GROUND 1: A LAND OF OTHERS

It was Ramanavami time. Ramanavami means, 9th day of the beginning of Hindu year when Lord Rama, the icon god of Hinduism was born. 

I was in my gym working out. I observed in recent times, that the Biryani shop owned by a Muslim vendor was closed for 15 days. I was curious why because I was a frequent visitor there. They used to make the nicest Biryani in whole town of Pataratu. 

I overheard some seniors in the gym were talking as how Muslim shops are closed voluntarily by Muslim vendors due to Ramanavami. 

I asked one of my seniors, a Hindu of course, "why is so? Are they scared of us?" This followed by a nearly shout by that senior who said, "Why are you being so soft? Do you know Who Babar was? Why he came to India? Don't be such a softy. Hindus like you were forced by Muslims to wear Lehenga (an Indian attire for women)." 

I was taken aback by this series of taunts and shouts. I looked at a Muslim senior sitting just beside that particular senior and he was sort of ignoring the talk. The Hindu senior let's name him Abhishek, and the Muslim senior, let's name him, Munazir. 

Abhishek snapped but when he looked at Munazir, he felt weird. It was as if, he wanted to say the same thing, not just in front of him. 

He did not save himself. He went to do something else. All other guys were just pretending to look away. Munazir, I don't know how he must have felt. I don't even know, maybe he did not feel anything since he was either accustomed to hearing these things or in his own Muslim circles, even he used to spew these things about Hindus. 

Two kinds of religious doctrines were forced down the throat of Indians during Colonialism. One, the communal victimization of the "other", and the other, "the doctrine of religious harmony". 

I think, India suffers with a crisis of abundance of Ideas. Since ancient times, Upanishads and Hindu religion had so many concepts which the normal laymen of the country could not grasp and then came colonial masters, who tried to introduce communalism. and to counter them, came a set of foreign trained lawyers, including Gandhi. They further burdened the countrymen with ideas without changing their material reality. So. the concept of the "Other" communally, became stronger in absence of any welfare measure.

And now, when an ethno-national government has taken over, the others are the only existent entity. Hindus are others to Muslims, and Muslims to Hindus. Hence, India has become a land of others. 

Here, people try to act harmoniously. But secretly, it is a specific kink of Hindus and Muslims to hate each other. Another story, 

I overheard my grandfather, talking to his broker of land, who is a Muslim, Kudus his name, "Allah is really compassionate! An old debtor returned me my money without me even asking when I needed it the most!"  

Seems nice, isn't it? A Hindu man thanking Allah. But This man is a Hindu conservative who used to abuse Muslims and almost hates and feels disgust in even taking the name of Muslims. 

This is the forced status of Hindu-Muslim relations. Which feeling is authentic? The Right wing will say, The hatred is authentic, the liberal will say, the feeling of cooperation is real. 

I say, economics is real. The need to negotiate with a Muslim is real. Hindus and Muslims really don't like each other. They act as if they do. Secularism, nowadays, is a hated word for India. But, secretly, All communal people behave in a secular manner. Sometimes, they expose themselves like Abhishek sir did. 

An ambiguity of what normal man believes exist. No one can say in a definite way, what does he believe. Maybe he just wishes to exist. But for existing, he feels it necessary from time to time, help his own community to do violence to the others. May be this ensures more existence to the community. This Existence surplus derived from hating the other is a concept worth developing. 

A communal concept, imaginary of course, Existence surplus, forces a layman to become Hindu or Muslim. Religion offers an intrinsic quality of life. It offers peace but at the cost of personal sacrifice or war against the other. This paradoxical exchange of religion is by which Existence surplus is generated. Existence surplus is the extra life that a Hindu conservative or a Muslims conservative feels that he got while doing what his community wanted to do, demolish some mosque, kill some Muslims who were suspected of eating Beef and so on. 

But in reality, this feeling of Surplus is fallacious. In reality, It is an existence deficit. You are precisely being anti-religious by acting to what your religious institution tells you in India. This is the essence of this concept. This exposes the nature of religiosity itself. it craves war to ensure peace. War is any religion's fetish. We find concepts of "Dharma-Yuddha" in Hindu religion, "Jihaad" in Muslims, and "Holy War" in Bible. 

This blood lust is then quenched by violence and then a peace prevails which is horrifying. This peace of one of the Peaces of Defective peace.