Fahmida Riaz lamented “Turned out you were just like us…” A violent campaign to enforce “nationalism” in India has
followed the rise of aggressive Hindu nationalism. The polarisation along religious
lines and the defaming of the opposition leaders as sympathisers of the
anti-national students and terrorists herald the coming state elections. The
consolidation of Hindu votes is the tried and tested electoral strategy of the
party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The minorities – religious as well as ideological — are
being targeted. The pockets in which the
ruling BJP’s ideology failed to acquire influence have become a hunting ground
for violent foot soldiers who feel assured of protection by their leaders in
the Government.
A leftist university student is arrested for alleged
sedition. He is beaten up by lawyers while being taken to court by the police.
India’s home minister cites a fake tweet to associate this research scholar
with a Pakistani terrorist. Doctored videos are telecast in order to strengthen
the charge of sedition against this student. His crime was that he was present
in a meeting where some unknown and untraceable persons had raised anti-India
slogans! Some universities are seething with unrest because of the Government’s
plan to curb dissent. There is no official move to
challenge the principle of secularism. Government leaders promote
majoritarianism by calling their political rivals “pseudo-secularists” and
attacking them for “appeasing” Muslims.
Released from the jail as a result of an interim bail, the
student addresses his fellow students. His stinging criticism of the Prime
Minister provokes a political activist to paste posters in Delhi offering a
reward for killing this student. Far away from Delhi, a political worker
announces a reward for cutting off the student’s tongue!
This outbreak of pseudo-nationalism was preceded by violence
against some writers and Muslims. The anti-Muslim rhetoric is seeping into
unexpected quarters.
Of course, the Hindu nationalist Government has never said
it wants to turn India into a theocratic state. There is no official move to
challenge the principle of secularism. Government leaders promote
majoritarianism by calling their political rivals “pseudo-secularists” and
attacking them for “appeasing” Muslims. Some of these leaders make inflammatory
statements aimed at disturbing social harmony. The Government takes a lenient
view.
While secularism remains safe in the sacred book of
Constitution, the level of religious hatred has gone up. Any one “insulting”
any Hindu God or Goddess is threatened. A Muslim group burns vehicles if its religious
sentiments are hurt. Bands of ultra-nationalists call dissenters traitors and
ask all “anti-national” people to go to Pakistan!
The vigilante groups want every one to demonstrate his or her
devotion to the nation. Apart from the Government and the police, strangers
have become ultra sensitive on the issue of patriotism. An argumentative citizen
walking on the road would not know when he violates the sedition law dating
back to British rule.
“How do I rank relative to India?”
It is a surrealistic situation. India’s most
demonstrative nationalistic Government has ironically created identity-related insecurity
for India. It has given comfort to Pakistan troubled by the question: “How do I
rank relative to India?”
The Prime Minister once mobilised voters in the Gujarat
State elections by relentlessly attacking Pakistan and the weak-kneed Congress
Government. Today, his Government has handed to Pakistan an advantage in the
war of ideas.
Pakistan fought wars with India to grab land. India engaged its
neighbor in a virtual battlefield to prove that the idea of a secular democracy
was far superior to the idea of a military-run theocracy. This battle of ideas
began during the freedom movement when the Hindu and Muslim leaders of the Congress
Party opposed the demand for a separate nation based on religion. In India an essential prong of the strategy to curb
“anti-nationalism” is to constantly contrast the sacrifices being made by the
soldiers defending the nation with the “seditious” behavior of the dissenting
students.
This legacy enhanced the identity crisis of the territory
carved out of India. The military ruler Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, who deposed a
left-leaning elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and hanged him later,
tried to solve this problem by turning Pakistan towards the Muslim monarchies
of the middle-east.
Gen. Zia used religious extremists as allies to suppress the
liberal and democratic elements in his young nation. He passed laws in order to
distance Pakistan from the Indian Islam and to orient it towards a purer and uniform
version of the faith. He used religious extremism to give Pakistan a sharper
Islamic identity.
India, as a secular democracy, saw itself to be as different
from Pakistan as light from a coal mine. Pakistan’s military rulers nourished
the roots of theocracy, India’s elected leaders strengthened secularism, a principle
enshrined in the Constitution.
The use and misuse of the sedition law and the leftist-bashing
by mobs in India reminds one of the Pakistan Government hunting down communists
and enforcing the blasphemy laws. If the Government or the judiciary delayed
the process, it was completed by the lynch mobs and individual killers. Young
men with opinions felt terrorised in Pakistan. As a street-fighting activist in
the UK, Tariq Ali in his youth feared that his life would be threatened if he
went to his native Pakistan.
In India an essential prong of the strategy to curb
“anti-nationalism” is to constantly contrast the sacrifices being made by the
soldiers defending the nation with the “seditious” behavior of the dissenting
students. It shocked even a serving army officer who wrote an anonymous newspaper
article warning against this false dichotomy and pseudo nationalism. However, this binary goes down well with many
people and the BJP is for now sticking to this strategy.
A new dangerous dimension was added to the running political
war when some retired military officers visited the embattled university to suggest
that a tank on the campus would help teach the students to honour the nation! The
students of the union affiliated to Modi’s ruling party were present at the
function.
Security analyst C Uday Bhaskar, a former naval officer,
condemned this exercise of pitting the brave soldier against the “ungrateful”
student. He regretted that the Indian political establishment used national
security in an opportunistic manner. He warned against diluting the apolitical
nature of the Indian military. Such attempts have “the potential to introduce a
political and ideological tenor into the Indian military through osmosis.” The
readers of his article must have recalled the history of Pakistan.
A former chief of the army staff promptly joined the BJP and
on being elected was made a minister by Modi. He has issued several
controversial statements. All this may not have gone unnoticed by the liberal
Pakistanis who know what happens when the army gets interested in politics!
The Indian Government’s attempts to spread the Hindutva
influence in institutions of higher learning has reminded the Pakistani
intellectuals of their own Government introducing the text- books designed to
make the school-children hate India.
Two Pakistans
There are two Pakistans. One admires the “idea of India”. The
demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya by a Hindu mob in 1992 was an attack on the
idea of India. A Pakistani academic told an Oxford University seminar that
during his visit to Pakistan he found some people regretting the blow
administered to inter-religious harmony and others pointing out that India was
not really a secular nation!
A progressive Pakistani poet, who was forced to take shelter
in India in the eighties to protect her from the Zia regime, observed the rise
of Hindutva. Fahmida Riaz lamented much to the delight of her Indian audiences:
“Turned out you were just like us…” (Tum
bilkul hum jaise nikle). “Turned out you
were just like us…”
The religious extremists in Pakistan love any outbreak of
sectarian violence in India because that makes their task easier. The liberals
there feel concerned when mass hysteria against Pakistan is generated by the
Indian TV channels or by some political elements opposing the Indo-Pak cricket
matches or cultural and literary events. The liberal Pakistanis want an India
that sets an example and shames their rulers who crush dissent. They courageously
challenge the idea of theocratic Pakistan.
As a secular democratic nation, India provides hope to large
sections in the entire sub-continent and wins admiration around the world. In
the wake of 9/11, American commentators noted with wonder that no Indian Muslim
was found involved in acts of terrorism. The contrast with Pakistan got
highlighted. Today one finds a few Muslim young men going and joining the
terror outfits abroad.
An American daily reprinted an old interview with Osama bin
Laden taken much before 9/11. Why don’t you help the Muslims of Kashmir? Osama
was asked. He said he did not want to cause any trouble in India. Why did he
say this?
The idea of India was diminished by the Gujarat sectarian
riots. The idea of India got diminished when a Congress Government compromised
with the orthodox Muslim leaders in the case of a Muslim woman who wanted
justice. It got diminished when a Government failed to curb violence against
Sikhs in the wake of the murder of Indira Gandhi. Some other countries have
tougher laws against those inciting sectarian violence. In India even the
existing laws are not being applied strictly.
Questions about secularism in India are raised when the
Government of the day compromises with the communal forces or is seen not
acting against those spreading the communal virus. The features that make India
different from Pakistan are being eroded. India’s USP as a secular democracy gives the
country a great advantage in the battlefield of ideas. Its value is understood by the brand managers of the business world! The crusaders of "nationalism" do not care how India is seen by others.
The use and misuse of India’s sedition law against the students
and opposition political leaders make some wonder whether India will end up as
a mirror image of Pakistan. When asked to migrate to Pakistan, a critic of the
Modi Government shot back that he won’t need to because “you are turning India
into Pakistan”. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
However, this setback may be temporary. The influence of the
Hindu nationalists has waxed and waned in the past. So the present Prime
Minister will not be able to fulfil his promise to rid the country of the main
opposition. India’s voters would not respond to the BJP President’s appeal to
keep his party in power for 25 years!
The Babri mosque’s destruction by the Hindu nationalists in
1992 and the resulting sectarian violence did pay rich political dividends to
Prime Minister Modi’s party. Later the religious card became ineffective. Mobilisation
of the Hindu voters proved its power again in the last parliamentary elections. That was because Modi also attracted many secular voters who were fed up with
the incompetence of the incumbent Government. After that the religious card
failed in the state-level elections in Delhi and Bihar that dented the
political prestige of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At times the Hindu nationalists manage to consolidate the
Hindu votes, at times they fail to do it. This is also because of the pluralistic
nature of Hinduism and the diversity of the people. That is expected to keep argumentation
and dissent alive and the flag of democracy flying.