आशीष नंदी के खिलाफ़ गुजरात में मुकदमा, दिल्ली हाईकोर्ट ने नंदी की याचिका खारिज की

मित्रो, 
8 जनवरी 2008 को टाइम्स ऑफ़ इंडिया के संपादकीय पृष्ठ पर प्रकाशित यही वह लेख है जिसके आधार पर गुजरात सरकार ने एक एनजीओ के माध्यम से राजनीतिक मनोवैज्ञानिक लेखक आशीष नंदी के खिलाफ़ धारा 153 (ए) और 153 (बी) के तहत मुकदमा दायर किया है.

डॉ नंदी पर सांप्रदायिक वैमनष्य फैलाने और राज्य की ग़लत छवि पेश करने जैसे आरोप लगाए गए हैं.

हालांकि सुप्रीम कोर्ट उनकी गिरफ्तारी पर पहले ही रोक लगा चुका है, लेकिन पिछले 1 सितम्बर 2010  को दिल्ली हाईकोर्ट ने गुजरात सरकार द्वारा मुकदमा चलाने के खिलाफ़ दायर डॉ आशीष नंदी की याचिका को खारिज कर दिया.
 

याद रहे दिसंबर 2007 में गुजरात विधानसभा चुनाव परिणाम आने के बाद डॉ नंदी ने  यह लेख लिखा था जिसमें नरेन्द्र मोदी फिर से चुनाव जीतकर गुजरात के मुख्यमंत्री बने थे.

मेरा मानना है कि आशीष नंदी के खिलाफ़ गुजरात सरकार द्वारा की गई यह कार्रवाई गुजरात दंगे का विरोध करनेवाले बुद्धिजीवियों को सबक सिखाने का एक घृणित कृत्य है.

जिस लेखक ने अपनी ज़िन्दगी के 73 साल समाज को जोड़ने के लिए न्यौछावर कर दिया हो उनके खिलाफ़ इस तरह का मुकदमा दर्ज करना क़ानून का दुरुपयोग करना है.

गुजरात सरकार की यह कार्रवाई यदि लेखकों-कलाकारों और बुद्धिजीवियों के मुंह चुप कराने की हिमाकत है तो क्या इसके खिलाफ़ मुहिम नहीं चलाई जानी चाहिए?

-शशिकांत 

LEADER ARTICLE: Blame The Middle Class

By Ashis Nandy, Jan 8, 2008


Now that the dust has settled over the Gujarat elections, we can afford to defy the pundits and admit that, even if Narendra Modi had lost the last elections, it would not have made much difference to the culture of Gujarat politics. Modi had already done his job. Most of the state's urban middle class would have remained mired in its inane versions of communalism and parochialism and the VHP and the Bajrang Dal would have continued to set the tone of state politics. Forty years of dedicated propaganda does pay dividends, electorally and socially.

The Hindus and the Muslims of the state — once bonded so conspicuously by language, culture and commerce — have met the demands of both V D Savarkar and M A Jinnah. They now face each other as two hostile nations. The handful of Gujarati social and political activists who resist the trend are seen not as dissenters but as treacherous troublemakers who should be silenced by any means, including surveillance, censorship and direct violence. As a result, Gujarati cities, particularly its educational institutions are turning cultural deserts. Gujarat has already disowned the Indian Constitution and the state apparatus has adjusted to the change.

The Congress, the main opposition party, has no effective leader. Nor does it represent any threat to the mainstream politics of Gujarat. The days of grass-roots leaders like Jhinabhai Darji are past and a large section of the party now consists of Hindu nationalists. The national leadership of the party does not have the courage to confront Modi over 2002, given its abominable record of 1984.

The Left is virtually non-existent in Gujarat. Whatever minor presence it once had among intellectuals and trade unionists is now a vague memory. The state has disowned Gandhi, too; Gandhian politics arouses derision in middle-class Gujarat. Except for a few valiant old-timers, Gandhians have made peace with their conscience by withdrawing from the public domain. Gandhi himself has been given a saintly, Hindu nationalist status and shelved. Even the Gujarati translations of his Complete Works have been stealthily distorted to conform to the Hindu nationalist agenda.

Gujarati Muslims too are "adjusting" to their new station. Denied justice and proper compensation, and as second-class citizens in their home state, they have to depend on voluntary efforts and donor agencies. The state's refusal to provide relief has been partly met by voluntary groups having fundamentalist sympathies. They supply aid but insist that the beneficiaries give up Gujarati and take to Urdu, adopt veil, and send their children to madrassas. Events like the desecration of Wali Gujarati's grave have pushed one of India's culturally richest, most diverse, vernacular Islamic traditions to the wall. Future generations will as gratefully acknowledge the sangh parivar's contribution to the growth of radical Islam in India as this generation remembers with gratitude the handsome contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and his cohorts to Sikh militancy.

The secularist dogma of many fighting the sangh parivar has not helped matters. Even those who have benefited from secular lawyers and activists relate to secular ideologies instrumentally. They neither understand them nor respect them. The victims still derive solace from their religions and, when under attack, they cling more passionately to faith. Indeed, shallow ideologies of secularism have simultaneously broken the back of Gandhism and discouraged the emergence of figures like Ali Shariatis, Desmond Tutus and the Dalai Lama — persons who can give suffering a new voice audible to the poor and the powerless and make a creative intervention possible from within worldviews accessible to the people.

Finally, Gujarat's spectacular development has underwritten the de-civilising process. One of the worst-kept secrets of our times is that dramatic development almost always has an authoritarian tail. Post-World War II Asia too has had its love affair with developmental despotism and the censorship, surveillance and thought control that go with it. The East Asian tigers have all been maneaters most of the time. Gujarat has now chosen to join the pack. Development in the state now justifies amorality, abridgement of freedom, and collapse of social ethics.

Is there life after Modi? Is it possible to look beyond the 35 years of rioting that began in 1969 and ended in 2002? Prima facie, the answer is "no". We can only wait for a new generation that will, out of sheer self-interest and tiredness, learn to live with each other. In the meanwhile, we have to wait patiently but not passively to keep values alive, hoping that at some point will come a modicum of remorse and a search for atonement and that ultimately Gujarati traditions will triumph over the culture of the state's urban middle class.

Recovering Gujarat from its urban middle class will not be easy. The class has found in militant religious nationalism a new self- respect and a new virtual identity as a martial community, the way Bengali babus, Maharashtrian Brahmins and Kashmiri Muslims at different times have sought salvation in violence. In Gujarat this class has smelt blood, for it does not have to do the killings but can plan, finance and coordinate them with impunity. The actual killers are the lowest of the low, mostly tribals and Dalits. The middle class controls the media and education, which have become hate factories in recent times. And they receive spirited support from most non-resident Indians who, at a safe distance from India, can afford to be more nationalist, bloodthirsty, and irresponsible.

The writer is a political psychologist.