thenearby hills.” does not sound true, because theHindu historian Dr. Tara Chand writes aboutMehmood Ghaznavi that he didn’t forceanyone to accept Islam. He rather recruited alot of Hindu officers and sepoys in his armywho fought on his behalf in central Asia andIran.”

The book has a comprehensive note onthe arrival of Yousafzai tribe under MalikAhmad and Sheikh Mali in Swat and theexpulsion of the local Swatis to Hazara.

While referring to the Mughal repressionof Yousafzais that followed the de‘tentebetween Mughal king Babur and Yousafzais,the author’s objectivity is a bit skeptical. Herehe has portrayed Khushal Khattak as a stoogeof the Mughals, though Khushal’s endeavoursfor the promotion of peace and nationalintegration of Pakhtuns after his alienation fromMughals deserves a mention.

The author has unveiled an interestingfact in Suvastu that the rulers of Kashmir, Tonk


and Junagarh state hailed from Swat.In the last part of the book, a number of

short biographies of prominent writers andscholars is a nice gesture for the recognition oftheir literary services. However, the writer ’ssophisticated portrayal of Akhun Dervezajeopardizes his impartiality as a historian.

In a nutshell, the book Suvastu is abeautiful anthology of the history of Swat. Thecrux of Suvastu, “the composite heritage ofancient and modern civilizations” depicts thefact that “Unity in Diversity” existed in Swat.The beautiful cultural intermingling through theages can still be witnessed in wood carvingsand textiles. Therefore, a universal moral codeis enough to bring all of the humanity togetherbecause; all religions and societies unanimouslycondemn evil and support good.

The promotion and preservation ofcomposite heritage of Swat, a sine qua non for

forging inter-sect and inter-faith harmony, willin turn result in promotion of global peace andlove. In the end I would say, this book byShabaz Muhammad is a good addition to thestore of books on Swat, and will proveenormously useful for the students of schools,colleges and universities alike.

I would also extend my heartiestfelicitations to Shahbaz Muhammad on thepublishing of his fifth book. And thanks toChristian Study Centre (CSC), Rawalpindi fortheir financial support, and EnvironmentalProtection Society (EPS), Swat for materializingthe publishing of Suvastu.

I would end by quoting a few versesfrom Suvastu;

Love existed among them,Even if be a Muslim or non-Muslim;The only thing that mattered,No matter whom; they were humans.

Shared by Arshad Karim

Uttarasena (Budhism) 6th century BC, Shingardar Stupa Barikot PAKISTAN


10 YEARS LATER

Irom And The Iron In India’s SoulIrom Sharmila’s struggle is going on and on. This article is as relevant today as it was whenher epic fast entered tenth year.

IROM SHARMILA’S STORY SHOULD BE PART OF UNIVERSAL FOLKLORE. IN THETENTH YEAR OF HER EPIC FAST, SHOMA CHAUDHURY TELLS YOU WHY SOMETIMES,TO accentuate the intransigence of the present, one must revisit the past. So first, a flashback.

The year is 2006. An ordinary Novemberevening in Delhi. A slow, halting voice breaksinto your consciousness. “How shall I explain?It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…”A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, madeslow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force.“My bounden duty.” What could be “boundenduty” in an India bursting with the excitementsof its economic boom?

You are tempted to walk away. You arebusy and the voice is not violent in its beckoning.But then an image starts to take shape. A frail,fair woman on a hospital bed. A tousled head ofjet black curls. A plastic tube thrust into the nose.Slim, clean hands. Intent, almond eyes. And thehalting, haunting voice. Speaking of boundenduty.

That’s when the enormous story of IromSharmila first begins to seep in. You are in thepresence of someone historic. Someone absolutelyunparalleled in the history of political protestanywhere in the world, ever. Yet you have beenoblivious of her. A hundred TV channels. Anunprecedented age of media. Yet you have beenoblivious of her.

In 2006, Irom Sharmila had not eatenanything, or drunk a single drop of water for sixyears. She was being forcibly kept alive by adrip thrust down her nose by the Indian State.For six years, nothing solid had entered her body;not a drop of water had touched her lips. Shehad stopped combing her hair. She cleaned herteeth with dry cotton and her lips with dry spiritso she would not sully her fast. Her body waswasted inside. Her menstrual cycles had stopped.Yet she was resolute. Whenever she could, sheremoved the tube from her nose. It was herbounden duty, she said, to make her voice heardin “the most reasonable and peaceful way”.

Yet both Indian citizens and the Indian

State were oblivious to her.That was three years ago. On November 5

this year, Irom Sharmila entered the tenth yearof her superhuman fast — protesting theindefensible Armed Forces Special Powers Act(AFSPA) that has been imposed in Manipur andmost of the Northeast since 1980. The Act allowsthe army to use force, arrest or shoot anyone onthe mere suspicion that someone has committedor was about to commit a cognisable offence.The Act further prohibits any legal or judicialproceedings against army personnel without thesanction of the Central Government.

Draconian in letter, the Act has been evenmore draconian in spirit. Since it was imposed,by official admission, thousands of people havebeen killed by State forces in Manipur. (In just2009, the officially admitted number stands at265. Human rights activists say it is above 300,which averages out at one or two extrajudicialkillings every day.) Rather than curb insurgentgroups, the Act has engendered a seethingresentment across the land, and fostered newmilitancies. When the Act came into force in1980, there were only four insurgent groups inManipur. Today, there are 40. And Manipur hasbecome a macabre society, a mess of corruptions:insurgents, cops and politicians all hand in glove,and innocent citizens in between.

A FEW YEARs ago, an unedited CD begandoing the rounds in civil society circles. It showedfootage of humiliating army brutality and publicrage. Images of young children, students,working-class mothers and grandmothers takingto the streets, being teargassed and shot at.Images of men made to lie down while the armyshot at the ground inches above their heads. Witheach passing day, the stories gathered fury.Disappeared boys, raped women. Human lifestripped of its most essential commodity: dignity.


For young Irom Sharmila, things came to ahead on November 2, 2000. A day earlier, aninsurgent group had bombed an Assam Riflescolumn. The enraged battalion retaliated bygunning down 10 innocent civilians at a bus-stand in Malom. The local papers publishedbrutal pictures of the bodies the next day,including one of a 62-year old woman,Leisangbam Ibetomi, and 18-year old SinamChandramani, a 1988 National Child BraveryAward winner. Extraordinarily stirred, onNovember 4, Sharmila, then only 28, began herfast.

Sprawled in an icy white hospital corridorthat cold November evening in Delhi three yearsago, Singhajit, Sharmila’s 48-year-old elderbrother, had said half-laughing, “How we reachhere?” In the echo chamber of that plangentquestion had lain the incredible story of Sharmilaand her journey. Much of that story needed tobe intuited. Its tensile strength, its intense, almostpreternatural act of imagination were not oneasy display. The faraway hut in Imphal whereit began. The capital city now and the might ofthe State ranged against them. The sister jailedinside her tiny hospital room, the brother outsidewith nothing but the clothes on his back, neitherversed in English or Hindi. The posse ofpolicemen at the door.

“Menghaobi”, the people of Manipur callher, “The Fair One”. Youngest daughter of anilliterate Grade IV worker in a veterinary hospitalin Imphal, Sharmila was always a solitary child,the backbencher, the listener. Eight siblings hadcome before her. By the time she was born, hermother Irom Shakhi, 44, was dry. When duskfell, and Manipur lay in darkness, Sharmila usedto start to cry. The mother Shakhi had to tend totheir tiny provision store, so Singhajit wouldcradle his baby sister in his arms and take her toany mother he could find to suckle her. “Shehas always had extraordinary will. Maybe thatis what made her different,” Singhajit says.“Maybe this is her service to all her mothers.”

There was something achingly poignantabout this wise, rugged man on the sidelines –loyal co-warrior who gives the fight invisiblebreath, middle-aged brother who gave up hisjob to “look after his sister outside the door”,family man who relies on the Rs 120 a day his

wife makes from weaving so he can standsteadfast by his sister.

It was a month and a half since Singhajithad managed to smuggle Sharmila out ofManipur with the help of two activist friends,Babloo Loitangbam and Kangleipal. For six years,Sharmila had been under arrest, isolated in asingle room in JN Hospital in Imphal. Each timeshe was released, she would yank the tube outof her nose and continue her fast. Three dayslater, on the verge of death, she would be arrestedagain for “attempt to commit suicide”. And thecycle would begin again. But six years of jailand fasting and forced nasal feeds had yieldedlittle in Manipur. The war needed to be shiftedto Delhi.

ARRIVING IN DELHI on October 3, 2006,brother and sister camped in Jantar Mantar forthree days – that hopeful altar of Indiandemocracy. Typically, the media responded withcynical disinterest. Then the State swooped downin a midnight raid and arrested her forattempting suicide and whisked her off to AIIMS.She wrote three passionate letters to the PrimeMinister, President, and Home Minister. She gotno answer. If she had hijacked a plane, perhapsthe State would have responded with quickerconcession.

“We are in the middle of the battle now,”Singhajit had said in that hospital corridor. “Wehave to face trouble, we have to fight to the endeven if it means my sister’s death. But if she hadtold me before she began, I would never have lether start on this fast. I would never have let herdo this to her body. We had to learn so muchfirst. How to talk; how to negotiate — we knewnothing. We were just poor people.”

But, in a sense, the humbling power ofSharmila’s story lies in her untutored beginnings.She is not a front for any large, coordinatedpolitical movement. And if you were looking forcharismatic rhetoric or the clichéd heat ofheroism, you would have been disappointed bythe quiet woman in Room 57 in the New PrivateWard of AIIMS in New Delhi. That 34-yearold’ssatyagraha was not an intellectual construct. Itwas a deep human response to the cycle of deathand violence she saw around her — almost aspiritual intuition. “I was shocked by the deadbodies of Malom on the front page,” Sharmila


had said in her clear, halting voice. “I was onmy way to a peace rally but I realised there wasno means to stop further violations by the armedforces. So I decided to fast.”

On November 4, 2000, Sharmila had soughther mother, Irom Shakhi’s blessing. “You willwin your goal,” Shakhi had said, then stoicallyturned away. Since then, though Sharmila hasbeen incarcerated in Imphal within walkingdistance of her mother, the two have never met.

“What’s the use? I’m weak-hearted. If Isee her, I will cry,” Shakhi says in a film onSharmila made by Delhi-based filmmaker KavitaJoshi, tears streaming down her face. “I havedecided that until her wish is fulfilled, I won’tmeet her because that will weaken her resolve…If we don’t get food, how we toss and turn inbed, unable to sleep. With the little fluid theyinject into her, how hard must her days andnights be… If this Act could just be removedeven for five days, I would feed her rice waterspoon by spoon. After that, even if she dies, wewill be content, for my Sharmila will havefulfilled her wish.”

This brave, illiterate woman is the closestSharmila comes to an intimation of god. It is theshrine from which she draws strength. Ask herhow hard it is for her not to meet her motherand she says, “Not very hard,” and pauses.“Because, how shall I explain it, we all comehere with a task to do. And we come here alone.”

For the rest, she practices four to five hoursof yoga a day — self-taught — “to help maintainthe balance between my body and mind”.Doctors will tell you Sharmila’s fast is a medicalmiracle. It is humbling to even approximate hercondition. But Sharmila never concedes anybodily discomfort. “I am normal. I am normal,”she smiles. “I am not inflicting anything on mybody. It is not a punishment. It is my boundenduty. I don’t know what lies in my future; thatis God’s will. I have only learnt from myexperience that punctuality, discipline and greatenthusiasm can make you achieve a lot.” Thewords — easy to dismiss as uninspiring clichés— take on a heroic charge when she utters them.

For three long years later, nothing haschanged. The trip to Delhi yielded nothing. AsSharmila enters the tenth year of her fast, shestill lies incarcerated like some petty criminal in

a filthy room in an Imphal hospital. The Stateallows her no casual visitors, except occasionally,her brother — even though there is no legalrationale for this. (Even Mahasweta Devi wasnot allowed to see her a few weeks ago.) Shecraves company and books – the biographies ofGandhi and Mandela; the illusion of abrotherhood. Yet, her great — almost inhuman— hope and optimism continues undiminished.

But the brother’s frustration is as potent.The failure of the nation to recognise IromSharmila’s historic satyagraha is a symptom ofevery lethargy that is eroding the Northeast. Shehad already been fasting against AFSPA for fouryears when the Assam Rifles arrested ThangjamManorama Devi, a 32-year-old woman, allegedlya member of the banned People’s LiberationArmy. Her body was found dumped in Imphala day later, marked with terrible signs of tortureand rape. Manipur came to a spontaneous boil.Five days later, on July 15, 2004, pushing theboundaries of human expression, 30 ordinarywomen demonstrated naked in front of theAssam Rifles headquarters at Kangla Fort.Ordinary mothers and grandmothers eking outa hard life. “Indian Army, rape us too”, theyscreamed. The State responded by jailing all ofthem for three months.

Every commission set up by the governmentsince then has added to these injuries. The reportof the Justice Upendra Commission, institutedafter the Manorama killing, was never madepublic. In November 2004, Prime MinisterManmohan Singh set up the Justice Jeevan ReddyCommittee to review the AFSPA. Itsrecommendations came in a dangerously forkedtongue. While it suggested the repeal of theAFSPA, it also suggested transfering its mostdraconian powers to the Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act. Every official response ismarked with this determination to be uncreative.The then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjeehad rejected the withdrawal or significantdilution of the Act on the grounds that “it is notpossible for the armed forces to function” in“disturbed areas” without such powers.

Curiously, it took Iranian Nobel Peace Prizewinner Shirin Ebadi to raise proportionate heaton Irom Sharmila, on a trip to India in 2006. “If


Sharmila dies, Parliament is directly responsible,”she thundered at a gathering of journalists. “Ifshe dies, courts and judiciary are responsible,the military is responsible… If she dies, theexecutive, the PM and President are responsiblefor doing nothing… If she dies, each one of youjournalists is responsible because you did not doyour duty…”

Yet, three years later, nothing has changed.After the boundless, despairing anger of the‘Manorama Mothers’, the government did rollback the AFSPA from some districts of Imphalcity. But the viral has transmitted itself elsewhere.Today, the Manipur police commandoes havetaken off where the army left off: the brutalprovisions of AFSPA have become accepted Stateculture. There is a phrase for it: “the culture ofimpunity”. On July 23 this year, Sanjit, a youngformer insurgent was shot dead by the police ina crowded market, in broad daylight, in one ofImphal’s busiest markets. An innocent by-standerRabina Devi, five months pregnant, caught abullet in her head and fell down dead as well.Her two-year old son, Russell was with her.Several others were wounded.

But for an anonymous photographer whocaptured the sequence of Sanjit’s murder, boththese deaths would have become just anotherstatistic: two of the 265 killed this year. But thephotographs – published in TEHELKA – offereddamning proof. Manipur came to a boil again.

Four months later, people’s anger refusesto subside. With typical ham-handedness, ChiefMinister Ibobi Singh first tried to brazen his waythrough. On the day of Sanjit’s murder, heclaimed in the Assembly that his cops had shotan insurgent in a cross-fire. Later, confronted byTEHELKA’S story, he admitted he had beenmisled by his officers and was forced to set up ajudicial enquiry. However, both he and ManipurDGP Joy Kumar continue to claim thatTEHELKA’s story is a fabrication.

Still, hope sputters in small measure. Overthe past few months, as protests have ragedacross the state, dozens of civil rights activistshave been frivolously arrested under thedraconian National Security Act. Among thesewas a reputed environmental activist, JitenYumnam. On November 23, an independent

Citizens’ Fact Finding Team released a reportcalled Democracy ‘Encountered’: Rights’ Violationsin Manipur and made a presentation to theCentral Home Ministry. A day later, HomeSecretary Gopal Pillai informed KS Subramanian,a former IPS officer and a member of the fact-finding team, that the ministry had revokeddetention under the NSA for ten people,including Jiten. In another tenuously hopefulsign, Home Minister P Chidambaram has saidon record in another TEHELKA interview thathe has recommended several amendments inAFSPA to make it more humane and accountable.These amendments are waiting Cabinet approval.

IN A COMPLEX world, often the solutionto a problem lies in an inspired, unilateral act ofleadership. An act that intuits the moral heart ofa question and proceeds to do what is right —without precondition. Sharmila Irom’s epic fastis such an act. It reaffirms the idea of a just andcivilized society. It refuses to be brutalized in theface of grave and relentless brutality. Her plea issimple: repeal the Armed Forces Special PowersAct. It is unworthy of the idea of the IndianState the founding fathers bequeathed us. It isanti-human.

It is true Manipur is a fractured and violentsociety today. But the solution to that can onlylie in another inspired, unilateral act ofleadership: this time on the part of the State.Eschew pragmatism, embrace the moral act:repeal AFSPA. There will be space beyond tountangle the rest.

But unfortunately, even as the entirecountry laces up to mark the first anniversary ofMumbai 26/11 – a horrific act of extremeviolence and retaliation, we continue to beoblivious of the young woman who respondedto extreme violence with extreme peace.

It is a parable for our times. If the story ofIrom Sharmila does not make us pause, nothingwill. It is a story of extraordinariness.Extraordinary will. Extraordinary simplicity.Extraordinary hope. It is impossible to getyourself heard in our busy age of informationoverload. But if the story of Irom Sharmila willnot make us pause, nothing will.

Courtesy—Tehelka.com


EDITED EXCERPTSThe project is called Forgotten Citizens

Seeking Justice. What is being recalled?I knew of this senior advocate, HS

Phoolka, who had been fighting nearly 100cases related to the 1984 Sikh riots for 28years. Two years ago, I met him at anenvironment conference. This exhibition cameabout when he realised, with only four casesleft, that he had only been dealing withwords and that there was no visual impact.People gave up out of exhaustion and lack ofinitiative. Eyewitnesses died. So Phoolkajicalled some of us and said that we need todraw public attention to this. He, togetherwith the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Lok RajSangathan and a handful of youngvolunteers, put together the exhibition.

How can art agitate for justice?The photographers who captured the

riots are eyewitnesses. Ram Rahman wasthere in Trilokpuri and Sondeep Shankarworked for The Telegraph then. Phoolkaji had30 images with him already. Ram visitedTrilokpuri, especially Block 32 where 400 men— the poorest of the poor carpenters,rickshawallas — had been killed. He had animage of a mother holding the finger of herson. The rioters had cut off the finger toremove the ring after burning the body.Phoolkaji felt that a travelling exhibition was

1984 The Open Wound‘In a riot, two sides clash. This was a massacre’

needed to remind people that this happened,so that it doesn’t happen again. It seemedappropriate to start with Jallianwala Bagh.

What has dominated your memories ofthe 1984 riots?

I have vivid memories of living with mymother in a rented house in Niti Bagh. Ourlandlord was a Supreme Court lawyer and amember of the Rajya Sabha. During the riots,he approached the court and said that aprominent sardarni (my mother) was histenant; hence his house was in danger. Thecourt ordered us to vacate in six months. Wewere without a home, and had to stay in afriend’s drawing room for six months.

We were two women helpless in front ofa powerful man. That’s when you realise howmuch of a minority you are. From a friend’sbalcony I could see the smoke rising from theburnt shops in South Extension in Delhi. Iknew a man, all of 5 feet, nothing with asqueaky voice, who used to give me rides to thestudio on his motorbike. He and his childrenwere killed. By the time we got to his place tosave his wife, she had lost her mind. I workedin the relief camps later, and can’t evendescribe the suffering I saw there. You can’tcall these riots. In a riot, two sides clash. Thiswas a plain and simple massacre.

The campaign includes a petition tothe government for proper investigation and

FORGOTTEN CITIZENS 1984, SEEKING JUSTICE, a travellingphotography exhibition initiated by senior advocate HS Phoolka,commemorated 28 years of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Arpana Caur, 58, artistand one of the organisers, tells Aradhna Wal about the need for publicintervention in cases of marginalisation of minorities and how art mustrecord history to prevent atrocities from happening again.


legal action. Has there been a response tothat?

Art here is used as a tool for recordingmemories. Teesta Setalvad’s activism for theGujarat riots, using art and photography, hasbeen an eye-opener. The judgement set aprecedent and bolstered Phoolkaji’s initiative.If there is protest, if there is media support,then maybe something can happen. Theexhibition has caused people in different citiesto break down. This isn’t driven by anger;it’s a plea for justice. As for the legalresponse, only time will tell.

What has been your own response asa Sikh?

I, like all Sikhs in 1984, feltmarginalised. Your sense of belonging getsdestroyed. The men who killed Mrs Gandhideserved punishment, but not the innocentpoor on the streets. Why wasn’t the Armycalled in on time? Sikhs have always been alarge part of the Indian Army and sacrificed

so much for it because they saw themselvesas Indians first. Such marginalisation createsa feeling of insecurity. All these tarkhans, whoearned Rs 100-200 a day, lost their lives.They were the easy victims. The rich peoplein South Delhi were only looted. But thepoor lost their lives. And that is sick.

In Rwanda, they say forgetting a pastatrocity is the best way to move on. As aculture we memorialise and archive ourcollective tragedies. What is the wisdom ofeither course?

I saw an exhibition on the Rwandagenocide in Germany. A white artist haddone a lot of work on it. The site he chosewas a gas chamber where Jews were killed.It is important to remember. People arehelpless in front of mobs. But if there ismedia awareness, if there is justice, perhapsit won’t happen again. Otherwise, ourcountry is a tinderbox waiting to be lit up.

Courtesy—Tehelka.com

1984

By Davinder Ranu

In the land of democracy and freedom

On the Delhi streets

Thousands of innocent Sikhs were killed

Where was the Indian Government and the police?

Mobs raping the Sikh women

Cutting the young Sikh children in half

Everyone just standing there, having a good laugh

Overnight the killings increased

Went on for days

Mobs cursing at them for being a Sikh

To be a Sikh in “our” country…

Getting murdered is the price you pay


Indian history has usually been divided byEnglish as well as some Indian historians intothree major periods : Ancient or Hindu,Muslim, and the British period. This division isneither intelligent nor correct; it is deceptiveand gives a wrong perspective. It deals morewith the superficial changes at the top thanwith the essential changes in the political,economic, and cultural development of theIndian people. The so-called ancient period isvast and full of change, of growth and decay,and then growth again. What is called theMuslim or medieval period brought anotherchange, and an important one, and yet it wasmore or less confined to the top and did notvitally affect the essential continuity of Indianlife. The invaders who came to India from thenorth-west, like so many of their predecessorsin more ancient times, became absorbed intoIndia and part of her life. Their dynastiesbecamc Indian dynasties and there was a greatdeal of racial fusion by intermarriage. Adeliberate effort was made, apart from a fewexceptions, not to interfere with the ways andcustoms of the people. They looked to India astheir home country and had noother affiliations. India continued to be anindependent country.

The coming of the British made a vitaldifference and the old system was uprooted inmany ways. They brought an entirely differentimpulse from the west, which had slowlydeveloped in Europe from the times of theRenaissance, Reformation, and politicalrevolution in England, and was taking shapein the beginnings of the industrial revolution.The American and French Revolutions were to

The Indo-Afghans. South India.Vijayanagar. Babar. Sea Power

Jawaharlal NehruTHE DISCOVERY OF INDIA

carry this further. The British remained out-siders, aliens and misfits in India, and made noattempt to be otherwise. Above all, for the firsttime in India’s history, her political control wasexercised from outside and her economy wascentered in a distant place. They made Indiaa typical colony of the modern age, a subjectcountry for the first time in her long history.

Mahmud of Ghazni’s invasion of Indiawas certainly a foreign Turkish invasion andresulted in the Punjab being separated from therest of India for a while. The Afghans whocame at the end of the twelfth century weredifferent. They were an Indo-Aryan race closelyallied to the people of India. Indeed, for longstretches of time Afghanistan had been, andwas destined to be, a part of India. Theirlanguage, Pashto, was basically derived fromSanskrit. There are few places in India oroutside which are so full of ancient monumentsand remains of Indian culture, chiefly of theBuddhist period, as Afghanistan. More correctly,the Afghans should be called the Indo-Afghans.They differed in many ways from the people ofthe Indian plains, just as the people of themountain valleys of Kashmir differed from thedwellers of the warmer and flatter regionsbelow. But in spite of this difference Kashmirhad always been and continued to be animportant seat of Indian learning and culture.The Afghans differed also from the more highlycultured and sophisticated Arabs and Persians.They were hard and fierce like their mountainfastnesses, rigid in their faith, warriors notinclined towards intellectual pursuits oradventures of the mind. They behaved to beginwith as conquerors over a rebellious people andwere cruel and harsh.

But soon they toned down. India becametheir home and Delhi was their capital, not


distant Ghazni as in Mahmud’s time.Afghanistan, where they came from, was justan outlying part of their kingdom. The processof Indianization was rapid, and many of themmarried women of the country. One of theirgreat rulers, Alauddin Khilji, himself married aHindu lady, and so did his son. Some of thesubsequent rulers were racially Turks, such asQutb-ud-Din Aibak, the Sultana Razia, andIltutmish; but the nobility and army continuedto be mainly Afghan. Delhi flourished as animperial capital. Ibn Batuta, a famous Arabtraveller from Morocco, who visited manycountries and saw many cities from Cairo andConstantinople to China, described it in thefourteenth century, perhaps with someexaggeration, as ‘one of the greatest cities inthe universe.’

The Delhi Sultanate spread southwards.The Chola kingdom was declining, but in itsplace a new sea-faring power had grown. Thiswas the Pandya kingdom, with its capital atMadura and its port at Kayal on the east coast.It was a small kingdom but a great centre oftrade. Marco Polo twice visited this port onhisway from China, in 1288 and 1293, anddescribed it ‘as a great and noble city,’ full ofships from Arabia and China. He also men-tions the very fine muslins, which ‘look liketissues of a spider’s web’and which were madeon the east coast of India. Marco Polo tells usalso an interesting fact. Large numbers ofhorses were imported by sea from Arabia andPersia into south India. The climate of southIndia was not suited to horse-breeding, andhorses, apart from their other uses, werenecessary for military purposes. The bestbreeding-grounds for horses were in centraland western Asia, and this may well explain,to some extent, the superiority of the centralAsian races in warfare. Chengiz Khan’sMongols were magnificent horsemen and weredevoted to their horses. The Turks were alsofine horsemen, and the love of the Arab for hishorse is well-known. In north and west India

there are some good breeding-grounds forhorses, especially in Kathiawar, and theRajputs are very fond of their horses. Many apetty war was waged for a famous charger.There is a story of a Delhi Sultan admiring thecharger of a Rajput chief and asking him forit. The Hara chief replied to the Lodi king:‘There are three things you must not ask of aRajput : his horse, his mistress, or his sword,’and he galloped away. There was troubleafterwards.

Late in the fourteenth century, Timur, theTurk or Turco-Mongol, came down from thenorth and smashed up the Delhi Sultanate. Hewas only a few months in India; he came toDelhi and went back . But all along his routehe created a wilderness adorned with pyramidsof skulls of those he had slain; and Delhi itselfbecame a city of the dead. Fortunately, he didnot go far and only some parts of the Punjaband Delhi had to suffer this terrible affliction.

It took many years for Delhi to wake upfrom this sleep of death and even when it wokeup it was no longer the capital of a greatempire. Timur’s visit had broken that empireand out of it had arisen a number of states inthe south. Long before this, early in thefourteenth century, two gerat states had risen—Gulbarga, called the Bahmani kingdom,1 andthe Hindu kingdom of Vijaya- nagar. Gulbarganow split up into five states, one of these beingAhmadnagar. Ahmad Nizam Shah, the founderof Ahmadnagar in 1490, was the son ofNizam-ul-Mulk Bhairi, a minister of theBahmani kings. This Nizam-ul-Mulk was theson of a Brahmin accountant named Bhairu(from which his name Bhairi). Thus theAhmednagar dynasty was of indigenous origin,and Chand Bibi, the heroine of Ahmednagar,had mixed blood. All the Muslim states in thesouth were indigenous and Indianized.

After Timur’s sack of Delhi, north Indiaremained weak and divided up. South Indiawas better off and the largest andmost powerful of the southern kingdoms was


Vijayanagar. This state and city attracted manyof the Hindu refugees from the north. Fromcontemporary accounts it appears that the citywas rich and very beautiful. ‘The city is suchthat eye has note seen nor ear heard of anyplace resembling it upon the whole earth,’ saysAbdur-Razzak, from central Asia. There werearcades and magnificent galleries for thebazaars, and rising above them all wasthe palace of the king, surrounded by ‘manyrivulets and streams flowing through channelsof cut stone, polished and even.’ The whole citywas full of gardens and because of them, as anItalian visitor in 1420, Nicolo Conti, writes, thecircumference of the city was sixty miles. Alater visitor was Paes, a Portuguese who camein 1522 after having visited the Italian cities ofthe Renaissance. The city of Vijayanagar, hesays, is as ‘large as Rome and very beautiful tothe sight’; it is full of charm and wonder withits innumerable lakes and waterways and fruitgardens. It is ‘the best-provided city in theworld’ and ‘everything abounds.’ The chambersof the palace were a mass of ivory, with rosesand lotuses carved in ivory at the top—’it is sorich and beautiful that you would hardly findany where another such.’ Of the ruler, KrishnaDeva Raya, Paes writes: ‘He is the most fearedand perfect king that could possibly be,cheerful of disposition and very merry; he isone that seek to honour foreigners, and receivesthem kindly, asking about all their affairswhatever their condition may be.’

While Vijayanagar was flourishing in thesouth, the petty sultanate of Delhi had to meeta new foe. Yet another invader came downfrom the northern mountains and on thefamous battlefield of Panipat, near Delhi, whereso often India’s fate has been decided, he wonthe throne of Delhi in 1526. This was Babar, aTurco-Mongol and a prince of the Timurid linein central Asia. With him begins the MughalEmpire of India.

Babar ’s success was probably due notonly to the weakness of the Delhi Sultanate but

to his possessing a new and improved type ofartillery which was not in use in India then.From this period onwards India seems to lagbehind in the developing science of warfare. Itwould be more correct to say that the wholeof Asia remained where it was while Europewas advancing in this science. The greatMughal Empire, powerful as it was in India for200 years, probably could not compete on equalterms with European armies from theseventeenth century onwards. But no Europeanarmy could come to India unless it had controlover the sea routes. The major change thatwas taking place during these centuries was thedevelopment of European sea power. With thefall of the Chola kingdom in the south in thethirteenth century, Indian sea power declinedrapidly. The small Pandya state, thoughintimately connected with the sea, was notstrong enough. The Indian colonies, however,still continued to hold command over theIndian Ocean till the fifteenth century, whenthey were ousted by the Arabs, who were soonto be followed by the Portuguese.

Synthesis and Growth of Mixed CulturePurdah. Kabir. Guru Nanak. Amir Khusrau

It is thus wrong and misleading to talk ofa Muslim invasion of India or of the Muslimperiod in India, just as it would be wrong torefer to the coming of the British to India as aChristian invasion, or to call the British periodin India a Christian period. Islam did notinvade India; it had come to India somecenturies earlier. There was a Turkish invasion(Mahmud’s), and an Afghan invasion, and thena Turco-Mongol or Mughal invasion, and ofthese the two latter were important. TheAfghans might well be considered a borderIndian group, hardly strangers to India, and theperiod of their political dominance should becalled the Indo-Afghan period. The Mughalswere outsiders and strangers to India and yetthey fitted into the Indian structure withremarkable speed and began the Indo-Mughalperiod.


Through choice or circumstances or both,the Afghan rulers and those who had comewith them, merged into India. Their dynastiesbecame completely Indianized with their rootsin India, looking upon India as their homeland,and the rest of the word as foreign. In spite ofpolitical conflict, they were generally consideredas such and many even of the Rajput princesaccepted them as their over-lords. But there wereother Rajput chiefs who refused to submit andthere were fierce conflicts. Feroze Shah, one ofthe well-known Sultans of Delhi, had a Hindumother; so had Ghyas-ud-Din Tughlak. Suchmarriages between the Afghans, Turkish and theHindu nobility were not frequent, but they didtake place. In the south the Muslim ruler ofGulbarga married a Hindu princess ofVijayanagar with great pomp and ceremony.

It appears that in the Muslim countries ofcentral and western Asia Indians had a goodreputation. As early as the eleventh century, thatis, before the Afghan conquest, a Muslimgeographer, Idrisi, wrote : ‘The Indians arenaturally inclined to justice, and never departfrom it in their actions. Their good faith, honestyand fidelity to their engagements are well-known, and they are so famous for thesequalities that people flock to their country fromevery side.’2

An efficient administration grew up andcommunications were especially improved,chiefly for military reasons. Government wasmore centralized now though it took care notto interfere with local customs. Sher Shah (whointervened during the early Mughal period) wasthe ablest among the Afghan rulers. He laid thefoundations of a revenue system which waslater to be expanded by Akbar. Raja Todar Mal,Akbar ’s famous revenue minister, was firstemployed by Sher Shah. Hindu talent wasincreasingly used by the Afghan rulers.

The effect of the Afghan conquest on Indiaand Hinduism was two-fold, each developmentcontradicting the other. The immediate reactionwas an exodus of people to the south, away

from the areas under Afghan rule. Those whoremained became more rigid and exclusive,retired into their shells, and tried to protectthemselves from foreign ways and influences byhardening the caste system. On the other hand,there was a gradual and hardly consciousapproach towards these foreign ways both inthought and life. A synthesis worked itself out:new styles of architecture arose; food andclothing changed; and life was affected andvaried in many other ways. This synthesis wasespecially marked in music, which, following itsold Indian classical pattern, developed in manydirections. The Pesrian language became theofficial court language and many Persian wordscrept into popular use. At the same time thepopular languages were developed.

Among the unfortunate developments thattook place in India was the growth of purdahor the seclusion of women. Why this shouldhave been so is not clear but somehow it didresult from the inter-action of the new elementson the old. In India there had been previouslysome segregation of the sexes among thearistocracy, as in many other countries andnotably in ancient Grcece. Some suchsegregation existed in ancient Iran also and tosome extent all over western Asia. But nowherewas there any strict seclusion of women.Probably this started in the Byzantine courtcircles where eunuchs were employed to guardthe women’s apartments. Byzantine influencetravelled to Russia where there was a fairlystrict seclusion of women right up to Peter theGreat’s time. This had nothing to do with theTartars who, it is well established, did notsegregate their women-folk. The mixed Arab-Persian civilization was affected in many waysby Byzantine customs and possibly thesegregation of upper-class women grew to someextent. Yet, even so, there was no strictseclusion of women in Arabia or in other partsof western or central Asia. The Afghans, whocrowded into northern India after the captureof Delhi, had no strict purdah. Turkish and


Afghan princesses and ladies of the court oftenwent riding, hunting, and paying visits. It is anold Islamic custom, still to be observed, thatwomen must keep their laces unveiled duringthe Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Purdah seems tohave grown in India during Mughal times, whenit became a mark of status and prestige amongboth Hindus and Muslims.This custom ofseclusion of women spread especially among theupper classes of those areas where Musliminfluence had been most marked—in the greatcentral and eastern block comprising Delhi, theUnited Provinces, Rajputana, Bihar, and Bengal.And yet it is odd that purdah has not been verystrict in the Punjab and in the Frontier Province,which are predominantly Muslim. In the southand west of India there has been no suchseclusion of women, except to some extentamong the Muslims.

I have no doubt at all that among thecauses of India’s decay in recent centuries,purdah, or the seclusion of women, holds animportant place. I am even more convinced thatthe complete ending of this barbarous customis essential before India can have a progressivesocial life. That it injures women is obviousenough, but the injury to man, to the growingchild who has to spend much of its time amongwomen in purdah, and to social life generallyis equally great. Fortunately this evil practice isfast disappearing among the Hindus, moreslowly among the Muslims.

The strongest factor in this liquidation ofpurdah has been the Congress political andsocial movements which have drawn tens ofthousands of middle-class women into somekind of public activity. Gandhiji has been, andis, a fierce opponent of purdah and has calledit a ‘vicious and brutal custom’ which has keptwomen backward and undeveloped. ‘I thoughtof the wrong being done by men to the womenof India by clinging to a barbarous customwhich, whatever use it might have had whenit was first introduced, had now become totallyuseless and was doing incalculable harm to the

country.’ Gandhiji urged that woman shouldhave the “same’ liberty and opportunity of self-development as man. ‘Good sense must governthe relations between the two sexes. Thereshould be no barrier erected between them.Their mutual behaviour should be natural andspontaneous.’ Gandhiji has indeed written andspoken with passion in favour of women’sequality and freedom, and has bitterlycondemned their domestic slavery.

I have digressed and made a sudden jumpto modern times, and must go back to themedieval period after the Afghans hadestablished themselves in Delhi and a synthesiswas working itself out between old ways andnew. Most of these changes took place at thetop, among the nobility and upper classes, anddid not affect the mass of the population,especially the rural masses. They originated incourt circles and spread in the cities and urbanareas. Thus began a process which was tocontinue for several centuries, of developing amixed culture in north India. Delhi, and whatare known now as the United Provinces, becamethe centre of this, just as they had been, andstill continued to be, the centre of the old Aryanculture. But much of this Aryan culture driftedto the south, which became a stronghold ofHindu orthodoxy.

After the Delhi Sultanate had weakenedowing to Timur’sincursion, a small Muslim stategrew up in Jaunpur (in the United Provinces).Right through the fifteenth century this was acentre of art and culture and toleration inreligion. The growing popular language, Hindi,was encouraged, and an attempt was evenmade to bring about a synthesis between thereligious faiths of the Hindus and the Muslims.About this time in far Kashmir in the north anindependent Muslim King, Zainul-abdin, alsobecame famous for his toleration and hisencourage-ment of Sanskrit learning and the oldculture.

All over India this new ferment wasworking and new ideas were troubling people’s


minds. As of old, India was sub-consciouslyreacting to the new situation, trying to absorbthe foreign element and herself changingsomewhat in the process. Out of this fermentarose new types of reformers who deliberatelypreached this synthesis and often condemnedor ignored the caste system. There was theHindu Ramanand in the south, in the fifteenthcentury, and his still more famous discipleKabir, a Muslim weaver of Benares. Kabir ’spoems and songs became, and still are,very popular. In the north there was GuruNanak, who is considered the founder ofSikhism. The influence of these reformers wentfar beyond the limits of the particular sects thatgrew up after them. Hinduism as a whole feltthe impact of the new ideas, and Islam in Indiaalso became somewhat different from what itwas elsewhere. The fierce monotheism of Islaminfluenced Hinduism and the vague pantheisticattitude of the Hindu had its effect on theIndian Muslim. Most of these Indian Muslimswere converts brought up in and surroundedby the old traditions; only a comparativelysmall number of them had come from outside.Muslim mysticism, and Sufism, which probablyhad it beginnings in neo-Platonism, grew.

Perhaps the most significant indication ofthe growing absorption of the foreign elementin India was its use of the popular language ofthe country, even though Persian continued tobe the court language. There are many notablebooks written by the early Muslims in Hindi.The most famous of these writers was AmirKhusrau, a Turk whose family had settled inthe United Provinces for two or threegenerations and who lived in the fourteenthcentury during the reigns of several Afghan Sul-tans. He was a poet of the first rank inPersian, and he knew Sanskrit also. He was agreat musician and introduced manyinnovations in Indian music. He is also said tohave invented the sitar, the popular stringedinstrument of India. He wrote on manysubjects and, in particular, in praise of India,

1. The name and origin of the BahmaniKingdom of the South is interesting. Thefounder of this state was an Afghan Muslimwho had a Hindu patron in his early days—Gangu Brahmin. In gratitude to him he eventook his name and his dynasty was called theBahmani (from Brahmin) dynasty.

2. From Sir H. M. Elliot’s ‘History of India’,Vol. 1, p. 88.

enumerating the various things in which Indiaexcelled. Among these were religion,philosophy, logic, language, and grammar(Sanskrit), music, mathematics, science and themango fruit!

But his fame in India rests, above all, onhis popular songs, written in the ordinaryspoken dialect of Hindi. Wisely he did notchoose the literary medium which would havebeen understood by a small coterie only; hewent to the villager not only for his languagebut for his customs and ways of living. Hesang of the different seasons and each season,according to the old classical style of India, hadits own appropriate tune and words; he sangof life in its various phases, of the coming ofthe bride, of separation from the beloved, of therains when life springs anew from the parchedearth. Those songs are still widely sung andmay be heard in any village or town innorthern or central India. Especially when therainy season begins and in every village bigswings are hung from the branches of themango or the peepul trees, and all the villagegirls and boys gather together to celebrate theoccasion.

Amir Khusrau was the author also ofinnumerable riddles and conundrums whichare very popular with children as well asgrown-ups. Even during his long life Khusrau’ssongs and riddles had made him famous. Thatreputation has continued and grown. I do notknow if there is any other instance any whereof songs written 600 years ago maintainingtheir popularity and their mass appeal andbeing still sung without any change of words.


IIIAll peoples present, to ethnologists who liveamong them, distinct individualities, as indeeddo animals. Among the Australian aborigines,as Gillen and Spencer have observed, menacquire reputations for special types of sociallyuseful dexterity and exercise it to an extentwhich shows that differentiation already exists.Some division of labour has appeared but it isstill mainly genetic. It is not produced by acomplex which moulds each generation, andleads to the formation of a class.

Thus, as a rough type of the matrix inwhich poetry was born, we take the averagefood-gathering or hunting tribe of today werepoetry is charm, prayer and history. Thisundifferentiated group shares social functionsand therefore thoughts in common, and isbound by that ‘primitive passive sympathy’which Kohler has observed in anthropoid apes,and which McDougall considers a specifichuman instinct. With this group appears aheightened language, the common vehicle of allthat seems worthy of preservation in theexperience of men.

We must think of this language, not as itlooks recorded in arid script, but as it wasoriginally born, and as from age to age it livedits group life, accompanied by the rhythmicbeating of drums, by dance and gesture, by theviolent emotions of the group festival, afountain of tradition in which not only theliving group participated, but also all the ghostsof dead ancestors which are a tribe’s chiefstrength. From this undifferentiated society theclass-types proper to the priest, lawyer,administrator and soldier arise by division oflabour, and, in the same way, the heightened

language of the primitive corroboree splits intoscience, history, theology, law, economics andother appropriate divisions of cultural capital.In doing so each department evolves a specialphraseology and method of literary attackwhich not only differs from those of otherdepartments but also from those of spokenspeech. But the departments are not watertightcompartments. Their development affects eachother and also spoken speech, mutually andcontinuously, because all are rooted in the onedeveloping complex of real social life.

For the sake of convenience we talk ofheightened language. But at this stage theadjective should not be allowed to carry anytincture of a value-judgment. For any givenpeople at any given stage of evolution theprecise heightening adopted can be defined inobjective terms of prosody, musical orchoreographic accompaniment or the use ofspecial words not permitted for profanepurpose. As yet we have found no reason whyan imposed rhythm should improve alanguage. The reading of almost any manual ofprosody will give grounds for supposing thatpoetry is inferior to unhampered speech as avehicle of expression, but we claim as yetneither superiority nor inferiority for prosody,only a qualitative difference, and if it be askedwhy the language should be made different ifit was not intended to make it better, ananswer can be given. The function of rhythmmay be purely mnemonic. This is evidently thecase in rhymed wisdom such as :

Red at night,The shepherd’s delight.Red in the morning,The shepherd’s warning,

or

CHAPTER I

The Birth of Poetry

Christopher Caudwell


Ne’er cast a cloutTill May is out.It was at one time supposed that the

‘faculty of attention’ was weak in primitivepeoples, and that the rhythmic pattern held theirwandering attention. Few modernanthropologists would accept this view.Attention is not a ‘faculty’ but an instinctivecomponent of psychic life, and if anything ismore powerful where intelligence is less. A catstalking a bird, or an Eskimo watching a sealblow-hole, show at least as much attention asa modern scientist watching an experiment. Onany matter that interests them-a ritual, dramaticperformance or a hunt-primitive peoples showgreater capacity for sustained attention thanmore civilized groups. Rivers has recorded how,during his researches among the Melanesians,he found that an interrogation which left himexhausted and mentally dispersed, found hissource of information still fresh and ready tokeep up the supply. Yet as between two civilizedpeople, it is almost invariably the interrogated,rather than the interrogator, who tires first.

We call the primitive’s heightenedlanguage, which is as it were speech inceremonial dress, poetry, and we saw how inthe course of evolution it became prosaic andbranched into history, philosophy, theology, thestory and drama. This raises a question whetherpoetry was ever anything but a reflection of theundifferentiated economy in which it was born,and whether poetry in its own right has nowany real justification for existence. The fact thatit still continues to exist is no complete answer,since evolution is full of vestigial organs, andpoetry may be one of these. Poetry has anincreasingly small ‘public’. Alone in literature,it clings tenaciously to heightened language.This might be merely the stigma of degeneration,as if poetry, like a mental deficient, still babbledin a childish tongue outgrown by the rest ofthe family, which has had to earn its living inan adult world.

We know there is a certain accident in the

survival of poetry. Men speak, tell ancient tales,repeat bits of wisdom, and this vanishes. Poetryin its heightened language survives, andtherefore we think of it as ‘literature’ makingtoo artificial a separation from the rest of socialspeech. This in turn may lead us to overlookwhy poetry has a heightened language, why itsurvives, why it has a relative changelessnessand eternity.

Primitive poetry is not so much the matrixof subsequent ‘literature’, as one pole of it.Because of its collective and traditional nature,it is the one which survives, and leads us, whosee in it the sole literature of a primitive people,to imagine a kind of golden age in which eventhe oracles speak the language of epics.

What is the nature of this other pole? Amodern mind, surveying, the primitive scene,and noticing all the vague aspirations, religiousphantasies, mythological cosmologies andcollective emotions collecting at the pole ofrhythmical language, would be disposed to thinkof the other pole as the scientific pole. Thiswould be the pole of pure statement, ofcollections of facts uncoloured by emotion¨pedigrees, astronomical calculations, censusesand all other literary productions which aim ata strong grasp of simple reality.

But science is not likely to seem theopposite of poetry to the primitive mind. He doesnot know of science as a branch of literature.He knows science only as a practice, atechnique, a way of building boats and plantingtrees which can best and most easily be learnedthrough a kind of dumb imitation, because thepractice is common to all the members of a tribe.The idea of a statement devoid of prejudice andintended only to be the cold vehicle of sheerreality is quite alien to that mind. Wordsrepresent power, almost magical power, and thecold statement seems to divest them of thispower and substitute a mirror-image of externalreality. But what difference, save of inferiority,is there between the real object and its mirror-image? The image of reality which the primitive


seeks in words is of a different kind: it is amagic puppet image, such as one makes ofone’s enemies. By operating on it, one operateson reality.

The primitive would defend in this wayhis lack of interest in the ‘photographic’ scientificstatement. It is a late abstraction in the historyof thought, a limit to which all sciences work,but only fully achieve in their mathematiccontent, perhaps not even then, except in so faras it is translated into the logistic of PrincipiaMathematica.

This colourless statement is alien to a mindshaped by primitive culture, and the primitivedoes not understand language without apurpose. The purpose of rhythmical languageis obvious-to give him that feeling of internalstrength, of communication with the gods, thatkeeps him in good heart, the purpose of non-rhythmical language is equally obvious. Thereis no question of finding a function for it. Thefunction itself, as in all biological development,created the organ and was shaped by it. Theneed to extend his personality, to bring it to bearon his neighbours, to bend their volitions intoharmony with his, whether in flight, immobilityor attack, would have given birth to the gesturesand then the grunts which finally becamearticulate speech. Indeed Sir Richard Paget’splausible theory of the origin of human speechis based on the assumption that man, withtongue and other movable portions of his vocalorgans, attempted to imitate in gesture theimages he wished to impose on his fellows’minds.

The function of non-rhythmical language,then, was to persuade. Born as a personalfunction, as extension of one individual volition,it can be contrasted with the collective spirit ofrhythmical language, which draws in primitivesociety all its power from its collectiveappearance. Poetry’s very rhythm makes itsgroup celebration more easy, as for example inan infants’ class, which imposes prosody uponthe multiplication table it recites, making

mathematics poetical.As with all polar opposites the two

interpenetrate, but on the whole the non-rhythmical language, based on every-dayspeech, is the language of private persuasion,and rhythmical language, the language ofcollective speech, is the language of publicemotion. This is the most important differencein language at the level of primitive culture

IVPoetry is characteristically song, and song

is characteristically something which, because ofits rhythm, is sung in unison, is capable of beingthe expression of a collective emotion. This isone of the secrets of ‘heightened’ language.

But why should the tribe need a collectiveemotion? The approach of a tiger, of a foe, ofrain, of an earthquake will instinctively elicit aconditioned and collective response. All will bemenaced, all will fear. Any instrument toproduce such a collective emotion is thereforeunnecessary in such situations. The triberesponds dumbly, like a frightened herd of deer.

But such an instrument is sociallynecessary when no visible or tangible causeexists, and yet such a cause is potential. This ishow poetry grows out of the economic life of atribe, and how illusion grows out of reality.

Unlike the life of beasts, the life of thesimplest tribe requires a series of efforts whichare not instinctive, but which are demanded bythe necessities of a non-biological economic aim-for example a harvest. Hence the instincts mustbe harnessed to the needs of the harvest by asocial mechanism. An important part of thismechanism is the group festival, the matrix ofpoetry, which frees the stores of emotion andcanalises them in a collective channel. The realobject, the tangible aim-a harvest-becomes in thefestival a phantastic object. The real object isnot here now. The phantastic object in here now-in phantasy. As man by the violence of thedance, the screams of the music and thehypnotic rhythm of the verse is alienated frompresent reality, which does not contain the


unshown harvest, so he is projected into thephantastic world in which these thingsphantastically exist. That world becomes morereal, and even when the music dies away theungrown harvest has a greater reality for him,spurring him on to the labours necessary for itsaccomplishment.

Thus poetry, combined with dance, ritual,and music, becomes the great switchboard ofthe instinctive energy of the tribe, directing itinto trains of collective actions whose immediatecauses or gratifications are not in the visual fieldand which are not automatically decided byinstinct.

It is necessary to prepare the ground forharvest. It is necessary to set out on anexpedition of war. It is necessary to retrench andretract in the long scarcity of winter. Thesecollective obligations demand from man theservice of his instinctive energy, yet there is noinstinct which tells him to give them. Ants andbees store instinctively; but man does not.Beavers construct instinctively; not man. It isnecessary to harness man’s instincts to the millof labour, to collect his emotions and direct theminto the useful, the economic channel. Justbecause it is economic, i.e. non-instinctive, thisinstinct must be directed. The instrument whichdirects them is therefore economic in origin.

How can these emotions be collected?Words, in ordinary social life, have acquiredemotional associations for each man. Thesewords are carefully selected, and the rhythmicalarrangement makes it possible to chant them inunison, and release their emotional associationsin all the vividness of collective existence. Musicand the dance cooperate to produce analienation from reality which drives on thewhole machine of society. Between the momentswhen the emotion is generated and raised to alevel where it can produce ‘work’, it does notdisappear. The tribal individual is changed byhaving participated in the collective illusion. Heis educated-i.e. adapted to tribal life. The feastsor corroborees are crises of adaptation-some

general and intended to last throughout life,such as the initiation or marriage ceremonies,others regularly renewed or directed to specialends, such as the harvest and war festivals ormid-winter Saturnalias.

But this collective emotion organised by artat the tribal festival, because it sweetens workand is generated by the needs of labour, goesout again into labour to lighten it. The primitiveconducts such collective tasks as hoeing,paddling, ploughing, reaping and hauling to arhythmic chant which has an artistic contentrelated to the needs of the task, and expressingthe collective emotion behind the task.

The increasing division of labour, whichincludes also its increasing organisation, seemsto produce a movement of poetry away fromconcrete living, so that art appears to be inopposition to work, a creation of leisure. Thepoet is typically now the solitary individual; hisexpression, the lyric. The division of labour hasled to a class society, in which consciousness hasgathered at the pole of the ruling class, whoserule eventually produces the conditions foridleness. Hence art ultimately is completelyseparated from work, with disastrous results toboth, which can only be healed by the endingof classes. But meanwhile the movement hasgiven rise to a rich development of technique.

These emotions, generated collectively,persist in solitude so that one man, alongsinging a song, still feels his emotions stirred bycollective images. He is already exhibiting thatparadox of art-man withdrawing from hisfellows into the world of art, only to enter moreclosely into communion with humanity. Oncemade fluid, this collective emotion of poetic artcan pervade the most individual and privatetransactions. Sexual love, spring, a sunset, thesong of the nightingale and the ancientfreshness of the rose are enriched by all thecomplex history of emotions and experienceshared in common by a thousand generations.None of these reactions is instinctive, thereforenone is personal. To the monkey, or the man


reared like Mowgli by a wolfish foster-mother,the rose would be something perhaps edible, abright colour. To the poet it is the rose of Keats,of Anacreon, of Hafiz, of Ovid and of JulesLaforgue. For this world of art is the world ofsocial emotion-of words and images which havegathered, as a result of the life experiences ofall, emotional associations common to all, andits increasing complexity reflects the increasingelaboration of social life.

The emotions common to all change withthe development of society. The primitive food-gathering or hunting tribe projects himself intoNature to find there his own desires. He changeshimself socially to conform with Nature. Hencehis art is naturalistic and perceptive. It is thevivid drawings of Palaeolithic man or the bird-and animal-mimicking dances and songs of theAustralian aborigine. Its sign is the totem-theman really Nature. Its religion is mana.

The crop-raising and herd rearing tribe isan advance on this. It takes Nature into itselfand changes Nature to conform with its owndesired by domestication and taming. Its art isconventional and conative. It is the arbitrarydecoration of Neolithic man or the elaboraterituals of African or Polynesian tribes. Its signis the corn-god or the beast-god –Nature reallyman. Its religion is one of fetishes and spirits.

The introduction of nature into the tribeleads to a division of labour and so to theformation of chiefs, priests and ruling classes.The choreagus detaches himself from the ritualand becomes an actor-an individual. The artdepicts noble persons as well as gods. Thechorus becomes an epic-a collective tale aboutindividuals-and, finally, the lyric-an individualutterance, Man, already conscious, first of hisdifference, and then of his unity with Nature,now becomes conscious of his internaldifferences, because for the first time conditionsexist for their realisation.

Thus the developing complex of society, inits struggle with the environment, secretespoetry as it secretes the technique of harvest,

as part of its non-biological and specificallyhuman adaptation to existence. The tool adaptsthe land to a new function, without changingthe inherited shape of the hands of humanity.The poem adapts the heart to a new purpose,without changing the eternal desires of men’shearts. It does so by projecting man into a worldof phantasy which is superior to his presentreality precisely because it is a world of superiorreality-a world of more important reality not yetrealised, whose realisation demands the verypoetry which phantastically anticipates it. Hereis room for every error, for the poem proposessomething whose very reason for poeticaltreatment is that we cannot touch, smell or tasteit yet. But only by means of this illusion can bebrought into being a reality which would nototherwise exist. Without the ceremonyphantastically portraying the granaries burstingwith grain, the pleasures and delights of harvest,men would not face the hard labour necessaryto bring it into being. Sweetened with a harvestsong, the work goes well. Just because poetry iswhat it is, it exhibits a reality beyond the realityit brings to birth and nominally portrays, areality which though secondary is yet higherand more complex. For poetry describes andexpresses not so much the grain in itsconcreteness, the harvest in its factual essence-which it helps to realise and which are theconditions for its own existence-but theemotional, social and collective complex whichis that tribe’s relation to the harvest. It expressesa whole new world of truth-its emotion, itscomradeship, its sweat, its long-drawn-out waitand happy consummation-which has beenbrought into being by the fact that man’srelation to the harvest is not instinctive andblind but economic and conscious. Not poetry’sabstract statement-its content of facts-but itsdynamic role in society-its content of collectiveemotion-is therefore poetry’s truth.

To be Continued...Courtesy—Illusion and Reality


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