RESEARCH ANALYSIS Come elections and the parties sing a familiar tune. They go into an overdrive of pandering to our sense of insecurity about our communities, languages, regional development, ethnic origins and caste statuses.
Since the Indian mainland supports 1/6th of the world’s population with 1/16th of the world’s land, there are bound to be deficiencies and inequity. Add to it, the sense of persecution and a partial picture of biases, and we have the insecurity story complete and attractive.
It is small consolation that at least the 2014 elections are beginning to show a turnaround with Narendra Modi springing forth utopian dreams of growth, prosperity (5Ts, Rainbow strategy) with statements that nurture hope in our hearts scarred with broken promises election after election. Rahul Gandhi tries to sell a model of “introspection” but once again is pulled into making jibes at the opposition with its “Kattar soch nahn, yuva josh” campaigns that have started to draw a blank with the voters. Regarding the Third Front, the less said the better. It’s a motley crew with no common agenda except a will to occupy the cabinet berths. Nothing spectacular can then be expected of them in terms of drawing up a new national vision.
When all is lost, one tends to catch hold of the floating straws. That seems to be Congress’ strategy for 2014 elections – take the browbeaten path of first institutionalising fear and then embalming it. In fact, an online poll by The Indian Republic shows the public sentiment regarding the same.
At this juncture, one must realise that it is always a community, regional or otherwise, that is neither so small that its rights can be safely ignored nor so big that it doesn’t buy this strategy, whose sense of persecution really converts into sizeable number of votes. For this reason, we don’t see the politicians calling for the ‘Rights of the Parsees’ etc. Several aboriginal communities distinct in language, culture and territorial rights fight out in the cramped space of the North East, while the smallest community in Andaman and Nicobar consists of only 19 individuals. Nobody even mentions their community in passing. Even the Christians who are mostly embroiled in skirmishes with extremist Hindu forces in the interiors of India, rightly or wrongly, over allegations of conversions, are not the target group for most mainstream political parties.
So, what is it about the Muslims that attracts most political parties to appeal to its sense of insecurity? India has 10% of the world’s Muslim population which is the world’s largest Muslim-minority population besides being third-largest Muslim population numerically. Its growth rate in India has only outshone the corresponding decadal growth rate in Hindus and the growth rate of the whole population between 1960s and 2001(Sachar Committee). For a community that’s growing in numbers, has a dedicated ministry to it, is integrated into Indian culture and has hundreds of schemes aiming to work for its progress, surely, insecurity should be its last stop. And yet, election after election, they are made to feel despite themselves that they are on the verge of being sidelined, ignored, or worse still, persecuted.
History has proved that the “minority” tag does not deter the progress of any community nor endangers their growth if only they are focussed on it. For a community that has historically been hated by almost half of the entire world, with almost all of its neighbours gunning for its blood, the Jews are one of the most prosperous communities in the world. The same goes for both Parsees and Jains who are numerically much less significant than any other community in India and yet hold much of the business spectrum in their hands. Hence, the “minority” status cannot be about the number. It has to be about who can or cannot express dominance. Or simply put, like everything else in life, it is about Power.
The “minority” tag is about relating with a feeling of victimhood. A very telling report by Francois Gautier specifies the lamentable reality of the Brahmin community of India, publicly known to be elitist. And yet, despite the smallness of their numbers and their largely woeful conditions, they are not a minority because they don’t think of themselves as victims. So don’t the Parsees, so don’t the Jains and certainly not the Jews.
So we have political parties that appeal to this insecurity of a community that has ruled India for much of its medieval period, has a language that stems from this land(Urdu), is deeply embroiled and intertwined with Indian culture, dress, language; and is the backbone of a large part of Indian Film Cinema. Top-notch people of different categories like Politics, Literature, Cinema, Freedom Struggle, at some or the other time, have been Muslims. And yet, most parties make them believe that they are threatened only to be rescued by these self-appointed protective guardians.
Is it an innovative idea?
It is not a new strategy. The British could rule over India and ultimately lead to its partition because they could pit the Muslims against the Hindus. Communalism did not stem from a generic mutual hatred but arose out of a supply-demand deficiency in services, resources and societal inequity. It also came into prominence because the Muslims were a little late in adopting Western education than Hindus thus carving the way for the latter’s early adoption in British administration. In fact, it was the same issue that caused the simmering of Tamil-Sinhalese discontent in Sri Lanka. (It wouldn’t be an extrapolation to say that a majority of the subcontinent’s problems are hangovers of the colonial regime). At some stage, it becomes easy to say that A is not getting something because B is getting it and play it out in the communal arena.
The Congress has for long catered to this strategy. With Nehru, it was largely a circumstantial compulsion as he had the most unenviable job of carrying forward a nation internally disparate, with its origins in a Hindu-Muslim riot-led partition. It was a necessity then to assuage the Muslims who had chosen to stay back, that India was their homeland. However, later, trouble brewed over the infamous Shah Bano case under Rajiv Gandhi, which attributed the strategy of “appeasement” to Congress. However, what panic effected in an election year soon turned into a deliberate strategy. It is another matter that the same party has been clandestinely patronising the RSS movements at convenient points in time, while overtly chastising it. (In a detailed Wall Street Journal report on Babri Masjid demolition, it is clearly mentioned that Rajiv Gandhi intended to use the issue to procure votes, helped ably by the so-called critic of RSS: Mani Shankar Aiyar. Similar sentiments were fanned during the Bhagalpur Riots.)
Tokenism of Secularism: Brash display, little achievement
Tokenism has been a great cohort of such parties which thrive on dispersing this sentiment to achieve instant societal patronage. Having been abused by Congress, the theme was picked up by ideologically narrow parties like Mulayam’s Samajwadi Party, Laloo’s RLD, even the very Hindu-caste-based Bahujan Samajwadi Party. So, to certify themselves as “secularists”, they organise iftaar parties, don skull caps and hug muslim brethren in full media glare. The idea is to drive home the symbolism of Muslim-Sympathy without effective development plans in place.
This reaches its pinnacle during the run-up to elections. Leaving no stone unturned, they go all out to instill fear against Modi’s proposed-development agenda, by bringing in a shameless display of “secularism” as the watch word. In March 2013, Sushil Kumar Shinde asked all states to set-up fast-track courts to expedite trials against terror cases of minority youths (Read Muslims). Besides the issue of Central interference in state subject of law & order, there is a more moral idea at stake. As the Home Minister of the country, one would have expected him to set in motion a series of fast-track trials for all terror cases, irrespective of creed or religion. In 2009, the well-intentioned Right to Education came into practice which made it compulsory for all unaided, private schools to provide 25% reservation for all students belonging to disadvantaged and weaker sections. Unfortunately, it left the minority schools out of the provision, leaving it to be imposed on the dominant-Hindu schools.
Taking the cause of “secularism” too far, the Congress-led Central government declared the Jains as a minority sect in 2014. It is a community that has for long co-existed with all other communities so peacefully that there hasn’t been a case of recorded ‘discrimination’ against them. For a community that is about 0.4-0.5% of the country’s population, it has a 94% literacy rate with female literacy over 80%, income levels reflective of an affluent status, are over 75% urbanised, employed mostly in good businesses, grew by 26% in numbers (1991-2001), and contributes signifintly to the country’s GDP. Why then should a country go out of its way to add to the list of minorities? In fact, it looks counter-intuitive to the idea of secularism. If you are actually trying to unite a country, why go on creating and labelling more sects?
The story has been much more dangerous than it comes across. In the garb of ‘cleansing’ temples of caste-discrimination, the state under the control of Congress, placed temple administration under government control. So, a declared “Secular” state deems it fit to manage Hindu temple administration without touching a minority-place of worship. Add to its wide-spread and rampant corruption by government officials who divert temple wealth, lands and donations for personal and non-religious purposes.
To add insult to injury, the Haj pilgrimage is subsidised by the same State. Thankfully, only in 2012, Supreme Court directed the Central Govt to abolish this subsidy in next 10 years. In an obvious connection in the minds of a Hindu believer, his religious funds are diverted to subsidise another religion’s spread, thus fuelling communal fire besides appeasing the minorities. Also, when the bogey is shouted aloud, the same guardians will step in and play it out as a majority-minority issue adding to a Muslim’s feeling of victimhood.
Congress Pied-Pipes, Rats Follow
Having learned well that ‘secularism’ works in India, other ‘secular’ parties soon joined the bandwagon. In Uttar Pradesh ever since Samajwadi Party is in power, almost all schemes announced have been for the benefit of Muslims. Education and marriage scheme only for Muslim girls when the state’s overall female literacy rate of 57.18% is much less than its male literacy rate of 77% and lags behind national average of 65.46%, special tribunals to expedite cases of Muslim-property disputes, Rs 200 Cr for maintenance of muslim graveyards! The budgetary allocation for Muslims was increased by 81% over the previous year by Akhilesh’s govt in a state with 20% Muslims. Shouldn’t education and development be religion-free?
And then it gets ugly
The interesting part of this secular-communal question is that the ‘certifying’ authorities are either these “secular parties” themselves (Congress and other parties’ self-certification) or Shahi Imams (Imam declared Mamta and Sonia to be secular)! I wonder if a Pandit or a Shankracharya-Certification will qualify to get the same tag.
And when as a nation, we begin diluting the treatment we mete out to things reprehensible because of their ‘secular-index-suitability’; we have lost the plot in achieving the true meaning of secularism: Equality without discrimination of religion.
So when a Samajwadi Party decides to ‘pardon’ the ‘innocent’ terrorists apprehended for serial blasts in Varanasi 2006, Rampur CRPF camp attack in 2007, and serial blasts in courts of Lucknow, Varanasi, Faizabad in 2007, real secularism is turning in its grave. And the basis of this innocence? An Election Manifesto, A Self-Belief, Secular Credentials?
Or when Karnataka Congress Chief says that it’s absolutely ‘ok’ if minorities do not repay loans, we are setting the wrong precedent.
There is a three-pronged signal we give out:
- To the minorities: Everything is good as long as one is a minority, thus establishing them as ‘different’ with different rights and little responsibility of partaking in national duties.
- To the country: A wrong is not a wrong if you belong to the right religion, thus stirring anti-minority sentiments.
- To the World: We are a soft state and anything is right, as long as it adds to the votes
- Development is not a piece-meal business
Sarva Dharma, Sama Bhava
Secularism as envisioned in Indian Constitution is different from its definition in the West. In West, it is the negation of religion (separation of the church and the state, emphasising that the state has no religion). In India, it is an assertion of multiplicity of religions which says that all religions are equal in the eyes of the State.
So, when any provision that attempts to favour any religion over the other is practised in India, it is against the constitutional meaning of secularism and ironically is communal in nature. This fake secularism cannot be used to cover all gaffes, all political machinations, all disgusting intentions. When a Mulayam does a U-turn on FDI in retail, or a foddered Lalu hides his corruption, or a motley crew of aspirational Third Front leaders come together to form government hiding behind the veil of secularism; it is not secularism but disgusting opportunism at display. And the community, whose growth has not kept up with that of others in the country, continues to feel victimised and discriminated, thanks to the guardians of their-made brand of secularism.
The change has to start now. It’s a difference in perspective. One may call you a minority, and yet you can choose to behave like the second-largest majority.
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