Namaste har welcome welcome to aimsa conversations and thank you so much for making time so har let’s begin with your childhood what would be say your earliest recollection of either the concept or an experience of aimsa or it’s opposite for some people it’s the opposite it’s it’s hard to hard to
Actually put a finger uh I had an unusual childhood my father was uh a member of the Civil Service it was just in the years after Independence um and Neu had been was very anxious about uh you know how uh what is now called arunachal Pradesh that was
M uh it was an area that hadn’t been opened up and he was very keen that it was done in a way that was sensitive and responsible and uh so they created a special band uh you know which is separate from the Indian administrative service and something called the Indian Frontier
Administrative service and uh uh the uh very well known Anthropologist very Elin well known perhaps to an earlier generation C and Neu uh directly mentored uh people uh the officers so my dad was one of those and uh he was posted in places like bomil where uh apparently you had
To check over the mountains for few or four days uh before you could reach even the district headquarters where he was collector uh there was no electricity there was no running water there were no shops your Russians used to be air drop and we would go up on U on ponies on you
Know so this must be before you went to school uh before I went to school so my Early Childhood uh was was that and so but it was also very you know my parents would recall bomil as probably the happiest time of their Liv where there was no leg water
And everything else because everyone used to gather and uh you know and sing old Hindi film songs and together you know the whole small community so I have some memories of that I have memories of the Del Lama uh as one of my earliest memories yeah I think har you should
Tell that whole story because you have to assume that the people watching and listening to this don’t know about your connection with his Holiness see it was 59 I was four years old and I’m never sure how much I remember and how much I am I I told what
Happened but my the B was escaping from from from China and uh my father was the district head of a place called bondil which borders uh Tibet and uh he was secretly informed uh about this Escape and had to somehow organize and remember that was 1959 and communication Etc so there very few
People with dalala Neu and a few others who knew and and so he organized uh his uh his Escape he he met him at the borders and and and then brought him across and the first place he actually halted for a few days was uh at my
Parents’ place he always talks about him as his first uh friend in a sense in uh after he came to India then you know once he reached then of course the whole world knew uh but but to that time and so he spent those early days in in our
Home uh and my mother apparently because everyone had to be very careful about things like even his food uh you know that shouldn’t be poisoned and so on so she was the first woman apparently who cooked for the Gama uh in Generations or something and U and I apparently used to be
Uh a child of four playing on his lap all the time and uh and everyone was anxious that apparently but he used to say no I love having him you know in this town and even at that time he was gentle he had lost his kingdom he lost
His home um he it was a huge trauma but uh he was gentle and kind and he F he used to say even when he meets now all these you know 60 plus years later he still remarks at how much know the sense of Clos
Uh the sense of Solace that he got so I was fortunate my parents were fortunate to have him and he he and my father maintained a burn through the his entire life uh now hsh as a grownup uh I think you’ve been very particularly attached to that song
So can you can you convey for our English speaking friends what that song means and particularly what it means to you because I have a feeling that it’s it’s the core of your life yeah it’s a very special song uh yeah for friends who who are unfamiliar uh
It’s a song in a film where uh uh this young child has you know has been badly traumatized his home his family has been destroyed and and and killed and his and this one I think brother or Uncle I forget is taking care of him and he talks to him
About taking him to a place um let me take you to a place uh where there is only love it’s under the sky under such a sky where there is only love no one is a stranger no one is an enemy everybody walks together uh uh
Under such a sky uh it’s always been a special song for me uh I think in more recent years um for two reasons um in particular one of them is that in the last 20 plus years after I left the Civil Service and I came back to live in De um I had
Resolved that I must work with the most disadvantaged uh persons in wherever I you know right through my life that’s one of the things that I prob took fromi this learning of the last person uh last person not for charity but for for a bond of what I call egalitarian
Compassion bringing us together and I identified uh perhaps that last person was the homeless child in the city uh and that there uh something between 50 to 100,000 of these children on our streets we pass them every single day of Our Lives uh and uh you know on a cold
Winter night for instance you see a homeless girl who’s sleeping uh on a pavement alone you’ve come back with your children um from a film and a restaurant and you go home and your child will kept in safety with love and nurturing and this child is
You will sleep alone under in the cold sky under the cold Sky she perhaps be molested or raped in the night she has to wake up at 4 in the morning uh know search in the in the waste bumps so she can earn something to eat some
Food she’ll never see the inside of her school and the distance the physical distance between her child and your child or mine maybe just a kilometer but it’s the longest distance in the world and to that that bridge that I wanted to somehow walk across so that became an
Even an important part of my life and he took care of of of of the children in in many parts of the country and this song seemed to be the song to sing for them um you know come let me take you to a place as under a sky where there is only
Love and love and it became it touched them so much that I there is never a time where I could not meet them without singing this song every time so it became almost an hand but you know in more recent years it’s gained yet a deeper deeper
Meaning for me because we sing Our Country and actually much of the world something happened around our world that people in country after country around the world more and more people are being attracted to leaders who are encouraging us to U where to be a minority of any time
Has become more and more dangerous and when you see somebody who is and you know and we living in a world where the chances that the person next me you may not look like you may not uh speak like you may not worship like you
And so on uh so how do you respond to this person so are you curious friendly welcoming are you um you know fearful resentful uh Angry uh and we are finding more and more people are getting attracted to leaders and I’m not really I’m not
Placing you know my wor is not about the leaders it’s about how many of us are getting attracted to leaders who are teaching us to hate and to fear uh and in this in this new India and world that we are creating which is founded around uh the politics of hate and
Social relations of hate uh again this s you know at some level it’s very simple uh And yet when you think about it it is so profound um let me take you to a place under the sky where there is yeah so har it’s ironic that uh you
Know in the public discourse uh you often seen in very partisan terms and yet the three issues that you have chosen to work on as an activist hate hunger and homelessness uh are actually three things that are above and beyond all ideology I mean they are they are related to very
Fundamental human and Humane concerns so how do you find a nonviolent approach Within yourself to engage with or to in your perception of uh those who may be if not promoting but allowing these three problems to persist um and I’m here referring both to uh Gandhi g and
To Martin Luther King you know for example King has repeatedly said that I I cannot be liberated till the white man is liberated right because yes of course the person being hated is suffering but we know psychologically that the person doing the hating is also is also Afflicted so how
Do you process this within yourself and now I’m asking you really at a emotional and psychological level rather than you know in the in terms of the politics which is a everyday thing yeah I I continue to be surprised when somebody calls me a hardliner uh I have uh I have nothing
Against people who are hardliners uh but for somebody who fundamentally believe in a world that is just that is kind that is equal where you know the idea of fraternity uh it’s a problematic word because it’s Brotherhood and we also are talking about Sisterhood so I prefer the word which is b
Bhut b actually B is is is really one of those really beautiful words because it means we are bound to and with each other so uh what does this mean it means that uh that if they as you were talking about the king you know the chains on
Your feet uh are also stealing my freedom um if you have being lashed on your back I the pain on mind if you are suffering there are tears that come to my eyes uh you know I I often think that perhaps the deepest bond that beings can have between each
Other is what I call a relationship of pain your pain is is something that I suffer with suffer from and and my pain is something that you suffer from that’s what binds us so I’m I’m speaking fighting struggling uh my entire life however imperfectly uh for a world that is that is around
One that is uh that where we share uh share what you have Essen of equal opportunity equal worth and dignity of human being the sense of justice for all all of these Ian uh so so it’s odd at this time to be uh to be described for these views
Uh for these beliefs for these struggles as a Hardline it only means you know when I look back to my college I you know many of us evolve politically I I think I’ve deepen my beliefs but I I I basically was there you know me from around that
Time where I was I I logically it’s a humanist socialist if you have humanist socialist feminist whatever it’s something in that space uh whereas uh you know when I was in college I think a lot of people thought I it was too soft a position you
Know and because why because it was not ideological enough perhaps it was actually ideological I mean there was an ideology that was I think not not so clearly recognized uh are you seeing compassion itself as an ideology see I’m I’m talking about bhut as an ideology in fact fraternity okay
Fraternity as an ideology because you know many people but since we’re talking in India Dr edar the writing of our constitution he said something very profound said many things that were profound but he said that see we listed Justice Liberty equality frity as the found foundations of our constitution
But he said that if out of these something has to be the foundation of the foundation it has to be frity and why he says because Justice Liberty equality are possible without fraternity but you can only have they only possible without fraternity with the power of the
State behind behind but he says if there is fraternity then Justice Liberty and equality become the natural order then you don’t need police force to you know to uh to say uh and so anyway so uh to say that there must be Justice or to say that everyone must have equal rights and
There has to be redistribution so know to go back to what I was saying so ideologically I think there’s a profound and and and highly needed ideology around in fact the time for new imaginations of our world which is truly founded on fraternity I think you understand Justice Liberty equality you
May not practice them to some degree we don’t even talk about fraternity and understand so anyway that ideology is today being regarded as by many as Hardline and radical I have no problem with being Hardline and radical except that that means that there’s a central space is which is problematic to me what
You’re regarding as as moderate if I’m hardl then what are you regarding as moderate you know and and so uh there’s something that is changing in our world um I know the book uh I’m not plugging for it here but the title I just wanted to it was called it’s called looking
Away and the subtitle is inquality pre Prejudice and indifference in new what I argue is that I’m deeply troubled by the inequality that we see around us in India and and by the levels of our prud but but what troubles me much more is how indifferent we are uh
You know our capacity to see deep Injustice and suffering and to turn our faces away and I would I would argue that that the Indian middle and Rich class rich and middle classes I’ve traveled around the world uh are probably um I’m probably the most uncaring if not among the most uncaring
That I’ve seen you saw fance during the lockdown the lockdown was a moment where you know like arund Ro said somewhere said Co 19 was not just a virus it was also an x-ray an x-ray that revealed very very clearly Starly who we are what
Did we see during that time we saw I I mean the way we first the government announces a policy where it say say stay at home social distance 60% of Indians live in one room or less how are they going to stay at home and keep social
Distance 150 people you you work from home nine out of 10 workers are informal workers who have to earn each day wash your hands I mean so so I’m seeing that in the middle class we should have Fen outrage that how can we have a policy in
A country like us where there is so much poverty and inquality world and yet we were not we were happy we celebrated so it is that indifference can I just say what yeah yeah sorry go ahead he said he said he’s a hoca Survivor he said the opposite of
Love is is not hate the opposite of Love is indifference sorry who said This Ellie visel he’s a yeah yeah he the opposite of love is not hate the opposite of Love is uh is is indifference and it is this that I feel we need to battle it is this that
Led me to these three agendas that I spoke you spoke about rightly uh you know inequality at its extreme leading to people who you know well I I still recall women who said the most difficult lesson of all that they have to teach their children is the lesson of how to sleep
Hungry uh and you know to have a have a to live in a time when you have 70 million tons of grein and warehouses you put it in a line you can go from the earth to the moon and come back yet every second child every third child is
Man people have mothers have know or living in a city where every day you see that child who is sleeping under the sky women who who are raped on a regular basis because they don’t have and the hate that is targeting yeah you know these that that drive my life I know har
But you see har so let me just seek a clarification so clearly for you nonviolence is compassion it’s it’s egalitarian compassion it’s egalitarian and just make one quick yeah yeah go ahead explain that see one kind of compassion is that I am here you are here and you are
The recipient of my compassion that’s not what I’m talking about I’m talking about two equal people meeting uh just that when I need you at this moment I acknowledge that you have suffered gly and you in great pain and loss and so I reach out to you but I acknowledge
As I do it that a day can come when I will be suffering and in great loss and you will have you will reach out to me that is eality and in that sense it is very much I mean it is that that’s very profound because then in this there is no um
Superiority and inferiority involved absolutely not I mean it has to be the idea that that we are all of equal dignity and equal worth I mean this word equality is is often spoken about somebody says how are we equal obviously you know of us get together I mean
Somebody can produce a baby somebody cannot somebody can you know is no it’s not about equality in that sense I’m sure equal worth and equal dignity and and and I think it is that recognition of the equal dignity and worth of every human yeah but har there’s a problem
Here which is that uh a lot of what you have described is due to the structural violence of the macroeconomic system and also of course the uh many structural uh forms of of uh uh uh what shall we say anti fraternity now most people uh have a psyche and a whatever mental
Emotional uh level of uh capability and strength that they can only handle so much direct exposure to unspeakable suffering so what I’m suggesting I’m not making a claim but I’m wondering aloud that what sometimes seems like indifference is a person in a sense sort of withdrawing into themselves because they don’t know
What to do and they don’t know how to make a difference in the face of this magnitude of you know structural Injustice so I’m wondering if there how do you resolve this um in a sense need for compassion towards those who appear indifferent is that an issue absolutely absolutely uh I you know
I I think a lot about about this question uh and what is it that we are these see firstly neoliberalism uh the economic model to my mind is as much a you know a policy Arrangement and Arrangement and Imagination of how should be structured as much as it is a
Moral framework yes for our life I mean ultimately NE liberalism about you know the moral basis of neoliberalism is that greed is good that I need to think only about myself I am you know you and I are about the same age we all remember our childhood you might have lived in
Privileged families but your mother would say you know don’t waste food they hly children outside it was considered immodest to I mean vulgar I me to have a 27 story house for a family of four people were you know in a city where half the city is living in an informal
Settlements would have been considered terribly vulgar today it is not it’s consider wow So Glamorous you know there’s something that has changed I think we have been taught and raised to valorize uh selfishness uh and and it is not how we natur are and this is something I want
To you know you don’t have the time but because I work with woman children I a think about when we go down in a in a car and you take your small child and she’s just about being able to make sense of the world every child every
Child when she sees another child her age you know begging on the street on the you know getting wet in the vein Etc she feels distress what do we teach her we teach her don’t care we teach her in difference you know I don’t think that
Is how we are we have to nurture our capacities to get now uh the distress that will bring us yes to some extent but some of us would you know ready ourselves to you know to to withstand a lot of that distress some of us less but there’s something that actually Prophet
Muhammad said and I I I I I I like that a lot I mean might answer your question bit he said what is your duty as as a good human when you witness great suffering and Injustice he says at the very least respond from your heart at the very least respond from your
Heart which means care then he says some of us are you know are stronger and better we respond with our tongues we speak out against the Injustice a very small number respond with their hands that means they act against the injustice I’m not I’m not expecting or asking or demanding that the
World sets about you know everybody responding with their hands it’s not going to happen it might be quite a boring world as well there’ll be different kinds of people respond but what I do want to see a world is that everybody everybody learns to respond with their hearts so at least you feel
Badly when when you hear about D girl being gang rap you think of your own child when you see somebody hungry you think of you know what would you be as a parent not being able to even feed your child when you know it is it is this
When you see a a Muslim man being lynched you think of your own brother or your father and you feel the pain and saying that that is all if if enough of us sced we will be a much better Society so har is the same way that you quoted other
People where does Gandhi appear or or you know influence you in terms of your commitment to uh nonviolence Gandhi uh G influences me profoundly uh uh there are things that I disagree with his views on cast for instance and so on but you know when I
Look back there are moments look back at India in 1947 think of a moment where 1 million people Hindu Muslims sixs have slaughtered each other in an unending round of Slaughter in religious 1 million people think of uh a line that has been Abit drawn uh dividing one country into two
And people being displaced based on their religious identity in the midst of the slaughter including my own family who were actually in what is now Pakistan 15 million people were displaced the largest distress distress movement of human beings apart from the movement of people for slavery from
Africa that human history has ever seen now think of that moment and then think of and and a new country has been constituted on the basis of religious IDE Islam rivers of blood are flowing train loads are coming in both directions with everybody full of corpses in the middle
Of this you know hatred you know one might say it was natural to have anger against the other community and to say they have got Pakistan as Muslims so India will be a country for Hindus you know it was at that time and I feel an sense of gratitude actually every day
When I’m seeing now that we have a leader who could bring out our best selves at this moment and he said no this is going to be a country for people of every Faith every language every identity it’s a home equally for its Muslim citizens uh and will always be
And you know there are many stories told about him I just mention a couple was why her husband had got killed in the riots and come as a widow to Gandhi and she recalls that she found him in great distress this was just month you know months before he was finally
Assassinated and she said um you know he said my work was not will not be done until a Muslim child cannot day and walk without fear in this in this city of mine which is really my work is not and look at brought a country to and our city
To in in uh Kolkata when you know when India was celebrating her first Freedom he was there trying he went on this long fast and the story is told about you know a very angry Hindu man coming to him and and saying you know what are you doing
Can’t understand my pain my little son this small was was killed by Muslim mobs and he says I understand your pain but one I’ll tell you the way out of it where you know find a find a Muslim child this small adopt him as your own
Son and and raise him in his own faith you know we had a leader who who who taught us and and the majority of Indians supported and followed him uh I can tell you many any more stories but we don’t have the time so that is to me
My mind you know non violence seems a sort of not something it’s actually something much more than not something it is the capacity uh to not hate and to love and to uh you know in in in the words his last fast you know one of its demands I
Mean two two weeks before he he he was assassinated you know when the refugees had come here in such large numbers in this very City Delhi where I’m speaking to you from uh one of the things that people had done was you know they said no mosques will be allowed no dgas and
They had put hind idols and all of these and one his last you know pass this was one of the most important demands and that that we must return these places you know we must uh you no two place of worship can be built around the hatred
Of and Desperation of another and so with all respect he must return the M the daras including in fact the me D today and it was they say that you know even his closest allies like Neu and P and said it’s too much hatred don’t do this at
This time he said this is the only time I must do it and the first day they said they were 10,000 people in his support by the fifth day 100,000 people were on the streets supporting his demand and and that is why we still have an India
That that I that I can feel the proud to belong to uh and and that is what nonviolence is for me I spent many years in Gujarat I I I I left the Civil Service I worked for years and years among survivors I relocated there for almost a
Year uh you know walking from Village to Village I would say one thing that helped me survive that period the horrors that I saw was that I can could give a challenge that for Every Act of brutality I will find you three acts of kindness and courage in the same in the
Same location so many people sa life under extraordinary circumstances and you know when I often say that is a story of Gujarat why don’t we talk about that story of that every year when we used to uh commemorate uh what happened in 28th February I would always inite we
Commemorate by honoring those who saved lives and and and it was something that you that that has been I went now on the Journey of the K muhab and I’m not talking uh you know it’s not what I would want to say here or anywhere we went we made a resolve
That we will go to the home of every person who has suffered from hate violence we made about 30 Journeys more than 100 fam and he said we do four things a we we will uh say that say that you’re not alone we share in your pain B we seek
Forgiveness for what we have become as a country as a people see we assure you that we’ll stand with you as you rebuild the broken pieces of your life and fight for justice and we will tell your story we make sure that the story is not erased now through those Journeys I kept
Longing I would keep looking somebody would have saved me somebody kill somebody sto and what has what is troubling me about what is happening in India today is that I could not find those bur all of us on these Journeys we kept asking you know please tell us about the person
Who stopped the Clow somebody who and these stories which I have heard Ive handled riots for years this something is happening there’s a certain radicalization that is unfolding in our midst and we have to recognize the dangers of that people would tell us you know families would tell us you know I I
I I wish I wish they just shocked him I wish they just stabbed him why did they torture him so much why did they gouge out his eyes why did they smash his genitals I want you to recognize that something of great evil is unfolding
Across our life you know and and and and and the silences are of many kinds just take the uh you know just the Raman period just a few all every day we are reading that in Greater NOA the highrise buildings in Raman people gather because that was
When the Quran was revealed people sit together and listen to recital of of of the Quran it’s not even with a louds speaker over and over again you have 50 people Gathering 100 people Gathering and saying we won’t allow you to recite the recite okay it’s a it’s a
Group of 50 people there 3,500 Flats in that in that why could not not anyone come out and say why can’t they they recite their the naat songs are going on nobody so that is there having said that I will just say one more thing to contradict
Myself at the worst of it we still finding you know when the namas was being stopped in in in G you know you did have even today you had somebody saying what’s the problem you’re not allowing them to to pray I’ll stop my factory empty out my factory floor for
Two hours on Friday afternoon you come and pray here come on to our teris the six said come into our buwas that is still you know we are still surviving as a society that is still the story but it is getting smaller and smaller and smaller there is are hot Winds of heat
That are sweeping across our land taking more and more of us in the grip we must acknowledge it we must still retain and call out for our capacities of goodness there is a very important need for acknowledgement of the wrong that has happened to
Me I I’m I’ve learned I I I’ve thought a lot about and this is after years in gat you know what will lead to heing and I made a fourfold step the first is acknowledg of the second is remorse that I publicly am sorry for what is happening to you the third is
Reparation having acknowledged and having this sense of of deep remorse we will collectively join hands to help rebuild your life and the fourth is Justice see and acknowledgement I found repeatedly is the beginning and and and you know as as a i me again I I forgot to say I should have
Said I’m not idty but you know for uh if you living in a time even today where where a mustache you’re being killed uh where a teenage girl I mean this teenage girl is is Gang and kill you don’t come out in we come out when joti Singh p
Is is G we don’t come out for the girl in in un there is not that same we are okay when B Banos rapists and killers are given so there is a question of an identity which is being oppressed and that identity that has to be acknowledged it should not end there
That is true it should not end there but it has to start with acknowledgement and remorse I I am very very convinced of course we want I I would would love to go into a castless India but the castless India is not going to happen by my not acknowledging
That dalits are suffering and have suffered Injustice for for centuries it is from for for starting with myself and erasing my class from a position of privilege so J prash Narayan had made a call when I was a younger person for us to uh eliminate
I mean to remove that part of our name which indicates our tast identity so my name is actually haranda Singh and even when I got into the I I was still haranda sing sing indicated both my religious identity and my cast identity I decided at that stage that
I’m going to remove sing from my name and was a long complicated process one I to Gazette and long process but I had a middle name Mand which has no cast and religious identity and so I’m Mand and I gave my daughter an Arabic name Sur to add to the confusion but I
Can do that because I I must give up my identities that give me privilege don’t ask me to deny those identities that have CA Injustice let them Reach a point when they don’t need to assert that so thank you so much har thank you for you
Know making the time and and being part of This
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