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Crime of Passion

I'm thinking about Regret... If I felt I'd been wicked and should apologise, would I say: "You'll have to forgive my misconduct, for you see I was full of passion when I seduced your husband"...? Not! But suppose I did resolve to say so, would I squirm? Not! I'd already have come to grips with my peculiarity, and steeled myself to take it on the chin. Squirming would indicate that I'm uncomfortable making the apology. And why would I be uncomfortable if I sincerely regret my dark deed? A more significant question is: Is the apology valid if it contains a justification for what I later considered a reprehensible act...?

Precisely. If I regret something, I'd say, "I'm sorry; please try to forgive me." Because a self-justification -- "I was full of passion" -- within a supposed apology adds insult to injury. It is a sham apology without any meaning, and singularly devoid of honesty. For it seeks to exempt one's own culpability by shifting the onus onto poor Passion...

A "crime of passion" -- isn't that a sanctioned judicial defence in many countries? For instance, the US Constitution, Title 18, Chapter 51 (Homicide), Section 1112, lays down that "Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of two kinds: Voluntary -- Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion... Whoever is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." Meaning, the death penalty would be forbidden in cases where murder occurred as a "crime of passion." The special defence strategy, "passion-provocation," begins with an admission by the accused that he committed the crime, and ends with a request for conviction on lesser charges.

In September, after three months of threatening and stalking her, Agustin Garcia burst into Gladys Ricart's Ridgefield home and shot her dead as she stood in her wedding gown, preparing to marry another man... Defence attorney Edward A Jerejian said, "This case is a passion crime. It's being investigated that way, and it will be presented that way... These are often the most heinous crimes because of the emotions involved. But you have to stop and ask yourself: Is this something that was planned, or did he act in the heat of passion?" Ask?? After three months of intimidation...?

In short, "passion" keeps murderers from receiving their just desserts even in the "developed" societies. But in my book, passion-provocation is just an excuse -- and that ain't good. For just as manslaughter isn't murder, "excuse" is not quite the same as "defence." Why can't we discern the fine points...? Are we so mentally apathetic that we let Passion be tarred with the same brush as Wrath, Vengeance, Envy, Wile, Caprice, et al? Well, I reject that! It's a means to keep Passion forever in the dock. For passion is a dangerous property -- anything that will highlight the innate differences among individuals, is. Voltaire said, "Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel." And I suspect angels. For it's the angels who erect the pens for Animal Farm...

To my mind, passion is not about acts of impulse: Picking up a phone and frightening strangers out of their wits -- puhlease! Don't lay that at the door of passion, Dilip Dear. Passion is that which fires up imagination and thought and carries them to their extremes; Swiss philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel wrote, "Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark." It's about believing in something and wanting to make a change... Which is why Mr Saeed Naqvi has Mushirul Hasan & Gang gunning for him. Which is why you bore our butts off with public toilets. Which is why I bare my bloodstained fangs regularly. The passionate are those who pay the wages of Passion; none of us apologises for the fury to which we bring readers. And which is why Mr L K Advani will not and should not apologise for riding the Ayodhya chariot.

Now, all people can't think alike, and hallelujah to that. Therefore, you consider Advani and Bhosle rank traitors and abject criminals. Cool. I accept that you cannot understand our pov, and vice versa. But how does that make the force that guides us a terrible thing...? Being a pervert, I naturally would take as the gospel truth the words of the Marquis de Sade: "They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch." However, we have even a French moralist, François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld -- "The passions are the only orators which always persuade" -- and a German philosopher, GC Lichtenberg -- "Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions" -- saying much the same...

The court is still out on each of our cases; there is no unanimous verdict condemning us nor discharging you. Each of us have our bank of opponents and proponents, each of whom is driven by some degree of passion. Fact is, we *do* live in a world where "all this" is acceptable only because it *is* driven by passion... "Passions are facts and not dogmas" (Alexander Herzen). "Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite" (George Eliot).

"To secularists, the destruction of the mosque is *not* the issue -- the country's priorities are," we're told. And these priorities are illiteracy, grinding poverty and sanitation. Fine. But then WHY does nearly every other article by every secular scribe focus on the horrendous nature of fundies...? On November 2, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi -- he of the reprehensible Saraswati Vandana -- announced at the Unesco conference in Paris that the government has drawn up a target of 75 per cent literacy rate by 2005, and towards that end, plans to amend the Constitution to make primary education a fundamental right. The amendment will implement Sarv Shiksha Abhyan to provide basic education for all. Great! But did we see any secular phuljhadiyan over this "priority"...? In fact, as soon as we got Orissa out of the way, we were back to our favourite subject: frightful fundies...

It is *not* a fool who denies that many people felt deeply hurt by the existence of the Babri; he who denies it, has a definite agenda. "Certainly despicable politicians played on that hurt." Yes, but does that include Congressmen and Communists who insist that Hindus must bend down and spread? Or does "despicable" mean only those who "egged on into destruction" of the structure that was referred to as Masjid-i-Janmasthan up to 1938...?

Apparently, fundies are silly because we pretend (actually, we assert) that secularists -- and I use the word to mean all those who get hives over the demolition -- deny Hindu hurt. My question is: If secularists are sensitive to the hurt in "ordinary people, many people," what are they doing about it...? Has there been any movement among NGOs, any PILs, any Press campaign urging the secular gonzos in Parliament to free the juridical knot? Are we supposed to take Dilip D's rare lip-service as evidence of the sincerity of the great and the good? I'm sure they feeeel for hurt Hindus, but simply feeling ain't enough. Or it remains a sham -- just like that apology.

If that isn't enough, we're asked to weep over the bit about -- what else -- a Pardhi: "They collected bricks and money from all over the world to destroy that mosque and build a temple... But would they have done the same to build houses for the poor, for the lower castes?" Uh? I don't get it. Is poverty a Hindu monopoly...? On December 8, the Naib Imam of Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, suggested measures, including more powers to the Haj Committee, to provide better facilities to Haj travellers. Did our oh-so-poverty-conscious friend ask whether it's necessary for Bukhari to travel to Saudi Arabia to study the facilities...? What, Mosies are better off than Hindus? They needn't prioritise education and sanitation over pilgrimage? Has Bukhari ever ridden a plane to drum up passions about what is certainly the greatest cause of Muslim misery, "greater even than a dilapidated mosque: poverty"?

My friend Gopal got it right: "His argument, in essence, is that since 600 million Indians don't even have sanitation, we should accept Dilip's view of Ayodhya. In his mind, the logic seems to be something like this: Since Hinduism is so low that it cannot even provide basic sanitation, why waste time worrying about their feelings?"

"With every election, more criminals become law-makers, because many of them have learned the lesson well: feeding off that Hindu hurt is a surefire ticket to victory." Really?! And who invented vote-bank politics?? Was it a concept introduced by the Sangh Parivar? Shouldn't it be patented by the "secular" Congress?? Which "secular" MP hasn't fed off Muslim hurt? More significantly, which Congress and Communist politician has not *fuelled* Muslim hurt and Christian insecurity? "Nuns are raped in MP," you write. Nice touch. But who raped them? Didn't Christians, too...?

"Passion is no good when it becomes an excuse for crimes and criminals"; I agree. Phoolan Devi justifies her murders; yup. Varsha B justifies charred evangelists; of course. The Bombay riots that killed thousands of Indians... a sawdust supremo with his innumerable excesses and violations of laws... priests burnt to death in Orissa... a rioter as MP twice over... nuns raped in MP... the Srikrishna Report flung out with the egregious lie of being anti-Hindu... Yes, yes, all is exactly as you say. But I'm thinking of another "ever-lengthening list of shame":

* On March 19, in Senari village of Jehanabad, MCC activists massacred 40 people belonging to the Bhumihar caste.
* On September 7, MCC activists killed Sitaram Chaudhury and Ramesh Singh in Palamu district of Bihar by slitting their throats.
* On September 14, Naxalites of the PWG gunned down five cops and blew up a police station in Medak, AP.
* On September 16, TDP's Palvai Purushottam Rao and his three escorts were shot dead by Naxalites at the party office in Adilabad district.
* On October 1, Naxalites chopped off the limbs of at least two RJD leaders of Hazaribagh for violating the poll boycott call.
* In mid-November, at Kathiroor, two CPI-M activists were accidentally killed in a blast while assembling a bomb.
* On November 19, in Loto, Bihar, a family of 12 Muslims was butchered by MCC activists. The throats of two children aged 4 years and 10 years were slit open, and even a pregnant woman wasn't spared.
* On December 1, in Kannur, BJP leader Jayakrishnan was murdered by CPI-M activists in a class room, in the presence of the children.

Saffronites and justifiers of passion-fed violence are SCUM of the earth -- I accept that. But you aren't, Dilip! You personify the milk of human compassion! You are justice incarnate! But then why doesn't a single article of yours moan and groan over the activities of Leftist murderers...? So is violence spawned by class-struggle OK? Or is your antipathy to Hindutva fuelled by reports like: "Baghata, Bihar: The RSS is slowly making its presence felt here and through spiritual revival is trying to counteract the revolutionary fibre of the dreaded ultra-Left outfits" (The Hindustan Times, 17 June, 1999)?

Now let's talk about ploys.

Varsha Bhosle