Politics and play
THE BLINDNESS OF BIGOTS - Education is no bar against a dangerously selective view of facts
Ramachandra Guha
The Telegraph
Politics and play
http://www.telegraphindia.com/
Honouring humanity
The internet is, among other things, a vehicle for egotism and bad taste. In blogs and emails, some people tend to express themselves more freely, that is to say more crudely, than they would in letters sent by post or in signed articles in the press.
In June this year, I received an email from a young man objecting to a passage in an essay I had recently published. This argued that while Muslim and Christian bigotry were visibly on the rise in
The young man then went on: “Sir, the world is not around your armchair, or what you read in the news. Get out and go around the people you are so sympathetic about. They consider themselves Moslems first, Indians next. I know of friends who openly sided with the Pakistani army during the Kargil war. But you wouldn’t want to talk of that. You would rather talk of having a Moslem general, right?”
In his mail, the young man also claimed that “except for a few violent spells, and very few, the Hindus have largely remained non-violent except when provoked by the Muslim community. Why is that everyone talks of post-Godhra, but nothing of those who were burnt alive in the train by the Muslim mob? You will realize the reason why people stand by [Narendra] Modi. He may not be the most ideal person, but it is better to support a person who will protect us than side with someone who doles out benefits to those so ill-deserving of them.”
In replying to this mail, I suggested that it was “a shame that a well educated man like you has not just swallowed the innuendos, half-truths, and prejudices of the RSS types, but also that you speak in the same hectoring, intolerant voice….[P]lease do rid yourself of such bigotry. I am sure you are more human than that.”
I then explained my own political philosophy in these words: “I am a liberal for whom decency and democracy comes first, even before patriotism (which is why I abhor what we are doing in [promoting a military dictatorship in]
I then urged the young man to “get out of this black and white, conspiratorial way of thinking (as in imputing motives to those who disagree with you).” I also asked him to “think carefully” about the larger argument of my original article — which was that “the Sangh Parivar’s unacknowledged model is mullahdom. Do we want to make
I received no answer. Then, six weeks later, another mail from the same man landed in my inbox. A series of bombs had been planted in crowded places in
The young man continued: “No, but it is only the few Mozzies who are a problem. Don’t consider the rest who stand around watching the whole show without protesting, who don’t care a damn for internal reforms within their community, who don’t see anything wrong in bombing innocent people in the name of Jihad.”
He then concluded: “Mr Guha, if the recent events have not woken you up out of your slumber, nothing else will. God save this country from intellectuals, self-professed and otherwise. Meanwhile, you can write another article in your sympathezing [sic] magazines about how Hindu fundamentalism is the cause for all that you see around you.”
I should be inured to such mails by now, but truth be told, it is still unnerving to be at the receiving end of such personal hostility. How can a man have such hatred and animosity for someone he has never met or seen? That said, the anger against me paled in comparison with the anger against the one hundred million and more citizens of
When the first mail arrived, what struck me was the abusive tone; when the second one came, what came to mind instead was how utterly irrelevant it was. Many Indians, and most of them Hindus, had just fallen victim to a terrorist attack. Rather than express concern for the dead, or their grieving families, my correspondent’s first thought was to get even with a writer with whom he had previously had a contentious exchange. The deaths and injuries of his fellow Indians, his fellow Hindus, were of no concern to him. All he could think of was his own vindication. Had not the bombs proved once again that the Muslims, all Muslims, were rascals after all?
In his first mail, the correspondent had introduced himself as having a postgraduate degree, and a job (as I recall) in a pharmaceutical company. Clearly, a little learning is a very dangerous thing. His education notwithstanding, his mails marked the young man out as a bigot. A bigot is one who selects, from the world around him, only those facts or half-facts which confirm and strengthen him in his bigotry. Thus, when an Israeli air-strike kills civilians in the Gaza Strip, the partisan of Hamas thinks not of the dead or the injured, but of how he can use the incident to convince himself (and his people) that the only way to treat the Zionists is to collectively exterminate them. In the same manner, al Qaida would have welcomed the pogrom against Muslims in
As it happens, I live in
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Telegraph - Calcutta - The blindness of bigots
The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinion | The blindness of bigots
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