Elections in two major state assemblies are
due shortly. The electoral wing of RSS, BJP
is gearing up to face the elections. Its national
image is very low, the major reasons for its
poor image and low morale have been the debacle
at the Lok Sabha elections, Advani's 'secular
Jinnah' pronouncement, the murder of its major
leader Pramod Mahjan by his own brother for
mysterious reasons, and the failure of many
of its communal campaigns to take off properly.
But that's just one side of the story. The deeper
communalization of middle classes, the cooption
of Adivasis and dalits into Hindutva fold the
intense communalization of media and state apparatus
all over and more so in BJP ruled states is
posing a major threat to the democratic values,
minority rights and to the very existence of
democratic polity in the country. The forthcoming
elections in Gujarat are posing a stiff challenge
to secular elements, with Modi firmly entrenched
in the seat of power and the weak opposition,
the Congress, in Gujarat.
The blasts in Nanded, Mumbai, Malegaon and the
'encounter' near RSS head office in Nagpur,
were the events which left a different mark
on the political canvass of the country. Nanded
was one instance of the bomb blasts where the
clear hand of RSS progeny, Bajrang Dal, could
be seen and was even investigated partly. But
for reasons best known to the political masters
and the communalized police apparatus, which
develops weak knees while implicating communal
elements, the matters rested there only. The
vertical and horizontal connections of these
were not drawn out. The Nanded blasts in Maharashtra
(April 7, 2006) were underplayed, probably deliberately,
to give the escape route to RSS and its progeny,
which has by now good bit of sympathizers in
those wearing Khaki. The Nanded blast was followed
by an encounter near the RSS head office in
Nagpur, of the alleged terrorists, from Pakistan.
A citizen's inquiry committee headed by the
retired high court judge ( http://www.pluralindia.com/articles.php'id=122)
demonstrated competently the holes in the police
version, but the state Govt. preferred to ignore
the clear cut weaknesses in the story put out
by the police. The deeper truth behind these
incidents may never come out. The Mumbai blasts
of July were followed by the blasts in Malegaon
(Maharashtra), where the blasts took place near
a Kabristan killing around 38 Muslims. In this
case again the 'usual suspects' made the job
of investigation easy. Despite strong protests
from minority community and by social activist's
matters rest there only and more and more elements
from minority community have been put behind
bars with even the slightest suspicion. By now,
two set of procedures and legal systems are
coming into operation in practice. The one is
for the majority community and another for those
belonging to hapless minorities. The latter
can be picked up for even the smallest of suspicions,
and the judgments in those cases do look different.
Probably we are on way to the RSS ideologue
M.S. Golwalkars, formulation that minorities
will have to live at the mercy of majority (i.e.
its self proclaimed representative, the RSS).
Who knows this may be their way of paying tribute
to this Hindutva ideologue whose birth centenary
is being celebrated this year. Golwalkar, who
never took part in freedom movement, who upheld
the laws of Manu and who was jailed in the aftermath
of Gandhi murder for his role in spreading hatred,
due to which the nation lost Father of Nation,
Mahatma Gandhi. His blunt formulations eulogizing
German Nazism, his concept of Hindu Rashtra
and his treatment of minorities is so 'forthright'
that during the current times when RSS still
needs the democratic set up to capture power
and to put forward an acceptable democratic
face, his book 'We or Our Nationhood defined',
which has all his blunt formulations, is being
disowned by his own followers.
The BJP ruled states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,
and Rajasthan are imposing RSS agenda in a very
overt way. Singing of Vandematram, the tampering
with the school books to project the RSS ideology
is in full flow. The controversy around Vandematram
is being kept alive despite the fact it is a
national song and not National anthem, despite
the fact that singing even a National anthem
is not compulsory, despite knowing the fact
that it has been used more as a war cry during
episodes of sectarian violence by the communal
elements in the pre independence period. The
state of the implementation of law and norms
in BJP ruled states is abysmal with Muslim and
Christian minorities facing flak on every conceivable
occasion. The attacks on Christian minorities
are chronic and sustained all around. The Muslim
minority is yet to recover from the Gujarat
carnage. The rehabilitation is no where in site.
The legal process has hardly delivered any justice
to the victims. The state Government, whose
primary responsibility it is to do the rehabilitation
work practically washed its hands off and the
central government is yet to implement a sincere
policy towards that.
In many of these states 'Freedom of Religion'
bills are being contemplated or implemented,
despite their being contrary to the values of
Indian Constitution. Indian constitution guarantees
the right to preach and propagate one's religion.
Despite that these new bills dictate that prior
permission of authorities is a must and already
many a Christian missionaries are being beaten
up or intimidated on the grounds that they are
converting. Also, RSS, which is the political
organization in disguise of culture, is being
classified as cultural organization deliberately
in BJP ruled states, opening the gates for civil
servants, the supposedly neutral arm of the
state, to join this organization. Just to remind
ourselves this organization's aim is to build
Hindu nation by overthrowing the democratic
charter of the state. Down South, with the BJP
joining the Government in Karnataka, the issue
of Baba Budan Giri Dargah has been brought to
the fore. Here Hindus and Muslims both have
been offering prayers since centuries. BJP has
been trying to claim that it is essentially
a temple, Datta Peetham and not a syncretic
shrine. Despite the noting in Gazette of its
syncretic character, BJP has slowly built this
issue up as the 'Ayodhya of the South'. This
year the matter got heated up more due to the
patronage of BJP elements of the Government.
Also, Tipu Sultan who was ardent Anti British
is being denigrated by the BJP propaganda. Incidentally,
Tipu has an important place amongst the major
figures from Karnataka; he also laid down his
life fighting the British.
The major issue which rattled up the communal
forces at national level was the appointment
of Sachar committee to prepare a picture of
socio-economic conditions of Muslim minority.
This had come up twenty five years after Gopal
Singh committee, formed for similar purpose.
Incidentally that report was not implemented.
The RSS combine, particularly BJP, opposed the
efforts of Sachar committee to gather the status
of employment about Muslims in army. The report
as such confirms the fears that despite RSS
combines' propaganda that Muslims are being
appeased; as a matter of fact they are being
discriminated against. Today large section of
the 13.4% Muslims are at the bottom of socio
economic ladder, under represented in jobs,
marginalized in bank loans, way behind in educational
acquisitions, and witnessing a constant decline
in political representations. Not to forget,
they are over represented in jails. It is no
wonder! Low socio-economic status is supplemented
by the anti Muslim bias of state apparatus which
operates against them as it is broadly gripped
by anti Minority myths. Prime Minister and the
present Government seems to have taken up the
report seriously and PM went on to state that
this deprived minority has the 'first claim'
on resources. The idea was to convey that the
community has been pushed to the brink as far
as different indices of development are concerned,
and so needs special nursing of its secular
interests. But BJP saw in this the 'golden'
opportunity to lambaste the Government for its
minority appeasement. The long overdue affirmative
action for this community is being presented
as being a communal move. This criticism of
BJP shows the total lack of democratic humane
values needed for social growth. That by leaving
one major component of society behind, we are
bound to suffer in the long term, is of no concern
to the practitioners of communal politics.
Afzal Guru, who was put behind the bars in the
case of attack on Parliament on 13th December
2001, was awarded death sentence by the apex
court. The primary investigation done in this
case is faulty and a lot of this is based on
the confession of Guru himself. That the confession
was extracted under extreme torture goes without
saying. A media trial of Guru was also conducted
by the police. All the courts trying him, exonerated
him of the charges under POTA, and did point
out that he was not part of any terrorist out
fit, but retained the death sentence primarily
because of the of his confession. He was also
not given adequate legal assistance. One of
the reasons for awarding the death sentence
is to quench the 'collective conscience' of
the nation! That speaks volumes about the nature
of the judgment. The hanging of Maqbool Butt
in 1984 had triggered the intensification of
militancy in Kashmir. Surely this hanging based
on the weak case will have adverse impact on
the peace process in Kashmir. But meanwhile
RSS combine is going hammer and tongs, demanding
the hanging of Guru and they are all out to
make the communal currency out of this. Today
President is having two set of petitions on
his table, one requesting clemency and retrial,
and other baying for the blood of this Kashmiri.
Two significant but under projected reports
which were released during 2006 and went unnoticed
were the one by the India People's Tribunal
(IPT) on Communalism in Orissa and the other
by the Secretary General of UN, of an initiative
called Alliance of Civilizations. The IPT in
Orissa under the leadership of Retired Chief
Justice of Kerala High Court Justice Usha found
that the rights of minorities are being violated
with impunity in Orissa. The RSS combine organizations;
Bajarang Dal, VHP and Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram
are intimidating them and spreading hate against
them with state acting as the onlooker. The
major themes on which the assault is being sustained
relates to the bogey of conversions by Christian
missionaries and the anti National character
of Muslim minorities. The state of affairs has
been termed as very alarming by the tribunal
requiring the intervention of Central Government
and the National Human rights commission. These
minorities are living under fear and the basic
norm on which the democracy sustains, the security
of minorities is being violated with impunity.
The tribunal urges for the restoration of communal
peace through affirmative interventions. Communal
poison in India draws a lot from the worldwide
propagation of 'Clash of Civilizations' by the
power that is and the acts of attacks against
the countries where the large population is
Muslim. UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was
a helpless witness when the US launched aggressions
after aggression on the West Asian countries,
Iraq, Afghanistan and than again Iraq, killing
close to a million people and destroying the
region. Kofi Annan saw the bypassing of United
Nations when this entire rampage was being conducted
under the banner of Clash of Civilizations.
The High level initiative with representatives
from various countries has put out a brilliant
report (http://www.unaoc.org/repository/report.htm),
which points out that there is essentially an
alliance between different civilizations, which
are not hierarchical but supplementary to each
other. The inference is that any attempt to
demonize Islam, civilization in Muslim countries
is basically motivated by politics and has nothing
to do with the norms of civilization or religion
as such. The report urges the powers and people
around the World to stand up to the positive
heritage of civilizations and to restore the
amity between people cutting across all the
countries, religions and regions. One knows
that UN has very limited appeal as it has been
emasculated by the global bully. Even its moral
appeal is not heeded to by the possessor of
brute power, as it does not command any battalions.
Will the conscience of the humanity rise to
bypass the might of US to restore the humane
values, which global human society have been
developing over a period of centuries and have
currently come under the cloud due to the politics
adorning the cloak of religious identity that
remains a million dollar question.
As the year comes to the end the Kangaroo court
set up by the occupation army in Iraq gave death
penalty to Saddam Hussein. This is the last
ditch attempt by US to save its face in the
light of debacle of its West Asia policy to
control the oil wealth in the World. This mighty
nation is playing the villain to the global
peace, being the biggest violator of human rights.
While Saddam a tyrant, was helped all through
by Western powers in his policies of war against
Iran, atrocities against Shias and Kurds, the
present judicial assassination of Saddam, murder
by proxy, is likely to worsen the communal strife
and intensify the strife in Iraq, and the bogus
claim of bringing Democracy to Iraq will remain
a hollow claim only as neither can democracy
be imported nor can it be imposed from the top.
The year 2007 is likely to see the return of
hard core Hindutva and Ram Temple on the agenda
of BJPs' electoral appeal. As such also BJP
is more comfortable with identity issues as
they have bigger emotive appeal. The issues
related to the secular interests of communities
don't cut much ice with their scheme of things.
It remains to be seen as to how much successful
this will be in wooing the voters to the BJP
kitty of votes. It is desperately trying to
create more Ayodhya models like in Bhopal, Kamaal
Maula Masjid or in Karnataka Baba Budan Giri
Dargah. It is bent to use terrorism, Afzal Guru
case also for frightening the voters into its
fold. The propaganda is shaping in such a way
that sections of population do get swayed by
these make believe issues, as such the place
of such issues is very limited as far as livelihood
is concerned. But creating a fear consolidates
the communities, it is likely to give some benefits
to BJP electoral campaign.
The optimism for the future of democratic values
lies in the rising resistance to the assertions
of sectarianism, amongst a section of people
who are becoming more aware of the threat posed
by the communal fascism. Various secular action
groups, peace activists and minority rights
groups are making their presence felt through
their campaigns and deliberations. A good deal
of literature against these threats is coming
into circulation. This and the visible campaigns
against injustice, through diverse activities
will surly work towards a society with amity
and peace as the core values.
