MY SON’S INHERITANCE A secret history of lynching and blood justice in India

 

MY SON’S INHERITANCE

A secret history of lynching and blood justice in India

Aparna Vaidik

Aleph book company 2020

Pages 173         ₹499

 When Shashi Tharoor calls it “Searing, thoughtful, …and profoundly moving,” one takes him at his word – and is disappointed. The publishers go on to describe the book as “provocative, disturbing”, and based on “groundbreaking explorations”, as they promise a to show that we have not been such a non-violent people as we claim to be.

 

Aparna Vaidik, a Ph.D. from JNU, (who found “history” equivalent to witnessing the virat roop of Krishna (with its myriad ramifications) in the court of Duryodhana, purportedly writes to her son about the ‘secret’ history of lynching and blood justice in India. In the prologue she asserts that our history of tolerance is one also of tolerance towards violence: “Is it our … fellow Indians,” she asks, “who treat these killings as retribution – pay-back time for these communities…?” In the context of the paragraph it is not clear whether this is a question or a suggestion. 

 

The Dalit Muslim man was assumed to be guilty in every story. Nothing could remove the paranoia of majority community. It was interesting to see how violence has been externalized, Othered and justified in the name of enacting social justice.

She then moves into “deeply personal” (Tharoor’s words) history. Her grandfather who converted to Arya Samaj and the story of Bharmall, an ancestor who immolated himself in protest against cow-slaughter, dominate the book.  Cow-slaughter/protection is another major topic.

The tenets of Arya Samaj are shown as having been assimilated by the grandfather – particularly in the form of challenge to the Brahminic authority and religious bigotry – “with pride and elan”.

 

A considerable portion of the book goes into showing how the Aryan and non-Aryan communities grew apart while the identification of the “Other” (the Muslim, the Christian and the Dalit) as antagonistic to the Hindu became more and more pronounced – with British policies or without. Against this background, the “Aryan identity in time became a call to arms”. The Arya Samaj, she says, offered an opportunity to participate in collective action around gauraksha; the crowding generated a sense of primordial kinship that may never have existed. This new reality was then retrospectively projected back on all the pre-existing realities dyeing them all in the colour of the present, forging Hindu and Muslim identities – creating the image of the historically violent Muslim, his excesses and insatiable lust.

There is a moment of epiphany when the author suddenly realises that her grandfather had passed on the story of Bharmall to her as a sign of passing on the parampara baton to her. What exactly this baton signifies is not explained. There is a possible explanation in what follows: she reproduces two pamphlets, the contents of which were composed by her grandfather. One on Gauraksha (“Cow-protection is our religion”) and the other on Mother Teresa of Kolkata (“Narak ka Farishta” Prophet from Hell). The absence of comments of the historian imply a message not-so-subtle to those who would take it. 

 The last chapter deals with “lynching”. A certain politician mentioned that the word originated in the ‘west”, implying that whatever was happening in India was not “lynching”. A historian would have a more informed view. In these visible instances of violence, does it matter if the myths of old have ingrained thoughts in us of violence? Or is this theme undertaken as a rebuttal to the ubiquitous claim of a non-violent predilection on the subcontinent or an explanation of modern violence in India or is it a justification?

The book moves from discussing aspects of Arya Samaj, our ancient mythology and the presence of violence. Repeated references to various non-Aryan “heroes” who submitted willingly to the onslaughts of the upper caste, to the writings Mahatma Phule (particularly of a casteless and just society), the invisibilisation of the non-Aryan tradition,  

Each act of lynching entrenches the Hindu supremacist’s sense of being a historical victim and in turn criminalises the Dalit, the Muslim or the Christian man. At the core of every lynching was the Hindu fear of the lustful Dalit or Muslim man who is after the Hindu cow and Hindu women. 

Epilogue refers to the eating habits of the author’s husband, after speaking of the “sweetest sound” made on the drying hides of animals made into drums.  His father relished the fried blood of a freshly slaughtered male goat; “kheech”; and freshly cooked/smoked goat’s kidneys that melted in the mouth.

This is your inheritance. Inheritance by definition is not always of your choosing.  But while you are tethered to it,you are no way bound by it.  You are free to choose the elements of your elements that you wish to own, to discard, to celebrate, to be indifferent to, or even to fight.  Your inheritance will acquire the meaning you give it.

But there are subtle statements and suggestions that seem to be out of alignment with “advice”.