What are the events that create trans-generational trauma?
Genocide war, ethnic violence... many of them...
Last century was a century of genocides.
It went into denial when it saw its temples
desecrated, when it saw its places destroyed.
One could not express rage, for example in
Aurangzeb's time, could we?
So, what happened to the grief? The grief stayed inside.
We went straight to the phase of rationalization.
Historical trauma that they have suffered
and which the world hasn't acknowledged, I
believe the time has come and we must do that.
Namaskar. I am Rajat Mitra, a psychologist and this
is my probably first foray into the art of
talking about something which is part psychology,
part literature.
Our topic, today, is ‘Trans-generational
trauma and Hindu resistance’.
When I first wrote this topic somebody called me to say that why have you not written Indian resistance?
Why have you written Hindu resistance?
So, I said that I just want to be more specific. That's the only reason.
So, he said that if you write Indian resistance
probably more people would come because it
would mean more secular. So, why don't you change the word? So, I said ‘NO’.
I don't think because I will be more honest
and authentic if I write Hindu resistance
and by writing Hindu, I'm not excluding anyone,
I'm just talking about a group.
I'm just talking about myself, my identity.
So, the topic "Trans-generational Trauma and
Hindu Resistance" is a vast one.
We can fill up entire textbooks on that, but
I'm going to speak briefly about my experience,
my journey as a psychologist about how I came
across this topic.
I first heard trans-generational trauma as
a word around 30 years back.
I was at a conference.
It was in Europe and there were psychologists
from across the world who were researching
on issues like genocide, apartheid and there was no proper record or documentation of all these areas.
So, it was on the fringe of psychology or
mental health - genocide, apartheid, racism
- they are by and large not discussed in mental
health, but they are being discussed right
now and as we grow in complexity and as we
come in touch with our past, our heritage
these topics are becoming slowly important.
So, I came across that topic and I realized
that it has a close connection to our culture.
As I listen to Jewish psychologists, as I
listened to Armenian psychologists, I realized
that in India, too, we have a lot of such
issues to discuss - our heritage, the genocide
that we have gone through, the partition,
the mass violence that we have gone through
- we don't talk about.
These are issues which are not discussed by
the mental health professionals, by psychologists.
So, I decided that this is something I would
take on and since then it became a journey for me.
The journey became stronger some time ago
when I wrote a book called 'The Infidel Next Door'.
We all understand what the word 'infidel'
means.
It means someone who's a non-believer.
It was my attempt to explore many topics,
many themes that I had come across in my work
as a psychologist. I'll share with a story, because I think the best is to let people know that how I came
across this. Any idea, what is this? This is the Kashmiri refugee camp.
I was working there, and my wife is also here,
and we used to, both, go to the camps to work
with the trauma of the people and there were
a number of camps.
We had distributed our work.
We used to go to the camp, discuss the symptoms
people felt.
Most of them could not sleep.
Most of them had nightmares, most of them
had many symptoms.
We used to discuss this, help them with exercises,
talks, to heal and then come back.
One day while coming out, there was this man,
an old Kashmiri, a gentle man wearing a Phiran.
He looked very elegant. He came to us and said, "Why do you come here?"
So, I said I come here because I want to work
with the trauma of the Kashmiri people.
He smiled, looked at me and said, "Do you
understand our trauma?"
I said, now, where is this conversation going. I don't want it to go in the way he's taking it.
So, I said, "Look, we are trying to understand."
He says, "What is the response of the people
to your workshops?"
I said, "It is not very good. It's modest. People come. They sit, they listen, and they go away."
Then he again repeated his question, "Do you
understand our trauma?"
I said, "Well, I'm trying, but if you can
suggest something I can do."
He pointed his finger at the camp, we were
at a slight elevation, and said, “do you
know what this camp is called?" I said, "Muthi Camp". He says, "No.
Do you know what do we call it?" I said, "What?"
He said, "We call it Aurangzeb's Dream." So, I was taken aback.
I said, "Aurangzeb's Dream!"
He says, "Yes, we call it Aurangzeb's dream,
and do you understand why?"
I said, "No".
He said, "Then go and search. When you understand why we call it, then probably you will get a better response from people."
Now, to a Western trained mind like me, it
was quite frankly insult.
Okay, here is this person telling me that. Anyway, I went back.
I started studying about Aurangzeb; I had
vaguely known him as someone who was anti-Hindu,
who was fanatic, this and that, nothing more than that.
But I was curious to find out that why a school
teacher came up to me pointing at the camp
of Kashmiri Pandits and said this is called
Aurangzeb's dream.
I studied about Aurangzeb.
I discovered that in almost three hundred
years ago, somebody had told Aurangzeb that
if you can convert the Kashmiri Pandits to
Islam, the whole of India will convert.
So, if you can convert Kashmir to Islam the
whole of India will follow through.
So, hearing that he had asked his governor that convert all these people and don't care about the methods.
And then, those people, they went along with
Pundit Kripa Ram, who was a prominent Kashmiri
leader, to the ninth guru- Guru Teg Bahadur-
and asked him for support saying that “he's
trying to destroy us. Can you help us?”.
So, Guru Teg Bahadur decided to sacrifice
himself. He went to Aurangzeb.
There was a dialogue between both of them.
He refused to convert despite being threatened
and Aurangzeb said, ultimately, "Kill him
and his people"... and he could not convert
him.
So, he got saved, the Hinduism, as we understand
as a religion.
Many people say that they got saved because
of that.
I was very touched when I read this.
When I went back again into the camp, the
group was sitting there, and I told them that
I have studied about Aurangzeb.
I understand what he did and suddenly I noticed
a change in the group.
This, I could see that they had become alive.
They felt that we were connecting with each
other.
He says, "Now, you are understanding us".
They said in Kashmiri and a whole lot of disclosure followed.
People started talking about themselves like
never before.
Some of the women came forward and said that
'we were sexually assaulted', which you could
never talk about. Things changed.
It taught me a very important lesson that
I had been in my life saying trauma as a group
of psychological symptoms, but now, I began
to understand trauma as also having a historical
component, a historical nature.
And since then, whenever I have worked all
across the world, I have found that trauma
has to be understood in its historical context.
Many years back I was taking an interview.
It was a Sikh family and I had to take a case
history.
I asked the elderly man who was there, "I
have to take your family history".
I have to take the family history.
He looked at me and said, "What do you want
to write?
Just write, we are a partition family”.
So, I said, "But I still want to write that
what happened."
He says, "No, we are a partition family".
So, for him, the entire concept was that it's
a partition family.
We carried trauma within ourselves and we
carry it as a historical route.
That is what I would talk about and how it
is important for us to understand that all
over the world societies are beginning to
see their trauma as having historical roots.
Today psychologists have done research and
it has been found that we can see up till
the five generations back as to how trauma
took its origin and developed.
So, what happened in your family, what happened
in the extended family till five generations
back can be understood.
So, we will talk about cross generational
trauma.
The second aspect I want to talk about is
that...
It sounds very interesting, isn't it? Pattharbaz Gang.
I have worked in Tihar Jail for many years
and one of the groups there at that time when
I was working was Pattharbaz gang.
Very unusual name, but Tihar has many gangs
like this and their activity as a group defines
what they are called - Pattharbaz gang, so-and-so gang.
These gangs are solidly ensconced with each other.
They have a unity which is to be seen to be
believed.
They know everything about each other.
That's what they called their "Fatta", their
family. Now, I started working with them.
What I heard from them, they were all stone
throwers from Kashmir... okay.
Now, what is it that they said to me about
stone throwing?
We have all heard about stone throwers. Right?
But do we really know them psychologically? Do we know them?
What drives them stone throwing is part of
jihad and will give Azadi.
They say that one day every child of Kashmir
will pick up a stone and will throw so many
stones that the sky of Kashmir will turn black.
This was said to me by one of the persons. I am saying it in Hindi.
"I became man of the house after throwing
the first stone at the army and breaking his
skull and enemy however powerful can be brought
to his knees by throwing stones."
Stone throwing is not a mechanical thing.
I mean today we hear about that they are given
money to throw stones but behind that there
is also a deep ideology that they carry, when
they say that it's a prayer that we aim at
an enemy taking the name of Allah.
Right. This is why we do that. It's a spiritual thing for us.
Stone throwing is not something where we mechanically
pick up a stone and hit.
We believe that the ground from which we pick
it up, it becomes a force equal to hundred
bullets, because it has got the power of the
ground and this ground belongs to us.
So, I learned about stone-throwers.
I learned about the trauma of Kashmiri Pandits.
I learnt about ideologues and inspirations. Anyone has seen this picture?
Sounds interesting in a talk on trauma and
do we know this person?
This is Sanjeev Kumar, one of the famous heroes
of earlier days.
And this is a song. Just listen to it for a minute.
खुदगर्ज दुनिया में
ये, इनसान की पहचान है
जो पराई आग में जल जाये, 
वो इनसान है
अपने लिये जिये तो
क्या जिये
तू जी, ऐ दिल, ज़माने के लिये
अपने लिये जिये तो क्या जिये
बाज़ार से ज़माने के,
कुछ भी न हम खरीदेंगे हाँ, 
बेचकर खुशी अपनी 
लोगों के ग़म खरीदेंगे
बुझते दिये जलाने के लिये 
तू जी, ऐ दिल, ज़माने के लिये
अपने लिये जिये तो क्या जिये
Anything special about this song? Anything that strikes you? Okay...
What if I were to say that this song shaped
and moulded someone whose name became a terror.
His name was Afzal guru.
This was the song that shaped him, moulded
him and he called this song his identity.
It made him what he is. I was a psychologist in the jail, and I was asked by him that....
[You met Afsal Guru?]
Ya. I met.
I met many people in Tihar. I worked for a long time, so.
Being a psychologist in Tihar is interesting
because people ask you a lot of questions.
He asked, "Can you tell me why this song influenced
me, affected me so deeply?"
I said, "Yes."
We talked about it and we identified a number
of themes in this song that he identified
with and made him what he is.
In fact, he asked in his last days to everyone,
who came in contact with him, to sing this
song together with him.
People who were in close contact, who came
with him, he would say that.
I'm not showing the full song over here.
I'm just showing parts of it.
I'm sure after seeing this you will go back
home and see this.
You have time for it.
We don't have so much time but the words of
it, there were many themes inside that he
said influenced him, affected him to be what
he is: ideologues.
Ideologues are people who affect others' minds,
other’s thoughts and I met a number of them
all over the world.
I met an ideologue in a prison in Thailand
who was a mathematics teacher and he was a
very powerful orator, spoke to people in a
way that they got influenced and following
a fanatic ideology, the way he portrayed them
it to be.
So, I met these people and they shared with
me many things and this book that I wrote
is based upon many such people many such characters
who shared with me their personal intimate details.
I did it without sharing anything that would
implicate them or that would in any way ... But
what they talked, it was in general.
What they talked, it was about the movement,
the people.
So, I created characters in order to write
this book and this book has been a journey.
It has many themes inside which I will talk
about now one by one. Okay.
What is trauma?
People very often feel that trauma can be
many things.
Trauma is an overwhelming event that ruptures
our sense of safety about the world.
Rape, accident, disaster, riots.
They're all traumatic incidents. Trauma is not everyday event.
Trauma is something that happens suddenly
to us and our brain just cannot take it anymore,
gets affected, sometimes for life. I can share with you an incident.
Many years back I was in US in San Francisco.
It was a conference and at the end of the
day I was taking a walk.
I was very heavy because the topics were very
heavy, and I went out for a breath of fresh air.
Suddenly, I was accosted by three men.
One of them put a knife over me and said,
"Your money."
Now, what do you do in such a situation?
The first rule is giving all you have to save
your life.
Second is beg for your life because if you
don't have enough money, they are going to
kill you or bash you up.
So, all the time I was looking at them and
saying, "Please let me go.
I have only this much money. I don't live here.
I'm sure you'll find more money with someone
else."
Trying to get out of it. I had very few dollars.
They took it, jabbed me and went away.
I went back pretty shaken and the organizers
called the police.
They asked me to draw to help them recreate
the face of the people and I thought that
it would be easy for me. I'm a psychologist. I work with people. I register things.
I sat there for half an hour without being
able to recall anything.
No... sorry... I made a mistake.
I could recall only one thing. You know what was that?
The handle of the knife. That's it. I couldn't recall the face.
I couldn't recall any detail, anything else
because I felt so fragmented by that that
my perceptions were fragmented. Trauma is like that, it fragments us.
So, for example, after a traumatic incident
we don't recall the details.
That is because it is fragmented somewhere
so deeply that it takes time and special help
in order to recount to the issues. Right.
It distorts our memory, recall and may surface
years later, takes a long time to heal.
For example, the ‘MeToo’ movement that
we know about right now.
There is a thing about that trauma surfaces
many years later, five, ten, fifteen.
So many people do recall traumatic details
later but not everyone.
Some people also take advantage of that and
create fantasies which are not true.
It has happened in many countries where people
have suddenly recalled details that they say
happen to them years ago and certainly there
is an epidemic and it is found that many things
are wrong, many people are wrong.
Maybe some are true, and it has to be explored
carefully.
It is to do with the nature of trauma that
trauma does not come out immediately.
Now our topic...sorry to give you this background
but it is important to go through it slowly, step-by-step.
Trans-generational trauma: the transmission
of thoughts, feelings and beliefs that are
passed on from generation to generation through
silence, under disclosure, hyper-vigilance
and re-enactment. Right. Okay.
I'll give an example. I was once with a Jewish family.
We had finished dinner. I was staying with them. I had to put the food back.
We are actually going out, out to the conference
later.
So, I said I'm going to put the food back
in the refrigerator.
The lady immediately said, "no. no. no. no. Don't.
We don't put food in the refrigerator."
I said, "You don't put food in the refrigerator.
What do you do with them?"
She said, "No, we don't put food in the refrigerator.
Jewish families like us don't do that."
I said, "What do you mean?"
She says, "Our parents were in... grandparents
were in Auschwitz concentration camp."
Most Jewish family still, today, don't stuff
their refrigerator.
It's a tradition. Right.
It is enacted again and again. They enact their trauma.
It is difficult for Jewish families even today
to stuff their refrigerator, many of them.
So, even though the trauma may have taken
place 70 years ago they are constantly re-enacting that.
We pass on trauma through silence.
There are issues in the family nobody talks
about.
There are issues in the family we don't disclose
or we disclose so little that the children
make up things to believe that, that yes,
this is what may have taken place.
That is how we pass on trauma and that's the
nature of trauma.
Next, what are the events that create trans-
generational trauma?
Genocide war, ethnic violence, many of them. Last century was a century of genocides.
There were three major genocides in the last
century.
The Armenian one, the Jewish one and the last
the Rwandan one.
Millions of people died in the process.
There were also purges which were done by
Stalin, by Mao.
But they don't come under a genocide.
They all create a trans- generational trauma
that still exists today.
I have friends who are Armenians.
After hundred years they are going back to
their roots to find out what happened to their
society, their people at that time when 1
million people were killed.
Today we have a renewed interest in partition,
in the way people were killed.
People go back to it. And I'll come to it as to why.
There are groups which suffer transgender who have suffered and who have documented. People like Jews.
I have many Jewish friends because Jewishpeople do a lot of research into trans-generational trauma.
I was talking to one of them and I said, "Can
you tell me how I can understand about what
you people have gone through?"
At once they said, "Just read the book- the
last of the just.
It talks about a history. We all have read it."
And then they asked me, "Do you have a book
like that? You should."
I said, "Yes, I think we must go in that direction
in order to create for us a literature, a
story that also shows the trans-generational
trauma that we have gone through in India,
specifically Hindus."
The trauma of blacks, the trauma of Red Indians.
It is ironical that Red Indians today find
more supporters for their trans-generational
trauma, the genocide that they have gone through,
then we find for ourselves and it is important
that we have to go ahead and tell the world
about it, what we have gone.
Has time arrived for Hindus to share the historical
trauma they have suffered and which the world
hasn't acknowledged?
I believe the time has come and we must do
that. Okay.
Three most cherished institutions: temples,
libraries and religious practices and festivals.
The last one is taking place right now in
Sabarimala.
Hindus are being separated from their traditions,
from their festivals and we will talk about
this separation in Psychological terms, why
it is so damaging.
Will Durant (is) one of my favourite historians.
I like his statement, "It wasn't easy to be
a Hindu during the last eight hundred years."
I find it very poignant that he wrote about
it, but none of the historians here picked
it up and said anything.
Memory and space become intertwined in Hindu
consciousness.
We'll come to it.
Now I'll talk about Hindu resistance, a little
the other part of the topic.
What created the Hindu resistance? Did they surrender to the terror?
How did they cope when their sacred places
were desecrated?
Conventional psychological theories cannot explain how people in large numbers resisted such brutality.
I have discussed this with people many times
that when the invasions began in the 11th
century we faced a lot of brutality at a mass
scale and it was similar to the invasions
in Middle East in other parts. They changed their religion.
They became completely different. But here it's did not.
And I've asked many psychologists that what
can explain this?
Answer again came from one of my friends who
was a Jewish psychologist.
We discussed this.
He had read Gita and he said that one of your
philosophy is that the detachment of the body
and the soul being eternal.
He said that you have a philosophy and I have
seen many Hindu say “I'm not the body, I'm
not the mind, I'm the ever pure ever glorious
Atma.
I am the soul that will never die. This is something deeply ingrained in all of you”.
And he said, as we discussed this it came
on that, I believe this is a philosophy that
helped you to sustain unimaginable torture
on yourself because the invaders, who are
our rulers, they definitely created a lot
of torture and abuse on ourselves.
If we, for example, take the example of the
pictures for which we have, for example the Sikh gurus.
We have documented history of (Guru Teg Bahadur).
Your flesh being torn out, your body being
slowly decapitated.
For example, when Aurangzeb ordered Teg Bahadur
to be killed, he said, "You see to it that
only one drop of blood falls at one time.
When he asked his disciples to be killed,
they were boiled alive.
Now these were not exceptions.
These were regular things in those times and
yet there was something that helped many Hindus
to sustain that. And I had an interesting experience.
I asked a Kashmiri Pundit whose temple was
burnt down.
The mob had attacked and desecrated it and
destroyed it.
I said, "What happened? How did you survive?" I mean he was badly injured.
He said, "When I realized that I cannot save
it, I did not want to run.
I came, I sat in meditation quietly and I
said now whatever they do to me they will
not be able to do any further.
I will die over here, and a calmness came
over me.
I put my hand around the deity and then I
lost after that all consciousness because
they beat me, and they left me for dead."
Now this thing about going into a meditational
phase, thinking that I am different from the
body, thinking that I am eternal, I am a soul,
this philosophy I believe and this is something
that I find that with psychologists that being
the core element of our philosophy, helped
us to cope in a big way.
Further research is needed on that but I believe
that it is very much needed.
This is one of my favourite pictures of all
times- Guru Tegh Bahadur just before he was
killed by Aurangzeb.
He's sitting in meditation and as he was killed
and as he was decapitated, he continued to
sit in this pose and not move.
He who has a ‘why’ to live for can survive
anyhow.
Victor Frankel, a psychiatrist explained in
his book 'Man's Search for Meaning' that when
a man discovers (I am writing the word man
in a generic sense.
I don't mean man or woman here.)
only when why he exists at the deepest level,
this is also the message of Gita.
I feel that it's time enough for us to think
of how we survived, why we survived and how
we have carried on despite all the atrocities.
I'll come to Sabarimala Hindu resistance.
It's interesting for me as a psychologist
to see this that never before in recorded
history have Hindus come out unified in such
large numbers to protect their temples.
There is a simmering Hindu rage becoming a
movement and I also believe that it will soon
point to the time when we will be in one of
the biggest transition periods of history of all times.
To understand what is happening at Sabarimala
I have drawn it psychologically.
It is a separation that creates the resistance.
At an individual level we don't want separation,
but as for societies, how do societies attach,
how do societies become who they are?
We all become a society through proximity
groups come together.
I mean anyone who has read Benedict Anderson
would know that we come together, we create proximity.
There is bonding and then when after the bonding,
it gives rise to a phase of separation.
And the separation in the world most of it
is forced.
Separation is not welcomed. Separation happens suddenly.
If we look at the separation in our lives
did any of the separation... if you see, 99%
of separation happens suddenly. It came without a warning.
The same is happening right now in Sabarimala.
Hindus are facing a separation from their
tradition which has existed for 500 years.
It's the forced separation.
Without going into the right or the wrong
of it I can only say that this separation is sudden.
It is forced and it is not something that
they identify with or there is something that
there is no victim in it, in order to say
that, No, I want this.
The separation is leading to what we call
grief in psychology.
Separation unlocks the grieving process always.
Whenever there is separation there is grief.
This is what is happening to us as a society. We are going through separation.
Hindus have gone through separation in big
ways for a long time.
We have got separated from our temples, we
have got separated from our sacred lands,
we have got separated from our culture, we
have got separated even, for example, our schools.
So, the way we were running our schools…
the British stopped it and said that “no,
you have to study in these schools”.
So, we went through separations continuously
one after another, but we never grieved.
We held the grief back inside and that the
grief right now is emerging because of the nationalism.
The nationalist feelings that are emerging
in society.
Next, the stages of grief. I'll briefly say the first stage is denial. We all know what denial means.
When we hear a bad news or a tragic news what
is the first reaction? “No!
This is not true. This cannot happen”.
We use denial to protect ourselves and then
there is rage, there is sadness.
But our society, the Hindu society, it went
into denial when it saw its temples desecrated,
when it saw its places destroyed and it could
not express rage.
Now, one could not express rage for example
in Aurangzeb's time, could we?
So, what happened to the grief?
The grief stayed inside.
We went straight to the phase of rationalization
by withdrawing into ourselves.
(We became) We carried our activities within
the parameters of our home.
I'll come to that later. So, we missed out all this - rage, sadness, fear.
The separation happens again, all this will
take place.
There will be rage, there will be protests
that we see, that we are seeing right now in Sabarimala.
The other phases are which something that
comes later.
This is from the works of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross,
who was also one of my teachers and who was
one of the greatest psychiatrists of all times,
who worked with people, who were in the terminal
phase and who showed that how people and then
she surmised it and said that this is also
applicable to systems and societies.
We are in a separation phase right now, we
as a society.
It has unlocked our grieving process.
We are beginning to see the assault and we
also realize that a Hindu mass movement is
probably the need of the hour and is the Dharma.
I spoke to people many of them and they said
that mass movement is not for Hindus.
I always used to wonder why? And now it is not so.
Many of them say, No, we need a mass movement.
I was asking someone who believes that Hindus
should become a political entity, they should
become a social entity and he said, no, we
must have a mass movement.
So, I asked him, "Why do you think we need?
I mean mass movement. Why have you changed your opinion?"
He says, "For one reason, Hinduism core principle
is self-renunciation and we have always believed
that self-renunciation comes by withdrawing,
by isolating, but mass movements also give
a self-renunciation and that is what we need
to realize."
That is an essential learning that all of
us need to have right now, that a mass movement
for your rights is also self-renunciation.
I think that hit me very hard and I think
that it is something for us to think about.
After centuries of denial and rationalization
we are now in a stage of protest and I believe
that our psyche will reborn to become a deeper
unified human being.
This is something I see coming about. Maybe in our lifetime but it is on its way.
The Hindu of the present times (it was told
to me by someone) can be said to be claiming
and demanding that his sacred spaces taken
away from him be given back.
Religious sites in India have an absorbed
memory that hasn't been erased by time.
I think we all know this picture.
We know that this place was destroyed many
times but yet it was still built up. Why?
Because it had a memory around it that could
not be destroyed.
Religion and memory are together they cannot
be separated.
Religion, memory, space, place and time they
all form an entity that together form a whole.
It is not just a brick structure.
It's also what we call a memory that has not
been destroyed.
That cannot be destroyed.
Every religious place is a space with the
absorbed memory.
These are from the works of people who have
done research into religion, memory and space.
So, I'm just writing the things.
I think they are self-explanatory that a space
brings us together us as a race.
I once interviewed a Kar Sewak.
He told me, "Our goal is not to destroy the
mosque (a very controversial statement) but
our goal is to build a Hindu identity that
was lost over there.
If the temple is built (he said, "if"), and
if he gathers around it, it will create a
new Hindu identity. It's an identity issue.
Hindus, Buddhists have undergone a pain and
suffering that other followers do not understand
because it has not been part of their experience.
This is not to say negative things about anyone,
but Hindus and Buddhists have gone through
desecration and destruction of their places
and that is something that remains part of their psyche.
It's my favourite saying- a man who's warm
cannot understand the pain of a man who's
cold- Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
What we have gone through and it is important
that if others have to go through, they have
to go through some of the same process.
I don't want any religious structure or anyone
else's religious structures to being touched
or destroyed but it is important that they
understand that what others have gone through
in order to bring peace. Do you see the two structures?
I mean controversial but different. Do you see a similarity in them?
Do we all know what the structure on the left
is?
Do we know what is the structure on the right?
The structure on the right is Red Indians
protesting about their sacred space where
they used to pray, a pipeline being made through
that.
They are saying that this is something that
we do not want to be changed and surprisingly
they found support for it from all over the
world.
Intellectuals, professors, everyone said that,
“no, their sacred space is important”.
So why is it that there is a difference?
I'm not saying that we destroy it, but sacred
spaces are universal everywhere and it is
important to understand that that it cannot
be different at one place and different at
another and it is important that all in religions
we do understand the notion of sacred space.
We have sacred spaces all over India.
We have sacred spaces all over the world.
We need to preserve their sanctity and when
they have been destroyed it's important to
create a dialogue and understand the pain
that others have gone through.
Shaun Launders, one of the top theorists,
said memory surrounds us and defines us.
It's an essential dimension of religion and
Milan Kundera said that the struggle of man
against power is a struggle of memory against
forgetting.
Very powerful words.
It is a memory that stops us from forgetting.
Memory doesn't die. That's the beauty about memory.
I may not even talk about it directly in words
to my offspring, but I know that my offspring
will understand what I wanted to convey and
they will carry through, memory carries in
silence. I think you all know this picture. Right? Okay.
I have a story around it which was the first
time probably I understood what trauma meant.
My father taught in the school next door.
Often Raisina. it was just.. Raisina Bengali School.
So very often we as children used to go and
play there and after playing take Prasad from
the pundits like millions of children do all
over the country.
We all go to play, and we take the Prasad
from Panditji after playing and we go back.
I knew every nook and corner.
I remember one day I saw this white couple
arguing with their guide.
The guide was telling them this is the biggest
temple, the most beautiful temple that we
have over here.
So, and they were consulting their books and
saying but this is a very new temple.
It was made in 1939.
We want to show some more beautiful older
temples like the way we saw in South India.
When the guide said, no, we don't have any.
There is one temple called Yogamaya which
is a very small temple.
Then they said that Delhi was a Hindu city.
We have seen mosques which are few hundred
years old, for example Jama Masjid is almost 300 years old.
We have seen other Sunehri masjid... this
masjid, but we don't see any medieval temples.
So, does it mean that Hindus did not create
any, build any medieval temples?
So, the guide said, yes! Probably not.
For centuries we did not build any big temple.
The temples were small because there was a
rule that the spire of a temple should not be seen.
Then they asked and I still remember- then
you mean to say that you were second-class
citizens in your own country? How did you feel that?
I mean he, I don't know who asked the man
or the woman, but how did you feel when you
would go out and you see that you have no
temples of your own when others had their big temples?
How do you think the people must have felt
then?
The guide said, I can't answer that. So, they went away.
I don't recall what happened afterwards, they got up, they walked away but this I   discussed with my father.
My father was a school teacher and he said
we don't talk about such things!
Don't talk about this.
So, I said, "Baba, is it true that we did
not build any big, large temple for almost
eight hundred, nine hundred years because
they must have...people must have been scared
that if they built it, it would...
He said, "yeah, probably not."
But he said, "Don't talk about this. Don't discuss this with anyone", and I also did.
Why we are even so scared right now? When I grew up this issue never left me.
I asked a friend of mine, a professor that
what do you think, why?
He said, "It was probably because of the nationalism.
The feeling of nationalism that gave the courage
to the Hindus to build a temple."
And then he said, "I have heard that the architect
who built it cried with joy, when they realized
that they were building a massive temple again
after a period of many centuries."
What I feel deeply affected and touched is
that we have all carried out without any sense
of rancour or hatred towards anyone. We have sustained.
We have had a resilience inside that it comes
from our textbooks that comes from absorbing
many difficult situations, many difficult
challenges in life and we have absorbed a
lot of pain but it is important for us to
think about it, to understand and for the
rest of the world to do so.
Why is today memory, becomes such an important
subject?
Memory becomes a subject of study when a great
change takes place in society and ruptures
the flow of events.
Like 9/11 USA, it ruptured the society and
because it ruptured the society, suddenly
focus our attention towards memory.
So, the importance of finding about who you
are, why we are, it comes because there is
a rupture in society and I believe that there
is a rupture in our society right now, a big
rupture that is taking place. Why?
I don't know but that is the reason why we
are going back so much into our memory right now.
All of these countries, if we study, they
have a collective memory.
Germany has a collective memory which is very
strong.
I mean I can only explain it through examples.
I was taking a workshop in Germany once but
it was a workshop means where you are dealing
with psychological issues and there was a
young German girl who was in the audience
and who was very withdrawn and I had given
her some exercise.
She was not doing.
I went up to her I was with my German colleague,
who was also a German, I told her, "I'm sure
maybe you are finding this exercise difficult.
I come from a country far away. I do not understand your culture that well.
So, if I'm saying something and you do not
understand, can we talk?"
And I noticed she withdrew even further!
She almost became like this. So, I said, "Have I said something wrong?"
So, my German colleague Dr. Petri stopped me. She told her something in German and took me away.
She said and I remember every word of her.
She said, "Rajat, when you talked you became
very hypnotizing for her.
Your language was very hypnotizing.
Do you notice that yours, Indians' language
is full of modulation?
You go up and down."
I said, "Yeah, we do that."
She said, "Have you noticed how we Germans talk?"
I said, "Well, now that you say it, you Germans talk straightforward.
One tone, one level like you are going in
one of your highways on a Mercedes at 200 km/h.
No modulation, nothing."
She says, "Yes, in Germany if you talk in a hypnotic language or you with modulation we withdraw.
We don't trust that person anymore."
So, I said, "Okay, that's a revelation for
me but why?"
She says, "you know what Hitler did to us?
Hitler's voice was deeply hypnotic and modulating.
Since then we don't trust anyone who talks
in a modulating manner or in a hypnotizing way.
So don't talk like that again."
So then afterwards I've taken numerous workshops
in Germany.
I always talk at one tone, at one level and
don't go above that and I'm very successful.
Believe me, the German says, "Very good workshop!
We enjoyed it very much. Thank you very much."
I say, "Yes, that's right".
So, you see one person, even after 70 years,
even before that, they say that 'in our culture
we do not allow anyone to take (advantage).
We have made a decision, we won't allow anyone
to take advantage of us and that is why we
prefer that we be this way.'
I believe that in India also the period of
last 70 years has tried to rupture our relationship
with our past through distortion and falsification.
And that is why this rise of memory in our
present day.
This was a question we had a seminar on memory.
Religion engages human conception of space
and place.
Somebody asked what would be Judaism without
Mount Sinai and Moriah?
I asked a Jewish friend. He says we can't imagine.
What would be Christianity without Bethlehem? We would die.
What would be Buddhism without Sarnath?
The Buddhist monk said, "I can't imagine this."
He seemed to have got affected.
What would be Islam without Mecca and Medina?
I don't think I should even say anything.
On that what has been Hinduism without it,
sacred places?
Then a wound a grief that is something that
we need to take note of heal and fill that...
otherwise as time goes by it will be more
difficult to fulfil that.
Control over sacred places...
I'm not saying that we do it forcefully or
with violence but control over sacred places
is necessary for rewriting the history of
any country, its people, its development and
its identity. It's true all over the world. It's not an exception here.
This is something I already explained.
The present interest in memory and rewriting
of history, it comes from the rise of nationalism.
It's true with many parts in the world.
It may not have a reason because the falsehood
built around the freedom struggle that whether
it was violent or nonviolent.
And lastly the defining the deaths of revolutionaries
are the sacrifice and primary cause of freedom
would have led to the birth of the idea of
a new nation in very different emotional terms.
That's what I believe that is something that
there is an issue about who gave us freedom.
I feel it's a very welcome debate because
it opens us to a new possibility that did not exist before.
Transition of society in the present is something
I already said.
I believe that the historian of the future
will be one who can become a memory man to
link us to our memory that is being suppressed
so far.
It is important for us that we find a bridge
between the memory we are carrying and the
history and the gap between that. And the task of history is to bridge that.
Historians no longer have a monopoly over
history.
This statement was made to me recently by
a professor from JNU.
I have professors in JNU as friends.
I get into vigorous debates with them and
this was a statement made and I fell it was
so good that I need to write it.
They no longer have a control over writing
of the past.
People in India no longer trust what is written in textbook and past has ceased to have a single meaning.
I believe these are very welcome developments for our country, for our growth, for new debate and dialogue.
Pierre Nora. I don't think that many of you would know
but (he was) one of the world's greatest historians
from France who wrote a history of France
in seven volumes.
He was bothered about the gap between memory
and history.
He wrote this very beautifully- 'Memory is
life borne by living societies founded in its name.
It remains in a permanent evolution open to
remembering and forgetting.
Susceptible to being made dormant... history
on the other hand is the reconstruction, always
problematic and incomplete.
History is suspicious of memory and its true
mission is to destroy it.'
So, it's important to see that history and
memory have been at loggerheads.
If we ask, for example say, a victim of Sikh
riots, "how was the rights for you?"
And we ask, say, someone in the government
in those times, "What is your memory?"
We would find a complete difference. Right?
So, it's important to bridge that gap and
writing history from the point of view of
survivors is extremely crucial for us at the
present times.
I almost come to an end and I will just share
something about this.
We all know about Adolph Eichmann.
It's been called the greatest trial of the
20th century.
It was led by Gideon Hausner, a world-famous
lawyer.
Apart from this, only the Nuremberg trial, where the Nazi people were tried, was seen as a big trial.
But this is regarded as the greatest trial
of the 20th century because of the issues involved.
During the trial they found that establishing
the culpability, the guilt of Eichmann is not a problem.
There is enough proof, enough evidence, and
enough data against him.
But the Jewish people, they felt concerned.
They realized that if they have a trial based on documents, number and statistics, this trial will die out.
It will be a big disservice to humanity.
What they realized is that this trial is more
than numbers or data or statistics.
This trial is based upon an ideology of those
people who believed that Jews had no right
to live, on their annihilation.
So, the trial should be on that, the annihilation
of a race, not on facts, data or statistics.
This trial is necessary for Jews to reclaim
their identity.
When I read this, and I've read this several times because of part of my research and understanding on trauma.
I also read the trial on the Babri Masjid-Ram
Janmbhoomi.
I found there a lot of parallels in that.
Ram Janmbhoomi, I find that it is becoming
a trial about whether Ram was born there or not.
Shri Ram. Sorry, I should say Sri Rama.
I should not say Ram but place of Shri Ram.
It's about a temple or the birthplace of Ram,
but it is not about Hindus trying to reclaim their identity.
This issue as I see is not so much about whether
it was the birthplace of Shri Ram or whether
it was a temple but the identity that got
lost during the time when the temple was desecrated.
It's a sacred space. It is linked to the identity of Hindus. That is what they are fighting for.
So, I think it is important for those who
are into this issue to understand that it
is not just a temple structure or whether
Shri Ram was born there, but it is about Hindus
trying to reclaim their identity.
The destruction of the temple, including this
temple, was to destroy a civilization, a way
of life and faith of a people who had built
it over thousands of years. Right?
I'm saying this because there is enough evidence
right now to show that there was a temple
below that or even if there are other temples
where it was built.
The goal was not that just a temple was destroyed. No.
Yes, a temple was destroyed. The physical structure was.
But it was also much more a destruction of
a civilization, a way of life.
Sacred spaces have an absorbed memory.
When they are built again, they restore the
memory to its people leading to closure.
In India we have had enough trauma. Enough!
There is need for healing. We need closure.
And I believe that a dialogue and a deeper understanding will lead to closure. Dialogue leads to closure.
I have friends in South Africa who were part of (one of them was) part of Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
They say that they brought the persecutor,
the perpetrators together, resolved the issues
and came to a closure. We can do so over here.
People are not the problem, it is the ideology.
It is the belief system that you carry that
is the problem.
That is what I found in my career. I come almost to the end of my talk.
This place is Anandpur Sahib where Pundit
Kripa Ram went to Guru Teg Bahadur to ask
that Hindus be saved.
When my book was finished, we decided to make
a pilgrimage over there.
We had both the Kashmiri Pandits, who went
there at that time, and the Sikh priests over
there who blessed us.
And I felt a fulfilment, a completion of the
work that I had taken upon myself to write
this book and also to finish the process. That's me. That's my wife Nidhi.
He is the president of Pannam Kashmir and
they are the head priests over there who blessed
the book and to whom I gave the chapters from
the book about the dialogue between Aurangzeb
and Guru Teg Bahadur. They read it.
They okayed it and they said that this is
the way the Sikh records, we imagined, would
have happened. So, we bless this book.
It was important for me to do so because I
felt I must go back to the same sacred space
about which I had been touched many years
ago by that man at the Kashmiri refugee camp.
I'll just give you the context.
The protagonist of the book is Aditya Narayan,
a priest's son, who goes back to Srinagar
where his temple was destroyed 300 years back. He goes there.
He listens to a story from his mentor who
is Gurudev and this is the story of Aurangzeb
and Guru Teg Bahadur. He asks for the story...
"How many times will you listen to the same
story?”
Gurudev shook his head and smiled.
"I promise this is the last time." He looked at Aditya.
The longing gaze on his face and locks of
hair that fell by the side together added
to an expression that made it impossible for
him to say no.
With a sigh he asked, "There are so many other
stories, but you only want to hear this one."
"I like it. That's all."
Children say that very often.
My daughter says that. "Why do you want this one?"
"I like it. That's all. Isn't that enough?"
Gurudev began, "Over 300 years ago our country
was ruled by a cruel Emperor Aurangzeb.
He killed his own brother, imprisoned his
father and became an emperor.
Then he decided to convert India into an Islamic
country."
"Why Gurudev?"
"Because he thought that if other countries could become Islamic, why not India where he a Muslim ruler, ruled.
He imposed heavy taxes on Hindus called Jazia
and enforced humiliating conditions, so that
they would give up their religion.
He ordered his officers to bring one mound
of Janeu and weight it every day by killing
or converting Hindus.
Many were killed but many gave in due to fear."
"Did he succeed?", Aditya asks.
"No, his cruelty frightened many as it is
Hindu temples all over India.
Wherever his armies went they would build
mosques over them.
It is said that his armies would throw the
deities under the stairs of the mosque so
that people trample on them."
"Did it break the will of Hindus."
"No, a large number of Hindus chose death
over conversion and Aurangzeb faced a dilemma.
If Hindus choose to die who would he rule
over.
He decided to try and convert all the pundits
of Kashmir first.
Why Kashmir?
Because Kashmir was the seat of Hinduism and
his belief was that if Kashmir could be converted
the rest of India would follow.
He ordered his governor that all the pundits
of Kashmir be converted to Islam or be put to death.
Hearing this, when death grip around, a prominent
Kashmiri Pandit- Pundit Kripa Ram along with
a delegation of 500 pundits went to Guru Teg
Bahadur, the ninth guru at Anandpur Sahib."
"Why did they go to Guru Tegh Bahadur?"
"Because Guru Teg Bahadur was known as the protector of the weak.
When the Guru heard about their suffering,
he said that a sacrifice was necessary to
teach Aurangzeb a lesson.
His son, Guru Gobind Singh who was only can
do that sacrifice!"
"He was my age and could say that to his own
father!"
Aditya said while widening his eyes.
"Yes Beta, in olden time’s children took
great responsibilities.
Life was so brief."
I remember reading this part to my daughter
one day and she said, "You mean to say that
children at 10 could say that!
That means that in olden times life must have
been really difficult, that I feel so privileged
that I don't have to say something like that
to you or to anyone.
"Then what happened?"
"The Guru told them to return and tell their
governor, Iftikhar Khan, that he should send
this message to Aurangzeb - 'if you can convert
the Guru to Islam then the whole of India
will convert but if you can't, you would have
to give up your dream of making India an Islamic country.'
On hearing this Aurangzeb felt that he won.
Converting a single person, which would not be any problem, his name would be written in golden letters.
First, the Guru and the disciples were brought
in front of the qazi who threatened them with
dire consequences if they didn't embrace Islam.
The Guru listened to him with amusement and
refused.
Then the Guru was brought to the Emperor's
court in Chains.
His presence brightened the royal court making
all the jewels look pale.
Even though he stood on the ground he appeared higher than the emperor who sat above him on the throne.
The Guru looked majestic with his flowing
beard.
His eyes so powerful that they could see through
your soul.
Aurangzeb could not look at him in the eye.
'Teg bahadur, you came here to embrace Islam.'
One of the Emperor's courtiers finally said
to him.
'No, I didn't', the Guru thundered.
'I said if you can convert me to Islam then
the whole of India will follow and if you
can't you will give up your dream.'
Let us see if you, Aurangzeb, have the power
to do that.
I dare you to convert me.
If you fail, you will stop the forced conversion
of Hindus and the desecration of their temples.'
The silence was deafening.
'Do you know whom you are talking to?’ one
of the courtiers asked, who finally found his voice.
'If you embrace Islam the Emperor promises
to give you a high post at his royal court
and you will be given many jewels and have
the biggest harem in his kingdom.'
The Guru laughed.
The pillars in the Hall seem to shake with
his laughter.
His laughter was like a lion's roar.
When Aurangzeb looked around, he saw his whole
royal court sitting there frozen.
'You fool.' The Guru thundered.
'Do you think you can lure me in the name
of God, the Almighty?
You think if I call him by any other name
saying that that's the only right path then
I acknowledge my path is wrong?
Who lead you to come to this mistaken conclusion?"
"How could the Guru speak like this to the
Emperor?” Aditya asked.
"Those who stand up for others and are the
embodiment of Dharma develop such a quality.” his guru replied.
"And he called the Emperor a fool in front
of everyone!” Aditya laughed.
Aurangzeb sat unable to utter a word.
History will not forget this day, his courtiers
thought, when the Emperor of India looked
so pathetic in front of an obscure guru. The guru continued, 'God is one.
Whatever name you call him, he is the same. Our paths take us to the same destination.
We can call him by whatever name but need
to do so without pride, conceit or deceit
and you Aurangzeb are full of all three.'
"Why did the Emperor remain so mute unable
to say anything?" Aditya asked.
"Proud men lose their tongue when confronted
by someone who speaks the truth." said Gurudev.
"The Emperor said, 'can you show me a miracle
that you are a holy man?'
'No, I will not do something so foolish to
convince you Aurangzeb.'
'Then this is the last time I ask you, will
you convert or not?'
'No, I will not. Not now. Not ever, even if my body is cut into a thousand pieces.'
The Emperor had never felt so humiliated.
'Tomorrow the whole of India would know how
the Guru had refused his offer.
Not only would his subjects laugh at him but
also future generations.'
He spoke, 'you fool! You stand in front of chains.
I can put you to death before you can blink
your eye.'
'Yes, you can Aurangzeb.
You can kill my body but not the spirit of
my people.
I have never seen someone more pathetic than
you are Aurangzeb.
You, the Emperor of India, is acting like
a beggar, begging me in front of your whole court.'
'Take him away, torture him for forty days
until he repents.
If he does not, behead him so that only one
drop of blood drips at a time', Aurangzeb screamed.
'Then take the head of him around the town
so that everyone can see.'
The Guru laughed. 'Who lost today, Aurangzeb?
With all your might you could not convert
a single unarmed man.'
After several days the Guru was beheaded,
and his head paraded around the town.
Finally, some of his disciples managed to
take his body away and performed the last rites.
Today, that place where he was beheaded, is
known as Gurudwara Sheesh Ganz.
'It would be wonderful to sit at the feet
of such a master even for a day.’
Aditya said, his eyes moist.
"Today the world remembers the Guru as ‘Hind
Ki Chadar', Gurudev said.
There is no other example in history where
a prophet gave his life to protect the people
of another religion.
The legend is that to avenge his humiliation.
Aurangzeb wanted all Kashmiri pundits to be
killed until they convert to Islam."
"Gurudev, each time I hear the story I try
to imagine what Kashmir is like.
O Kashmir! There is no place like that on earth surrounded
by snow-covered mountains, its beautiful forests,
rivers and lakes sitting by which you feel
transported to another world.
Hinduism reached its zenith here thousands
of years ago.
Saints came from far to meditate in its caves
and wrote manuscripts.
Did you ever go to Kashmir Gurudev?"
"Yes, I meditated in a cave near Amarnath. It was surrounded by snow.
As Aditya got up to leave, he said, "Gurudev,
can I ask you a last question?"
"You may."
"The Guru was against all hatred, wasn't he?"
"Yes, he opposed hatred in the name of religion."
Why do people hate Gurudev?"
"Hatred is never born in a day.
It lives for many years in the human heart
before it develops the face."
"Can I try and become fearless like the Guru."
"Yes, if you follow the path of Dharma and
never hurt anyone, even an ant."
"Gurudev, Aurangzeb dreamed to make India
Islamic.
What happened to that dream?"
"You will know it one day. It's too late now. Go."
So this is the chapter on the dialogue between
them.
And I think we have limited time so I just
maybe just read.
This is when Aditya talks to his mentor.
He's a professor. "Professor Beg, I have one question.
Is the history of people different from the
memory they carry of their past?"
Professor big smiles.
"History does die a thousand deaths but not
memory.
Memory holds us together and gives us hope.
When wars, massacres tear our continuity apart.
It's our memory that keeps alive the story
and sacrifice of our heroes."
"You are a historian.
Don't you find it a problem to trust memory
over history at times?"
"No, their conflict is eternal.
It's a memory that heals us, not history,
from injustice is of the past.
History puts our blind on us, making us believe
we are prisoners.
History is like an empress, angry with a whip
in hand who demands obedience to the written
words.
Memory is the mother who holds us in embrace.
Protecting us, when our soul needs answers."
"I thought holding onto memory is painful."
"Yes, sometimes it is not us who hold the
memory.
There the air, the mountains, the land hold
on to the story of its people.
If you are careful enough you will hear that."
I was on the verge of giving up.
Aditya walked out after taking leave. He looked at the sky.
He felt as if his thoughts had scattered into
a million pieces leading to a warmth radiating
inside him telling him not to despair.
So, I think these are two paragraphs and you're
welcome to read more.
Thank you.
