Fahmida Riaz lamented \u201cTurned out you were just like us\u2026\u201d A violent campaign to enforce \u201cnationalism\u201d in India has
\nfollowed the rise of aggressive Hindu nationalism. The polarisation along religious
\nlines and the defaming of the opposition leaders as sympathisers of the
\nanti-national students and terrorists herald the coming state elections. The
\nconsolidation of Hindu votes is the tried and tested electoral strategy of the
\nparty of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/i><\/p>\n
The minorities \u2013 religious as well as ideological — are
\nbeing targeted.\u00a0 The pockets in which the
\nruling BJP\u2019s ideology failed to acquire influence have become a hunting ground
\nfor violent foot soldiers who feel assured of protection by their leaders in
\nthe Government. <\/p>\n
A leftist university student is arrested for alleged
\nsedition. He is beaten up by lawyers while being taken to court by the police.
\nIndia\u2019s home minister cites a fake tweet to associate this research scholar
\nwith a Pakistani terrorist. Doctored videos are telecast in order to strengthen
\nthe charge of sedition against this student. His crime was that he was present
\nin a meeting where some unknown and untraceable persons had raised anti-India
\nslogans! Some universities are seething with unrest because of the Government\u2019s
\nplan to curb dissent. There is no official move to
\nchallenge the principle of secularism. Government leaders promote
\nmajoritarianism by calling their political rivals \u201cpseudo-secularists\u201d and
\nattacking them for \u201cappeasing\u201d Muslims.<\/p>\n
Released from the jail as a result of an interim bail, the
\nstudent addresses his fellow students. His stinging criticism of the Prime
\nMinister provokes a political activist to paste posters in Delhi offering a
\nreward for killing this student. Far away from Delhi, a political worker
\nannounces a reward for cutting off the student\u2019s tongue!<\/p>\n
This outbreak of pseudo-nationalism was preceded by violence
\nagainst some writers and Muslims. The anti-Muslim rhetoric is seeping into
\nunexpected quarters.<\/p>\n
Of course, the Hindu nationalist Government has never said
\nit wants to turn India into a theocratic state. There is no official move to
\nchallenge the principle of secularism. Government leaders promote
\nmajoritarianism by calling their political rivals \u201cpseudo-secularists\u201d and
\nattacking them for \u201cappeasing\u201d Muslims. Some of these leaders make inflammatory
\nstatements aimed at disturbing social harmony. The Government takes a lenient
\nview. <\/p>\n
While secularism remains safe in the sacred book of
\nConstitution, the level of religious hatred has gone up. Any one \u201cinsulting\u201d
\nany Hindu God or Goddess is threatened. A Muslim group burns vehicles if its religious
\nsentiments are hurt. Bands of ultra-nationalists call dissenters traitors and
\nask all \u201canti-national\u201d people to go to Pakistan!<\/p>\n
The vigilante groups want every one to demonstrate his or her
\ndevotion to the nation. Apart from the Government and the police, strangers
\nhave become ultra sensitive on the issue of patriotism. An argumentative citizen
\nwalking on the road would not know when he violates the sedition law dating
\nback to British rule. <\/p>\n
It is a surrealistic situation. India\u2019s most
\ndemonstrative nationalistic Government has ironically created identity-related insecurity
\nfor India. It has given comfort to Pakistan troubled by the question: \u201cHow do I
\nrank relative to India?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister once mobilised voters in the Gujarat
\nState elections by relentlessly attacking Pakistan and the weak-kneed Congress
\nGovernment. Today, his Government has handed to Pakistan an advantage in the
\nwar of ideas.<\/p>\n
Pakistan fought wars with India to grab land. India engaged its
\nneighbor in a virtual battlefield to prove that the idea of a secular democracy
\nwas far superior to the idea of a military-run theocracy. This battle of ideas
\nbegan during the freedom movement when the Hindu and Muslim leaders of the Congress
\nParty opposed the demand for a separate nation based on religion. In India an essential prong of the strategy to curb
\n\u201canti-nationalism\u201d is to constantly contrast the sacrifices being made by the
\nsoldiers defending the nation with the \u201cseditious\u201d behavior of the dissenting
\nstudents.<\/p>\n
This legacy enhanced the identity crisis of the territory
\ncarved out of India. The military ruler Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, who deposed a
\nleft-leaning elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and hanged him later,
\ntried to solve this problem by turning Pakistan towards the Muslim monarchies
\nof the middle-east. <\/p>\n
Gen. Zia used religious extremists as allies to suppress the
\nliberal and democratic elements in his young nation. He passed laws in order to
\ndistance Pakistan from the Indian Islam and to orient it towards a purer and uniform
\nversion of the faith. He used religious extremism to give Pakistan a sharper
\nIslamic identity. <\/p>\n
India, as a secular democracy, saw itself to be as different
\nfrom Pakistan as light from a coal mine. Pakistan\u2019s military rulers nourished
\nthe roots of theocracy, India\u2019s elected leaders strengthened secularism, a principle
\nenshrined in the Constitution.<\/p>\n
The use and misuse of the sedition law and the leftist-bashing
\nby mobs in India reminds one of the Pakistan Government hunting down communists
\nand enforcing the blasphemy laws. If the Government or the judiciary delayed
\nthe process, it was completed by the lynch mobs and individual killers. Young
\nmen with opinions felt terrorised in Pakistan. As a street-fighting activist in
\nthe UK, Tariq Ali in his youth feared that his life would be threatened if he
\nwent to his native Pakistan.<\/p>\n
In India an essential prong of the strategy to curb
\n\u201canti-nationalism\u201d is to constantly contrast the sacrifices being made by the
\nsoldiers defending the nation with the \u201cseditious\u201d behavior of the dissenting
\nstudents. It shocked even a serving army officer who wrote an anonymous newspaper
\narticle warning against this false dichotomy and pseudo nationalism.\u00a0 However, this binary goes down well with many
\npeople and the BJP is for now sticking to this strategy.<\/p>\n
A new dangerous dimension was added to the running political
\nwar when some retired military officers visited the embattled university to suggest
\nthat a tank on the campus would help teach the students to honour the nation! The
\nstudents of the union affiliated to Modi\u2019s ruling party were present at the
\nfunction. <\/p>\n
Security analyst C Uday Bhaskar, a former naval officer,
\ncondemned this exercise of pitting the brave soldier against the \u201cungrateful\u201d
\nstudent. He regretted that the Indian political establishment used national
\nsecurity in an opportunistic manner. He warned against diluting the apolitical
\nnature of the Indian military. Such attempts have \u201cthe potential to introduce a
\npolitical and ideological tenor into the Indian military through osmosis.\u201d The
\nreaders of his article must have recalled the history of Pakistan.<\/p>\n
A former chief of the army staff promptly joined the BJP and
\non being elected was made a minister by Modi. He has issued several
\ncontroversial statements. All this may not have gone unnoticed by the liberal
\nPakistanis who know what happens when the army gets interested in politics! <\/p>\n
The Indian Government\u2019s attempts to spread the Hindutva
\ninfluence in institutions of higher learning has reminded the Pakistani
\nintellectuals of their own Government introducing the text- books designed to
\nmake the school-children hate India.<\/p>\n
There are two Pakistans. One admires the \u201cidea of India\u201d. The
\ndemolition of the mosque in Ayodhya by a Hindu mob in 1992 was an attack on the
\nidea of India. A Pakistani academic told an Oxford University seminar that
\nduring his visit to Pakistan he found some people regretting the blow
\nadministered to inter-religious harmony and others pointing out that India was
\nnot really a secular nation! <\/p>\n
A progressive Pakistani poet, who was forced to take shelter The religious extremists in Pakistan love any outbreak of As a secular democratic nation, India provides hope to large An American daily reprinted an old interview with Osama bin The idea of India was diminished by the Gujarat sectarian Questions about secularism in India are raised when the The use and misuse of India\u2019s sedition law against the students However, this setback may be temporary. The influence of the The Babri mosque\u2019s destruction by the Hindu nationalists in At times the Hindu nationalists manage to consolidate the Fahmida Riaz lamented \u201cTurned out you were just like us\u2026\u201d A violent campaign to enforce \u201cnationalism\u201d 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin India in the eighties to protect her from the Zia regime, observed the rise
\nof Hindutva. Fahmida Riaz lamented much to the delight of her Indian audiences:
\n\u201cTurned out you were just like us\u2026\u201d (Tum
\nbilkul hum jaise nikle<\/em>). \u201cTurned out you
\nwere just like us\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\nsectarian violence in India because that makes their task easier. The liberals
\nthere feel concerned when mass hysteria against Pakistan is generated by the
\nIndian TV channels or by some political elements opposing the Indo-Pak cricket
\nmatches or cultural and literary events. The liberal Pakistanis want an India
\nthat sets an example and shames their rulers who crush dissent. They courageously
\nchallenge the idea of theocratic Pakistan. <\/p>\n
\nsections in the entire sub-continent and wins admiration around the world. In
\nthe wake of 9\/11, American commentators noted with wonder that no Indian Muslim
\nwas found involved in acts of terrorism. The contrast with Pakistan got
\nhighlighted. Today one finds a few Muslim young men going and joining the
\nterror outfits abroad.<\/p>\n
\nLaden taken much before 9\/11. Why don\u2019t you help the Muslims of Kashmir? Osama
\nwas asked. He said he did not want to cause any trouble in India. Why did he
\nsay this?<\/p>\n
\nriots. The idea of India got diminished when a Congress Government compromised
\nwith the orthodox Muslim leaders in the case of a Muslim woman who wanted
\njustice. It got diminished when a Government failed to curb violence against
\nSikhs in the wake of the murder of Indira Gandhi. Some other countries have
\ntougher laws against those inciting sectarian violence. In India even the
\nexisting laws are not being applied strictly.<\/p>\n
\nGovernment of the day compromises with the communal forces or is seen not
\nacting against those spreading the communal virus. The features that make India
\ndifferent from Pakistan are being eroded. \u00a0India\u2019s USP as a secular democracy gives the
\ncountry 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.<\/p>\n
\nand opposition political leaders make some wonder whether India will end up as
\na mirror image of Pakistan. When asked to migrate to Pakistan, a critic of the
\nModi Government shot back that he won\u2019t need to because \u201cyou are turning India
\ninto Pakistan\u201d. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!<\/p>\n
\nHindu nationalists has waxed and waned in the past. So the present Prime
\nMinister will not be able to fulfil his promise to rid the country of the main
\nopposition. India\u2019s voters would not respond to the BJP President\u2019s appeal to
\nkeep his party in power for 25 years!<\/p>\n
\n1992 and the resulting sectarian violence did pay rich political dividends to
\nPrime Minister Modi\u2019s party. Later the religious card became ineffective. Mobilisation
\nof 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
\nthe incompetence of the incumbent Government. After that the religious card
\nfailed in the state-level elections in Delhi and Bihar that dented the
\npolitical prestige of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n
\nHindu votes, at times they fail to do it. This is also because of the pluralistic
\nnature of Hinduism and the diversity of the people. That is expected to keep argumentation
\nand dissent alive and the flag of democracy flying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"