India's politics of fear

India's politics of fear

When Yogi Adityanath, the newly anointed chief minister of UP, held his first cabinet meeting on Ram Navami, did he have in mind that Rama is regarded as maryada purushottam, the epitome (प्रतिमान/प्रतीक) of rectitude (सत्यपरायणता/न्याय), or was he merely playing politics? Is India's secularism in danger, or will governance rectitude triumph over religious divides?
History has its own serendipities (the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.) . On 6th December 1948, exactly 44 years before the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Constituent Assembly, which drafted our Constitution, was in the throes of a heated discussion on the question of secularism and the new Republic. While there was unanimity (सर्वसम्मति/एकमतता) that India would not be a theocratic (relating to or denoting a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god.) state, and that secularism did not imply contempt or marginalisation of religion, Loknath Mishra, a member of the Constituent Assembly from Orissa (who later, in the 1990s, became Governor of Assam) warned that a “secular state is a slippery phrase, a device to bypass the ancient culture of the land ... justice demands that the ancient faith and culture of the land should be given a fair deal if not restored to its legitimate place after a thousand years of suppression”.
In their infinite wisdom, the founding fathers of our Constitution allayed Mishra's fears, and resolved that India would be a country where all faiths would be respected, while the state itself would be secular. This ideological clarity was based on pragmatic grounds. Hindus and Muslims, and other minorities, don't live in separately demarcated (सीमांकन करना/अलग करना) geographical areas. Nor are the minorities, especially Muslims, in insignificant numbers. They constitute over 14% of the population and live cheek by jowl with other religious communities across the country.
Even the much smaller Christian community, not more than 2% of the population, is cumulatively more than the entire population of Hungary and Greece put together. Co-existence, and respect for each other's faith, is therefore an imperative (अत्यावश्यक) and not an option for India.
But this ideology-based pragmatism is being tested today, not because the ideology or the pragmatism has become irrelevant, but because electoral calculations have created cynical (दोषदर्षी) expediencies (लाभ/औचित्य) on all sides of the political spectrum. Some political parties that reflexively genuflect (आदर करना) before the altar of secularism have blatantly (in an open and unashamed manner.) used Muslims as a vote bank in order to win elections, but done very little to address the real needs of the community. And parties like BJP have assiduously (लगन से/परिश्रम से) worked to consolidate a Hindu vote in opposition to the Muslims, while privileging divisiveness over governance.
What we are seeing is a vicious cycle. Because BJP and even more so its ultra-right affiliates openly espouse a Hindu India, it heightens fears among Muslims. And this fear psychosis in turn prompts some parties to specifically target the Muslim vote, without which they cannot win.
This was evident in recent UP elections. BJP, in a transparent attempt to consolidate the majority vote, proclaimed that Hindus were being discriminated against in the matter of land for cremation grounds and electricity supply for festivals like Diwali. Not a single Muslim was given the BJP ticket. In contrast, parties like BSP, which has worked to empower Dalits, went overboard in giving nearly a hundred tickets to Muslims to stitch a winning combine, triggering a reverse Hindu consolidation. Excess fosters excess. When in 1985 the Congress party, then in power at the Centre, succumbed (परास्त होना/हार जाना), in a perhaps well intentioned but hasty move, to Islamic hardliners and overruled through Parliament the Supreme Court's decision for the payment of alimony (निर्वाह-व्यय) to Shah Bano, a mother of five children divorced by her husband, it fuelled accusations of Muslim appeasement.
Such accusations then made BJP point an accusatory finger to even needed interventions for the uplift of Muslims. Fears that Hindus were being marginalised were played up without factual basis.More recently , artificially simulated campaigns like ghar wapsi and love jihad were launched. In the ensuing turbulence sane (उचित तथा विचारशील) voices ¬ both among Hindus and Muslims ¬ were sidelined, while extremists grabbed the headlines.
If India is to survive as a nation, the time has come for such insanity (उन्माद/मूर्खता) to stop. Indian politics badly needs a return to balance and statesmanship. Inclusion not exclusion, and hope not fear needs to guide our political class. If politicians do not understand this, the only hope is that, ultimately, the people of India will.
The Rama temple issue, and the unnecessary politics over the singing of the Vande Mataram or the Surya Namaskar, will only go that far if, as latest statistics reveal, only some one lakh jobs were created in eight key non-farm sectors from April to September last year ¬ including, shockingly, only 12,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector ¬ even as farmers continue to commit suicide in droves due to rampant (तेजी से फैलने वाला) agrarian distress.
Ordinary Indians want good governance, jobs and economic development, an end to endemic social instability, and peace and security in their lives. If given a chance they will, beyond the machinations of clever politicians, vote in the long run for someone who promises these ends, and not for those who only use them as cannon fodder to win elections. Secularism will then not be the `slippery slope' that Loknath Mishra cautioned us about, but a firm foundation for a mature and truly democratic republic.