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Our Selective Archive

Understanding why some events are kept alive in our collective consciousness and others interred

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Our Selective Archive
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As people across the world sniffled at the poignant ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, beamed live from Ground Zero in New York, few would have remembered the significance this date holds for the people of Chile. It was on September 11, 1973, that the democratically elected government of Salvadore Allende was dislodged through a coup, organised, ironically, at the behest of the CIA, an incident more or less effaced from the ‘globalised memory’. Few, too, would have muttered a silent prayer for the thousands who have perished in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, countries turned into veritable killing fields because of the war on terror that the Americans unleashed as retribution for the terror attacks.

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Truly, power is about determining what people remember and what they forget. It’s a striking asymmetry.

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Sabarmati’s burning coaches at Godhra, Feb 27, ’02
Is the suffering of those who died in the Godhra train fire different from those who were killed in the riots following it?

Those who accuse America of reordering the collective memory should be warned; the phenomenon of selective remembrance and forgetting is as much part of India’s political landscape as America’s. Worse, this malaise of selective remembering determines why perpetrators of certain collective sorrows are punished and those of tragedies similar in nature are not. As the nightmare of 26/11 unfolded, we were all Mumbaikars. Yet we have been relatively indifferent to the plight of people in Kashmir, the 50,000 who have died in the Northeast for the nation-building project beginning 1947, and even the hapless tribals caught in the crossfire between the Maoists and the state

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The politics of remembering and forgetting sorrow pervades India. In 1984, Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated the then prime minister. In less than five years, her surviving assassin, Satwant Singh, was hanged. In contrast, those who fomented riots against the Sikhs in the assassination aftermath remain largely unpunished, barring a few lowly Congressmen. Ditto the post-Babri Masjid riots and the bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1992-1993, the Godhra train burning incident and the riots that followed it in 2002. The power to reorder public memory is perhaps why Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi believes India can be made to forget his alleged role in the grisly Gujarat riots. Celebrated novelist Milan Kundera puts it best, “The struggle for power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

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“The state is always the main actor in the process. It creates and recreates some tragedies and sorrows to consolidate its position.” Ashis Nandy, Political psychologist
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“Cultural memory is of sorrow and defeat due to the construction of the human brain which reacts more intensely to negative experience.” Sudhir Kakar, Psychoanalyst

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“The judicial process is individuated, each case divorced from the larger story. Thus reconciliation becomes an individual act than of larger society.” Tridip Suhrud,
Cultural historian
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“Be it violence against Dalits or tribal dispossession, collective suffering is justified as being in the interest of backward communities.” Anupama Rao, Author, The Caste Question

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“It’s not just about contesting the idea of India, just that it is many places connected not to the idea of justice but to the idea of injustice.” Sanjoy Hazarika, Journalist

Who chooses from the receptacle of accumulated tragedies what should constitute public memory? Says political psychologist Ashis Nandy, “The main actor in this process is always the state. It creates and recreates some tragedies and sorrows to consolidate its own position. Simultaneously, there is always an attempt to whitewash some sufferings.” This whitewashing is what exposes the hypocrisy of the Indian state, which, Nandy says, criticises genocide in other countries, yet is most reluctant to discuss what its own army does in Kashmir or the Northeast. “There is constant fear that unless history is monitored or created, it would weaken the state’s position,” he argues.

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Mumbai under attack Police inspecting the BSE building after the 1993 blasts
The politics of sorrow explains the state’s uneven quest to bring to book riot fomentors and those guilty of the blasts in 1993.

Others divide collective memory into two kinds: an everyday memory which has a limited time horizon of a 100-odd years, and a cultural memory that makes a group aware about its “specialness” and identity. This cultural memory is usually organised around events of intense sorrow dating back to centuries. “Cultural memories,” explains psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar, “are often of sorrows and defeats because of the construction of the human brain which reacts to negative experiences more intensely and lastingly than positive ones.” In constituting its cultural memory, a group then chooses to mythologise, psychologically internalise and constantly dwell on a selected great sorrow from its history. “The event is often reactivated (and recreated) to strengthen a group’s cohesiveness,” says Kakar. This is perhaps why the bjp’s Ayodhya movement had such resonance, harping as it did on the defeat and humiliation of ‘Hindus’ at the hands of ‘Muslim invaders’.

It is a conundrum why the Indian state hasn’t commemorated the Partition, the horrific memories of which have been kept alive mostly through literature and film. This is perhaps because the process of creating public memory, says cultural historian Tridip Suhrud, entails a collection of private grief that requires the interaction of three actors—community, civil society and the state. Since Partition affected different communities at different places in many different ways, the state as well as civil society couldn’t piece together a meta-narrative which wouldn’t offend one social group or the other. No wonder then, as Suhrud puts it, “the loss of life has remained a part of community memory and private narratives”. Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, a historian at America’s Brown University, offers another reason. “It’s a trauma that is always in danger of being buried under an Indo-Pak politics of fear,” she says.

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The Taj, laid to siege, in Nov 2008. (Photograph by Apoorva Salkade)
As the 26/11 nightmare unfolded, we were all Mumbaikars.

However, Oxford historian Faisal Devji feels the absence of public memory on Partition violence stems from the fact that its victims have been denied justice. “In some sense, memory without violence is possible only once justice has been done,” says Devji. Thus, public recollection of violent memories is suppressed because of the fear of its impact on the present. Perhaps Gandhi understood the politics of remembering sorrow better than others. The mahatma, says Devji, had been very clear that as long as there was no restitution of property and granting of the right to return to all those displaced during Partition, there could be no peace between India and Pakistan.

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Gandhi was indeed prescient; the suppression of memories about the Partition have failed to bridge the chasm between India and Pakistan. Not only has this deepened with terror attacks originating from Pakistani soil, but the politics arising from Partition has also had a particularly inimical impact on the Muslim in India. As Yacoobali-Zamindar says, “Every day anti-Pak politics bleeds into anti-Muslim politics, and vice versa. As a community, they can never forget and, in some sense, must bear the sorrow of Partition most painfully.” She feels the Muslims in India have not only had their citizenship questioned, but have always had to insist that they belong to India, as well as apologise for and conceal their familial ties in Pakistan.

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Suppressed memory about Partition is perhaps an important factor why communal riots in independent India have been directed mainly against Muslims. In cases where they have retaliated, they have been punished severely, in contrast to the immunity their assailants seem to enjoy. Muslims are thus ghettoised not only physically but also in the country’s memoryscape. Just as suppressed memories return to haunt individuals, individual Muslims have come to remind the nation about their past suffering through the pathologies evinced in terror attacks. All this breeds a vicious cycle of anger, hatred and violence.

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The Babri invasion The razing of Babri Masjid, Dec 6, ’92
The cultural memory of Hindus and of Partition catalysed the Babri demolition, which in turn increased sense of injustice among Muslims.

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And this cycle has become difficult to break largely because of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the politics of which itself was guided by the cultural memory of Hindus as well as the violent remembrance of Partition. This, in turn, further reinforced memories of injustice among Muslims. Not only do those responsible for the demolition remain unpunished, some of the accused have risen to hold prestigious posts and even nurture prime ministerial ambitions. The date on which the Babri Masjid was demolished—December 6—is no longer treated as the day of national shame, as it was described in 1992, but as an occasion on which terror strikes are feared.

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The politics of sorrow and forgetting explains the state’s uneven quest to bring to justice those who fomented the Mumbai riots in Dec 1992-Jan 1993 and those who masterminded the Mumbai blasts a couple of months later. Says Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, “People offer comfort to victims of bomb blasts but tell me how is the terror of the mob different from the terror of the bomb?” Engineer’s question can perhaps be reframed in the context of Gujarat circa 2002 as well—how is the suffering of those who died in the Godhra train fire different from those who were killed in the riots following it?

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The riots in Mumbai that followed in the wake of Babri demolition
“Is the terror of the mob different from the terror of the bomb?”

Really, it is about the state’s attitude towards remembrance. As Suhrud says, “We as a society are told to be forward-looking, which necessarily involves forgetting, at least in the public domain. The judicial process is individuated. Each instance is technically divorced from the larger story. This makes reconciliation an individual act, not of the society at large. Reconciliation thus becomes ‘coming to terms’ with and not a mutually healing process.” The memory of suffering to which people haven’t been reconciled tends to become pathological.

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Not only the state, but opinion-makers and the media also tailor memory to suit what they think is in the nation’s interest. Former MP Syed Shahabuddin recalls the judgement of the Allahabad High Court last year—which divided the land on which the Babri Masjid once stood in three parts—to express his dismay at political experts and TV anchors who hailed it as a “good verdict”. No one talked about the subliminal message inherent in that verdict—that it was time the Muslims forgot the demolition and got on with life. “There is a growing feeling among many Hindus today that the Muslims are a roadblock to India’s progress,” says Shahabuddin.

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Inconsolable Women mourning a local boy killed in Kashmir. (Photograph by AFP, From Outlook, October 17, 2011)
Why is it that the tragedy of the Kashmiri does not move the nation as much as a terror attack in Mumbai or a blast in Delhi?

Social groups other than Muslims too have had their suffering forgotten. The anti-Sikh riots of 1984 are a prime example, about which Nandy says, “There was a conspiracy of silence even among the scholars. Since the then ruling party (Congress) was involved, many scholars also tried to see justification in the state’s action or inaction in the riots.” Even those who have doggedly tried to keep the memory of the ’84 riots alive are pessimistic about securing justice. Among them is lawyer J.S. Phoolka, who says, “Let us be pragmatic, we know now that absolute justice is not possible. But even if they convict one of the big leaders of the party, many Sikhs would believe they have achieved some justice.” Does anybody in the Congress care?

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And what journalist Sanjoy Hazarika says about the suffering in the Northeast region (ner) is true as much for Kashmir. “It is so easy,” he says, “not to remember the harm that security forces inflicted on the Nagas, the Mizos and then in Manipur and Assam.” In contrast to the attempts of the state and the media to tailor memory, people persist in remembering their suffering. As Hazarika explains, “People don’t forget that easily, not when they are reminded of their tragedy and hurt every day—when those responsible for their suffering or the symbols and images of that suffering move around and about them freely every day. So the nightmares persist. It is not just about the contestation of the idea of India. It is also about the fact that the idea of India in many places is not connected to the idea of justice but of injustice.”

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Do you care? Children holding up their toy guns before burning them in protest against the violence in Manipur
“It’s so easy not to remember the harm that security forces inflicted on the Nagas, Mizos, and then in Manipur and Assam.”

As for the suffering of tribals and Dalits not figuring in the mainstream memory of the nation, historian Anupama Rao, who has authored The Caste Question, points to the irony: the state remembers them only when they are viewed as capable of violently opposing the exploitation to which they are subjected. She goes on to say, “Instances of violence against Dalits—much of which goes unreported—or the steady dispossession of tribals from their land have been done in the name of ‘progress’. Thus, we have an ideological prism through which collective suffering is actually justified as being in the interest of backward communities.”

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Just the regularity of omissions and erasures makes for a pattern. It’s like forging a mainstream identity through negation. Some groups, animated by their own sanctioned grievances, move to the centre to become the self-referential ‘ego’ of the nation. This interplay between the dominant memory of the nation and that of marginalised groups and region is best illustrated through the lines of Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali:

At a certain point I lost track of you
You needed me. You needed to perfect me.
In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.
Your history gets in the way of my memory.
I am everything you lost. You can’t forgive me.
I am everything you lost. Your perfect Enemy.
Your memory gets in the way of my memory:
I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell:

Exquisite ghost, it is night.

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The Remembered Tragedy,
The Tragedy Of Forgetting

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The assassination of Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh riots, 1984

Then PM Indira Gandhi is killed by her bodyguards Satwant Singh and Beant Singh on October 31, 1984. Beant is gunned down; Satwant is hanged to death with co-conspirator Kehar Singh on Jan 6, 1989.

3,000 Sikhs (7,000-plus by non-govt estimates) die in ensuing riots; nearly 20,000 flee Delhi. Ten commissions look into the riots: 10,000 affidavits received, 700 cases filed, most dismissed. Only 30 people, mostly small-time Congressmen, convicted on murder charges; none given death penalty. Not even one senior Congress leader is convicted.

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The Babri Masjid demolition, 1992

Babri Masjid demolition sparks off riots that claim more than 2,000 lives

Liberhan Commission, set up in ’92, submits report 17 years on; holds some leaders intellectually responsible

In Feb this year, CBI moves SC against Allahabad HC dismissing cases against some leaders and over one lakh “unknown” kar sevaks. Leaders named include A.B. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, M.M. Joshi etc.

In Oct 1994, SC directs Allahabad HC to decide on title suit; in Sep 2010, Allahabad HC divides 2.77 acres equally between Ram Lalla, Waqf Board and Nirmohi Akhara. SC stays decision on May 2011.

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The Mumbai riots and serial blasts, ’92-93

In Dec ’92-Jan ’93, post-Babri razing, Mumbai sees riots. 900 dead, 575 Muslim, 275 Hindus. Riot survivors fight to have FIRs registered.

Many cases withdrawn by Shiv Sena-BJP (1995-1999), specially those implicating Bal Thackeray. Srikrishna panel, despite a chequered history, blames Sena leaders; 31 cops found guilty of excessive violence/dereliction of duty, some for firing on unarmed Muslims. No action.

On Mar 12, ’93, 13 serial blasts rock Mumbai, killing 257, injuring 715: 100 accused get convicted, 11 are awarded death sentence. Dawood and Tiger Memon absconding.

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Godhra train burning and Gujarat riots, 2002

On Feb 27, ’02, two Sabarmati coaches burnt; 56 “kar sevaks" returning from Ayodhya killed.

Large-scale riots in Gujarat between Feb 28 and Mar 3. Official toll: 1,000; 790 Muslim, 254 Hindus. Toll now 1,267 with 223 missing and declared dead after seven yrs.

Gujarat starts fast-track court for Godhra, riot cases stay in regular courts. Of 100 arrested for Godhra, 31 convicted (11 to death, 20 to life), 63 acquitted in Feb ’11. For riots, 5,070 arrested; most released on bail in a year; 961 cases registered; 414 "deemed without merit"; 9 convicted for Best Bakery, 9 for Danilimbda, 8 for Panchmahals riots.

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A Dry-Eyed India

A terror strike in Mumbai or a blast in Delhi enrage the nation. But the suffering of ‘mainland India’ is nothing compared to what other states countenance. Some figures...

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1) The J&K conflict
Unofficial death toll since insurgency began in ’89: 1 lakh. Official count: 43,460—13,226 civilians killed by militants, 3,642 by security forces; 21,323 militants. Of 5,369 members of security forces killed, 1,500 Kashmiri policemen. Unofficial count of missing: 8,000; official count: 3,900. 2,000 unmarked graves discovered in three J&K districts recently.

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2) The Northeast
Arunachal and Meghalaya apart, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura have seen insurgency and ethnic clashes since 1947. Estimated number of deaths since then: 50,000. Some 12,000 died between 1992 and 2002; 4,797 since 2005 till date: 1,828 civilians, 360 security personnel, 2,609 militants. Over 2 lakh said to be internally displaced.

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3) The Red Corridor
Nearly 200 districts, one-third of India’s total districts, said to be under Maoist influence. Over 11,000 killed in Maoist-government conflict since ’02. Of these, 6,132 are civilians, 2,157 security forces and 2,958 Maoist cadres and leaders. Over 4.5 lakh, mostly tribals, displaced n 2005-10, 1 lakh during a ’09-10 govt offensive in Chhattisgarh.

By Pranay Sharma with Smruti Koppikar in Mumbai

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