I took a little time to reply, Sir, as this strikes to the core of our existence as a nation.
We exist, all 26 states, and all the languages on our currency notes, Hindu Saiva, Hindu Vaishnava and Hindu Shakta, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Muslim Sunni, Muslim Shia, Syrian Christian, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant, and animist, in this distracting hodge-podge of a country, safe and secure in our lives only when we are under the protection of the rule of law. What is happening to us just at the moment is momentary; there have been bad moments in our past, and they have passed. Those were centuries ago, but the essence of that unjust social substance floating free in our society still poisons our existence. It is the rule of law that shields us, that serves as a shield between us and the bad people who would harm us. Some would say, being wiser than others, that those are good people with a bad upbringing; that it is the values that have been shoved down their throats that make them behave badly. Maybe they are bad; maybe they are good but behaving badly; the fact remains that they are a nuisance, and more than a nuisance. People have died because of them, and people have died to defend them while they despise and oppress the kinsfolk of those martyrs. So what should we do about them?
You probably know already that India has had a history of socialist and revolutionary thinking about the oppressions of society, from Bhagat Singh onwards, down to our present-day Naxalite Marxist-Leninist-Maoists. We have had violent movements by them, first, in the resistance to the Nizam's rule, then, as it ended, that movement of the Communists segued into the armed battles between peasant and tenant farmers and the landlords in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and West Bengal, battles in which the Army was on occasion called out to defend the civil authority, battles avoided in many other places by quick and drastic land reforms. At one time, from our rooftop in south Calcutta, I was able to see the city as far as the eye could see punctuated by flares of light and explosions, as extremists battled the police for control. Several dozen policemen died; the papers, The Hindu from Madras, the Times of India from Bombay, the Hindustan Times from Delhi, many others from various other locations, spoke with pessimism and foreboding about the loss of whole tracts of the country to Marxist violence.
That movement failed. It failed because its measures and Indian social conditions were not mutually supportive. What they were trying to do did not have the support of society, not of agricultural society nor of industrial society. Most of all, we learned to hate the smell of blood that hung around these movements, blood shed by them, and blood shed by the state agencies. Those who support autonomy and more for Kashmir speak with emotion and deep sympathy about the oppression of people in their daily lives by security agencies; the fact is that in huge parts of our country, the violence of the left has been suppressed in some areas, held at bay in others by the violence of the state. There was no mandate from the people of India for social violence and maiming and killing the backward elements that bullied minorities and the weaker sex. What we see is the antics of the fringe elements of the religious right as they revel in the unexpected freedom of action that several state governments in the Hindi heartland has given them. This is temporary; in certain states, the rising tide of communal violence has already been given a stinging rebuke by the electorate, and the complaisant governments that encouraged them have been thrown out.
If we fall prey to our emotions and fight violence with violence, then the deaths of martyrs like Gouri Lankesh, and, before her, Kalburagi, Pansare and Dabholkar, will have been in vain. They were rationalists; if we fight unreason with unreason, if they had been alive, it would have broken their hearts.
All that you say is right. Regressive forces have always tried to impose their views and values on an unwilling society by brute force, by hunting people in packs and picking on isolated individuals and couples. They do not have a mandate from society, any more than the Communists did, any more than the corruption of the Congress in numerous instances did. Just as the Communists are being isolated in state after state - the CPI is no longer recognised by the Indian Election Commission as a 'national' party, and it seems that the CPM will soon also disappear - and just as the Congress has had to refresh its vision and rework its political position (a work in progress), the BJP and the Sangh Parivar will have to apologise to the Indian elector as they find that the electorate can see through verbal gymnastics, and personal attacks are increasingly resented and negated by the unfortunates who are increasingly isolated from the real world. Ultimately, India heals itself, with a little help. It is that little help that we need to provide, and your good wishes and moral support will count a lot.
