The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Alienation in J and K
Jobs, education as remedies

A major cause for unrest in Jammu and Kashmir has been the widespread feeling of alienation among the people, particularly those in the Kashmir valley. Separatists have been exploiting this factor for their negative agenda, resulting in the youth going astray. Alienation has been helping the separatists and militants to fuel the fire of extremism with disastrous results. The Centre’s various educational and job-related schemes announced during the past few days should be seen against this backdrop. The latest scheme of the Centre is aimed at enabling 5000 young men and women every year to acquire higher education outside the state with the help of a scholarship programme. Earlier, the Centre came out with a Rs 1000 crore package for getting 8000 youngsters trained annually to become employable by the corporate sector.

These measures are being taken following the recommendations made by the C. Rangarajan-headed Expert Group on Employment in Jammu and Kashmir four months ago. The Expert Group was constituted along with some other such groups by the Prime Minister as part of his initiative to end militancy in the valley and bring the people there on the path of peace and progress. After all, development remains the best antidote to militancy. These steps are bound to bring about a positive change in the people’s mindset. They can no longer complain that the Centre cares little for its people in the strife-torn border state.

Besides providing an opportunity to 5000 young men and women every year to add to their educational qualifications, the scheme for higher education outside J and K will make the beneficiaries interact with people in other parts of the country. The interaction will help them become a part of the national mainstream, essential to end their feeling of alienation. People elsewhere in the country will also find an opportunity to understand the grievances of their compatriots in J and K. There is no better way to remove the misunderstandings among the people in the valley.

Spirit of India
We have every right to be depressed

A study based on the World Health Organisation’s World Mental Health Survey Initiative says that India is the most depressed country, with the highest rate of depression on this blue planet. That is nothing to be sad about. In fact, it is a badge of honour. Had any other race been in such a boat, it would have long given up. And here we are, only a little upset, but sailing on regardless. What has been left unsaid is that there is a lot to be depressed about. Corruption, chaos and killings could have gotten anybody’s goat. Indians still stand firm – call it the Bharat spirit, if you will. It has taken decades of hard training to reach this exalted level of equanimity. The optimism about a better life in an afterlife keeps us going.

Like any study, this one seems to hide more than it shows. Practical experience may go counter to its conclusion. Since we have so much of adversities, we have acquired the art of laughing at them. A foreign passenger on the Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar in 1999 corroborates this. According to him, while all other passengers were white with fear, Indians were taking it in their stride. After all, they were the ones steeled good and proper in the Indian milieu to stare death in the face.

Many of those who are depressed would say that most of the tension is given to them by the government. In fact, it is the major cause. Naturally, the government has taken the WHO criticism personally and rubbished it, saying that it is not representative of the pan-India scenario. Had the authorities known what the surveyors were up to, a few midnight knocks and raids would have made the study reach entirely different conclusions — besides possibly making its authors clinically depressed.

Thought for the Day

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arm. — Alexander Dumas

ARTICLE

Centre’s retreat on ‘honour killing’
Khap elements can’t see societal change
by D. R. Chaudhry

Union Home Ministry’s affidavit filed in the Supreme Court stating that it does not interfere in the personal laws of a community, and that the police and public order are state subjects is an attempt to evade its responsibility to tackle the menace of “honour” crimes in the country, especially in the khap belt comprising some districts of Haryana, Delhi dehat, western UP and parts of Rajasthan adjoining Delhi. The mandarins who have drafted this affidavit show colossal ignorance of the personal laws of different communities. There has been no tradition of “honour killing” in the past, especially in the khap belt where it has assumed alarming proportions. The khap panchayat, an endogamous, gotra-centric clannish institution, became a powerful organisation in the area around Delhi in medieval times in the face of the fragile nature of law and order as a consequence of frequent forays of foreign invaders in this belt. It had a two-fold purpose: to provide security to its members and settle disputes among them.

Sorem, a village in Muzzafarnagar district of western UP, is supposed to be the headquarters of the khap institution. This writer recently spent about a week in the village to consult the old records kept there. There is no evidence of “honour killing”, ostracising a family, declaring a married couple as brother and sister and such other outrageous decrees for which the khap has acquired notoriety in our times. The emphasis was on bringing the deviant elements in the mainstream by imposing nominal fine, or, at the most, organising social boycott in extreme cases.

Under the impact of modernisation, the traditional structure of rural society has undergone a qualitative change, making the concept of brotherhood, a raison d’etre of khap, a myth, fostering individualism in its narrow form. Thus, often the decisions taken in the khap conclaves are motivated by settling personal scores or grabbing the property of a particular family. Same-gotra and same-village marriages are a taboo in the khap belt.

Some time ago, a Gehlaut boy of Dharana village in Jhajjar district married a Kadian girl of a village in Panipat district in Haryana — a different gotra, a different village and a different khap. Yet some Kadian families of Dharana objected to this marriage on the ground as to how they could accept a girl of their gotra as a daughter-in-law. The khap panchayat declared the marriage null and void and asked the family to quit the village by selling their land at Rs 5 lakh per acre while the market rate was Rs 50 lakh per acre. In fact, some elements wanted to grab the concerned family’s land and house at a throwaway price. The decree could not be implemented due to pressure from civil society groups and the media. However, the married couple is not allowed to enter the village even to meet their aged parents. Examples can be multiplied.

The aforesaid affidavit of the Union Home Ministry is a retrograde step when, as rightly stressed editorially by The Tribune (July 8), “an issue as vital as honour killings is under consideration”. It is at variance with the Supreme Court judgment and the recommendations of the Union Law Commission.

A Division Bench of the apex court has characterised the crime of “honour” as “ rarest of rare cases deserving death punishment.” A copy of the judgment has been sent to the high courts and lower courts, state chief secretaries, home secretaries and the police chiefs of all the states. The Bench has further directed all state governments to immediately suspend the district magistrates and police chiefs if they fail to apprehend those responsible for “honour killing” and prevent such incidents despite having advance knowledge.

The Law Commission, following a request by the Union Law Ministry to suggest a draft law to apply a check on “honour” crimes, has proposed that “not only conviction in an honour killing, merely participating in a khap panchayat-like congregation would render a person ineligible to contest polls and would attract a prison term of up to two years”. As a preventive step, the Law Commission has also suggested that the district magistrate should take immediate steps to prevent any such unlawful assembly and ensure safety of the concerned couple

In the light of the apex court judgment and the recommendations of the Law Commission, the Centre’s affidavit is a serious climb-down. The Centre is planning to enact a fresh law to curb “honour” crimes. The ends of justice would be met if the contemplated law brings into its ambit those who glorify such killings along with the actual perpetrators of the crime and infringement of any of the rights of a citizen guaranteed under the Constitution.

The khap protagonists want a legal ban on the same-gotra marriage. This is largely because of a false scare. Only 3 per cent of the documented cases of honour crimes involve couples married in their gotra, according to the survey conducted by the Central Commission for Women. In about two dozen such cases in Haryana in the recent past, there is only one case of a same-gotra and same-village marriage. The couple was brutally murdered, inviting strict punishment for the killers by the court. The rest belongs to the inter-caste marriage or alliances violating some other age-old tradition.

A collective psychosis has been spawned by the khap elements over the issue of tradition. Tradition, when untouched by modernity, starts stinking and becomes a drag on society while modernity, cut off from tradition, is shallow and spurious. It is the harmonious blend of the two that takes society forward. This elementary understanding of the societal change is beyond the comprehension of the khap supporters, who wish to perpetuate the culture of intolerance, pushing a section of society into the dark zone of barbarity and depravity.

Besides a stringent law to curb “honour” crimes, there is a need to build a counter-culture of tolerance and compassion. Charles Darwin made an important discovery in his Theory of Evolution of Species that those species who were flexible, caring and compassionate towards each other — “compassion” is the word used by Darwin — flourished while their counterparts, who were rigid and devoid of compassion, became extinct. This is the fate awaiting the hardbound khap elements.

In spite of all the modernisation in the khap belt, there are elements still living in medieval times who call the shots in society. This explains the paradox of the material growth coupled with cultural stagnation in this belt. Societal change takes place with the intervention of human agency. There is an urgent need to build a vibrant civil society, fragile in the khap belt at present, to usher in an inclusive and humane social set-up.

The writer, a retired academic from Delhi University, specialises on socio-cultural issues.

MIDDLE

The martyrs who got short-changed
by B.K. Karkra

Our Bodo tribesmen have their settlements sparsely dotting the Himalayan foothills in Assam. They have been agitating for quite a while to have a separate state of Bodoland. Their biggest concentration is in Kokrajhar. Their struggle till the early part of 1974 had been peaceful. Somehow, they felt that they had not been making much headway through peaceful means. So they suddenly decided on a violent course to achieve their aim.

I was then the second-in-command of the 21st Battalion, CRPF, located in the area and my commandant, A.K. Bandopadhyay, was away on some assignment. I received a wireless message from the town of Sidli that our men had suffered a surprise attack by the Bodos and two of them had fallen martyrs. Many others had been injured and one of the injured was in a critical state. I rushed to the place to be among them in the hour of their grief.

I learnt on the spot that the Bodo agitators had gathered in the area in quite some number with a violent intent about which nobody had any clue. In fact, the local S.H.O., a well-intentioned old man, got into their midst to argue with them about their dispersal. He did not realise that they had not gathered to disperse peacefully. When he persisted, they fell upon him. Finding him in grave danger of being cruelly lynched, three C.R.P. F. men waded through the violent mob to rescue him.

Finding no other way to save the man, constables Purnima Munda and Hridaya Narain provided him body cover and another constable Kesho Rao Pattar also made a desperate effort to reach him. Munda and Narain had their helmets removed and given mortal blows on their head with ‘daos’. Pattar also had his skull badly fractured, but he survived to our pleasant surprise. However, my other boys, though also under assault, recovered quickly and fired a few rounds to make the blood-thirsty mob disperse.

While camping at the site, my Commandant and the D.I.G. also joined me. We were of the view that it was not merely a case of gallantry but of martyrdom on the part of Munda and Narain. We made out a case for the award of Ashoka Chakra to them posthumously, while Pattar was proposed for the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry. The Assam government put its entire weight behind our citations.

Sadly, however, a discriminatory rule happened to be in place that said that those authorised Police Medals (that have woefully low precedence) could not get higher awards like the Ashoka, Kirti and Shaurya Chakras. This deprived the two C.R.P.F. martyrs of their due and they ended up with the President’s Police Medals for Gallantry, along with Pattar. Our Force was thus left poorer by two highly cherished Ashoka Chakras merely because of an irrational stipulation, somehow escaping the government attention.

OPED — THE ARTS

Museum of a living deity
Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple can be turned into a living- museum with its traditions of antiquity kept alive by priests and devotees alike. The astoundingly rich treasure of this temple discovered recently has the potential to turn a new leaf in the way museums are conceived in India
George Jacob

When the secret vaults of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, recently revealed a massive treasure trove speculating its worth upwards of Rs.1 lakh crores, it triggered a frenzy from opinion-mongers to channel the unprecedented find in a cross-fire of conflicting directions.

A replica of the deity that reigns over Sree Padmanabhaswami temple in a state of yoga nidra (meditative sleep)

Following a series of cases filed in lower courts questioning the right of ownership, management and control by the erstwhile head of the Travancore Royal family Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, the Kerala High Court on January 30, 2011 ordered the management of the temple and its assets by the State. The High Court eventually ruled that after the demise of the last ruler of Travancore, the status could not be transferred or assumed by his brother Marthanda Varma or his successors as defined under Article 366(22) of the Constitution and ordered the inventory of all vaults and the creation of a museum on the temple premises. Challenging the court's position on succession and custodianship, the erstwhile royal family of Travancore moved the Supreme Court which set aside the High Court ruling and directed the opening of the vaults to document and inventory its assets in June 2011.

The Discovery

Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple

As the doors of the first vault (A) were opened by a team led by retired High Court Judges M.N. Krishnan and C.S. Rajan, they found it empty but discovered a dark, barely visible, underground chamber. Donning oxygen masks, the team returned the next day into the vault that had last been opened in the 1880s (during the reign of Sri Vishakham Thirunal Rama Varma), and walked through the narrow passage leading to the ante chamber. Removing the sand on the floor led to the discovery of an extraordinary treasure of gold, diamonds, rubies and emeralds including jewel studded crowns, a heavy gold idol of Sree Padmanabhaswamy, golden coconut shells, an 18 feet long gold necklace, 3.5 feet tall gold idol of Mahavishnu and a gold ceremonial anki weighing 30 kilograms, a gold scepter and thousands of ornaments and artifacts.

By the sixth day of inventory assessment, the unofficial estimates for the worth of artifacts had climbed to a mind-boggling figure of $23 billion making it the wealthiest temple in the world, calling for unprecedented security of the temple. On July 21, 2011 the Supreme Court appointed two committees to oversee the review and protection of the treasures with one of the panels Chaired by Dr. C.V. Ananda Bose, the Director-General of the National Museum. The courts labeled the six traditional kallaras as vaults A-F for registry, videography and documentation of inventory. The Committee is to examine and categorise articles under three heads, namely, ornaments having historical, artistic or antique value, those required for regular use at the temple, and those which have no artistic or historic value, but only monetary value. The court also asked retired Kerala HC Judge, Justice M. N. Krishnan, to head a three-member observer committee to coordinate with experts to consider feasibility of a high-security museum within the temple premises for display and long-term preservation of artifacts.

While the first two vaults had not been opened in 130 years, others under the custody of temple priests Periya Nambi and Thekkedom Nambi have been opened intermittently. The sixth vault has not yet been opened as the courts have empowered the temple to follow the rituals and protocols of worship as appropriate to maintain the sanctity of temple practices and religious beliefs according to the rites of Deva Prashna (astrological consultation of celestial planetary configuration). There is also the stigma of a curse on the treasure perpetuated by the sudden demise of the petitioner T.P. Sundara Rajan- a former IPS Officer and Lawyer- less than a month after the first vault was opened.

The Deity

Built in the 8th Century under the rule of the Chera Kings, the temple is mentioned in Skanda and Padma Purana. On January 3, 1750, the founder of Travancore Valiya Marthanda Varma surrendered thiru anatha puram -sacred abode of Lord Anantha Padmanabha- to the deity, becoming a servant or dasa to Sree Padmanabhan. The principal deity reclines in the eternal sleep posture resting its head on a multi-headed serpent representing the eternal energy of the timeless cosmos enshrined in the

metaphoric yoga-nidra. The massive 18- foot idol seems carved but is believed to be caked with an ayurvedic combination of mustard and jaggery paste (katusarkara yogam) to hide the gold and silver statue from invading armies of Tipu Sultan. The dark sanctum only offers a fractionated view of the anantha shayanam Vishnu incarnate through three doors with the Face of the Lord and Shiva Linga underneath his hand visible through the first door, Brahma seated on lotus emanating from Padmanabha navel along with the "Utsava moorthi" and deities of Lord Vishnu, Sridevi and Bhudevi in the second door and the Lord's feet visible through the third door.

The foundation of the present 100- foot tall, 7 tiered Gopuram in Pandyan style was laid in 1566 adjacent to a water tank called Padma theertham- Lotus Spring. The ground floor under the Gopuram referred to as nataka sala held kathakali performances during festivals. These elements gain significance with the conception of a "Living Museum" that not only showcases the temple treasures, but draws on timeless traditions of worship and faith that continue to be intrinsically entwined with history, heritage and socio-cultural lives of the people preserved, nurtured and re-lived.

The Secular Schism

In the absence of a comprehensive museum policy in India that addresses the terms of reference between religious institutions in the process of being financed and manned by the central government's secular HR practices, legally, there is an overlapping confluence of regulatory provisions ranging from Indian Treasure Troves Act (1878)to Ancient Historical Monuments, Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (1958) and Antiquities and Art Treasures Act of 1972 that allows the central government to exercise appropriate jurisdiction and invoke rules and provisions in national interest. Each of these acts will bear on decisions associated with creating a museum precinct in the temple complex, implementation of conservation architectural practices, chemical treatment of objects of worship and religious significance, introduction of new strong- rooms and vaults for treasures, wiring, boring and drilling associated with hi-tech surveillance, water and pressure systems and controlling lumen levels and reinforcing the perimeter that could go directly against the sanctity of the sanctum and pose access issues for the non-believers at planning, construction, maintenance, visitation and outreach stages of the process. This is easier said than done, considering that the temple had to invoke a Deva Prashnam (astrological divine consultation) just to introduce electricity to the building a few decades ago.

The future trove

With the worth of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple treasures soaring upwards of $ 23 billion, the implications of possibilities and prospects of preserving them have become far more elaborate in contemporary times by comparison than the Tut Treasures, is just beginning to sink in. The unveiling of the temple treasures offers an unprecedented opportunity for a living -museum - an institution unparalleled in its conception, magnitude, inception, significance, institutional mandate and global presence. While taking inventory of the treasures within opened and yet to be opened vaults is a first step in the process, it needs to be followed by an assessment of premise, provenance, antiquity, utility and condition reports that will provide the basis for functional planning and establishing the framework for recommendation towards the museum precinct and master plan. According to Mr. K.K. Venugopal the Senior Counsel for the Travancore Royal family, objects of artistic, historic and heritage value should be exhibited in a museum while the rest may be used to run a Veda Pathashala and a Thantrika Peedom for grooming and training temple priests. This approach serves the core needs of the living museum in propagating research, cultural continuity, education, outreach, programming and sustaining traditions enacted, embodied and embraced within the temple and beyond.

Such an exercise will need a coordinated thrust by the city, state, national and international agencies to create the required infrastructure to enable the transformation of Thiruvanathapuram as a world-class destination. Foresight into sustainable measures, resonance with the environment, public safety, security, sanitation, parking, access, festivities, emergency services, multi-lingual enablers, visitor services and resource training are integral to the planning and design process that can provide an exemplary reference to countless other destinations across India, waiting to wake-up to the needs of the 21st century traveler. Careful thought and creativity needs to go into preserving the character of the city, aura of the temple ambience and its innate paradox of simplicity and complexity.

Having professional, experienced, culturally sensitive, museum planners on- board advising and steering the process internally prior to engaging consultants, contractors and vendors externally, would only be prudent. It is important to realize that the role of the museum planner should not be substituted with a historian or a curator or even an exhibit designer as these are distinct professional areas of expertise. The museum has the potential to raise the bar of excellence given the sheer magnitude of the treasures that could potentially go on display both within the existing precinct or premise as well as constitute a high-profile traveling exhibit recreating and perhaps excelling the magical grip commanded by the Pharaonic King Tut's Treasures as it toured around a mesmerized world. While comparing with the on-going construction of a 1.1 million square ft. $550 million Grand Egyptian Museum complex may not quite relate to the needs in this context, but what can be imbibed and transposed is the ambitious international scale of planning, design and project execution of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase one of the many threads that form the fabric of India's rich heritage.

Museums are collective souls of civil societies. India's soft-power and international diplomacy rests on the foundation of its heritage and cultural ethos and there is no greater tribute to "Incredible India!" than the continued celebration and reverence of its living traditions.

The writer is a well-known museologist whose work spans 11 countries.