जाट धर्म

 हरियाणा में एक कहावत है! जाट का हिंदू होना क्या, और मेवाती का मुस्लिम होना क्या। इसका अर्थ है: एक जाट केवल नाम मात्र का हिंदू है, उसकी मुख्य पहचान उसके कर्म से परिभाषित होती है जो धर्म, जाति, वर्ग और पंथ की सतही पहचान से ऊपर है। वह, एक अलग समूह के रूप में, अपनी मात्र धार्मिक पहचान से कुछ अधिक है, चाहे वह हिंदू, सिख या मुस्लिम हो। इसलिए हिंदू जाट, मुस्लिम जाट और सिख जाट अपने-अपने धर्म से कुछ बढ़कर हैं। वे एक विशिष्ट नस्लीय या जातीय समूह की अपनी एक विशिष्ट समानता, गहरी जड़ें साझा करते हैं, जिन्होंने समय बीतने के साथ विभिन्न धर्मों को अपनाया। लेकिन वे सभी जानते हैं और महसूस करते हैं कि वे अपनी मात्र धार्मिक पहचान से ऊपर और परे हैं। इसी तरह मेवाती मुसलमान नाम का मुसलमान होता है। यह केवल मुंडा मूंछ और टोपी वाला जाट है; बाकी सब तो वही का वही है: भाषा, तेवर, अल्हड्पन, एक खट्टी मीठी अपरिपक्वता, व्यक्तित्व मे एक ठेठ उन्मुक्त हवा का अह्सास। अभी एक प्रयास किया  जा रहा है की तमाम हिन्दू जाट अपने आपको सिर्फ हिन्दुत्व से परिभाषित करे। तमाम छद्म धर्मनिरपेक्ष और वास्तविक साम्प्रदायिक प्रचार को देखते हुए मेवातियों को भी मजबूर किया जा रहा है कि वे पहले खुद को 'मुस्लिम' मानें।

एक विचार

 पंंजाब मे फिर से खालिस्तानी आतंकवाद सिर उठा रहा है। ये सब चरमपंथी, अति-राष्ट्रवादी विचारधारा के काले उपोत्पाद हैं। आप "हिंदू राष्ट्र-हिंदू राष्ट्र" का नारा लगाते रहते हैं और यह तरंग प्रभाव पैदा करता है। यह (बेशक गलत तरीके से) दूसरों को भी ऐसा करने के लिए प्रेरित करता है। यदि आप पूरे देश को एक रंग में रंगने वाले हिंदुत्व की बात करते हैं, तो अल्पसंख्यकों को उचित रूप से खतरा महसूस होगा। अति-राष्ट्रवादी हिंदू विचारधारा स्वयं कट्टरपंथी मुस्लिम मौलवियों के अंध धार्मिक उत्साह की प्रतिक्रिया है, एक ऑफ-शूट है. इस्लाम के ठेकेदारो ने मुस्लिम जनता में एक खतरनाक तथ्य ड्रिल किया है कि उनकी पहली पहचान केवल ओर केवल एक मुस्लिम के तौर पर है। नागरिकता, पदनाम, भूमिका या जिम्मेदारी जैसी किसी भी अन्य कम पहचान से पहले उनकी पहचान एक मुस्लिम की है। इससे प्रेरित होकर हिंदू धर्म के दबंग लड़के अपने धर्म के नाम पर भी शोर मचाना उचित समझते हैं। मूल रूप से कट्टर इस्लाम ने अन्य धर्मों के बीच गलत तरीके से उग्र भावनाओं को प्रेरित किया है। शांतिप्रिय सनातन धर्मियों में से कुछ अब त्रिशूल धारण करने वाले हास्यास्पद, शरारती तत्व हैं। इसमे मुख्य अपराधी तो संप्रदायवाद की आग है। यह अब कई सारे हिंदुओं के दिलों में जल रही है। लेकिन उग्र हिंदू हृदय अन्य धार्मिक हृदयों को भी प्रेरित करेंगे। इसलिए जैसे-जैसे राष्ट्रवादी सूर्य की किरणें भारतीय विविधताओं पर पड़ती हैं, हमारे सामने खालिस्तान आंदोलन का पुनरुत्थान होता है। यदि आप चरमपंथी विचारधारा को बढावा देते हैं, तो वे भी ऐसा करेंगे। आजकल की दुनिया मे, 'सही' की तुलना में 'गलत' युवाओ को प्रेरित करने में कहीं अधिक प्रभावी है। मुसलमानों के खिलाफ व्यवस्थित भेदभाव की नीति ने 1947 के बाद सांप्रदायिक आधार पर अलगाववाद की दूसरी लहर के बीज बो दिए हैं। और जब भी कोई ईसाई मिशनरी जंगलों में किसी आदिवासी का धर्मांतरण करता है तो प्रलय के अनुपात में शोर उत्तर-पूर्व के ईसाईयों को अलगाववाद से जुड़ाव के लिए मजबूर कर देगा। भारत इतना विविधतापूर्ण है कि एक वैचारिक रंग में रंगा नहीं जा सकता। चमकदार राष्ट्रवादी रंगवादियों को सरकार बनाने जैसा अस्थायी लाभ तो मिल सकता है लेकिन दीर्घकाल में यह भारत की नींव को दीमक की तरह खा जाएगा। गायों के लिए जब मुस्लिम युवकों की पीट-पीटकर हत्या कर दी जाती है, तो निश्चित रूप से सिख युवकों को भी सांप्रदायिक आधार पर उत्पात मचाने और पवित्र गुरु ग्रंथ साहिब को कानून और व्यवस्था को चुनौती देने के लिए पुलिस थानों में ले जाने की खुजली होती है। कल को उत्पाती हिन्दु लडके भी पवित्र गीता को ढाल बनाकर कानून को चुनौती देगे। अति दक्षिणपंथी विचारधारा शरारती तत्वो के पागलपन को देशभक्ति के रंग में रंग देती है। लेकिन इस अवस्था मे भारत में हमारे सामुहिक महल को गिराने के लिए हमारे पास पर्याप्त धर्मो की विविधता हैं। भलाई एसमे है की समावेशिता की बात करे। आम आदमी से जुड़े मुद्दों पर चुनाव लड़ा जाए। आइए, राष्ट्रवादी क्रांति के चकाचौंध करने वाले रंगों को किनारे रख दें और राष्ट्र निर्माण के सरल उपकरण उठा लें।

उपसंहार: सभी बहिष्कृत सिद्धांत के पालनवादी एक कमजोर परिसर, यानी श्रेष्ठता के परिसर से अपना पोषण प्राप्त करते हैं। यदि एक पुनरुत्थानवादी हिंदू राष्ट्रवादी के रूप में आप अपनी विशिष्ट विचारधारा में न्यायसंगत महसूस करते हैं, तो क्या आपको नहीं लगता कि दूसरे भी ऐसा ही महसूस करते हैं? क्या आपको नहीं लगता कि एक खालिस्तानी भी उसी तर्ज पर अपने विश्वास को सही ठहराने की कोशिश करेगा? या आपको लगता है कि संकीर्णता का आपका विशिष्ट अधिकार उनसे अधिक है क्योंकि सनातन धर्म सिख धर्म से पुराना है? वर्षों में वरिष्ठता के इस सिद्धांत के आधार पर, दक्षिण भारत के गहरे जंगलों में  द्रविड़ आदिवासियों द्वारा पालन किए जाने वाले जीववाद का धर्म इस विशेष भौगोलिक इकाई के धर्म-शोषित विश्वास पर कॉपीराइट रखने का और भी बड़ा दावा करता है क्योंकि आर्यों के आगमन से पहले वे पहले से ही एक मानव समाज के रूप में जीवनयापन कर रहे थे। आर्यों के आने से पहले, जिसे अब हम हिंदू धर्म के आरंभ के रूप में पहचानते हैं, उनकी एक विशिष्ट संस्कृति थी।

Pa and the Elephants

 

My father demanded peace. New clothes, with their authoritative tautness and showy bickering, pinched his skin, burdened his bones and ruffled his philosophical demeanor. ‘New clothes are very hard on the skin. They put a kind of weight on you,’ he would complain. ‘They pinch and intimidate you,’ he would add. So the new set of clothes would go into watery deluge for three or four days to beat out their pinch, showmanship and gimmickry.

As the clothes would wear down with usage and mellow down to old age softness under the rigorous scrutiny of hundreds of washings, he would get in groove with them, finally accepting their presence in sync with the repose inside. ‘The only problem is that when a pair of clothes is really worth wearing in softness, it’s the time to discard it,’ he complained. My mother and sisters won’t allow him to feel at his best and go decked up in extremely soft, read it tattered, kurta-pyjama just because he found them suitably soft and non-pinchy.

Pa loved smoking, first huge cigars during dandy youth, cigarettes in the slowing-down middle age and coming to a chain-smoking spree of beedis in the later part of life. But ganja was a strict no. Once while visiting Rishikesh, he got inspired to taste the unfamiliar substance. An old sadhu was taking majestic draughts at his ganja-filled chillum. Pa followed as a well-obliging newly hatched disciple. Then standing at Ram Jhoola swaying over the watery sprawl of Ma Ganga and a cold wind buffeting down the valley, he saw philosopher Plato walking over the Ganges waters. Many will term it as hallucination. But to me these are the realities belonging to a different dimension. Pa loved the works of ancient philosophers and had thoroughly read Plato’s works. So maybe Plato decided to give him a darshan, albeit when Pa was a bit tipsy on the swinging bridge.   

Father felt it best when he visited Rishikesh. ‘I feel it so light in my being when I’m there,’ he told us. Once Father returns from his Rishikesh trip. The bag isn’t yet on the floor before he tells the biggest news spinning out of his time by the Ganges. ‘Elephants would have eaten us!’ he reads out the scary news. Maybe still under shock because elephants don’t eat humans, they trample them. ‘Oh did they attack you?’ Ma is concerned. We prepare ourselves to listen to the hair-raising episode. ‘Yea, very near to that!’ Father builds up the momentum of the scary news. ‘How?’ Mother is serious. ‘We were going in the forest and there we come across them!’ Father stops as if still haunted by the biggest land animals on earth. ‘How many?’ Mother wants to judge the scale of danger on the numerical ladder. ‘Well, must be a big party because there were many heaps of dung on the path. We were saved just by a whisker!’ Father’s eyes are wide open with fear. ‘You guys got scared of the elephant dung,’ Mother laughs in her simple ways of a hardworking woman. Pa is irritated, ‘They were just couple of minutes away because the dung was still steaming.’ It was winter and fresh elephant poop let out vapors as a proof of its freshness and hence the just recent presence of the elephants. Mother has to accept the gravity of the danger. ‘What did you people do?’ she asks innocently. ‘We took a U turn and tried to run to the capacity of our lungs and legs,’ Father seems tired like he has been running all the way from Rishikesh to our village.  

Mid-November Musings

 

A bluejay or Indian roller (neelkanth) sits silently on the top branch of a dead neem tree. Dry, dead trees are nice perch points for birds because they can have an unrestricted view of the surroundings. A brooding fellow it seems, a silent bird with stagnant emotions right in the middle of some breezy, fluid moments floating around its beautiful navy blue and reddish brown colors. Then suddenly breaking its scholastic insights, it gives a vocal blast as it takes off yelling pakrr-pakrr-pakrr. The resounding warning startles almost all the birds around. Maybe it finds the morning too boring and decides to ruffle a few feathers. The pair of hummingbirds that is enjoying on the marigolds, which seems a novelty in taste because I haven’t seen them feasting on the marigolds before this, also shoots off for cover among leafy canopies.

Marigolds, the sturdy, unassuming flowers that keep their smiles for weeks. I have seen honeybees taking a siesta under the warm afternoon sunrays on the marigolds.

A Parijat branch hangs low. Whenever I pass under the tree, it touches the crown of my head. I feel blessed. When a tree’s branch braces against you, take a pause and feel the touch. The tree is extending its hand to greet you, bless you, touch you to heal. We just need to accept it.

I missed it to tell you before. There was only one rockchat in the house to begin with. It spent considerable time in the garden, yard and the verandah, and sometimes in the room itself. It shared my solitude with an equal right to the house. It looked a lonely bird that seemed to somehow feel the solitudional vibes emanating from the house. Then one fine day it had a partner. In this species both the sexes look the same, so I would take the liberty of christening its gender as per my convenience. I would say he is a boy of the house who has wooed a lady after having a feeling of getting well settled in the house. Now both of them are very happy together. All of us are looking for a touch of solace through companionship. Now they are spirited enough to enjoy their playful supper till dusk. The mosquitoes are flummoxed by a sudden dive in temperature. They keep knocking at the window panes and door wire-mesh. The rockchat couple nicely jumps around to take airy morsels. The littlest inconvenience is that now I cannot make out which one is the boy who got his partner here.

The skies have a treat. A group of eleven ducks goes quacking in V-formation. These sights are vanishing. There is no free waterbody in the village now. I saw thousands in the village during childhood. The village pond is engaged for fishing. It’s almost a little lake but they have spun a wire netting over the entire area to deny entry to the visitors from the Himalayas. Imagine a world where the ducks are denied entry to swim. The fish swim, of course. But only till the net is cast.  

Quite miraculously, the banana cone is still there after many weeks. Its deep maroon leaves peel off very slowly to the tug of dew and mist. It’s lucky to be still there because there are monkeys in the village. The bully alpha rhesus male faces a challenge. There are many lithe, adolescent heroes who are lustily eying his harem. He carries a big scar on his right shoulder and seems to have lost confidence apart from the prettiest female with whom he loitered around with much majesty, pride and big-time pomp and show as his queen consort. The young swashbucklers have surely lured her away. Well, she is within her rights to choose the prince of her heart. This morning the beaten king was seen with the tailless old queen. He had forgotten her altogether. But now she provides succor to his bruised soul. Earlier he would turn back and challenge we humans right on the spot. Today he simply showed his beaten bum and screeched a bare-toothed abuse from a safe distance. Times change. Nothing is permanent. But he has already crammed the village with his pedigree and this thought should give him some solace.

We match the monkeys in more ways than one. We mess things around—ironically even when we suppose we are organizing things, we are in fact sowing the seeds of more disorder and chaos later on. Our gallant spirit has seen us launching 8400 tons of objects into earth’s orbit. Our space-conquering spirits have seen us catapulting 25000 objects into earth’s orbit. As a result, there is a huge amount of junk that is floating in space. The future spacecrafts and satellites will need decluttering of space. So we will have space kabaris. The trash pickers can take pride in their profession now. It will be much esteemed in the coming decades. Your trash is someone’s treasure, very aptly said. But we are mindlessly turning mother earth’s treasures into piles of trash.

I light a diya a dusk. It’s a beautiful, little beacon of faith that lights my path into the dark folds of night. The next day the clay diya has a left out cotton swab of the wick. I put it in the flowerbed. There are a few tailorbird couples. Cotton is the basic building block of their nest made by sewing three leaves together. They are nice, skilled chaps and expertly stitch leaves to make a nesting cup. I think to be a great human tailor, it must be mandatory to be a diligent tailorbird in the previous birth.

It’s mid November. Gone are the pure mists. We now have the metallic haze, the smog. It kills slowly. Right now it burns the eyes and gives the throat an itch. But the birds still have their morning songs and that is an assurance for the time being. We have to believe in nature to save us like it has done so far.  

During the winters, the entire Delhi NCR, covering many districts in the neighboring states apart from the national capital, gets shrouded under smog. Stubble burning by Punjab farmers is generally blamed for Delhi’s smog. If Punjab fires are majorly responsible for the winter fog in Delhi, then Chandigarh should be equally polluted in November but it stays almost unaffected. Stubble burning is just one of the factors and that too temporary. The political class passes the buck onto poor farmers every year and keeps ignoring the long-lasting issues that make Delhi a gas chamber throughout the year.

Whose right is it to be a bigger excluvist?

 These are the dark spin-offs of the ultra-nationalist ideology.  You keep parroting "Hindu Rashtra-Hindu Rastra" and it creates ripple effects. It inspires (wrongly of course) others also to do the same. If you talk of an over-swiping Hindutva, coloring the entire country in one color, minorities will feel justifiably threatened. The ultra-nationalist Hindu ideology itself is a reaction, an off-shoot, to the blind religious zealotry of hardline Muslim maulvis who have drilled a dangerous fact in Muslim masses that their first identity is that of a Muslim before any other lesser identity like citizenship, designation, role or responsibility.  So the bully boys of Hinduism feel justified in raising a din in the name of their religion also. Originally, hardliner Islam has wrongly inspired fiery sentiments among other religions. A few of the peace loving sanatan dharmis are now trishul wielding mobsters. Main culprit is the fire of sectranism. It now burns in many Hindu hearts. But fiery Hindu hearts will inspire other religious hearts also. So as the shadows cast by the nationalistic sunrays fall over the Indian diversities, we have resurgence of Khalistan movement.  If you overdo it, so will they. The wrong is far more effective in motovating the mobsters than the right. The policy of systematic discrimination against the Muslims has already sown the seeds of second wave of separatism along communal lines after 1947. And the din raised to the proportions of pralya whenever a Chriatian missionary converts a Tribal in forests will force the Chriatians of north-east to think along separatist lines. India is too diversified to be colored in one ideological color. The shiny nationalistic colorists may gain temporary benefits like forming governments but in the long run it will eat the foundations of India like termites. When Hindu youths go lynching over cows, of course the Sikh youths also get an itching to go on rampage on communal grounds and carry Holy Guru Granth Sahib into the police stations challenging law and order. The far rightist ideology colors the insanity of mobsters in patriotic colors. But then in India we have enough religions to bring down our castle. Let's talk of inclusivity. Let the elections be fought over the issues that concern the common man. Let's put the blinding colors of Rashtravadi revolution on the sidelines and pick up simple tools of nation-making.

Postscript: All excluvist principles draw their sustenance from an atrophied complex, the complex of superiority.  If as a resurgent Hindu nationalist you feel justified in your exclusivistic ideology, don't you think others also feel the same way? Don't you think even a Khalistani will try to justify his/her belief along the same lines? Or do you think that your excluvistic right of  narromindedness is greater than theirs because sanatan dharma is older than Sikhism? From this principle of seniority in years,  the religion of animism followed by Dravadian Tribals deep in the forests of south India has even a bigger claim to hold the copyright over the faith of this particular geographical unit because they were already functioning as a human society with its distinct culture before the Aryans arrived and laid the foundation of what we now recognise as Hindu dharma.