An open letter to John Dayal

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN DAYALFROM P.N.BENJAMIN,Coordinator, Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue (BIRD)Dear Mr. Dayal,This has reference to your recent letter to the Honourable Prime Minister on the National Integration Council.I would like to as you some genuine questions on the subject. Most of them are questioning your own integrity. So, do not get perturbed or try to evade answers. You are first of all no Holy Joe, Mr. Dayal.Can one have integration without integrity? Where is your integrity? What is integrity of the people like you who talk about it, but keep quiet when everywhere the essence of integration is being deliberately destroyed by vested interests? Are you really interested in integration? And is integration only to be between Muslims, Christians and Dalits whom you have been using as cannon fodder for long for your vested interests, to occupy cushy positions as member of NCM and the like? Or should integration be widened to bring the whole of our neglected, despised India into the mainstream of the nation?s activities, its hopes and its dreams?Hindu-bashing, especially RSS/VHP/Bajrang Dal bashing, seems to be your only hobby. This business has been bringing you millions of dollars and invitations to umpteen seminars and consultations in Western countries. How can such a despicable character talk of national ?integration? when your personal integrity itself is under cloud?Have you ever bothered about the hungry people with hunger pangs growing in their intestines when you enjoy your life in five-star surroundings and shed copious crocodile tears for the minority communities and Dalits? What is the use of talking about integration when the hungry cannot partake at your dinner table? Will you answer these questions, Mr. Dayal, here and now?A struggle can be likened to an onion. You take it off layer by layer and sometimes you cry. This is the situation in India, the India of the poor, which is in ferment, stirring itself to challenge the chains of bondage that have seared their very souls over the years. They are fighting the carpetbaggers and the charlatans, like you, of this country.Without integrity, without a deep and abiding commitment to the poor of the country, all talk of national integration is only a lot of bullshit.We are passing through a crisis of unprecedented dimensions, symbolized by the collapse of values. Self-styled Christian leaders like you have emerged bereft of principles. Our national life has been polluted by the venality of the discredited men like you. You have therefore no moral right to talk of ?national integration?.P.N.BENJAMINCoordinatorBangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue(BIRD)B-1, Lan Castle186 Wheeler Road ExtnBangalore 560 084INDIA31 August 2005

The doer of good

Ambedkar and Oscar Wilde's 'The Doer of Good'
By P N Benjamin
Several thinkers have speculated on the possible reactions of the founders of great faiths, if they happened to inspect the orders that claim the rights to fly their banners. Oscar Wilde has visualised one such situation in a short piece entitled ‘The Doer of Good’. As we know, the miracles Jesus performed included curing a leper, restoring sight to a blind man and life to a dead one. One night Jesus descends on to the land of his activities. He is attracted into a festive mansion, bursting with luxury. He sees the master of the house lying on a couch of sea-purple, his lips red with wine."Why do you live like this?" asked the unexpected visitor. Startled, the young man answered: "But, I was a leper and you healed me. How else should I live?"Jesus left the mansion in silence. In the street he saw a young man, his eyes bright with lust, chasing a playful damsel. Jesus stopped him. "Why do you look at this woman and such vice?" he demanded. "But I was blind once and you gave me sight. And what else should I look?"Outside the city Jesus saw a young man seated by roadside, weeping. "Why are you weeping?" he asked. "But I was dead once and you raised me from the dead. What else should I do but weep?"The utter futility of achievements without an aspiration for a growth in consciousness had never before been stressed so briefly yet so tellingly. Perhaps, a stirring in the memory and sacrifices of the moulders of civilisation could be a faint reminder of the need for that missing quality.Now let’s imagine Ambedkar returns to India to inspect the plight of Dalits whom he wanted to emancipate. After all, he was the human catalyst of social action against injustice to the suppressed sector of the Indian people whom we, in condescending hypocrisy, call ‘Harijans’ or ‘Dalits’! He was a dynamic figure who devoted himself to the cause of justice, freedom and dignity to the lowliest, the lost and the last in the socio-economic hierarchy, and fought for human rights.Dalit groups are disorganisedIt won’t take much time for him to observe the following facts. "Almost all Dalit political leaders have showered only lip sympathy on the Dalits in order to get their votes, but with no intention of doing anything to ameliorate their conditions. Dalit political groups are totally disorganised. Education has only led to the emergence of a Dalit elite class. Dalit movements have either been absorbed within mainstream parties and splinter groups or else have degenerated into negative militancy. Reservation of seats and jobs has had only a marginal effect on the lives of some members of the vast section of Dalit humanity. It has also led to deliberate attempts to divide the Dalits into a ‘privileged’ minority and the completely ignored massive majority."In their blind craze for power, position, profit and pelf the Dalit leaders in every political party have forgotten their primary duty to mobilise and organise the masses against all forms of vested interests. Dalit politicians bereft of any ideology are unwilling to disturb the existing caste equations. These self-seeking status quoits have only aided in pushing the outcastes out of our society, out of the mainstream. Dalit politicians holding very high political posts have in practice proved to be ‘Uncle Toms’ because of the compulsions of Indian polity."What I witnesses today is the strange spectacle of these leaders ganging up with those very forces, which are the political representatives of oppressors of the Dalits. There could be no greater betrayal of the millions kept in poverty and privation."Ambedkar then observes: "Dalits are not a special species of human beings. Their emancipation from poverty and social discrimination and disabilities does not depend upon perpetual special treatment. Like the rest of the poor in India, they have to be taught, helped and made to participate in the process of bettering their lives."India will be truly free only when Indians, the last and the least are free. Dalits ask for justice and the Indian elite have to realise that democracy cannot be hypocrisy. And humanists everywhere are vicariously guilty if they do not speak up. ‘Les Miserables’, in their social millions, are a stain and a wound."Ambedkar will then invite the Dalit leaders and ask them: "What shall we do to ‘change this sorry scheme of things entire and remould it nearer to our heart’s desire?’"

DECCAN HERALD – Panorama – 14 April 2009

CATHOLIC BISHOPS' TEN COMMANDMENTS

THE TEN "COMMANDMENTS"
I am amused by the guidelines (Ten Commandments) issued to voters by the Catholic Bishops. Conference of India, The CBCI is harking back to the traditional ways of the Church to wean away Indians from the ‘Hindu nationalist’ party, the BJP. Do the Catholic bishops believe that they can reduce the enlightened Indian electorate to the level of the ladies in Britain, in the now distant 1940s and 1950s, who were scared of "a Red under their bed"?
This is not the first time the Church is indulging in this wishful thinking. It happened first in 1957 in Kerala. The church leaders issued a 'fatwa' to their flocks not to vote the Communists to power because they were "Godless" and violent people who would nationalise and destroy all the churches in Kerala." Some listened to them, many ignored them and the then India correspondent of the London Observer cabled back London: "Out of the ballot box comes the miracle."
The Christian leaders have not learnt not learn their lesson. They repeated the call in all the subsequent elections too. And they are back with a bang today also.
As a ‘self-proclaimed’ enlightened Indian Christian, I cannot confine my secularism to the anti-BJP-ism advocated by the Christian leaders since communal consanguinity is present in varying shades in other parties of plural labels even while choosing candidates, although they naively make secular noises.
The bishops must stop being dazzled by their own words. They must take the beams out of their own eyes before pointing out the mote in others’ eyes. Fight against social evils, for example, discrimination against Dalit Christians, must begin in the Church, otherwise they will be told: "Physician, heal thyself."
P.N.BENJAMIN
501 Indira Residency
167 Hennur Main Road
Bangalore 560 043

Christians need not worry too much

CHURCH IN INDIA
I strongly believe that the Church need not too much worry about outside harassment, but should worry about the internal cancer it carries within its body. I have moved away from direct involvement and am leading a quiet life. Christians in India will never be protected by international supporters, they are being protected by the majority Hindus and we should be thankful to God for the majority of Hindus who are very tolerant and open in spite of the aggressive posture of Christians. The Uniqueness of Christ is in that God revealed in Christ the open, selfless, liberal personality of God. How unfortunate it is that even some well meaning Christians become so arrogant, self righteous and even give themselves to hate in the name of Christ who came to show a new way of LOVE. I wish the Christian brothers and sisters would engage in serious reflections and identify the causes for the growing antagonism of people of other faiths.
P.N.BENJAMIN
28/03/2009

AS YOU LIKE IT

SANGLIANA’S DEFECTION
As you like it
When the honourable Bangalore North M.P., (Dr.?) Sangliana defied the Whip issued by his party, BJP, and voted in favour of UPA government in Parliament last year, he was indeed perfecting the art of a political acrobat, balancing on the highwire of political opportunism and juggling with his options. He has turned out to be one of the deftest and most agile of all performers in the circus arena of the Indian political system. People like him, with their (often corrupt) sleight of hand and without moral scruple, appearing on one side of fence today and on the other tomorrow, he or she, wears a coat of as many colours as did the biblical Jacob, an can change it as often and as quickly as the chameleon in the tree, according to the prevailing political climate; and always in search of camouflage which is provided by influence, or power.
What Sangliana did was like the vigilant chameleon – who rarely moves a muscle or bats an eyelid – it is usually more a matter of changing colour than position; a matter more political form than substance. It was a question of not of principles, but persons; that of allegiance to cliques and coteries, not policies or programmes, and a loyalty not to party but to power.
It was therefore no surprise to me that Sangliana (Dr.?) defied the Whip. In Indian politics, the opportunist and the turncoat are familiar figures. They make their exits and their entrances on the political stage, sometimes hiding in the wings, sometimes the centre of attention, usually with one script in public and other in private, but the sheer nakedness of it exhibited by a ‘true Christian’ like Sangliana was unique in the Indian political history. One man plays many parts, as Shakespeare puts in As You Like It, an appropriate title in Sangliana’s defection. With an eye on the main chance, and, often, a hand in the public pocket, the floor-crosser and the opportunist wheel and deal in the marketplace of the bargaining process in search of privileges or office, playing havoc with all known landmarks of political left, right and centre.
What’s so new about Sangliana’s defection and indiscipline? My answer is simple. Sangliana claims to be a true Christian and he should have proved himself to be different from the other defectors, past, present and future.
P.N.BENJAMIN

Thoughts on Indian women on March 8, 2009

ARE WOMEN CHILDREN OF LESSER GODS?P.N.BENJAMINWhither Indian women on this International Women’s Day? A question well worth asking.
Today Indian women have to choose between a lifetime of abject slavery at home and warding off mandatory passes at the work place, where they are rarely treated as equals. In many less than literate sectors of our society, they are treated as children of a lesser god to be burnt alive as young bride, for not brining adequate dowry. If she survives all this, and the ignominy of being forever treated as a receptacle for male lust, often forced into whoring or raped by her near ones too.
Hundreds of cases of rape and dowry murders are reported from different parts of country every day. Domestic violence is not even reported: husbands who physically ill-treat their wives do so with utter impunity because neither the police nor the public will interfere in a ‘private matter’. Women are hunted down and murdered by mobs because they are branded witches. Girl children are kidnapped from their homes or sold to pimps and forced into prostitution.
New born girl babies are abandoned and left to die – sometimes drowned or given poison by their own parents who perceive a daughter as an economic burden. They are often not even allowed to be born – sophisticated scientific tests have been misused to detect sex of the foetus and an abortion follows promptly if the test reveals the sex to be female. In short, it is indisputable women are increasingly being subjected to greater violence and aggression, both physical and mental.
Crimes against women are increasing at an alarming rate in our country. Yet, for some strange reason, we have reduced them to statistics. Cold, brutal statistics that pile up in the morgues of government offices, welfare homes, small town courts and prisons, confirming our suspicion that the single largest minority in this country is being viciously battered into submissionWhat perverse instincts impel such acts of aggression? And why do they go unpunished? No one can argue that these issues have not received their share of publicity today. In the print-media there are women’s pages and carry articles and reports on contentious women’s issues and even special supplements. Television boasts of woman’s programmes. The other powerful medium – advertising – has always been over-eager to use women in ways women would rather not be used. Even politicians, who have often forgotten that women form any part of their electorate have bestirred themselves and, with unaccustomed activity, have launched a flurry of legislation ostensibly aimed at helping and protecting women.With all the seemingly positive changes in the society women have become the targets of increasing violence. Why, despite the stringent laws against dowry, have dowry deaths registered a sharp increase? Why have the ‘official’ figures of reported rapes doubled in the last decade and the rate of conviction been so low? Why are there so many child prostitutes in big cities? Why is the right to live denied to a girl child in some communities and why are women still the most chronically undernourished sections of the population? And, finally, why do the shocking statistics and daily reports about the deteriorating condition not create the kind of national uproar that the antics of film-star-politicians and other leaders do?Crime is endemic to the human condition, but a crime specifically directed at one sex is most despicable and, unfortunately, the one that is punished least. Because, despite all the hype and hyperbole, the protective laws and action plans, the seminars and speeches, the basic patriarchal structures and attitudes have undergone very little change. The majority of women are still second class citizens, their worth measured purely in economic terms: how much work they can do inside and outside the home, how many male children they can bear, how much dowry they will bring.The media exposure and all the legislation thus have little impact. Besides, they are themselves contradictory and often betray their own biases. Print and electronic media may carry reports castigating police connivance in a rape case or highlight a dowry death, but at the same time will carry/telecast advertisements, photo-features and illustrations that exploit women’s bodies, and perpetuate sexist images of women and flippant headings that belittle important issues. The media’s understanding of the issues involved is so confused and half-baked.Legislative enactments by government have so far been mere tokenism. Another factor that blunts the edge of any attempt to give women a better deal is that women’s issues are often politicised.
Whatever positive changes taken place so far on the women’s front are due to the hard work, dedication and commitment, of thousands of ordinary men and women and unheard of groups, braving the scorching heat and heavy rains, sacrificing the comfort and many allurements of the consumerist society, in the cause of millions of dispossessed women in the remote villages and hilly regions of this vast land of ours. They give us reasons for hope. They are building a new India. The saga of such endeavours is hardly publicised by the media addicted to the burlesque of the women who are holding up their dirty pink panties publicly.However, waiting for the real changes to occur for women in India is rather like waiting for Godot.
P.N.BENJAMIN

She walked humbly with God

SHE WALKED HUMBLY WITH GOD

A TRIBUTE TO SUSY OOMMEN, MY MOTHER IN LAW, ON HER FIRST DEATH ANNIVERSARY 15/05/2008 Horeb Mar Thoma Church, Puthupally, Kottayam, Kerala


A year has passed since our beloved Mummy left this earth life. Many were the attestations of love, respect and deep sorrow that were offered at the time of her passing. Today is the anniversary of her advent into "the life beyond" and I would offer a tribute to her memory.
Does the passing of Mummy mean gain or loss? In the sorrow of the moment of her parting, we saw only loss. But, we ignored entirely the positive statement, "to die is to gain." We were aware of but one sad fact - vacancy, a void that can never seemingly be filled. A little later, after the sorrow has lost its sharp edge, we are able to take a more just appraisal of the life of Mummy - its acts and motions, its contact with the influence upon family and society; to balance up the account of that life and perceive in a partial way the wonderful legacy that she has left behind.
What can a life here gain permanently for itself and others? There is but one reply. Nothing is lasting except riches that can be hoarded in the soul. St. Paul simplifies the whole matter when he cites the fruit of the spirit as "Love, Joy, and Peace".
I realize today that in Mummy’s passing on, a life filled with beneficent service has simply passed through a gate way to better facilities for a wider service, all of which there or here, as Browning says, "Ranks the Same with God."
One the gladdest poets has written: "This gladens me most, that I enjoyed the heart of the Joy". "The heart of the Joy" in everything was the keynote of Mummy’s life. I spent hours together talking of cabbages and kings and what not. And I understood her and vice versa. She was glad and proud even of her birthday. Why? Simply because she had a birthday. She was glad to have been born-glad to be alive. Think of that attitude of mind in these days when people like me doubt whether the life is worthwhile. She enjoyed her student days. How she loved to recall them, shared them with me every time I spent time with her.
Mummy was a teacher in Nicholson School for a couple of years in her early life. The girls she taught later grew to womanhood, married, had children, grandchildren but the bond between the teacher and her pupils was never broken. I still remember one of them visited Mummy every year on her birthday with a gift and a greeting card made by her.
Loyal though she was to her Christian faith and church, her activities extended beyond it. That peculiar quality of love and helpfulness that stamped her life was for all, as free as are the sun's rays. Children and young people were drawn to her for advice and comfort. No less useful was she in more practical matters. Here was the open door, the open heart, the open hand and one can measure the rainfall more easily than the benefits from this woman.
What is the legacy she has left behind? To me, the rich legacy of her life to us is this: the memory of Mummy, the main spring of whose life was such that the thought of her thrills our hearts with joy.
A memory that stirs the pulse with a desire to feel as she felt, to act as she acted, to know life's secret as she knew it. Shall we not, then, on this anniversary of her advent, count her life as "gain" for us, and for her, continued "gain" as she fares forward in Love and Joy, there, as here?