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The battle can only be taken up by true Indians who do not want bigots to govern their life

Deepa Mehta's attempt to shoot Water has been frozen by some persons who consider themselves the moral guardians of the Hindu faith. Not at all coincidentally, most of these goons and thugs, masquerading as Hindu saviours, are linked to organisations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishand, the Bajrang Dal, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and the Shiv Sena.

These organisations have some credible achievements to their credit, the most notable was the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. All of them claim credit for it when it happened, all disclaimed it when summons from the courts were sent out! So much for their bravery in destroying a dilapidated mosque while the Congress rulers fiddled in New Delhi.

Yet, the attacks on the Water crew should not really be a surprise to anyone. Ever since the 1980s, as Hindus became increasingly communalised and overtly touchy about anything that "hurt their sentiments," these fundamentalist organisations – the Hindu version of the Taleban, Jamaat-e-Islami, the Ayatollahs in Iran, and the crazy extremists in Pakistan who love shooting people in mosques – have begun to dictate what can and will be allowed, and what will not, all in the name of the Hindu dharama.

The Indian State, long derided as a soft State, is playing true to character because for decades – since the days of Congress hegemony down to the present BJP-led NDA government – there has been a conspicuous lack of courage to take on religious fundamentalists, of every faith. In fact, it was the unwillingness to tackle religious groups, no matter how small or weak, that has allowed them to become such a nuisance. A small fringe group wants Salman Rushdie's book banned, the government jumps to the task, giving India the dubious distinction of becoming the first country to do so. And so on. Politicians have used religion and religious groups for petty gains only to discover that mounting this tiger is easier than dismounting it.

Indians love to speak in the future tense when discussing the threat from religious fundamentalists, and, of course, to point to Pakistan as an example. But the fact is that religious fundamentalism is no longer a possible danger to India, it is a present and existing danger.

Religious groups in India today pose an awful threat to our civil liberties, secular (which is not the same as being irreligious) way of life, democracy and to our freedom. Since our damn and useless politicians will do nothing about it, the battle can only be taken up by the people, those true Indians who do not want a bunch of bigots to govern their everyday life.

This is not because Water's shooting was stopped. Deepa Mehta's movies have invariably flopped in India and few care about them. But there is a certain principle about allowing people to shoot. Many of us may disagree with Mehta's ideas, but let us face one terrible fact, it is quite factual. Her movie is based on an existing system, which exploits people in the name of God. And banning the movie shooting only shows that rather than tackle the difficult problem of widows becoming prostitutes in the most holy city of the Hindus, the easy route has been chosen, to prevent the shooting.

As usual, the VHP and the rest, with their bigoted leaders have got everything wrong, as they have a hundred times before on issues such as conversion, missionaries, dalit and tribal rights, and now Water.

As written about earlier, if the VHP does not want dalits and tribals to convert, then ensure their equality in Hindu society, arguably having the world’s most inequitable structure; if it wants tribals to shun missionaries, set up schools and health centres for them in villages where few dare venture to; if in Varanasi someone is making a movie on the pathetic plight of the widows, improve the plight of the widows, not stop the movie.

But can these Hindu extremists do it? Will they do it? Not them. Because these Hindu particular groups actually represent the worst aspects of Hinduism, not the best. They talk a lot about improving the plight of the marginalised Hindu groups, yet their effort is barely affects the tip of the iceberg. They seek not to change society, but to co-opt the marginalised within the framework of the existing (and iniquitous) Hindu society.

The fact is that these Hindu groups have rarely taken a strong stand against the worse aspects of Hinduism. When a few years ago, a woman committed sati, the Hindu groups either actually demanded that such women must be given the 'freedom' to commit sati or ignored the crime; they have done little (if anything at all) to root out child marriage in Rajasthan (and a brave lady who actually sought to fight the evil practice was gangraped and the culprits not punished); widow remarriage is not on their agenda; and dalit and tribal emancipation is undertaken more out of a fear of conversion than genuine concern.

And when someone, including a film-maker, chooses to expose these evil practices, these right wing Hindu groups are attacked and bullied. Years ago, nasty comments were made about Satyajit Ray for showing 'India's poverty' on screen. To this Jawaharlal Nehru replied, 'But India is poor.' Alas, our present leaders lack that vision or courage to face painful facts.

The fact is that there is too much that is still wrong in our society. This is not to demean all the great men and women who struggle, often alone, to right these wrongs, people such as Baba Amte, Swami Agnivesh, Bhanwari Devi (all God fearing Hindus), and thousands more. But if some people work as reformers, some work as film-makers or writers seeking to expose these societal faultlines. Rather than damn Deepa Mehta, these Hindu organisations can take up the task of giving the Varanasi widows a decent life. So that when two years from now, someone comes to make another film on the widows, he or she would end up singing paeans of how things have changed for the better.

But tragically, these Hindu organisations have no such intention. For millennia widows in India have been damned, slightly better off than the worst-off dalits. And these extremist Hindu groups prefer traditions, even if inhuman. So instead of curing the evil, they attack the exposer.

Amberish K Diwanji

ALSO SEE:
The Water controversy