The humiliating arrest of the Kanchi seer is testing Hindu patience

18 November 2004: The Shankaracharya issue has turned political parties against one another, revived the Brahmin-non-Brahmin divide in Tamil Nadu and deeply hurt Hindu sentiments outside the state, provoked differences within political parties between secularists and those who keep faith, and left the country hanging on a communal precipice. The report of security and intelligence agencies to the government is hardly comforting.

While nobody in the agencies is debating the merits and demerits of the case, that being a matter left to the courts to decide, the manner of arrest of the Kanchi Shankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswati, the humiliation he suffered in the hands of the Tamil-Nadu police, have provoked the nagging question, why? Why was the Shankaracharya humiliated in this manner, and why didn’t the Centre intervene to tell the Tamil-Nadu government to adhere to Supreme-Court guidelines in the arrest and incarceration of religious leaders?

Both prime-minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have separately and differently washed their hands off the matter, but it won’t, frankly, wash. The PM said the Centre was not in the picture, and anyway, it was of no concern to it. Only a non-politician, who has no understanding of the ethos of this country, and its deep wedding to faith, would make such a statement, and he is factually incorrect, because home-minister Shivraj Patil certainly knew of the upcoming arrest, but was obviously directed to keep to a contrived neutrality. Sonia stuck to that neutrality position when questioned about the arrest on an UP visit, saying she couldn’t say more as the issue was subjudice.

But the Centre can hardly claim neutrality when there is an obvious and glaring connection between the arrest of a seer like the Shankaracharya and the communal situation. The agencies in their report to the government have warned of riots unless the Centre proactively steps in to protect the prestige and sanctity of the Kanchi Mutt. They have intercepted a large number of communications to and between many universities and to Hindu students urging an uprising against this hurt to the faith.

Once Shivraj Patil got to know of the impending arrest, he should have insisted on the Supreme-Court guidelines being followed. Yesterday, the CPI-M, which keeps out of matters of faith, was surprisingly conservative in its response. “The law must take its own course,” said Sitaram Yechuri. “At the same time, the Shankaracharya is a religious personality, and has a stature in Indian society. This must be kept in mind.” Nor can Sonia distance the Congress from the episode, because the Shankaracharya was arrested in Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh. “If the Andhra chief minister had insisted on the Supreme-Court guidelines being followed,” said a Congress stalwart, “the Tamil-Nadu government would have been stopped in its tracks. This would have been a responsible position to take. Instead, the CM, Y.S.Rajashekhar Reddy, says he protected the junior Shankaracharya. Does it make sense?”

Starting from the Brahmin and Kshatriya leadership across all political parties, there is a deep sense of hurt and dismay. To this writer’s knowledge, several upper-caste Congress leaders are aghast at Jayalalithaa’s humiliation of the Shankaracharya to square off M.Karunanidhi and win the non-Brahmin votes in Tamil Nadu. But they are unable to break out of the “secular” gridlock of the Congress and speak their mind. During her UP trip, reportedly some Brahmin Congress leaders and workers expressed their upset to Sonia Gandhi, and the Centre is belatedly getting serious about damage-control. But no direct action is planned. Instead, moves are afoot to dredge up the old cases against Jayalalithaa and thereby pump up Karunanidhi once again and simultaneously placate the Hindu community, but this “political” action may be too little and too late.

Many of the communications intercepted by the security services push the VHP line of argument, that Jayalalithaa won’t have dared take such action against Islamic or church leaders, and that this has only been possible because of deep divisions in Hindu society which have encouraged the state’s practise of misplaced secularism. In the open, such an argument may not advance very much, but in the subterranean spaces, its impact has been widespread, and alarmed the agencies. One clear figure of hate has emerged, as if to balance out the Shankaracharya’s doings or misdoings, and that is the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid. All the subterranean anger of Hindus has started to reside in the alleged commissions and omissions of the Shahi Imam, when in fact, in private, all Muslim religious bodies have expressed the mainstream shock and dismay at the arrest.

In normal circumstances, the BJP/ RSS/ Sangha would be the lightning rod for all these suppressed Hindu sentiments, but the deep divisions in the Parivar have created the possibility of more radical expression of this perceived suppress. The deep divisions are most evident in the BJP, where Murli Manohar Joshi has unilaterally come out in defence of the Shankaracharya, while the L.K.Advani camp has been slower on the uptake. Those close to him have in typical off-the-record media briefings been saying the BJP is undecided, and so is the RSS, but the naysayers have been slowly facing the backlash.

At an Iftar party hosted by the former prime minister, A.B.Vajpayee, a journalist stunned and shocked him by congratulating him on the Shankaracharya’s late-night arrest. Reporters say the bottom fell out of the celebrations, and Vajpayee was pushed to regret the manner of arrest, although in fairness to him, he had unadvertised already raised the matter with Shivraj Patil. Following the Iftar episode, Advani also regretted the nature of arrest in another gathering, but there was unhappiness at the lead taken by Joshi.

There is less division at the RSS/ VHP level, and Ashok Singhal’s prompt condemnation of the arrest is attributed to the VHP’s primary responsibility for religious affairs in the Sangha structure. Obviously, the RSS/ VHP is milking the issue for all its worth, and it is their plan to prolong the crisis to consolidate the Hindus. A suggestion was made to the RSS chief, K.S.Sudershan, for the Shankaracharya to refuse to apply for bail, and instruct his lawyers and devotees not to exert in that direction, but it was turned down so as not to bring the crisis to a head so soon, since the movement was slowly picking up only in the small towns thus far. You can condemn the RSS/ VHP strategy, but who provided the opportunity, and why?

This is not to prejudge the issue, or to pronounce the Shankaracharya guilty, as Karunanidhi in his infinite wisdom has done. He was himself at the receiving end in June 2001 when Jayalalithaa’s police goons took him away in the dead of night and dumped him in the same Vellore Jail as the Shankaracharya. If it hurt him, it would hurt any other personage, including the Shankaracharya, but obviously, he has been clouded by his hatred for Brahmins, who have been a battered, endangered community in Tamil Nadu for the last fifty years and more.

As for the UPA, it has so far refused to acknowledge that the majority community can also feel a sense of hurt. If it was one policy of extreme in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, it is the other extreme now. The more politics is being sought to be severed from religion, the more it is being driven to it. The RSS/ VHP strategy is to “sacrifice” Jayendra Saraswati, if necessary, and consolidate Hindus behind the junior Shankaracharya. Because of the destructive and divisive nature of all Indian politics, secular and communal, India faces a new ransom situation today.