‘AUBASH’ is a Persian word whose meaning, if grasped correctly, could help explain the runaway success of Hindutva as an Indian phenomenon. Japanese scholar Hiroshi Kan Kagaya’s insightful work on the role of the aubash in the Iranian revolution and two earlier political turbulences in the country makes one ponder its relevance also for South Asian politics, and beyond.
For Indians struggling with Persianised Urdu, the word occurs memorably in a cult movie from the 1960s in which Mughal Emperor Akbar chides his wayward teenager son imperiously. “I wouldn’t ever want to see the day when our beloved Hindustan becomes a plaything for an aubash prince.” Akbar was fuming at finding the boy prince wading into early signs of what he saw as a drunk hoodlum.
The word finds a wider currency in Kagaya’s exposition of aubash in the Iranian context. Marxist intellectuals would readily equate it with their preferred pejorative, the lumpen proletariat, though they do not always accept the part that class has played in their own rise and fall. In India, we saw the class switching loyalties en masse from the left to rival groups, chiefly the current populist ruling dispensation in West Bengal. Another tranche broke off from the left to back the rise of Hindutva forces in the former leftist bastion.
In modern Iran, aubash have embraced various functions — social, religious, economic and political, says Kagaya. The structures appear to have been cannily replicated by Indian groups, say, the Shiv Sena or the Bajrang Dal. Some Pakistani and Sri Lankan vigilante groups are similarly structured. The aubash flaunt a close tie with their own ‘mohalle’ (ward), which they protect, control and identify themselves with. Along with it, they belong to a traditional varzishgah (sport centre), or zurkhane (wrestling club) as a centre of physical and spiritual activities. A boss of aubash is usually supposed to be a master wrestler who sometimes embodies the civic virtues of javanmardi, depicting machismo or chivalry.
Take the police away from the grasp of the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and he would have to auction away his bulldozers at a steep discount.
The promise of gallantry need not always work for women. Difficult to miss the role of the aubash — in cahoots with the police, inevitably — in the custodial death of the Iranian woman detained over charges of not observing hijab. “Educate the daughter. Protect the daughter.” The official slogan is embossed on India’s public transport vehicles. The message quickly mutates, however, into a patriarchal state’s mealy-mouthed promise when the ruling class goes out of its way to protect a loyalist accused of molesting women wrestlers. The release of around a dozen convicts jailed for rape and murder in the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 reflected another example of the truer face of javanmardi at work.
Economically, the aubash have control over the underworld. The Shiv Sena comes into the frame readily. A similarity can be found also with the Japanese yakuzas. Often enough they promise and supervise low-level jobs. They gather unskilled workers, mostly slum dwellers and urban migrants from rural areas, seeking employment even in unlawful work. Prime Minister Modi’s advice to them to “fry pakoras” was an honest option by comparison. “In short, underemployed or unemployed slum dwellers need aubash for their daily earnings … Relations between yakuzas and temporary workers in Japan bear a similarity.”
In politics, the aubash are allies of any established regime, says Kagaya. They are heads of mob demonstrations to be hired easily, primarily by security organisations, or by anyone who can foot the bill and sustain them durably. “The fact suggests that they have been a reservoir of violent reactionaries in modern Iran, while this could be somewhat remodelled after examining their function in the Islamic Revolution.” The Sanjay Gandhi phenomenon rode a steady supply of the aubash. Their post-emergency migration to rival parties was characteristic: seeking the more powerful patron.
Prof Christophe Jaffrelot has prompted the question whether India’s deep state had become vested in Hindutva. The scholar of South Asian politics posited in a recent analysis in the Indian Express that Hindu nationalism’s organisational linkages may have added an extra layer to the Indian deep state by extending its social reach to district and neighbourhood levels. Jaffrelot implies a lack of malleability in India’s deep state, which is assumed to be, like its cousins elsewhere, a security-driven state within a state.
Let me propose an alternative view, one profferred by Dr Mubashir Hasan, the late Pakistani public intellectual. Dr Hasan scoured Indian politics with an eagle eye. He told me during a visit to Delhi after a tour of West Bengal and some BJP-ruled states that political parties in our patch, once they take power, sustain it with an alliance between the cadre and the police. Hindutva is no different. Take away the police support needed by the cadre to inflict pain and exploitation on whoever they choose to target at any given time, and chances are their rippling sinews would go into an abrupt recess. The change of guard in Karnataka, evicting Hindutva rule, offers a good example to illustrate Dr Hasan’s view. As for the deep state, it’s possibly too stymied by its upper caste limitations to have much of a say in managing the political choices the country can summon.
Take the police away from the grasp of the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and he would have to auction away his bulldozers at a steep discount. Remember the time when an opposition party was in power in the state? Yogi Adityanath, MP, was bawling in the Lok Sabha. Without the communist Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s assurances of safety, the saffron-clad politician wouldn’t stop crying. Gujarat 2002, Delhi 1984, marking widespread violence against Muslims, or inflicting a pogrom against Sikhs, would not be possible without the alliance of the police and India’s aubash. Both change their tune with the change in the political winds.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2023
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