Points to ponder on 10 Commandments & the conduct of four Brahmins in Kanpur

Coping with Covid restrictions and confined with books and cinema, we stumbled upon Polish film maker Krzysztof Kieslowski’s masterpiece Dekalog, a tenpart series that explores ethical issues raised by the 10 Commandments.

In the eighth episode, 40-year-old New Yorker, Elizibieta, who had earlier translated works of Sofia, a Polish professor of ethics at Warsaw University, travels to Warsaw to attend lectures of the teacher she obviously admires. In passing, the camera focuses on the ‘Cross’ she is wearing, establishing her Roman Catholic background.

It turns out that in 1943, a six-year-old Jewish girl was left in Sofia’s apartment for protection. This child was Elizibieta. Sofia and her husband, practising Catholics, flinched and felt baptising the child was the only disguise that would guarantee protection from the Gestapo. Elizibieta was baptised, which facilitated her passage to America, then the promised land of jews.

The choice Sofia and her husband faced was between saving the life of a child placed in their care or risking the child’s life by rigid adherence to the Commandments Moses received from God. Was it ethical though? Kieslowski’s portrayal of a bruising reality reminded me astonishingly of the Kanpur riots in December 1992.

Cameraman Kabir Khan and I were directed to a two-room accommodation in Kanpur, where a certain ‘Panditain’ (wife or widow of a Pandit or a Brahmin) had saved a Muslim woman from a rampaging Hindu mob.

“Where is Aisha Bi?” they demanded while flourishing their weapons. “I don’t know,” she said. “Can you swear by Lord Rama that you have not hidden Aisha Bi?

She pointed to a plaster head of Lord Rama above her bed. “I swear by Lord Rama that I have not hidden Aisha Bi in my house.” The mob dithered and then dispersed.

Once the mob had slunk away, the Panditain had hurriedly removed mattresses, quilts, blankets and washed clothes piled on top of a large, window size wooden trunk from which the half-conscious. Aisha Bi, drenched in sweat, was pulled out.

In Warsaw of 1943, Sofia faced a dilemma. But the Panditain of Kanpur faced no such dilemma. She fell back on tact as distinct from a lie. Invocation of Lord Rama’s name was in effect an act of mercy.

How would the Urdu poet steeped in Sufism respond:

“Karein hum kiski pooja aur charhaen kispe chandan hum?

Sanam hum, daer hum, butkhana hum, but hum, barahman hum”

(Where do I turn for my prayers and who I worship? I am His image, I am the room the keeper of His idols; indeed, I am the idol, I am the Bramhin).

Waris Shah, the high priest of Dewa shrine outside Lucknow, was even more succinct.

Asked “Why do you not say your Namaz?” he replied, “Where is the space to go down in supplication?” The implication: “He is in me”, the essence of Advait or non-duality.

The Kanpur riots yielded more such narratives. A mob carrying trishuls, rods, axes and swords were blocked by a solitary man from entering a gated garden where Muslim families had taken shelter. His name was Tripathi. In another area an elderly lady, described by neighbours as Mishrain, threatened rioters with construction bricks piled up on her terrace. The mob retreated. A Pande ji stretched his arms across a narrow lane to thwart an armed mob.

Like many such stories, the Kanpur story would have been canned and possibly forgotten. But as we left for London in the next few days to film a feature on an Irish school teaching Vedic mathematics, Kabir’s edited copy of Kanpur found its way into our baggage. Gopal Gandhi, who was then incharge of the Nehru Centre in London, selected the Kanpur feature for screening before a packed hall.

That Hindus helped Muslims during the riots was an obvious attraction, a sort of relief for an audience fed excessively on communal brutalities post Babri Masjid. But the edited episode on Kanpur shed light on another piece of sociology. Wherever armed gangs baying for blood were stopped from advancing towards Muslims, the individuals happened to be a Panditain, Tripathi, Mishrain or Pandey – all Brahmins.

The point is not that Brahmins alone are filled with the milk of human kindness; But that a different group would simply not have had the self-confidence to confront a mob baying for blood.

I write from my experience in Awadh and districts around Kannauj, where political opposition to Brahmins contradicts their social standing.

(The writer is a well known journalist, columnist and commentator)