Riot victims feel that SIT had used tools of skill, discernment and caution, available to them for collection, collation, analysis and submission of evidence to the Court in favour of the perpetrators of various crimes in 2002 riots. Will Judiciary be able to sift through the materials before it and adjudicate to deliver long-delayed justice to “the wretched of the earth”, who bore the brunt of 2002 man-made communal holocaust? World at large is waiting for the D day.
(R B Sreekumar is Former Director General of Police, Gujarat )

Today, even as he was installing the Cooker, I was standing next to him, offering a hand whenever required and shooting questions at him at periodic intervals. He was explaining the difference between electric and gas Cookers and the advantages of the old wood burning range Cookers when he suddenly noticed a wire slightly protruding out and asked me to pull the Cooker to one side. He had connected the wires and turned all the hobs on. Even as I replied, ‘sure, will do’, I was leaning over him, to put off the main Cooker switch. Derek turned to me with incredulity in his eyes, ‘you don’t have to turn it off’, he exclaimed. ‘But if I am going to move the Cooker, won’t it be safer to first turn it off?’ I questioned back. He looked at me bewildered, and asked bluntly, ‘are you superstitious?’ ‘These things go through rigorous safety checks and they are completely safe’, he explained and I, ‘non-superstitious’ that I was, reluctantly pulled the Cooker to one side leaving the switch on. Job done, pleasantries exchanged, Derek was on his way out. But his question ‘are you superstitious?’ stayed with me, even as he left. What action or disposition of mine was superstitious? What does he mean by the word ‘superstitious’? And am I really superstitious?

Derek’s question got me thinking, and led me to inquire into what ‘superstition’ meant. Of course, I am aware of the common usage of this term and what it means in contemporary parlance. Any online dictionary would give you a definition similar to this: ‘A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance’. According to this definition the main ideas behind ‘superstition’ are ‘irrationality’ and a belief in ‘supernatural causation’ – in other words, superstition is anything that on one hand went against the demands of ‘reason’ and ‘natural law’ and on the other positively a belief in the ‘supernatural’. Therefore, the modern understanding of ‘superstition’ can said to be defined by two other categories – ‘rationality’ and ‘religion’, in that it has a negative relationship with the former and a positive relationship with the latter – the absence of rationality and the presence of religion (qualified by irrationality) is superstition.

But what has this got to do with my leaning over Derek to turn off the Cooker mains? How is that ‘irrational’ or a ‘belief in supernatural causation’? A clue immediately comes to our cognitive visibility, and we can attempt to infer an answer to this question, but rushing into that answer would only be at the expense of missing out on the deep structures of the imaginaire out of which Derek’s question flowed. So you will have to bear with me for a very brief detour into the history of this fascinating term, which I promise, will not only give us a richer answer to our interrogation of Derek, but also provide some fodder for thought about our own worldview.

An important point to keep in mind is that words change meaning, even drastically, over time. A good example is found in an article by Megan Lane of BBC News Magazine titled ‘Disgust: How did the word change so completely?’ which held the number one position in the ‘most popular read’ story in BBC News today (15^th November 2011). Here she investigates how the term ‘disgust’  which was used to ‘express distaste for rotten food or filth’ at the time of its inclusion into the English language in early seventeenth century, is presently deployed to express a negative sentiment ‘against looters, phone hackers and others whose actions many find morally murky.’ Thus, words change meaning over time and they therefore have to be understood in the historical context in which they are used. This insight is important for our modern times when we work under a paradigm that presupposes that meanings are essential and universal in nature, transcending cultural and historical situatedness. Maybe my obliviousness to Derek’s context was responsible for my inability to understand his usage of the term ‘superstition’ for my action. Thus our investigation must lead us to explore Derek’s contextually-defined usage of the term.

Mary R. O’Neil in her article Superstition in the 2005 Encyclopaedia of Religion recognises that the term ‘superstition’ too has changed its meaning over time and argues that ‘its specific meanings vary widely in different periods and contexts, so that a survey of its historical application rather than an abstract definition is the best approach to the concept of superstition’. However, in spite of her cautioning, her own historical trace of this term appears to be dominated by the idea of ‘rationality’ informed by the modern understanding of ‘superstition’  resonating with the online definition we considered above rather than reveal the self-understanding of the earlier historical periods. For example describing the classical usage of ‘superstition’ she writes that the ‘classical world criticized certain religious behaviours as irrational, or as reflecting an incorrect understanding of both nature and divinity’ and this was ‘superstition’ in Antiquity for O’Neil. However the Classical understanding of superstition can she shown to be different during different periods even within the classical epoch and there are understandings of ‘superstition’ within the Classical period that have nothing to do with ‘rationality’.

Although her use of ‘rationality’ to interpret ‘superstition’ does not do justice to her own observation that the term needs to be studied in its historical location, she however makes an explicit connection between ‘superstition’ and ‘religion’. For O’Neil irrational religion is equivalent to superstition, an idea which we have already seen contained in our online definition. William Pitt in 1800 in his tract Superstition takes this argument to its logical conclusion. He makes a distinction between ‘religion of reason’ which focuses on the ‘eternal moral law of God’ and ordinary religion which for him emphasised on ‘holy romances, sacred fables, and traditionary tales’. His definition of ‘ordinary religion’ which he declares as ‘superstition’ practically encompasses all religious beliefs and practices. Thus, for Pitt, religion is superstition. To sum up, superstition is defined both (a) in opposition to rationality, and (b) as identical to irrational religion. Thus the modern view of superstition as religion is largely defined in opposition to what is seen as rational.

The obsession with ‘rationality’ and ‘superstition as the lack of it’ is uniquely characteristic of us moderns. The philosopher Alexander Lesser in 1931 has astutely observed that we moderns uncritically impose our view of superstition on our construction of knowledge of both other cultures and of different times. He argues that ‘a vague  differentiation  of  the  superstitious  from  the  rational  has  for the  most  part  availed,  because  all  issues  have  been  drawn  in  the universe  of  discourse  of  our  own  culture,  and  between  credulous, ignorant  belief  and  the  reasoned  thinking  of  the  logically  trained. In  so  far  as  the  intellectual  life  of  other  cultures,  particularly  the primitive,  have  been  drawn  into  discussion,  there  has  been  tacit agreement  that  unless  rationalism  can  be  shown  to  dominate  them, these  alien  realms  of  discourse  are  superstition.  Ethnologists  as well  as philosophers  have  assumed  this  attitude,  partly,  I  think,  because  the  ethnologists  have  uncritically  carried  the  distinction,  or lack of distinction,  over into  their  subject-matter.’ Similar to our critique of Mary R. O’Neil, Lesser’s critique is directed against Alice Gardner’s account of superstition in Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Gardner defines superstition as ‘ a  number  of  beliefs,  habits  and fancies,  tribal  and  individual,  which we regard  as not  being  founded on reasonable conceptions  of the world and of human life,  necessities and obligations.’ Lesser considers this as an ‘undiscriminating use’ of the term and questions back ‘what is such a “reasonable conception”?’ and ‘who is to judge its reasonableness and by what standard?’ Lesser’s critique is followed by a proposal which is equally exciting as his critique but before we get into that, we need to respond to the critique. The critique is that we are using our ‘modern’ understanding of ‘rationality’ to define ‘superstition’ pejoratively as ‘irrationality’ either in our description of other cultures, or even in tracing the historical development of this term. So the question is – was superstition understood in any other way, especially in the history of this term and was it defined in ways that have nothing to do with (ir)rationality?

The term ‘superstition’ etymologically comes from the Latin superstitio (noun) which is traced back to the first century AD and superstitiosus (adjective) which can be traced back to early antiquity for example going all the way back to Plautus in the fourth century BC. The first interesting insight we get from Ross is that the term superstition is non-pejorative in its usage in both Plautus’ usage of superstitiosus as well as Statius’ usage of superstitio in Thebaid in the first century AD where it is positively used analogous to the Roman religio signifying the rite and method of worship of the Roman goddess of forgiveness and mercy, Clementia. This brings the second insight that superstitio refers to a rite or a method of worship. Thirdly, Ross argues that while the Ennian usage in the second century BC is similarly non-pejorative as Plautus, its usage of superstitiosi  vates (superstitious seers) however contains a hint of sneer thus leading to a ‘extraordinary controversy about the meaning and development of superstitio’ in classical literature. So what was the controversy? Finally, Ross shows that in Seneca, in the first century BC, there is a divide between religio and superstitio, where religio is taken as the worship of the gods and supersitio as the violation of that worship, thus it appears that superstitio is beginning to get a pejorative nuance. But what is the basis of this pejoration? Here also originates the dichotomy between religion and superstition, but the dichotomy unlike our modern usage is not based on rationality, rather on other factors. Ross shows how the Ciceronian view gives a clue into the basis of this distinction which also reveals the source of pejoration – for Cicero a religio becomes superstitiosa if it is infected with ‘new or strange rites’. Therefore it was not religio becoming irrational, but it being supplemented or supplanted with rites different from those of religio that made it superstition.

Janssen in his article on ‘Superstitio’ and the Persecution of the Christians brings to light the distinction between superstitio and religio by investigating why the Romans considered Christianity as superstitio and worthy of persecution.

Janssen offers a fascinating historical trace of superstitio basing on the works of Otto, Linkomies and Benveniste on this term: first, in Plautus comedies superstitio refers to a clairvoyant who ‘in a supernatural  way have a clear knowledge about events that happened in the past and who are aware of things present which are beyond ordinary  human perception.’ However secondly, Janssen argues that in the first century BC the meaning of ‘superstitiosus and its derivative superstitio had shifted from clairvoyant to prophesying, foretelling future events’. Thirdly, Superstitio in this sense of prophesy introduced ‘un-Roman rites’ many of which came to the Roman republics from cults of foreign origin. If religio was seen as Roman rites to their gods then superstitio was seen as competing rites with allegiances to strange deities which were considered as ‘a serious offence to the Roman gods and a direct attack on the Roman state’. Fourthly, superstitio in Cicero has to do with people’s practicing of these new rites to ensure that their children survived them. Thus the emphasis was on individual welfare as opposed to the welfare of the Roman state – fostering one’s own interest before that of the res publica. Finally, if religio was seen as rites and rituals that kept the Roman republic together with its pietas and virtus then superstitio as strange and foreign rites with a focus on the individual and disregard for the community of the Roman republic (nomen Romanum) had to be destroyed. In short, superstitio was seen as a competing cult with rites that drew people, away from religio which were Roman rites exalting the Roman Empire, to a way of life consisting of foreign practices that even sought the end of Rome. Thus, in classical times, religion and superstition were opposed to each other not on the basis of reason or rationality but on the basis of political allegiance to the Roman state.

What has all this got to do with Derek and my leaning over him? Before we conclude with that answer, let’s summarise what we have learnt from this incursion into the study of superstition. We have looked at two periods – Classical and Modern – and their usage of the term superstition respectively. In the modern period ‘superstition’ has been used as opposed to reason and analogous to irrational religion. However, in the Classical period superstition is primarily used as opposed to religion but religion was defined by its allegiance to the Roman state rather than by rationality and hence, superstition was anything that opposed the Roman state. Thus in antiquity religio and superstitio were two ways of living lives, possessing two different allegiances and two separate kinds of rites and rituals, in short, two traditions. In modern times, in both religio and superstitio being bundled together as irrational, what is missed is that these terms are being defined against and in opposition to another tradition or cult, namely the cult of scientific material rationalism. In other words, religion and superstition being termed irrational has to taken as differently-rational, contrary to the rationality of scientific materialism. Scientific materialism too has its own rites, rationality, allegiance-demands, and therefore in short is a tradition. Just as in Classical times the competition was between two distinct traditions of superstitio and religio, similarly in our modern age the conflict is between the two distinct traditions of superstition/religion and scientific materialism. Each of these traditions have their own practices and texts and authorities and demand allegiance and punish disobedience.

It is against this background that Derek’s incredulity and admonishing gathers meaning. My failure to trust the safety of modern science made me an apostate, someone who did not believe in the reigning religio of our modern times and thus in that sense was acting superstitiously. The god of modern science was not given her due by my action. I was performing a strange rite of turning off the Cooker, which went against the established authority of science. The manufacturers of the Cooker rigorously following the dictates of Science, according to Derek, have produced a Cooker that guarantees my safety and my failing to recognise that and not trusting it, made me superstitious. My act, however insignificant, was going against the res publica of Science and therefore I had to be admonished and my disbelief destroyed, lest these tiny drops of dissent form a torrent that would threaten Rome. But Science is much more a dangerous religion than the Roman religio, because it does not define itself only by some specific rites or allegiances as the Roman religio, but it defines itself by the nature of what is rational. In that it has subsumed everything rational, as its own and in that it terms everything that is against its rationality as irrational and as religious superstition. But the crucial question upon which the ‘god of science’ stands or falls has to do the nature of rationality and particularly if it is universal?

But here is where we must return to Lesser’s proposal. With some clever work, Lesser establishes that rationalism can be seen in two senses – first, in the narrow sense of justification through formal logical statements and secondly, in the broader sense of the possession of reasoning powers in a systematic sense, however without regard to a defined logic. Therefore what is pre-logical while it goes against the narrow sense of rationalism, is however not ipso facto irrational as it is still within the purview of the broader sense of rationalism. In other words every religious or superstitious practice or rite has its own rationality within its own system of reference. It is only an isolated belief or practice that could appear irrational, however, when it is seen in its systematic interrelations with other beliefs and practices, its own rationality will emerge. This insight that every religio/superstitio possesses a competing rationality challenges the hegemony of the god of science just as Christian superstitio challenged the Roman religio. There is no single rationality, but a plurality of rationalities. Different religious traditions possessing differing rationalities are able to offer alternative beliefs and practices and visions of the good life, even if they are contrary to the claims of modern scientific rationality.

It appears that the central questions for us is – to whom do we give our allegiance, whom do we worship, whose texts and practices have supremacy in our lives, and which tradition do we follow? I am happy to have Derek follow his scientific religion and perform rites dictated by it even if they are different than mine, but probably what raised my curiosity was his incredulity in me not subscribing to his god and rites. It appeared as if suddenly the Roman Empire had reincarnated as modern science which taking on eagle’s wings was demanding my obeisance.

Derek had long gone, and it was a week later and the incident nearly forgotten. Keeping in line with my rigorous diet that had nothing to do with religio or superstitio or science, I was getting ready a tray of veggies to be grilled for my dinner. As l turned the Cooker on to pre-heat the grill – suddenly, lo and behold – flashing lights and a loud noise, and the Cooker went out with a big bang. I stood frozen next to it, glad to have my shoes on and I thought – even the scientific god cannot be completely trusted, and maybe my earlier act of defiance was not all too unwise.

Every Rome has its fall.

It has been fifty years since he has started playback singing. Half a century is a big span in any sphere, be it cinema or music. Lots of shifts occurred in our life styles, listening habits and technologies; radio, 78 rpm records, vinyl tapes, tape recorders, loud speakers, analogue recording, digital recording, cable TV, internet, mobile… Music composers who radically changed our aesthetic conventions like Salil Choudary, K J Joy, Shyam, Raghu Kumar, Ilayaraja, Raveendran, Rahman and more came and went. Yesudas stayed.

Is it the same yesudas we are having all these years? I feel he has evolved through the time which is not just the case of `aging’. His voice and singing style have played an important role in the making of Malayalam film songs and vice versa. But unfortunately there hasn’t a comprehensive study about him yet. I think his bass voice considered as a `model male voice’ is not just a biological factor but a technological and sociological construction. I don’t yet have clear evidence but I assume that the discovery of this bass voice happened later in his career while there was a shift in our listening equipments; for instance the sound boxes replacing the `kolambis’ and the simultaneous shift in recording and broadcasting technologies.

Most of us know about the difference in his speaking voice and singing voice. What is this difference? What could be the factors that bring about this great shift to his singing voice? This, I think, is an area to be explored in detail.

Yesudas has always been a site of many conflicts, anxieties and negotiations of the people called Malayalis. He is considered as an advocate of ‘pure music’ by many, as he too presents himself, but at the same time he is also attacked for `diluting the essence of classical music’. I think he has tactically dealt with film music and carnatic `classical’ music by blurring the borders cleverly and developing a peculiar style of singing.

Another important anxiety is over his secular image. I have always felt that the secular space of Malayalam film music is what forces him to be tactical about his secular image. He has always tried to build a secular public image/persona singing his first recorded lines `jaathi bedham matha dwesham’ in every public appearance, visiting hindu temples and singing devotional songs of all major religions.

Let me conclude by saying that like any other music composer I too have the desire that Yesudas would render one of my compositions some day.

I am genuinely annoyed at the news that the Director of Public Instructions, APM Mohammad Hanish, has ordered a ban on cinematic dance in Kerala schools. (Deccan Chronicle, August 1, 2011) Although my first reaction was a chuckle, it later developed into anger after reading the reason behind its censorship.  The director says: “It has come to our notice that certain private organizations and TV channels are promoting cinematic dance in schools all over the state. It has reached ridiculous levels with classrooms are being used for cinematic dance training.’’ The director has never learnt dance while he was at school, I am sure. But having grown with school youth festivals, and other competitions, I know that it was the only option left for students—to  convert class rooms into dance studios during rehearsals.  The second reason is all the more hilarious: “The so called cinematic dance experts and trainers were using the opportunity to exploit students”. What he means by “exploitation” is not clear. Anyhow, can anyone name that utopian dance teacher or art teacher who will never “exploit” a student?  I wonder why the director has not banned the state youth festivals; because during that time the participants never attend classes, the faculty would be busy preparing the students for the trophy, and classes are sometimes taken in makeshift rooms. Again, talking about exploitation, I would like to remind him of the news that appeared in Manorama News Channel, which exposed the fact that around 20,000 to 50,000 rupees was paid through middlemen to get an ‘A’ grade for a district level youth festival. Why didn’t he put a ban on youth festivals then?

Let me call a spade a spade. This “anxiety of Keralianness” sprouts from the fear of “caste” and “gender” in cinematic dance. In my experience as a student, most of the cinematic dance teachers were not from upper castes, nor were they elite. And, the female dancers are most often not “tamed” and “subservient”. The popularity of cinematic dance accentuates a caste and gender formation where an under privileged caste/class dancer can also be a “guru” and a female dancer could be virile. This amplifies a fear among the dominant communities. My conviction would be evident when we look at what is going to replace cinematic dance. In the discussion thread on Deccan Chronicle’s profile in Facebook, a gentleman says: “Schools are promoting cinematic dances which are leaving traditional dances like Bharatnatyam, Kathakali, Kuchipudi etc in a sorry state. A school makes responsible citizens not a Badnaam Munni or a Jawaan Sheila who is too sexy for all of us.” I wish he knew that even little children dance to padams explicit with pedophilia in classical dance forms. It is not his fault, I understand. Most often neither the performer, nor the audience understands what a Bharatanatyam or a Mohiniyattam performer does on the stage. It was only last year that I  witnessed girls as young as five and ten performing highly viraha and sringara padams for a Mohiniyattam concert, which was quite disturbing. Nobody seems to take an objection to such practices. Similarly, what the director means by a utopian, non-exploitative environment or teacher for dance seems to echo the nostalgia for the gurukula system, studies of which now show that it was a breeding ground of child labour and sexual exploitation. Why is it then that we blindly accept anything “classical”, and downrightly reject anything “popular”? Who equates “classical” with spirituality and purity and “popular” with crass and vulgar?

Interestingly, the ban is considered as a manifestation of the literate Keralian’s intelligent decision. Dance histories time and again prove that the ideas on what should constitute “Indian classical dance” came from the western perception of it, which was later imbibed by the metropolitan English educated elite Hindus and incorporated into the existing dance forms in the name of “cultural revival”. How many would remember it was the much stigmatized Tevidichiyattam that is now called as Mohiniyattam, one among the youngest dance forms to get the entry into the “classical dance” league set by the Culture Ministry of India? How can the society that borrows any Eurocentric idea to add to their “intelligence quotient” shut their eyes towards the increasing popularity of Indian cinematic dance on the global stage?

If someone gives me the lame excuse that it is not in “our culture”, I would have to simply cite G.P.Deshpande. In his essay “Dialectics of Defeat: Some Reflections on Literature, Theatre and Music in Colonial India” (EPW, Vol-22, No.50. Dec. 12, 1987) he says that “culture” is a colonial import. Until then no Indian languages ever mentioned the word, not because Indians were never cultured, or that they never had a culture, but because it never existed as “an autonomous world of discourse”. He explains: “Everything was dharma. Going to a temple was a dharma, singing a raga or a ragini was also a dharma. Dharma does not in this context mean religion. It indicates a space which an individual creates or obtains in a given area of action, duty or creation. This space was a part of the total whole. It was a continuous space. Hence such diverse actions as singing or worshipping or procreating were all described as dharma. It was a secular concept.” Thus, the word “sanskriti”, which is the Indian equivalent for “culture”, used often in the modern cultural scenario should be understood as a colonial invention.

Along with accusations of being “base”, cinematic dance is also considered easy to do. Talk to a committed dancer and he or she will show you how difficult cinematic dancing could be. My effort is not to plead for a place for cinematic dance by placing it alongside “classical dances”, because whether the Director of Public Instructions bans it or not, cinematic dance is going to stay. During my stint as a dance teacher, taking classes for a few school goers, I understood that they came to learn Bharatanatyam, not because of their will but to appease their parent’s ambition. In one of our classes, all of them said in a chorus, “we don’t want Bharatanatyam, it is so boring, we want bollywood dance”. But one girl objected. She was afraid her mother would scold her. When the notion of aesthetic itself is a creation, and what constitutes it changes from time to time, one doesn’t have to necessarily inject it in “tomorrow’s citizen”, especially when it only helps creating condescending attitudes.

In my opinion, the government should promote cinematic dance, because it doesn’t have the entrenched casteist markings and trappings, nor does it train a girl child just to be a meek, humble and sweet human being. The necessity of equal opportunity will be evident if only we look at the names of famous classical dancers Kerala has produced. When news on excommunication of performers from minority communities like VP Rubiya are reported in the state on the grounds that they danced “Hindu dance forms”, government should take cautious steps which includes encouraging of other kinds of dance forms. The “need of the hour” is not banning an art form, but solving the problems of exploitation, or dressing up that “befits a child’s age” as actress Shwetha Menon reacts to the ban. And this applies to any art form, not just cinematic dance.

The arguments of historians and other instant experts weighing in on this discovery seem to suggest that the ownership of the temple, in the sense of private property, lies with the former royal family of Travancore; counter claims are being made for converting this hoard into public expenditure, to ease the financial troubles of the state of Kerala. Both arguments should be rejected, for different reasons.

No small amount of the political legitimacy of the former ruling family of Travancore, at least among caste Hindus, came from their control and stewardship of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple. Such a relationship has a parallel with the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royals currently draw considerable political legitimacy from their claim to be worldly guardians of the Islamic holy places of Makka and Medina. The weakness of this claim is made clear when we consider what will happen to Makka and Medina when the al-Saud dynasty falls. In the absence of the current Saudi regime, will these cities somehow lose their importance for Muslims? In other words, political legitimacy follows from control, not the other way around. In neither case should political or legal control over the site in question become conflated with private ownership. Yet that is indeed so many seem to be arguing.

The political values of the Travancore royal family have been forgotten too easily. It should be recalled that the former Maharaja of Travancore consistently resisted joining the Indian Union, based on the recommendations of his stridently anti-Congress Dewan, Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer. It was only after the violent attack on the Dewan in July 1947 that the Maharaja realized where popular sentiment in Travancore lay, and agreed to sign the Accession papers unconditionally. The formation of the Republic of India in 1950 is an unequivocal statement that popular rule has displaced monarchy forever. Yet today we see the return, in a variety of guises, of the prestige and power of erstwhile Indian monarchs, of which this event is only the latest incarnation. Even if the Travancore royal family once controlled this temple, and derived some legitimacy from this control, they no longer do. In a sovereign and republican India, they have lost the moral right to determine the temple’s future, even if they are represented on the trust that controls the temple’s affairs. The legal challenge that led to the opening up of the vault began with a credible claim of irresponsible management by this trust. If earlier, the moral right to manage the affairs of the temple had been lost, it has now been joined by the misuse of legal responsibility. That recognition should be the starting point for the public debate.

Who then does the temple belongs to? Clearly, in the Republic of India, it is the people. But who are they? Half of Kerala’s people cannot enter this temple. Unlike most temples in South India, the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple does even not permit non-Hindus to enter the temple premises, let alone have darshan of the deity. Before 1936 and the Temple Entry proclamation, the number of those permitted to enter was even smaller. It took the intense struggle of the Ezhavas and a threat to convert to other religions before scheduled castes were allowed to enter the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, if they chose to. This continuing exclusivity stands awkwardly against the norms and ideals of popular sovereignty; however, the right of religious freedom justifies such exclusions, even if abhorrent to other rights and to secular norms. What may be permitted in religious sites, however, does not apply to these recently discovered objects.

There is no religious value attached to the precious objects discovered in the vault. Given their age, provenance, and probable aesthetic quality, it is beyond question that these objects are valuable, even priceless. But they are not religious artifacts in any way, even if offered to the temple by devotees. The Vatican holds great treasures that are the products of conquest and violence, given to them in the name of piety and devotion. These treasures are not automatically made sacred by the identity of their current possessors. They remain the gifts of believers and others, acquired by a variety of means. Separating the profane vault from the sanctified temple is one way of finessing the legal exclusions that are produced by the contradictions of popular sovereignty.

Does that mean the contents of the vault can be sold to this highest bidder? No, not even if the funds thereby produced are used only for the public good. There is no right to dispose of — to privatize — what belongs to the people as a whole. The patrimony of the past does not lie within the realm of the commercially disposable. One might as well ask whether the Taj Mahal could be sold, or the Pyramids of Giza. That these objects are described as priceless is not simply a measure of the difficulty of establishing a nominal value for them. It is a reflection of the fact that they lie outside the realm of commerce and trade altogether. Neither private ownership, nor open market sales should be allowed to determine the fate and identity of this newly discovered treasures.

The precious objects found in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple vault do not belong exclusively to any person or organization. They constitute a patrimony that belongs collectively to all people who care about the past and our common heritage. When we consider how immensely popular the famous King Tutankhamen exhibition was, all over the world, or when we see the crowds that flock to the Mesopotamian rooms and other collections of ancient wonders in the British Museum, we realize that for the average person, these attractions do not “belong” either to Egypt or Iraq, or for that matter to the British Museum. They relate to them as beautiful objects made by our collective forebears and that constitute our common heritage. All we can do is hold these objects in trust for the future; these are truly public goods that can and should be appreciated by any and all who care about these objects. A debate about ownership misses the point altogether. None of us, and all of us, owns these precious objects. The sooner we can all see them together, standing side by side, whether rich and poor, Hindu and Muslim, Indian and foreign, the better.

The first step is to create a catalogue of all the objects in the vaults, as the courts have now ordered. Second, making that catalogue public will help to prevent further losses from taking place. Finally, make the contents of the vault visible through a permanent exhibition, once a complete catalogue and record of the vaults have been completed. Entry to the exhibition should be open to any person, regardless of religious affiliation or nationality. Wait and see the crowds.

One could sense a similar fear in the recent public statement of The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) demanding the withdrawal of the new Class 10 Social Science text book brought out by the State Council Educational Research and Training (SCERT). The bishops’ council alleged that the text book was part of a conspiracy to malign the Catholic Church and undermine the secular fabric of the nation, and therein, an act of treason against the nation. It was feared that the text book would mislead students and generate a bad impression about the Catholic Church. Hence, the demand for the withdrawal and rewriting of the text book.

The text book under question was written by a thirteen member committee, and was approved by a sub-committee and a committee comprising of experts in the discipline and teachers belonging to different political persuasions and biases. It was also approved by a textbook commission, that was set up on the recommendations of the K. N. Panikkar Committee following a similar uproar made by the Catholic Church in 2008. This commission not only had some of the distinguished academicians of the country but also a Catholic priest who is the headmaster of PEM High School, Thiruvanchur. It is after going through such a rigorous process of scrutiny that the text book came to be finalized and published. The attempt of the bishops’ council to write off this process as a premeditated ‘conspiracy’ is an indication of its contempt for democratic norms and processes.

The statement brought out by the KCBC is rather vague as to what in the text book offended their sensibility. One of the allegations is that the text book portrays feudalism in Europe as a creation of the Catholic Church. Besides proving that the church leaders have not read the text book themselves, this allegation is unfounded and baseless. The text book utters only two statements about the relation between feudalism and the Catholic Church: While one talks about the Catholic Church having enforced strict control over access to knowledge and rational thought during the feudal period (p. 10), the other talks about the feudal lords and the Catholic Church having suppressed the Graeco-Roman culture (p. 12). Except for these two assertions, there is no other mention or any effort to indicate that feudalism was the creation of the Catholic Church.

As per the KCBC statement, it is the first chapter of the text book that has caused much discomfort to the Catholic Church. This chapter narrates the history of early modern Europe, covering themes such as ‘Renaissance’, ‘Reformation’, ‘Counter-Reformation’, ‘Geographical Discoveries’, ‘Scientific Revolution’ and ‘Enlightenment’. It is primarily in the context of discussions on ‘Reformation’ and ‘Counter-Reformation’ that frequent references are made to the Catholic Church. These references include the systemic corruption and intolerance that had crept into the Catholic Church, the prevalence of practices such as the sale and purchase of holy offices and the sale of indulgence against which reformers like Martin Luther spoke out, and the brutalities of counter-reformation manifested in the inquisition and forced conversions around the world. In citing these references, the text book has only mentioned what several historians, including Catholic historians, have come to acknowledge and write about over the years. None of these facts and events of history are unfamiliar to readers and writers of European history. The accounts of numerous men, women and children subjected to the worst kinds of torture; the numerous women cast as witches and burnt at stake; the murder of reformers, scientists and philosophers; the persecution and massacre of Jews, Muslims, Atheists and others; and the use of civil authority to instil terror and fear in the minds of people, are all there in the public domain. In fact, if at all one was to raise any complaint, it would be that considering there is so much more information now available on the horrors of inquisition and counter-reformation, the text book could have shown less restraint and said much more.

In raking up this controversy, it is the art of history writing that has once again become the casualty. The wounds inflicted by the Sangh Parivar on it less than a decade back has still not healed. And now, the Catholic Church wants to follow suit. Both these institutions share a common feeling of threat as far as history is concerned. Both fear that if history is written with honesty, in accordance to the rules and procedures of the craft, many ghosts from the past would come to haunt them. Thus, both feel the need to tamper with the craft, and invent a history that would meet their narrow political and religious agendas. What makes the present demand of the Catholic Church in Kerala to rewrite the text book even more ridiculous is their enthusiasm to suppress that history for which even Pope John Paul II had offered a public apology and asked for forgiveness. In 2000, from the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and again in 2004, during the launch of a book on the inquisition in Vatican, Pope John Paul II asked forgiveness for the series of torture, trials and executions unleashed by the Church across Europe in its hunt for ‘heretics’; for the sins it committed against people of other faiths and cultures; for the sins it committed against the dignity of women and minorities; and for its violation of human rights. However, this acknowledgement of sins committed and pleas made for forgiveness by the Pope seem to have had no effect on the Catholic Church in Kerala.

History as it is presented in the text book is not the only way in which the past may be understood. As in every writing of the past, it is only an interpretation of the past, albeit one that is reached through a consensus among various practitioners of the discipline, by following certain rules and procedures of the discipline. It doesn’t have any pretensions of providing the final word on matters of the past. In fact, right through the text book, the writers pose several questions to the students so that they would not be just satisfied by what the text says but would take an initiative to probe further and reach at their own conclusions about the past. However, the Catholic Church, for whom canons and dogmas are integral to who they are and what they are, finds it difficult to comprehend this democracy of interpretations.

This is not the first time that the Catholic Church in Kerala has demanded the withdrawal and banning of literature from the public domain. And what it points to is a deep-seated insecurity. The crisis that confronts various religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church, is while its unconscious self knows that it has failed in living up to what it originally set out to do, its conscious self does not want to acknowledge that and wants to remain in a state of denial. Hence, any idea or text that reminds them of their unconscious makes them extremely uncomfortable and defensive, therein bringing out the inquisitor in them alive. The Catholic Church has to come to terms with this reality rather than chase the ghosts of its imagination.