‘The Infidel Next Door’ by Rajat Mitra is a
book on Hindu identity and resurgence. It tells the story of two boys who live in
a temple and a mosque in Kashmir. Anwar sees Aditya as an infidel and wants to throw
him out of Kashmir unless he converts. The story captures the nature of the historical
conflict between Islam and Hinduism in a way that left me spellbound. This is a
story you can’t remain indifferent to.
Reading
this book was an experience for me that I will never forget. It is similar to
the novels of Bankim Chandra that raises one’s passion. I re-read parts of it. The
characters are real and may take you on a journey to discover what it meant to
be a Hindu, even give a feeling that you may have read the story before.
This
book is about life, about growing up, about identity, loss and resilience. In today’s
troubled times of Sabarimala and Ayodhya, it may not be an easy read but tells that
there is hope and redemption.
The
following interview took place on a sunny afternoon over endless cups of coffee
and gave me insights into the mind of the author. Rajat is a psychologist turned
author with a rich experience of having worked with terrorists, refugees and survivors.
He told me his father loved literature and books were his best friends. In this
interview he combined his psychological insights with the books that have
influenced him to tell me a story reflective of our times.
Q.
Congratulations for finishing your book. How long did it take you to write this
and how did you find the time?
A.
Almost four years. And I wrote it in between my work and while travelling across
the globe. I have written it sitting in many places, amongst them in war zones,
while staying in monasteries, in a refugee camp, in a Sikh temple and while
waiting to talk to someone in a prison.
Q.
Your book has three important messages. The first is that there is a rising Hindu
consciousness in the present century and Hindus are in grief having moved away
from denial after centuries. The second is that there is an emerging rage that may
lead to a mass movement. The last is that Hindus in earlier times resisted to
this civilizational onslaught and were not passive beings who accepted the
atrocities.
A.
Yes. There is a rising Hindu consciousness and my book is topical in that sense
and relevant for the times. As a society the Hindus are far more aware than
they ever before in the past and there is a rage that will rise more as they
become aware of the injustices on them. But I also believe that the rising
Hindu consciousness will not be violent and destructive as some people make it
out to be. When understood, this consciousness will also lead to healing and
closure for the entire race and lead to peace.
This
rising Hindu consciousness will also lead to a new Hindu identity, someone like
Aditya, the protagonist of my novel, who combines the best of his religion and
discovers that while going in search of his roots. It may also lead to those of
other religion to define their identity like Anwar and Zeba and question issues
like indoctrination and bigotry.
But
I do believe that very soon we may witness a movement by Hindus to find a new
collective consciousness, to redefine their identity and find a place in the
new century.
Q.
As we discuss this there is news about the Supreme Court delaying to hear the Ram
Janma Bhoomi case once again. One of the themes of your book is the silent trauma
that Hindus have faced over the destruction of their temples and the delay in getting
justice. To me this resonates with the theme of the book. Would you like to
comment?
A.
In my opinion one of the deepest grief for the Hindu society has been the
attempts to destroy their civilization, their culture by invaders. The Hindu
society is in denial about its grief and has not expressed it either
symbolically or collectively. It is ironical because in several societies, the
trauma otherwise known as trans-generational trauma has been discussed in depth
and led to healing dialogues between sworn enemies. I hope my book may also
raise awareness and contribute to healing for the Hindus.
Q.
There are very few works of fiction based on Hinduism as a religion or protagonist
who is a Hindu priest. We have ‘Siddhartha’ by Hermann Hesse or ‘The Razors
Edge’ by Somerset Maugham. In one the hero is on a search for if death is the
end of all human existence. Your book tells us about a Hindu man who goes on a
search for his roots in a land of his ancestors from where they were forced to
flee for refusing to convert. Refusing to convert and give up their faith in
the face of death by Hindus is a side rarely known to today’s generations. Why
it is so?
A.
The protagonist of my book is on a search for his roots and comes to build a
temple in Kashmir. He wonders why Hinduism and Islam cannot coexist in peace not
realizing that his is not a proselytizing religion while the other is exclusivist
that demands total obedience and submission to only one God. My book will tell people
not only of this difference but of the Hinduism that once existed in India and faced
the invasions. To me there are two Hinduisms, one that gave the world the Vedas,
the Upanishads and the scriptures and the other that struggled for survival for
over a thousand years. Many intellectuals berate it forgetting it was dharma alone
that helped it survive.
Hinduism
has often been written about as a regressive religion by writers and has been described
as one with bizarre practices, esoteric ways rather than its philosophical meanings
and wisdom. Even the struggle of Hindus to defend themselves and the struggle by
its priests’ lies buried in obscurity. The adherents of Hinduism are portrayed
as semi-literate, of regressive mindset who need to be brought out of its
morass of ignorance. If that was so, how did this religion, their civilization
emerge after a thousand year old wound? My book explores this injustice.
In
the present times the Hindu priest doesn’t evoke the reverence that he deserves
for having preserved his religion. To me he is not only the bearer of ancient traditions
but one who saved his religion from annihilation.
Q.
This book in my opinion is also a political novel with a message. When Aditya
goes back to his destroyed temple in Kashmir and faces Anwar who sees him as an
infidel, he is speaking perhaps for millions of Hindus who are grieving for their
broken temples. Does it have a similarity to ‘Anandamath’ Bankim Chandra’s most
celebrated novel?
A.
In both the novels, Hinduism is facing threats and their young protagonists fight
a lone battle. While Bankim Chandra in his book described India as a mother
Goddess, Aditya’s going back to his temple in the face of certain death is that
of a Hindu saint who can’t see his faith destroyed.
This
is a time of rising nationalism in India. An emergent Hindu identity is
emerging with Hinduism standing at crossroads today. While the Abrahamic
religions, communism and Islamic proselytizing is trying to attack its very foundations,
the Hindus must form a collective to survive from this onslaught. The Hindus
may not be a colonized race today like they were in Bankim Chandra’s time but a
slave mindset and fragmentation runs deep, the same as in Bankim’s time.
Yes,
the two books may have a similarity in that they may spread a nationalistic
message that I had not thought of earlier when I began to write. If it does, I
will be proud of it. When I began writing I had based it on relationships, a
bildungsroman novel on growing up. It was also on exodus faced by Hindus in
1990. But as I penned my words, deeper layers of meaning emerged that I had not
have been aware of. I accept that with humility.
There
is need for a renaissance for the Hindu psyche to get over the fragmentation
and become a collective, to become a political being to save his identity. The enemy
here is within and that is our fear of ourselves, an emotion that I express through
the struggle of Aditya.
Q.
Is it because the intellectual discourse in India has been Marxist oriented and
the educational discourse has been designed by scholars who tried to give it a slant?
A.
Yes, I believe it is very much so. One of my childhood experiences was the
puzzle that the lessons I read in school about Muslim rule, the freedom
struggle didn’t match the stories I heard at home from parents. Something did not
seem to match and it seemed someone was trying to hide something. As I
discovered, it was the official narrative that I was supposed to believe as
correct.
Knowing
that I was writing a book which had a theme on destruction of a temples and how
Hindus protected their religion, many of my friends warned me saying it will
alienate you.
Q.
Has it alienated you?
A.
Yes.
Q.
You had a tough time getting your book published and had to approach many
publishers who turned your manuscript down. Why was it so? How many rejected
your MS? How did you go through that period?
A.
It was a tough time for me writing endless queries and letters. Almost forty to
fifty publishers rejected it. As I understood talking to a few of them, they felt
it didn’t fall within the parameters of the Indian novel that had a format in everybody’s
mind. Many felt that it won’t sell because of its theme of the struggle of Hinduism
against iconoclasm. Second they said its protagonist being a priest and one that
glorified martyrdom of Hindus will not cut any ice with most readers who have a
leftist mindset. One of them even suggested he will consider it if I make
Hinduism look a little more esoteric and regressive.
Few
of the journalists read it. Privately they told me they admired the book, its
language, its message and uniqueness but because of the editorial policy would
not be able to review it for their paper or their magazine.
It
was Midwest Book Review who were the first to read my book it and sent me an in-depth
review. A world famous peace activist and Nobel nominee, a nun, professors from
universities sent their review after reading it. Their feedbacks kept me going.
Finally
Utpal Publications took on the publication of the book in India and elsewhere.
Q.
Why did you write a novel and not expressed your ideas through non-fiction?
A.
Fiction to me can express a truth deeper than a work of non-fiction in ways
that the latter can never achieve. Fiction can reach further in the human mind in
exposing a truth that lies buried and hidden. While non-fiction tells us what had
happened in past, fiction tells us what it must have felt like for those who
went through it. While non-fiction tells events that happened, fiction captures
the imagination, the passion to make us empathize with the people of that time.
Today, when we need to understand why our ancestors struggled and martyred
themselves for the sake of Hinduism, it is fiction that can help us. ‘We have
many a buried emotions that are lurking in the subconscious,’ as Carl Jung put
it so beautifully. There has been a serious dearth of fiction of that kind in
India that will make us question our past as taught to us, empathize with our
ancestors and history and may lead to a closure where there is trauma. Colonialism
destroyed our ability to empathize with our roots and fiction can bring it
back.
The
British banned novels that had the possibility of making Indians nationalistic and
question their submission to the empire. They realized that the novel as a
medium could make people aware of being slaves and give them a voice. They
realized that the fiction and songs like ‘bande mataram’ can arouse the masses and
unite them to fight. The culture they built continues till this day and the
education being in the hands of a select few after independence didn’t allow it
to change. So, today we don’t have novels that can fulfill that role in India
like in many other cultures that has made them sensitive towards larger issues
that chains them. Few authors write about sensitive issues that are in denial,
are unresolved and need closure. I notice often there is a lamentation about
forgetting our heroes, their martyrdoms, our past but we can only let it happen
in an environment of free thinking and intellectual inquiry. I believe when
inner transformation begins to take place in India, fiction will play a major
role in bringing about the change in consciousness.
Books
like ‘Dr. Zhivago’ told the world about people’s need for individual space and
freedom under communism. ‘One day in the life Ivan Denisovich’ told about the
tragic life in Gulag. ‘Things fall apart’ told the world about the way white
Christian missionaries destroyed the African native culture and civilization. ‘Roots’
told the world about the trauma of black men and women forced and brought to America
and the evils of slavery. Non-fiction would have never achieved that.
Q.
You say Indians lost the ability to empathize due to colonialism and slavery
and we still continue that culture. You further believe that it is fiction that
can bring it back, let us find the identity of the race where we lost it. Is
there such an example elsewhere?
A.
Yes, the works of authors like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin led to
understanding of Black identity in the aftermath of slavery. Like that of Chinua
Achebe and Nadine Gordimer did that in South Africa. They all led to a
resurgence of identity for the whole race before it was destroyed. ‘Bury my heart
at wounded knee’ did it to the Native Americans and the books ‘Exodus’ and ‘The
last of the just’ did it for Jews.
Q.
You draw a comparison between Jews, Blacks and Native Americans and the Hindus.
Where is the similarity?
A.
The similarity lies in the extermination, the genocide and the annihilation
they all faced in different periods of history. Will Durant talked of the
genocide and destruction of Hindu civilization but he was forgotten and ignored
by Marxist historians.
Q.
What are your views about Ram Janma Bhoomi? Does your book promote the
construction of the temple over the disputed site?
A.
A famous writer once said that the people who climbed on the dome of the Babri
masjid to break it wore jeans and T-shirts. I am forgetting who said that but I
guess he said that to point out that the people who did so were modern and not of
a regressive mindset. I would like to add to that. To me it is immaterial what
they wore but it represents the grief reaction of a society that had laid
buried and emerged after centuries of denial and injustice. It was an
outpouring of grief of a people who had seen their cherished symbols and
structures razed to the ground. I felt pained when our leaders went on a
defensive to say they were ashamed or someone called it the darkest day of his life.
To me it shows the complete absence of an understanding of grief of their own society
and its negation with the leadership being unable to take ownership for the
grief they carried.
It
is time that Hindus understand and accept their grief and take ownership of
that and stop feeling guilty.
I
had once mentioned in an audience how Native Americans would gather around
their sacred sites and it would turn into anger. Everyone empathized with that
and said it is but expected against white atrocities but if you give this analogy
for and how the mosque was built on a sacred site for Hindus, there is avoidance.
This hypocrisy must go.
Q.
Does the conflict between Aditya and Anwar symbolize the conflict between Islam
and Hinduism in general? There is a chapter in which Anwar walks into the temple
and later Zeba to watch a Hindu ritual and are filled with disturbing feelings about
the idea of God. How did you conceptualize that?
A.
The conflict between the two is the fundamental difference between the basic
tenets of monotheism of Islam and the plurality of Hinduism. It is about how to
define God and whether he is exclusivist or not. The way Anwar sees this issue
has been the dilemma of perhaps many Muslims over centuries except that now you
cannot destroy idols so easily as you could do in medieval times. While iconoclasm
has led to the desecration in India on a scale unimaginable to the rest of
world, it also led to a trail of memories for the present generation that
hasn’t healed. My book is to find healing from that wound that still remains in
our consciousness. It may exist for many Muslims who converted from Hinduism on
what their ancestors did but find it unable to express it.
Many
Muslims have shared the utter sense of confusion and despair as a child when
they encountered a deity for the first time or saw Hindu rituals. Many of them shared
being taught to feel hatred and disgust by their elders and turned their faces
away. It is true for many recently converted Christians many of whom call it ‘devil’s
worship’. It bothers me to see this level of hatred and animosity that exists towards
Hinduism.
Q.
The way and manner in which Aditya prays is mystical, symbolic and has a resonance
to in that it symbolizes the relationship between the deity and the priest in
Hinduism. Would you comment on that in the light of Sabarimala issue?
A.
The relationship of Aditya to his Shivling, to his deity, is very
representative of a Hindu priest with his deity and one that has been the same for
thousands of years. For a Hindu priest his idol is a living entity who breathes
and lives in the temple and means everything for him from guiding him through
his loneliness to providing him with answers through meditation.
The
Hindu way of praying in the temple cannot be compared to either the Christian
prayer hall or the space in the mosque where Muslims do namaz. A Hindu praying
space is not a prayer hall at all. It is a living space in which deities are bonded
and seen as a manifestation of the Supreme being who has been brought to life
through puja and rituals. This is what Anwar and Zeba fail to understand the
first time when they come to the temple and it is something they come to
understand later. At first it is deeply distressing for them as they have been
taught that any relationship with the divine can have only one meaning and any
other is sacrilege.
Q.
Sure that discovery is captured very beautifully in later chapters especially
when they walk in the ruins. But their visit to the temple, their being next
door doesn’t lessen their faith in their own religion but enriches it. Why?
A.
Yes because they realize that religion is more than dogma and rules. It is an inner
faith and conscience that lives in the human heart and shines independently of
it. A path that follows its independent logic and that no religion can destroy and
is higher. The relationship with God takes on being a personal journey not
bound by any doctrine and that is what the central message of my book is. The
realization of God comes through an inner search by empathizing with the views
of another man’s faith.
Q.
I went through many strong emotions while reading the book and even stayed
awake the whole night finishing it. Some parts of the book referred to parts of
myself that I had not been aware of. Is that a reaction you expect your readers
to go through? Do you expect people of different religions to respond
differently?
A.
I feel touched that my book affected you so deeply. People belonging to
different religions have said that they found the story touching their heart, at
times deeply disturbing. A Christian nun read the book and said she felt closer
to Hinduism and wondered why adherents of such a religion even need to convert.
A Muslim professor read it and felt that it may help many belonging to his
religion to turn away from violence. Several Kashmiri pandits who read it felt
it was their individual story of exile and why their civilization didn’t die. Many
Hindus have said it removed the shame they felt in calling themselves a Hindu.
I
believe people from so many religions find it so close to their heart because Aditya’s
troubled relationship with God symbolizes everyone’s relationship with God.
Q.
Your book, I would say, has some human values and choices that we face during the
choice between good and evil. When Aditya and Nitai decide not to abandon their
temple risking death or Zeba tries to protect the life of a man she loves is more
important than her inner desires, they are being altruistic. Do you really think
human beings can truly make such an inner choice when faced with evil and are
not bound by compulsions and inner logic?
A.
Yes they can. The question of evil is one of the most profound and troubling one
in religion. Hinduism sees evil not as opposite of goodness but as ignorance of
not knowing your true self. On the other hand monotheistic religions see it as
diametrically opposite to goodness or God. When faced with the question of
evil, both Aditya and Anwar make choices based on what they have been
indoctrinated with but soon find that it leaves them fragmented to begin an
inner journey for its true meaning.
Q.
This book has many similarities that are close to books like ‘The Kite Runner’
by Khaled Husseini, in theme, ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe, ‘Siddhartha’
by Hermann Hesse and ‘The Razor’s Edge’ by Somerset Maugham. But at the same
time it is rooted in the ethos of India. One of the things the book brings out is
the way priests saved Hinduism. Can you talk about it?
A.
Yes the priests were in charge of the temples and tried their best to prevent
their desecration. They never ran away from invading armies but stayed back not
leaving their deities as they were living beings for them. Their lives ebbed away
often while putting their arms around the stone deities as they often bled to death.
This is one of the most poignant images I learnt while writing the book and forever
changed the way I saw the Hindu priests and their valor. It filled me with a
pride I didn’t have in my religion. A priest whose ancestors died like this told
me this story.
Q.
One of the central attractions of the book for me is the relationship between Aditya
and Zeba. They belong to different religions and get drawn to each other.
Aditya is a loner with a deeply feminine side of compassion while Zeba is an
orphan who loves his prayers and him from a distance. Why does she leave Aditya
fragmented when she sees him ready to give up everything for her?
A.
As a poet once said, “Unrequited love is one of the deepest expressions in man.”
Aditya teaches Zeba to live, to have faith in herself and Zeba understands that
such a man cannot be her husband. She tells him that he is like those distant
peaks that look beautiful but one can never possess. She closes the room and
waits in darkness because she can’t open the window and see him outside because
then she knows she will run to him.
Q.
Who were your influences in authors, in psychology?
A.
Vivekananda, Thoreau as philosophers whose writings inspired me. Martin-Baro as
a psychologist whose liberation psychology opened my eyes and who worked with
the downtrodden in South America before getting killed. In writers I have many.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nadine Gordimer, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, Chinua
Achebe and lastly Manto, Premchand and Tagore’s poetry that have influenced me.
Q.
Three of your favorite sentences from the book?
A.
“A shelter always remains a shelter. It never becomes a home.”
“History
is like an empress, angry with a whip in hand who demands obedience to the
written word. Memory is like a mother who holds us in embrace when our soul
needs answers.”
“I
saw you then standing alone lost to yourself and understood what the word
forever meant.”
Q.
Have you personally changed as a person as a result of writing this book?
A.
Yes, I feel I have discovered myself as a person and my roots. I started to
write this book in the midst of a most difficult phase of my life. I had relocated
to a new country, left behind an institution and had a family to support. I was
feeling lonely, hurt and alienated. Writing the book was healing, a solace that
I found in those difficult times and it helped me to turn inwards and ask questions
about my own self about human condition. It started while clearing up my study table.
I felt the notes I had written from my days of working with people as a
psychologist who had told me their stories. It was as if they were telling me
to write a book, to give them a voice and why their stories need to be told. It
was a mystical experience.
Thank
you and I hope people do read your book.
Maneesh
Guha
MyIndiaMyGlory
The link for the article:
https://www.myindiamyglory.com/2019/02/11/the-trauma-of-being-an-infidel-in-kashmir-a-psychologist-reflects/
