Saturday 12 December 2020

Shashi Tharoor, Sunanda Pushkar & Love Jihad

 Dr. Shashi Tharoor is currently on bail, having been charged under Sections 498-A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code, in connection with the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. 

Though it seems likely that Pushkar's death was accidental- perhaps the result of taking the wrong dosage of prescription medication- the fact that she had alleged that she had been made the scapegoat in a financial scandal made her husband a suspect. Furthermore, Indian law holds a husband whose cruelty drove his wife to suicide to be guilty of a criminal offense. 

More generally, Indian law differs considerably from Western law in that there is a presumption that women are in a weaker position. Thus India has draconian laws against dowry as well as harassment for dowry or other similar pressure for financial benefit. Furthermore, since suicide to protest an injustice was a feature of traditional Indian culture, the Law takes a serious view of 'abetment to suicide'. 

It may be that such laws should be changed. It may also be argued that people like Dr. Tharoor, who spent his working life abroad, have different mores and attitudes and thus should be free of the presumption of guilt which arises where a disgruntled wife, who has alleged some type of financial exploitation, commits or appears to have committed suicide.

However, as things stand, Indian laws are framed with reference to the Indian reality- not the customs of Manhattan. Dr. Tharoor is certainly innocent till proved guilty in a court of law but he still has to face that judicial trial. 

Tharoor writes too much and Project Syndicate uncritically publishes his highly partisan, but also silly, articles.

This is him writing about 'Love Jihad'- i.e. U.P's decision to strengthen the law preventing exploitation of non-Muslim women by Muslim men who get them to convert on the pretext of marriage. The problem here is that polygamy remains legal only for Muslims though, as a matter of fact, Muslims probably have lower- not higher- polygamy than some non-Muslim communities. Tharoor pretends that this type of law is motivated wholly by Islamophobia. The truth is that some portion of women who enter such marriages end up in prostitution. Even where this is not the case, under new laws, the wife can claim an equal portion of the ancestral property. This means there will be 'honor killing' from a purely mercenary motive. This is because endogamous groups don't want land going out of the 'jati'. In other words, the State acts rationally in curbing a potential source of great public mischief. It is also for this reason that India has draconian laws punishing 'hate speech'. 

Tharoor, a former UN bureaucrat who has lived his whole life in a bubble, takes a different view. He believes there is a 'Culture War' in India. The truth is quite different. The State accommodated the local Culture though it had its own 'safe spaces' or extra-territorial enclaves. It was literally a case of one law for the rulers and another law for the ruled. But even that ended after the British departed. Now, Tharoor himself finds himself in the same sort of Court as ordinary people. Did he enrich himself by exerting control over his wife? Did he drive her to suicide? A Court will decide. Tharoor may say that his love for Sunanda was pure. But, if she committed suicide, the presumption in Indian law is that it was her 'Lord and Master' who drove her to it. 

Tharoor writes in Project Syndicate- 

'India’s ruling Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party has recently whipped up hysteria over the largely imaginary crime of “love jihad,” reflecting the party’s deeply entrenched Islamophobia. 

Tharoor feels he too is accused of an 'imaginary crime' based on a 'psychological autopsy' which is itself founded on a dim view of manipulative Indian men and the manner in which they may exploit, oppress, and cheat their wives. But we can't say India is misanthropic or that Indian men, who- after all- have more power in shaping the Law- are rabid man-hating Feminists. The fact is that some men do engage in a type of crime which is more common in India precisely because of its history and its stage of economic development. 

Similarly, India has strong laws against a type of cheating and exploitation of women in marriage which, perhaps, is more common in India or which, if it isn't common, nevertheless poses a greater threat to public peace and security. 

Tharoor takes a different view. He thinks India was like Manhattan till Modi was elected. Now a 'culture war' is raging across India. What he does not mention is that in Kerala, where he is from, it was the Communist Chief Minister, described as the Fidel Castro of India, who raised the issue of 'love jihad' ten years ago. He proved a true prophet. Victims of 'love jihad' from all over the world were recruited by ISIS to become terrorist brides and to give birth to and to raise up a new generation of terrorists. This resulted in an actual war- not just a 'culture war'. 

The BJP's culture war must be fought in the courts – but even more in the hearts of all Indians.

Tharoor will certainly have to fight the charges against him in the courts. But Tharoor and the Dynasty he serves will have to do better than waffle on about 'culture wars' in order to regain a place in the hearts of Indian voters. Telling stupid lies won't help Congress. They have to show they have a credible and effective leader. Sadly, the prospect of this happening are now more distant than ever. 

Tharoor begins his article in this typically portentuous manner-

NEW DELHI – As if the raging COVID-19 pandemic, a spluttering economy, record-high unemployment, 

which are things which exist all over the world

and massive farmers’ protests

which have been orchestrated by the Congress regime in Punjab- the only State where a small, but influential, minority will be adversely affected

 besieging the country’s capital weren’t enough, India’s ruling Hindu-chauvinist 

as opposed to the feudal and dynastic Congress Party which is increasingly embracing an anti-Hindu and anti-National identity

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now incited a new crisis: a culture war.

This is nonsense. There is no 'culture war' nor is there any 'crisis' associated with it. The British left over seventy years ago. Western culture and mores were repudiated. In Hindu majority areas, Hinduism became hegemonic. Muslim majority areas constituted a separate Islamic Republic- save where non-Muslims had more military power. 

In late November, India’s largest state, BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, introduced a new law to combat the largely imaginary crime of “love jihad” – a conspiracy theory claiming that Muslim men seduce Hindu women as a ploy to oblige them to convert to Islam through marriage. 

But, under the BJP, the UP is quiet and peaceful. There is no 'war' there. The Hindu majority are firmly in power. All sorts of gangsters and bad characters are whimpering with fear and reforming their ways. Adityanath has chosen a good moment to enact a popular law. 

The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance stipulates that a marriage will be declared “null and void” if a woman converts to Islam solely for marriage. 

But, under Lily Thomas vs Union of India, this was already true for men. Since women who convert for marriage are at greater risk of exploitation purely by reason of that marriage relationship, it is scandalous that no such protection had been previously afforded them. 

To be clear, Advocate Lily Thomas- who was from Tharoor's own Kerala and who was a Christian- secured protection for Hindu women whose husbands fraudulently 'converted' to Islam. Why does Tharoor object to a law safeguarding women who, on marriage to a Muslim, lose rights, entitlements and statutory protection because of an equally bogus 'conversion'? Either women are superior to men, in India, and thus what is sauce for the gander is not required for the goose, or else Tharoor is talking bollocks. Interestingly, he initially supported temple entry for women to Sabarimala Temple but then did a 180 degree turn when his party decided to oppose it- but only in Kerala!- not at the Central level! In other words, Tharoor is one thing in Kerala and another in Delhi! This may be in line with his peculiar notion of Hinduism. He is flesh here, fish there, and, when writing for Project Syndicate, a simple red herring. 

The bigger problem is Indian men- some of whom were BJP MPs who fraudulently convert to Islam so as to take a second wife. Speaking generally, any type of threat or inducement of a material type renders a religious conversion illegitimate. 

Women wishing to change their religion after getting married need to apply to the District Magistrate for permission, a breathtaking assault on individual liberty that combines misogyny, patriarchy, and religious bigotry.

In the opinion of Tharoor- a man on bail on a charge of harassing his wife till she felt she had to take her own life. It may be unfair for the Law to presume that Sunanda was in a weaker position than Tharoor and that she may have felt she had no recourse but to commit suicide so as to get justice. However, since the intention is to protect a historically weaker and more vulnerable section of Society, the charge of misogyny or patriarchy fails. Bigotry, on the other hand, would involve something more than what the Law requires. 


The measure is the brainchild of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-robed monk whose inflammatory rhetoric has made him one of the BJP’s best-known and most polarizing figures. 

Tharoor is indulging in inflammatory rhetoric. Sadly, it is in English, not Hindi- the Indian lingua franca. It is no wonder that Adityanath, an actual Hindu, beat the pants off Rahul Gandhi- who now claims to be a 'janeodhari' Brahmin. 

And it takes a sledgehammer to the freedom of worship enjoyed by Indian citizens under the country’s constitution. 

No it doesn't. It requires a non-Muslim woman to declare to a Magistrate that she has converted to Islam not purely for the sake of marriage but for genuine spiritual reasons. 

By the first week of December, state police had arrested and filed charges against seven people. Conviction carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.

Seven people in a State with a population of 200 million! Wow! Meanwhile, the really important question for Muslims is whether the Supreme Court will hold polygamy to be illegal. That's going to truly set the cat amongst the pigeons! Tharoor's party will lose the few seats it has in UP to Owaisi. That's the problem with working yourself up about imaginary problems- C.A.A, Agricultural deregulation- because when the real thing comes along everybody wonders why you are standing around silently scratching your arse. 

Much of India has long celebrated the intermingling of Hindu and Muslim cultural practices. 

Except where Muslims were in the majority. They ethnically cleansed the shit out of Hindus and Sikhs who were welcome to go celebrate Ganga-Jamuna tehzeeb across the border. Of course, it must be admitted, Hindi and Punjabi speaking non-Muslims returned the compliment. 

But the Ganga-Jamni Tehzeeb, or “composite culture,” emerging from the interaction of the two faiths’ practitioners is now under assault from officially fomented bigotry. 

True enough. Indira chose to target Muslims, but also Jat Sikhs, to consolidate the Hindu vote. Rajiv went a step further, throwing the Babri Masjid open to Hindu worship. But both Indira and Rajiv were killed. Sonia, Rajiv's Italian widow, held things together for the heir- Rahul Gandhi. But Rahul has turned out to be a cretin and so Tharoor's chance of a Cabinet seat are now about as great as a conviction for driving his wife to suicide. 

The BJP derives its political strength from campaigning aggressively as the vehicle of an assertive Hindu community, and regards stoking anti-Muslim sentiment as a vote-winner.

Indira and Rajiv stole the clothes of the BJP but, because both were killed, they were able to steal them back. But the real story here is that Congress can't put up an electable Prime Ministerial candidate. Rahul is a cretin and does not want the job but Rahul won't let anyone else make good either. He, or his supporters, sabotaged Manmohan's second term even though the old man was careful to appear terribly decrepit. 

The BJP had previously campaigned successfully to build a Hindu temple on the site of a demolished mosque in Ayodhya, 

which Rajiv would have done had he not first lost power because of a Cabinet rebellion against his corruption and then, after he toppled 'Mr. Clean' V.P Singh, and was on the path back to power, he was assassinated. 

criminalize the Muslim divorce practice known as triple talaq,

which Tharoor, no doubt, approves off because what could be fairer to a wife than to dissolve the marriage by saying 'I divorce thee' three times.

 dismantle the special protections afforded to the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, 

This was done by the Supreme Court which held, in 2016 that J&K had no 'vestige of sovereignty'. Incidentally, Sunanda Pushkar was a Kashmiri Pundit whose family was ethnically cleansed by Muslim militants from their ancestral home in the Kashmir Valley. 

and enact a law that excludes Muslims from the fast-track Indian citizenship available to refugees of other faiths. 

This happened in 1948. Even Muslims living in India who had crossed the border to save their lives were not allowed to return to their property or to claim Indian citizenship. 

India did and does give citizenship to some Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. However, if those Muslims are accused of 'apostacy' then Indian Muslims put a price on their heads, so they have to flee again. That's what happened to Dr. Taslima Nasrin- a feminist, but not a blasphemer or an apostate. She had to flee from India to Scandinavia.

Tharoor is falsely suggesting that India has not always given citizenship to non-Muslim refugees but has never done so to Muslims from those countries save for some special reason- e.g. artistic eminence or business success. 

All these steps have reinforced the party’s “tough on Muslims” image,

as opposed to Congress's 'tough on Hindus' image which, strangely, did not go down well with the eighty percent of voters who are Hindus.

 and Uttar Pradesh’s new anti-conversion law fits that pattern.

So, once again, the BJP is consolidating the Hindu vote without doing anything very much. Amit Shah must be rubbing his hands with glee when he sees fools like Tharoor doing his P.R for him. 

In recent weeks, other BJP-run states in India’s Hindi-speaking heartland have whipped up hysteria over “love jihad,” 

While Tharoor is screaming hysterically over a Law under which only 7 people have been arrested. This is all very well if he were a professional virtue signaller based in Manhattan. But he isn't. He is a former Minister and a sitting Member of Parliament. By showing himself to be a bombastic fool in the pages of Project Syndicate, he further damages his party. 

India, like other developing countries in the region, does indeed face a 'culture war'. The Supreme Court's decision on polygamy has salience in that respect. But Tharoor does not mention it. Is he even aware of the grenade which is rolling in his direction? Does Congress have a way to keep its share of the Muslim vote in the event of a negative ruling by the Bench? Or will they simply surrender to Owaisi? But, if there is a Muslim Party on the National Stage, who will Congress represent? The BJP has the Hindus. The BSP has the upper Dalits though some are joining the BJP. Brahmins can't identify with the Dynasty because Rahul hasn't taken a wife and his nephew is Christian. No doubt, there will be Congress pockets, just as there are Communist pockets, in places like Kerala. But the younger generation of leaders are going to go the way to Mamta or Biju Patnaik. They get nothing for staying under the wing of a Dynasty dying nasty. 

reflecting the party’s deeply entrenched Islamophobia. 

No governing party is 'Islamophobic'. If the BJP wins again, then all the promising young Muslim leaders will have a choice between joining Owaisi or else replicating the career trajectory of Arif Mohammad Khan. That's a good thing. Muslims are hardworking, thrifty, enterprising and have strong family and spiritual values. The Hindu majority gains when Muslims do well and rise up economically and educationally. 

State governments in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana have announced plans to enact laws to that of Uttar Pradesh.

So, Adityanath hasn't really gone out on a limb here. 

A BJP “youth leader” in Madhya Pradesh has gone further, persuading the police to file a case against two Netflix executives for allegedly offending Hindu religious sensibilities with a scene in the series A Suitable Boy in which a Hindu actress and a Muslim actor kissed briefly in front of a temple.

This is because this 'youth leader' understood that he needs to do things which signal virtue to Madhya Pradeshis, not- as Tharoor is doing- Manhattanites. 

 The leader, Gaurav Tiwari, demanded an apology from Netflix and the removal of “objectionable scenes” that he alleged were also “encouraging love jihad.” Instead of dismissing the case as preposterous, the state’s home minister, Narottam Mishra, ordered an investigation.

You can take a Tharoor out of Manhattan, but you can't take Manhattan out of Tharoor. What he finds 'preposterous' is Indian culture. It is sad that over a billion Indians don't have even a Bachelor's degree from an Ivy League- let alone a Doctorate from Georgetown. 

Even reports that police in Uttar Pradesh have already dropped, for lack of evidence, eight of the 14 “love jihad” cases they had opened are highly unlikely to dampen the BJP’s sectarian ardor. 

The BJP is busy ruling the country. Tharoor's ardor is reserved for hysterical bombast of an unmeaning and deracinated type. 

A few months ago, the jewelry brand Tanishq, 

which is a joint venture between the Tatas (who belong to a religion which bars most products of 'interfaith' marriages from membership) and the State Government of Tamil Nadu. 

which markets itself as the choice of “modern” young consumers, was pressured, including by threats of violence, to withdraw a television commercial that portrayed a happy interfaith marriage between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man.

Advertising agencies often goof up. I used to be a copywriter myself. What sounds cool in an air-conditioned office can kill off a brand in the mofussil towns. 

Tharoor tweeted- '"If Hindu-Muslim “ekatvam" irks them so much, why don’t they boycott the longest surviving symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity in the world -- India?" He seems to be unaware that Muslim men are allowed to marry Christian and Jewish, but not Hindu, women in countries like Pakistan. On marriage- even if the marriage is forcible- a bride must become a Muslim or else there is no marriage. Interestingly, Hindus may soon get the right to legitimize their marriages in Pakistan. But, this might provoke a reaction which will further decimate their numbers.

Although Islam remains its favored target, the BJP’s Hindu chauvinists have taken umbrage at the cultural practices of India’s Christian minority, too. A group of zealots called the Bajrang Dal, one of the BJP-aligned Hindutva (“Hinduness”) movement’s many affiliated organizations, recently threatened violence against Hindus who visited churches during Christmas. Whereas Hinduism teaches reverence for other faiths, those who claim to be its doughty warriors admit no such ecumenism.

In a Hindu majority country, it pays political dividends to be seen as a 'doughty warrior' rather than a limp wristed 'ecumenicist'. Indira knew this. Rajiv knew this. Maybe even Rahul knows this. But he was saddled with deracinated, elitists like Tharoor- who is shaping up to be the next Mani Shankar Aiyar.

Incidentally, Hinduism does not 'teach reverence for other faiths'. It either says all Faith is univocal- quite a different proposition- or that orthopraxy can be diverse. 

Valentine’s Day is another object of Hindutva warriors’ fury. 

It was the Shiv Sena which started that agitation. Congress is now a junior ally of the Sena in Maharashtra. 

Arguing that the occasion is un-Indian because it celebrates romantic love, they have attacked couples holding hands on February 14, trashed stores selling Valentine’s Day greeting cards, and shouted slogans outside cafes while couples canoodled inside.

Congress clearly has no problem with any of this. It is happy to prop up Bal Thakeray's son as C.M. 

Ironically, the Hindutva brigade has no real idea of Hindu tradition 

But Tharoor does! He thought it was cool that his g.f got a lot of 'sweat equity'. Then he married her. Then she was discovered dead in a room in a 5 star hotel.

Wikipedia states- When she was dating Shashi, Sunanda started getting media attention in India, as it became known that she had been given sweat equity worth ₹ 700 million in Rendezvous Sports World. In 2010, the company bid for the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team Kochi Tuskers Kerala, which represented Tharoor's native state Kerala. The company was founded in 2009, while Sunanda Pushkar was made a Director of the company on 25 February 2010, just 18 days before the IPL bid. There were allegations that Shashi Tharoor had misused his ministerial position to ask for a free stake in the company, and that Sunanda was acting as a proxy for him. The controversy ultimately resulted in Shashi Tharoor's resignation as a minister. In her defence, Sunanda argued that she had been invited to join Rendezvous because of her "extensive international experience as a business executive, marketing manager and entrepreneur". She also stated that she had been given a similar offer by Karim Morani of Kolkata Knight Riders in the past.[18][19] In April 2010, Sunanda announced that she had relinquished her stake in the company following the controversy. However, she continued to hold the stake, after she was told that there is no provision under the BCCI's IPL rules for surrender of shares at that stage.[20] Later in 2014, after the Twitter controversy (see below) and shortly before her death, Sunanda stated that she had taken upon herself "the crimes of this man [Shashi Tharoor] during IPL".[21]

– their idea of Indian values

the dollar value of the Sunanda's 'sweat equity' was ten million. That's the kind of Indian values Tharoor has a sound grasp of. 

 is not only primitive and narrow-minded,

because over a billion of those damn darkies don't even have a Bachelor's degree from Ivy League

 but also profoundly ahistorical. 

The history of Hindu India is the history of either abject surrender to invaders belonging to different religions or else of militant, and military, success against them. 

India’s culture has always been capacious, expanding to include new and varied influences, from the Greek and Muslim invasions to the British.

The Greek invasion failed. The Muslim and British invasions succeeded. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the Hindus, where they remained a majority, prevailed over these invaders. It seems they are determined to prevail over people like Rahul and Tharoor. But only because both are useless wankers. Indians would gladly appoint a Nicaraguan Lesbian Atheist Prime Minister if the lady were better at Governance than Modi. Politics is about making people better off and more secure. It isn't about telling stupid lies about imaginary 'culture wars'.

The central battle in Indian civilization today is between those who acknowledge that, as a result of India’s historical experience, our culture is as diverse as it is vast, and those who have presumptuously taken it upon themselves to define, in ever narrower terms, what and who is “truly” Indian.

Congress has lost this battle. Tharoor and Rahul live on another planet. No doubt, they are having spiffing adventures there. In this episode, Tharoor beats up evil Hindu fanatics. Meanwhile, back on planet earth, his day in court draws nigh. But for his party, Judgment Day has come and gone. It is no longer the default National Party. The question is will it become the default anti-National party? 

Modern Hinduism has always prided itself on its tolerance of differences. 

But Mummy slaps the black off you if you try to be different. The one truly intolerable thing about Hinduism is its hypocrisy in this respect. 

In fact, the modern era’s most famous Hindu sage, Swami Vivekananda, persuasively taught that the hallmark of Hindu civilization was not just tolerance but acceptance.

Sadly Vivekananda and Aurobindo and so forth did not tolerate and accept British over-lordship. 

 With their narrow-minded bigotry, today’s Hindu chauvinists are fundamentally betraying their faith, as well as assaulting the Constitution.

In the opinion of an opposition M.P facing charges of pushing his wife to commit suicide. 

The issue is not trivial. 

In politics, an issue is not trivial if it gains you votes. But this type of bombastic rhetoric is not helping Congress. It shows the fish has rotted from the head. 

If intolerant bullies, now enjoying the blessing of elected BJP governments, are allowed to get away with their acts of intolerance and “lawful” intimidation, India would suffer violence to an ethos profoundly vital to its survival as a civilization, and as a liberal democracy.

No it won't. Congress will disappear or else find a non-dynastic incarnation. But this would have happened in any case. Why? People like Tharoor were corrupt, incompetent and wholly deracinated. 

Pluralist and democratic India must, by definition, tolerate plural expressions of its many identities.

Nonsense! It must wholly disregard bullshit of Tharoor's sort. Long run, only the Economy matters. But, in the short to medium term, improving Governance- last mile delivery of essentials- is what Parties must get on with. 

 If we permit the self-appointed arbiters of Hindu culture 

says one such self-appointed arbiter

to impose their hypocrisy and double standards 

Like Tharoor's g.f's 'sweat equity' worth ten million dollars

on the rest of us, they will define down Indianness until it ceases to be Indian. 

in Tharoor's fevered imagination. Why not define down Indian Poverty till Poverty ceases to be Indian? Sorry, I forgot. Indira had Economists who did that in the mid-Seventies. One even said 'India is now a developed country. We don't need no stinkin' Foreign Aid'. Indira slapped the fellow down. She was by no means a cretin. She'd never have let Tharoor into her Cabinet. He is the sort of windbag who should be shunted off to the Nehru Center or the ICCR or some other such white elephant. 

The BJP-led culture war must be fought in the courts, 

Tharoor should certainly prepare himself for a fight in the Court. His freedom is at risk. Being convicted of forcing your wife to kill herself is not exactly a recommendation for high office. 

but it will be won only in the hearts of all Indians.

In politics, stomachs matter more than hearts. I thought Congress would have concentrated its fire-power on Modi's handling of the Economy. But they would need to do this in vernacular languages. They didn't bother. Instead they recycle a type of virtue signaling which might sound okay in Manhattan but which is utterly alien to Madhya, or any other, Pradesh. 

Tharoor may have married Sunanda Pushkar for love. He may not have made her a scapegoat for his own sins. But Indian Law is aware that wives are in a weaker position in India. That is why there are draconian laws on things like 'love jihad', subjecting a wife to cruelty or, as in Tharoor's case, 'abetment to suicide'. 


No comments: