Open Forum
New Delhi, 12 May 2021
Communal
Politics
SOARING DANGEROUS
DIVIDE
By
Dhurjati Mukherjee
The recentlyconcluded
Assembly elections have once again confirmed the play of appeasement politics
and the polarisation of Hindu-Muslim votes in the battle of the ballot. This
round too, the wooing of the minority community, particularly the Muslim votes,
comes to the fore in the background of the Hindutva politics of the BJP. Such
votes go a long way in building the fortunes of a political party, as has been
the case with West Bengal, where minority votes swept the TMC to power for a
third term.
While there is a
crying need to shun such politics, it remains a fact that this community, which
constitutes the largest number of minorities in India, have been at the
receiving end for years together and specially in thesepast since the BJP came
to power at the Centre. There has been a hue and cry against the
majoritarianism of the BJP and its apathy and hatred towards Muslims. Thus we
saw in Bengal elections that Mamata got a 100 per cent of Muslim votes. The
Muslim voter abandoned the CPM and Congress even in their strongholds. And the
community came out to vote in higher numbers.
The BJP would need to
rethink its agenda. It is rather unfortunate that it has tried to inject a
version of history that was marinated in hatred of Muslims by depicting them as
invaders who had violated that glorious ancient history by diminishing the
Hindus. Neither Savarkar nor Golwalkar quite explained why the Muslims alone
and not the British deserved this distinction.
Since its ascendancy
to power, the BJP has been emphasising that the Hindu Rashtra in the making
need to be protected against Muslims in particular and other religions also.
However, meeting the challenge required that no fine distinction be made
between government and country. In the process, all kinds of dissent are being
abrogated with the view that the country‘s interests have to be defended at any
cost.
Thus, ruthlessly the
sedition law is being implemented, thereby cleverly dividing people between
those who support the party and government – the so-called nationalist patriots
– and the treacherous anti-nationalists who are out to divide the country.
Charges of a conspiracy to wage war against the State have been lodged mainly
against Muslims but also against writers, lawyers, intellectuals and human
rights activists. They were deemed anti-nationals for speaking against the
establishment.
But unfortunately the
strategy is not working at the ground levels. Dalits and lower castes are
questioning the myth and philosophy of Hindu Rashtra. Moreover, the poor and
neglected sections are also questioning what benefit such Rashtra will bring to
them. Political analysts feel that the strategy may not work in the long run as
common people at grass-root levels are not quite bothered about attempts to
divide society on communal lines.
One may refer here to
a recent bookUndercover: My Journey into the Darkness of Hindutva, by
Ashish Khetan, who stated that Gujarat
under Modi “no government institution, no organ of the state was untouched by
communal bias…The communalism of state agencies at the Central level has
intensified since 2014 and so have bribery and coercion in politics. Money and
control of the State apparatus have always had a role in Indian politics but
never before 2014, such a defining and determining role. The misuse of CBI and
the Enforcement Directorate to harass political opponents was not unknown in
Congress times but the BJP has taken this to a different level”.
Further Khetan
rightly pointed out: “Majoritarian rule untrammelled by law, the veneer of
democracy minus the substance of constitutionalism…the constant undermining of
minorities, particularly Muslims,; the impunity for Hindu right-wing rioters as
opposed to harsh treatment, including unjustified arrests and imprisonment,
meted out to those on the opposite ideological ide; the persecution of
activists and human rights organizations; the misuse and abuse of institutional
and judicial processes to target political opponents and dissidents…is without
precedent in India”.
All this has led to a
society in which one lacks trust in police force, where one cannot always
expect judges to act fearlessly, where media is purchased and one’s innocence
or guilt can be determined by what religion he belongs to is doomed to
aggravate crisis future. Moreover, with the deteriorating relationship with
Pakistan as also the prevailing majoritarian attitude in the country, the good
relationship between Hindus and Muslims has been eroded over time.
It needs to be
pointed out here that a significant section of the Muslim community is backward,
specially due to lack of education and awareness as also high levels of
conservatism. The political leaders as also those at the helm of the community
have not taken the initiative to impart education properly so that they could
compete in state and national levels. The whole approach of the community,
specially of women members, has been embedded in deep conservatism, arising out
of superstition attitudes.
The undermining of
Indian Muslims, under the Citizenship Amendment Act has not only been criticised
in the country with 2000 academics and scholars signing a statement in this
regard but also been condemned globally. The actions in Kashmir as also the CAA
have provoked the UN Human Rights office to describe these laws as
“fundamentally discriminatory” and UN Secretary General expressed concerns as
it could render people stateless. Even the UN Commission on International
Religious Freedom classified India as a “country of particular concern”, its
lowest rating.
However, politicians
have to accept the fact that Muslims are part of Indian culture and cannot be
pushed back. On the other hand, they have to be given educational facilities and
made aware of social realities such as the need to abolish polygamy, giving
them all types of rights and allow women freedom and access to education. This
work has to be undertaken by the government and integrate the community into
mainstream Indian culture. Unless this is done, disintegration of society may
have adverse consequences.
The present attitude
of the government at the Centre is harmful for the country and is leading it towards
social disintegration. The judiciary must ensure that Constitutional values are
defended and upheld. The mixing of religion with politics is ever increasing purely
for partisan interests and diving the community. The state of affairs can only
improve if the ruling dispensation has a broader and humane outlook towards men
and matters and is not just interested in grabbing and/or retaining power by
putting one community against the other. Have we not deviated greatly
from Gandhi’s views on religion and community and ways and means to bond them
together and that too during his 150th birth anniversary? ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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