Aavarana — The Veil — A Book Review
AAVARANA — THE VEIL
Summary
‘Aavarana’ means ‘the act of concealing the truth’. As the book progresses there is an underlying message through various plots and twists that how we are under a ‘veil’ created by our lack of sheer knowledge of ‘History of India’. It portrays that how we tend to believe the history as narrated to us by the self-proclaimed liberals without doing our part of research. The narrative of the book revolves around history, religion and liberalism; and identity of an individual. The book persistently provokes one to be conscious about their viewpoint and the need to support one’s stance with a coherent evidence. It makes you see history for what it is and not for what you believe it to be. The author delves into nuances of our communal past and is blazingly vocal about the convoluted incidents which occurred supported by a thorough research.
Evaluation
The story sets off with an inter-religious marriage between Lakshmi (later Razia), a free-spirited, fierce individual, a thorough researcher and a filmmaker and Amir, a farce progressive liberalist. Lakshmi’s father who was a staunch Gandhian severs his ties with his daughter as she marries Amir, a fellow Muslim and changes her name from ‘Lakshmi’ to ‘Razia’. The change in name itself reflects that how we as a society is conclusive about an individual’s religion from their names. Whereas ‘a name’[1] is ‘an identity of a person’ and should not have anything to do with what religion they belong to. Grimly, we live in a state of affairs where identity of a person is myopised when placed along religion and this depicts that how deep actually the ‘religion divide’ is.
The book brings forth catena of points to limelight to delve into — ‘Muslim Extremism and fanaticism’, ‘Bizarre and merciless practices followed in Ancient Islam period’, ‘Liberals in Modern India’, ‘Journalism at stake in present India’.
The plot opens up when Razia finds herself living in a Muslim household where she comes across several incidents that she could no longer hold up the veil about her opinion of Islam as a religion[2] or Amir as a liberal progressive. When Razia started revolting to the extreme practices which her in-laws tried imposing on her , that was when Amir’s hypocrisy was revealed wherein he asked Razia to be ‘tactful’ and give in to his parents’ demands. The constant bickering at home did not go well with Amir and he pronounced talaq on Razia in a jiffy. This is when Razia realized that how deeply faith is entrenched in Amir’s psyche. This scene in specific made me extremely uncomfortable. As in that moment, I was exposed to the helplessness of women who are at the end of receiving the ‘talaq’. Conglomeration of factors pushed Razia to take up her own path to unleash the truth about the influence of religion and caste not only in her personal life but on the nation as a whole.
The book in tandem revealed that how parenting has a crucial role to play in shaping up an individual’s personality. This has been portrayed well through Nazir’s character (Razia’s son) who grew up to be a person who was fanatic about his religion as he spent a lot of time in childhood with his grandparents who schooled him well in ‘Islamic orthodoxy’. This deeply disturbed Razia and made her question her ignorance towards the upbringing of her own child.
Further, the book runs in parallel story lines one where Lakshmi tries to make sense how inseparable religion is from the fundamental character of an individual, the other of a young Rajput Prince captured and castrated by marauding Islamic invaders and of communist socialist, secular, nationalist intellectual opinions and government actions that try to shape the historical narrative of the country to their own benefit.
There was yet another revelation that how the present day liberalist manipulate their audience by putting forward a ‘progressive point of view’ in language dripping of refineness . I believe that individuals are naïve and superficial, they are merely swooned by the outwardly demeanour of an individual’s personality (for example — oratory skills of a person or how well they dress up), turning a complete blind eye to how hollow they might be on the inside.
It is appalling to witness that how individuals like Razia who muster the courage to stand up against liberal and progressive manipulators are shunned by the government. When Razia swore to reveal history as it is and took the recourse of publishing her own book, how it was meted out by ban orders passed against her book and a warrant to arrest her for inciting communal violence. This reminded me of the real life incidents where several individuals who are meted out by same fate of having their books banned and being arrested under the garb of ‘inciting violence’ and languish in jails for years. We as a nation need to strive to bring about a change where we create a space welcoming free dialogues and not tag it as ‘communal’.
Conclusion
This book has a gripping story line and makes one go through an uneasy journey by revealing the bigotry present in the society. The book through myriad narratives busted my notions about history. S.L. Bhyrappa through his thoroughly researched book projects ‘truth’ which may seem bitter but nonetheless, he fearlessly narrates it. It is the truth that nationalism can never be strengthened by projecting historical lies or obfuscating the historical truths. It reminds me of Razia’s speech in the seminar where she rightfully mentions we will better succeed at achieving national integration and brotherhood is they are built on foundation of truth. And I am in full consonance with what she said. This book is not in any way pro — hindu or anti- muslim and merely pushes you to lurk for truth and only truth. I would definitely recommend one to read this book for it is well-researched and is an eye-opener in various aspects. For me the eye-opener was to come in terms with how deeply are the differences entrenched between the two communities i.e. Hindu and Muslim. I would like to conclude in Bhyrappa’s words, “We won’t attain maturity unless we cultivate the wisdom to discriminate which deeds of our ancestors we need to reject and which achievements we need to take inspiration from. If learning lessons from history is a mark of enlightenment, so is breaking free from it.”
[1] ‘Name’ means ‘a word or phrase that constitutes the distinctive designation of a person or thing’ as per Merriam Webster.
[2] Pg. 21 — where Razia reminds herself why did she convert to Islam and says she “converted to Islam, faith that rests on a solid foundation of brotherhood and a feeling of oneness that is borderless.”