Though BJP came to power on the plank of development, it has not abandoned its communal agenda. It seems to have found the way to keep its fanatic brigade happy at the same time create a space to appear innocent and have nothing to do with their bigotry agenda
By Fr Victor Ferrao
Though BJP came to power on the plank of development, it has not abandoned its communal agenda. It seems to have found the way to keep its fanatic brigade happy at the same time create a space to appear innocent and have nothing to do with their bigotry agenda. But will this crowdsourcing of the communalism by the ruling dispensation able to delink their links to these intolerant elements. Spiralling of intense communal discourse in the last few months has become a reason to be concerned about the hypocritical pretence of the government which seems to have purposefully allowed its fringe elements to have a holiday run. The love jihad, the ghar vapsi, the Godse statue, the ramjade jibe and the attack on five Churches and a catholic school in Delhi have once again propelled the hydra of communalism in our society, leading to a public interrogation of our tolerance levels by none other than the president Obama of USA. Communalism that we are facing today has evolved and become dispersed making it difficult for us to draw its connections with the ruling BJP. But the silence and tacit support of the main leadership as well as caustic voices from within BJP itself manifests its hypocrisy. This new attempt to escape responsibility and accountability on the part of the ruling dispensation can be heard loud and clear in the troubling silence of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi which he hesitatingly broke only recently. But the raising of suspicion of the motives of noble laureate blessed Mother Theresa by RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat and the silence of BJP seems to be in continuation of its policy of crowdsourcing of communalism. Even when the Prime Minister appeared determined through his fiery address in the parliament, the hate baton of RSS was taken over by the VHP, particularly in Goa.
What is worse is that a crass Hindu communalism passes of as nationalism without any critical interrogation. Such a nationalism laden with Hinduism makes an unconstitutional demand on all Indians to belong to India via Hinduism alone. This construction of an Indian subject as primarily religious subject surprisingly remains unquestioned even today. Although, the defining contours of communalism are openly against the very idea of India, yet the fact that it seems to have infiltrated the consciousness of large sections of our people is disturbing only a few. Hence, there is a great challenge to save the secular nationalism enshrined into our constitution and interrogate the motivated project of bringing equivalence between nationalism and Hinduism. Hinduism is a great way of life that teaches us universal tolerance. But ironically a Hindu nationalism that seems to have deviated from the tolerant ethos of our country and become grievously intolerant, becoming a perversion of both Hinduism as well as Indian nationalism. Hinduism is an outcome of a great civilisation and is accepted as such internationally but the intolerant Hindu nationalism is steadily becoming a matter of national embarrassment. It is paradoxical that these self appointed custodians of identity and culture of our country are steadily emerging as destroyers of its vibrant diversity and plural ethos. What is frightening is that these cultural police are threatening to mono-culture our plural cultural ethos and convert India into a Hindu Pakistan.
The communalism that has put on a mask of nationalism continues the culture of entitlement embedded in the cancer of casteism that has afflicted our people for centuries. It entitles the Hindus natural loyalty to our country while at the same time interrogates and suspects the patriotism of the rest. This culture of entitlement seems to produce a triumphant Hindu nationalist subject who can continue to claim purity imbued in the caste and render non-Hindus as polluted or second class citizens of our great country. This pragmatic re-invention of casteism which has broaden to include all Hindus while at the same time exclude all non-Hindus has given new lease of life to Homo Hierarchicus in our country. Perhaps this is why majority of us are become numb and insensitive to what appears to be an incisively managed and cunningly orchestrated acts of communalism like the attacks on the Christian Churches in Delhi in recent days. The communal nationalism suits both the national parties in our country. One poses as a peacekeeper while the other presents as the champion of the Hindu Rashtra. This enables the political elite to keep the real issues concerning the control of the resources of our people conveniently away from the scrutiny of the masses. That is why we have to agree that Hindu nationalism has become the opium of the masses in our country. And with the present strategy of crowdsourcing communalism, ruling dispensation seems to think that it will become a bone that our people will lick which will generate them both notes and votes while it gives a free meal to its puppet masters who fund their elections.
We can no longer pretend that communalism does not exist. It exists among all communities in different degrees but since the communalism of the majoritarian community is posing serious dangers to our democracy and wellbeing of every citizen of our country, it has preoccupied our attention here. The communalism that forces its others to assimilate its Hindu nationalism or emigrate cannot be a legitimate form of nationalism that represents the plural India. It does not mean every Hindu accepts this narrow Hindu nationalism. Some particularly the dalits feel castigated and compelled to embrace the politics of intolerance against their will. But the fact that there is crisis of secular nationalism in India cannot be wished away. Yet the fact that it stands for the inclusively plural totality of India, still makes it an effective antidote to the totalising exclusionary mono-forming of our country. But how long can the ruling dispensation put on the mask of bearer of reason, development and progress and let unreason and regress to reign in the name of Hindu-nationalism sourced from the crowd? The crowd that is sourcing this communalism in our society is not an unknown nameless maze but certainly purposefully determined bunch of actors who are let loose by a design engineered by the ruling dispensation and its cronies. Hence, the cloak that covers the ruling dispensation stands de-robed and it is clear who is managing and sourcing the crowd. That is why it is time that our democratically elected Government owns responsibility for peace, growth, harmony and security of every citizen of our country.