A substantial majority of Indians, I am sure, are sensitive enough to readily acknowledge that the recent incidents in Gujarat have been essentially tragic and deeply horrifying. Ours is a civilization which has had its share of divisions and disputes, but still has survived and sustained itself over long centuries by evolving reconciliatory mechanisms and resolving conflicts. Such attempts, one must admit, have not always been entirely successful, still there have been in our history more periods of equilibrium, even if of a tense nature, than of unbridled destruction. The Gujarat bloodbath, however, has rudely jolted us into confronting a new and highly question: Why does this community, with all its age-old wisdom and unique self-healing capacity now look as if it has been stunned into a stupor, where its fabled compassion no longer has the power to rein in its bestial elements?

True, a major section of the community, immersed in their own everyday struggle, would find little time to acquaint themselves with every detail of the horrendous carnage, much less intervene in it pro-actively, taking place in what still remains, in geo-spatial terms, a distant place. Still, there are some among them who have access to the gory happenings through the print and electronic media. Why is it that even they display an inexplicable inertia? Just why?

Or, could it be my own fault that I am imagining things to be so? That in converting concrete entities like human beings, of whom I myself form a tiny part, into abstract categories like the Indian community, the Gujarat community and so on, I am only deceiving myself, fudging with words, shirking my own responsibilities?

Moved by the media reports, saturated with them, and finally even exhausted by them, one piled upon another hour after hour day after day, one is ultimately only more bewildered by the welter of violence and its reportage. The deluge of details of the demonic dance that the media creates only further deadens my soul, instead of penetrating into my blood and bone. It recounts the horror, in its own factful, faithful manner, but sadly, lacks the power to compel me to recreate it as my own horror. Thus at best my pity is prodded, but my conscience is not aroused or my will-to-action awakened. The media coverage, for the most part, only comes in handy for me to pass time with; it flirts with my senses, falsifies my feelings, and enslaves my responses.

There have also been, at the other end of the spectrum, numerous studies of the Gujarat conflagration by various thinkers and scholars, insightful analyses and illuminating interpretations by persons of eminence in their respective disciplines. To me, however, in my present condition, even these appeal merely as exciting intellectual exercises, replete with ideological commitment, brilliant theses, incisive illustrations, all done with unquestionable conviction, but yet utterly powerless in inspiring my active-strengths.

The only way out of this maze, it appears, is to somehow live the Gujarat horror within my little self, live it in a way that shakes up my entire being and stirs up all my faculties. To somehow recreate a Gujarat of my own, on my own, from the resources available within my tiny self, and then to explore it, confronting whatever such an act might throw up.

When I begin to explore in this manner, I find, immediately before me, my own little rural world. In this community composed of about twenty villages, there are not more than twenty Muslim families. Then there are the handful Muslim petty tradesmen from the nearby town who float in and out of my rural environs everyday. To this date, there has never ever been a major conflict or violent incident between them and their Hindu neighbours. Such an absence of animosity, however, one must add in the same breath, does not imply perfect amity. The Hindu section, one must admit, has always had a deep-rooted but faintly discernible suspicion towards the Muslims, on account of their belonging to a different religion and culture.

If one were to extend the exploration a little further- our district has seen Hindu-Muslim clashes, but only very rarely. A couple of years after Independence, a violent riot erupted in the district headquarters, claiming one life. I, a young college-student in the same town then, was spared the misfortune of being a direct witness to the flare-up but was, nevertheless, along with a few friends, subjected to a bit of the resultant heat. The very memory of it still sends a shiver down my spine. In the fifty-odd years since then, there have been another four or five clashes of a comparable ferocity in the district. I, for one, cannot all that facilely attribute, as many amongst us do, these incidents to a few local criminal elements alone. Each one of us, I am convinced, has been responsible, directly or indirectly, for these inhuman acts.

Further, I cannot but admit that Muslims, for their part, reciprocate the misconception and viciousness that characterize the attitude of the local Hindus towards them. And since they are in a minority, it is but natural, from their own viewpoint, that they harbour more acute forms of prejudice than the majority does. Then if I turn a little inward, my own attitudes, for one who has been a long-time member of the larger community that includes both, are, I discern, aside from minor differences of details, much the same as those of my fellowmen in caste and creed. In other words, there is a Gujarat within me as well.

In the past there were times when I believed with all my might that I had purified myself, having exorcised from my heart every such evil bias and antipathy; and had even made proud proclamations to the effect. Which really was delusion.... These were the times when one went strutting around with the conviction that once the nation's constitution, political system and administration took on a modern hue, and more particularly if economic equality was achieved, all such bigotry based upon religion, sect and caste would be beaten out of sight. Today, however, leave alone believe in it, I cannot even bring myself to imagine such a possibility. Still, the Hindutva brigade keeps arguing that if only the non-Hindus are banished or bulldozed into conformity, the resulting mono-religious Hindu Rashtra would give us golden chance of creating a Suvarna Bharat. The modernists, for their part, set store by the idea that a utopia would bring itself into being if only radical political, economic and social reforms are forced upon the nation. And this even after one claim has been shown to be just as hollow as the other.

Is it that such all-consuming hatred exists only between Hindus and Muslims, or Hindus and non-Hindus? Is not Mahabharata, our primal mythic history another tragic tale of similar animosity? And that of a cataclysmic feud between not unrelated people but blood brothers? Or if we turn our gaze just a little inwards - do we not encounter differences, divisions, biases and jealousy in intense forms at every turn in our everyday lives- between castes, classes, professions and persuasions, amongst communities, neighborhoods, why, even in and between our families? So much so that they, one begins to suspect, are indivisible parts of life, the obverse of diversity to the extent that no one, no reform, no system nor lofty idealism can ever eradicate them.

Yet, despite such insurmountable threats communities and cultures rather than destroy others as well as themselves through hatred, have instead, somehow learnt to live as well as let others live, as much by bearing offspring of their own as by forbearing from hurting others.... While divisions and distrust have always been unavoidable, often unpalatable parts realities of life, it is just as undeniably true that the idea of oneness, that all beings are inseparably interrelated, equally deep-rooted, has nursed and nurtured the world, at both individual and collective levels....

Virtually every moment of our everyday life is fraught with such animosities and anxieties, and these dangers are then somehow dispelled, thanks to some one who awakens our collective conscience. In such states of wisdom we begin to realize the inevitability of coexisting with differences, or reconcile ourselves to the existential scheme of things, accepting diversity, even divisive diversity, as the Will of God, and thereby overcome our intolerance towards others..... Such mechanisms of self-control and acceptance of what cannot be controlled simultaneously constitute our spiritual strengths as well as our worldly strategies.

I should first create my Gujarat within my own self, explore it and try to comprehend it, however frightening the process might be. Any cleansing is possible only in this inner sphere... If I can achieve this, that experience would stir up my will-to-action to an indomitable degree. Such a will would then begin to suffuse my family and my community. It would, by connecting with those others of the society a little jaded by unending everyday worldly engagements, force them to clearly perceive the community-wisdom latent in them and thereby spur them to responsible action. I am not helpless, if I can feel the Gujarat within me.... I can influence and change my own person and my people.... Doubtlessly so, because whatever I have discerned and am pointing out is nothing but the wisdom that my community has bequeathed to me-wisdom that it has developed over long long years of life.... The little local collective which has given me breath and soul, and the various collectives of India which for over half-a-century now have preserved and nourished our unique democracy as a fertile field of vital experimentation have bestowed upon me their invaluable life-wisdom, with the binding that I should, in turn, hand it over uncorrupted and enriched to my successors. If I do not, with my body and soul, fulfill the obligation, I would prove myself to be a traitor to my tradition instead of showing myself to be a true Indian citizen.

To the ears of those who belong to the modern centuries these cries of mine, I am well aware, might sound like naive moralizing or self-flagellation. I, however, am not in the least embarrassed about them. And that is because just as all reside within me, I am convinced; I reside inside everyone else too. Gujarat exists more within me than without. I can explore it, examine it; counter it, control it.... I am not helpless, I am not alone. No, not at all...


*The above essay by K.V. Subanna has been translated from Kannada into English by Jaswanth Jadhav. K.V. Subanna was founder of 'Ninasam' and received the Magsaysay award for the humanitarian work that he did for his community in the realm of culture.