Intolerance has gone up due to Sectarianism

December 18, 2015

Beginning with September 2015 we witnessed a flood of ‘returning’ honors by writers, scientists and artists. There are also various statements from academics, historians, artists and scientists showing their concern about the growing intolerance and erosion of our plural values. Those who returned the honors are amongst the outstanding contributors to literature, arts, film making and science.

They in a way have been pouring their heart out at what is going on at social level. The growing intolerance has taken the lives of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi. There are incidents like where the lynching of one Muslim on the issue of beef eating which has shaken the conscience of the society.

In the face of this strong statement from diverse sections of society those related to the ruling party, BJP; its parent organization RSS and many of its affiliates; have been strongly criticizing these people by saying as to how come it is intolerance now just because of few incidents here and there. A section of social media is mocking those who returned the awards.

At the same time the President of India disturbed by the happenings in the society; time and again has been reminding the nation about our core civilizational values of pluralism. The vice President has told that it is the duty of the state to protect the ‘right to life’ of citizens. The international agency Moody Analytics pointed stated that unless Modi reins in his colleagues, India stands to lose her credibility. Disturbed by the current growing atmosphere of intolerance the eminent citizens are feeling uncomfortable. So we have the earlier statement of Julio Rebeiro that ‘as a Christian I am a stranger in my country’. Now Naseerudding Shah said that he is being made to realize his Muslim identity for the first time.

The poet, film maker Gulzar stated that the times have come where people ask your religion before they ask your name. The renowned tabla maestro Zakir Hussain felt that there is a drastic change in the social scenario. He recalled his father worshipping Ma Sarswati before his music sessions. Many prominent entrepreneurs like Narayan Murthi and Kiran Majumdar Shaw have shown their concern over growing intolerance. In the same boat of those calling for preserving values of pluralism are people like Raghuram Rajan, the RBI Governor.

The case of two superstars expressing their anguish did prove that intolerance has crossed the limits. When Shahrukh Khan said that there is intolerance in the society, he was advised to go to Pakistan and BJP leaders like Yogi Adityanath compared him with Hafiz Sayeed of Pakistan. Aamir Khan when he shared his conversation with his wife that she is feeling insecure about their son, the whole RSS cabal pounced on him, challenged his patriotism. During all these episodes our Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained a silence, giving the signal that he is in agreement with RSS-BJP leaders making these statements. These organizations and leaders giving ‘Hate other’ statements have sometimes been called fringe elements, but as such they are part of the Sangh Parivar, and all the members of the RSS combine act in coordination with each other.

The ruling dispensation, the BJP leaders have come out scathingly on these creative people-scientists and labeled the whole process as ‘manufactured rebellion’ as put by Arun Jaitley. It has been alleged that those returning awards are the leftists or those who were recipients of privileges from the state when Congress was the ruling party and now with BJP coming to power from last one year, they are baffled and so the protests. It has been alleged that these people are trying to derail the ‘development story’ being written by the BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi. Jaitley even goes to say that Narendra Modi is the victim of intolerance by these people returning their awards. Some like Rajnath Singh have asserted that it is a mere ‘law and order’ problem for which state governments are responsible while these people are targeting Modi government. The response to statements of Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan was much different to the response to similar statements by Raghuram Rajan and Kiran Majumdar for example. Statements were similar but super stars were attacked scathingly, while there was a quiet to similar statements by others who happened not to be Muslims.

As such what has happened is neither a law and order problem nor the one related to loss of patronage as it is related to the much broader phenomenon which is due to intense communalization of society. This time the degree of communalization has crossed the civil limits. Most of those who returned the honors are generally very critical of Congress as a party. They have done these acts of returning awards or issuing statements to express their pain at the erosion of values of amity and diversity have done this spontaneously. The jibe that these people did not return their awards at the time of emergency, anti Sikh violence, migration of Kashmiri Pundits and at the time of Mumbai blasts of 1993 overlooks the point that awards have not been returned to protest against a particular incident, but to the overall process building up towards narrow nationalism. The degree of intolerance has seen a qualitative worsening.

As the awards which have been returned and the statements put out by different groups do give the reasons for the same and these reasons pertains to the cumulative process and not this or that event. All these incidents mentioned by Jaitley and company have been a tragic part of recent Indian history. Many a writers did protest against most of these incidents earlier also. Nayantara Sahgal for instance had returned the award at the time of emergency and had been part of the PUCL which had brought out report on Anti Sikh massacre also.

The present times cannot be compared with the tragic incidents of the past for various reasons. Take the case of emergency for example. It was a dark chapter of Indian history, still it was the authoritarianism imposed mostly from the top. What is most disturbing in the current times is the vast network of organizations related to the ruling party whose followers either they themselves create hatred in the society or they mobilize the social sectors through hate speech; the result of which is communalization and violence. Currently there is an attack on the values of tolerance and liberal space from top as well as from bottom. From the top the ruling dispensation has people like Yogi Adiyanath- Sakshi Maharaj, Giriraj Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti who keep spreading sectarian messages. The social groups implement it in the way what happened in Dadri.

At yet another level is the institutional control by communal ideology. Our major institutions and educational places are being mauled by divisive ideology. Our frontline areas of science and technology are being tampered day in and day out. The level of social thinking the ‘Hate other’ ideology has been promoted through the issues like Ghar Wapasi, love jihad and beef. This is creating the intense social insecurity amongst the religious minorities. This is leading to incidents like Dadri. Such incidents are reflective of the overall social atmosphere created by the ruling ideology, so it is not a question of this or that state government being responsible for that.

Essentially the insane communalization, which leads to communal violence, has its roots in the prejudice leading to hate for the religious minorities. And that’s what flows from the ideology of Hindu nationalism, or any other sectarian nationalism, in the name of any religion or race. In current times in India; the fountainhead of Hindu nationalism is RSS. Not to say that Muslim sectarianism has its own divisive and supplementary negative influence. This ideology assumes the ‘Hate other’ sentiment and leads to situation where cow slaughter, beef eating and ghar wapasi or love jihad become the ground on which ‘hate other’ sentiments build up. The communalists are talking in the dangerous language of ‘we will kill and get killed while defending our Holy mother the cow’, as one BJP leader said.

To compare the intolerance which has come up during last some time with the situations in other countries or the past kingdoms is totally wrong. India today should not be compared with the times and policies of earlier rulers or the states where democracy has not seen a bit of nurturing, whatever be its degree, as we experienced in India since independence. Also the hallmark to understand today’s situation has to be in the change in degree of intolerance. As such three months down the line since the award return process began, one can say this one of the very effective protests we have witnessed. At least temporarily the venom spewing Hindutva leaders seem to have shut their mouths. The international impact of the move was very strong; hard hitting articles appeared in the major newspapers in the World. That might have forced the authorities to call for a truce to save the face.

The major factor leading to present atmosphere lies in the qualitative transformation of ‘hate for others’. The stereotyping of minorities has assumed horrendous proportions. Intolerance has been there earlier also, now it is changing qualitatively for the worse. We need to combat the threat of sectarian nationalism looming large on our democratic society, the threat of sectarian propaganda and politics leading to stifling of democratic space. And these are not the ordinary times, the divisive process, intolerance have assumed menacing proportions and cannot be hidden by the illusory growth story!

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Shaheen Bagh Movement: Deepening Democracy, Uniting India

Ram Puniyani

February 4,2020

As democracy is seeping in slowly all over the world, there is an organization which is monitoring the degree of democracy in the individual countries, The Economist Intelligence Unit. As such in each country there are diverse factors which on one hand work to deepen it, while others weaken it. Overall there is a march from theoretical democracy to substantive one. The substantive democracy will herald not just the formal equality, freedom and community feeling in the country but will be founded on the substantive quality of these values. In India while the introduction of modern education, transport, communication laid the backdrop of beginning of the process, the direction towards deepening of the process begins with Mahatma Gandhi when he led the non-cooperation movement in 1920, in which average people participated. The movement of freedom for India went on to become the ‘greatest ever mass movement’ in the World.

The approval and standards for democracy were enshrined in Indian Constitution, which begins ‘We the people of India’, and was adopted on 26th January 1950. With this Constitution and the policies adopted by Nehru the process of democratization started seeping further, the dreaded Emergency in 1975, which was lifted later restored democratic freedoms in some degree. This process of democratisation is facing an opposition since the decade of 1990s after the launch of Ram Temple agitation, and has seen the further erosion with BJP led Government coming to power in 2014. The state has been proactively attacking civil liberties, pluralism and participative political culture with democracy becoming flawed in a serious way. And this is what got reflected in the slipping of India by ten places, to 51st, in 2019. On the index of democracy India slipped down from the score of 7.23 to 6.90. The impact of sectarian BJP politics is writ on the state of the nation, country.

Ironically this lowering of score has come at a time when the popular protests, the deepening of democracy has been given a boost and is picking up with the Shaheen Bagh protests. The protest which began in Shaheen Bagh, Delhi in the backdrop of this Government getting the Citizenship amendment Bill getting converted into an act and mercilessly attacking the students of Jamia Milia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University along with high handed approach in Jamia Nagar and neighbouring areas. From 15th December 2019, the laudable protest is on.

It is interesting to note that the lead in this protest has been taken by the Muslim women, from the Burqa-Hijab clad to ‘not looking Muslim’ women and was joined by students and youth from all the communities, and later by the people from all the communities. Interestingly this time around this Muslim women initiated protest has contrast from all the protests which earlier had begun by Muslims. The protests opposing Shah Bano Judgment, the protests opposing entry of women in Haji Ali, the protests opposing the Government move to abolish triple Talaq. So far the maulanas from top were initiating the protests, with beard and skull cap dominating the marches and protests. The protests were by and large for protecting Sharia, Islam and were restricted to Muslim community participating.

This time around while Narendra Modi pronounced that ‘protesters can be identified by their clothes’, those who can be identified by their external appearance are greatly outnumbered by all those identified or not identified by their appearance.

The protests are not to save Islam or any other religion but to protect Indian Constitution. The slogans are structured around ‘Defence of democracy and Indian Constitution’. The theme slogans are not Allahu Akbar’ or Nara-E-Tadbeer’ but around preamble of Indian Constitution. The lead songs have come to be Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s ‘Hum Dekhenge’, a protest against Zia Ul Haq’s attempts to crush democracy in the name of religion. Another leading protest song is from Varun Grover, ‘Tanashah Aayenge…Hum Kagaz nahin Dikhayenge’, a call to civil disobedience against the CAA-NRC exercise and characterising the dictatorial nature of the current ruling regime.

While BJP was telling us that primary problem of Muslim women is Triple talaq, the Muslim women led movements has articulated that primary problem is the very threat to Muslim community. All other communities, cutting across religious lines, those below poverty line, those landless and shelter less people also see that if the citizenship of Muslims can be threatened because of lack of some papers, they will be not far behind in the victimization process being unleashed by this Government.

While CAA-NRC has acted as the precipitating factor, the policies of Modi regime, starting from failure to fulfil the tall promises of bringing back black money, the cruel impact of demonetisation, the rising process of commodities, the rising unemployment, the divisive policies of the ruling dispensation are the base on which these protest movements are standing. The spread of the protest movement, spontaneous but having similar message is remarkable. Shaheen Bagh is no more just a physical space; it’s a symbol of resistance against the divisive policies, against the policies which are increasing the sufferings of poor workers, the farmers and the average sections of society.

What is clear is that as identity issues, emotive issues like Ram Temple, Cow Beef, Love Jihad and Ghar Wapasi aimed to divide the society, Shaheen Bagh is uniting the society like never before. The democratisation process which faced erosion is getting a boost through people coming together around the Preamble of Indian Constitution, singing of Jan Gan Man, waving of tricolour and upholding the national icons like Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Ambedkar and Maulana Azad. One can feel the sentiments which built India; one can see the courage of people to protect what India’s freedom movement and Indian Constitution gave them.

Surely the communal forces are spreading canards and falsehood against the protests. As such these protests which is a solid foundation of our democracy. The spontaneity of the movement is a strength which needs to be channelized to uphold Indian Constitution and democratic ethos of our beloved country.

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What about Kashmiri Pundits? Three Decades of Exodus

Ram Puniyani

February 22,2020

This January 2020, it is thirty years since the Kashmiri Pundits’ exodus from the Kashmir valley took place. They had suffered grave injustices, violence and humiliation prior to the migration away from the place of their social and cultural roots in Kashmir Valley. The phenomenon of this exodus had been due to the communalization of militancy in Kashmir in the decade of 1980s. While no ruling Government has applied itself enough to ‘solve’ this uprooting of pundits from their roots, there are communal elements who have been aggressively using ‘what about Kashmiri Pundits?’, every time liberal, human rights defenders talk about the plight of Muslim minority in India. This minority is now facing an overall erosion of their citizenship rights.

Time and over again in the aftermath of communal violence in particular, the human rights groups have been trying to put forward the demands for justice and rehabilitation of the victim minority. Instead of being listened to those particularly from Hindu nationalist combine, as a matter of routine shout back, where were you when Kashmiri Pundits were driven away from the Valley? In a way the tragedy being heaped on one minority is being justified in the name of suffering of Pundits and in the process violence is being normalized. This sounds as if two wrongs make a right, as if the suffering Muslim minority or those who are trying to talk in defense of minority rights have been responsible for the pain of Kashmiri Pundits.

During these three, many political formations have come to power, including BJP, Congress, third front and what have you. To begin with when the exodus took place Kashmir was under President’s rule and V. P. Singh Government was in power at the center. This Government had the external support of BJP at that time. Later BJP led NDA came to power for close to six years from 1998, under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Then from 2014 it is BJP, with Narerda Modi as PM, with BJP brute majority is in power. Other components of NDA are there to enjoy some spoils of power without any say in the policies being pursued by the Government. Modi is having absolute power with Amit Shah occasionally presenting Modi’s viewpoints.

Those blurting, ‘what about Kashmiri Pundits?’ are using it as a mere rhetoric to hide their communal color. The matters of Kashmir are very disturbing and cannot be attributed to be the making of Indian Muslims as it is being projected in an overt and subtle manner. Today, of course the steps taken by the Modi Government, that of abrogation of Article 370, abolition of clause 35 A, downgrading the status of Kashmir from a state to union territory have created a situation where the return of Kashmiri Pundits may have become more difficult, as the local atmosphere is more stifling and the leaders with democratic potential have been slapped with Public Safety Act, where they can be interned for long time without any answerability to the Courts. The internet had been suspended, communication being stifled in an atmosphere where democratic freedoms are curtailed which makes solution of any problem more difficult.

Kashmir has been a vexed issue where the suppression of the clause of autonomy, leading to alienation led to rise of militancy. This was duly supported by Pakistan. The entry of Al Qaeda elements, who having played their role against Russian army in 1980s entered into Kashmir and communalized the situation in Kashmir. The initial Kashmir militancy was on the grounds of Kashmiriyat. Kashmiriyat is not Islam, it is synthesis of teachings of Buddha, values of Vedant and preaching’s of Sufi Islam. The tormenting of Kashmiri Pundits begins with these elements entering Kashmir.

Also the pundits, who have been the integral part of Kashmir Valley, were urged upon by Goodwill mission to stay on, with local Muslims promising to counter the anti Pundit atmosphere. Jagmohan, the Governor, who later became a minister in NDA Government, instead of providing security to the Pundits thought, is fit to provide facilities for their mass migration. He could have intensified counter militancy and protected the vulnerable Pundit community. Why this was not done?

Today, ‘What about Kashmiri Pundits?’ needs to be given a serious thought away from the blame game or using it as a hammer to beat the ‘Muslims of India’ or human rights defenders? The previous NDA regime (2014) had thought of setting up enclosures of Pundits in the Valley. Is that a solution? Solution lies in giving justice to them. There is a need for judicial commission to identify the culprits and legal measures to reassure the Pundit community. Will they like to return if the high handed stifling atmosphere, with large number of military being present in the area? The cultural and religious spaces of Pundits need to be revived and Kashmiryat has to be made the base of any reconciliation process.

Surely, the Al Qaeda type elements do not represent the alienation of local Kashmiris, who need to be drawn into the process of dialogue for a peaceful Kashmir, which is the best guarantee for progress in this ex-state, now a Union territory. Communal amity, the hallmark of Kashmir cannot be brought in by changing the demographic composition by settling outsiders in the Valley. A true introspection is needed for this troubled area. Democracy is the only path for solving the emigration of Pundits and also of large numbers of Muslims, who also had to leave the valley due to the intimidating militancy and presence of armed forces in large numbers. One recalls Times of India report of 5th February 1992 which states that militants killed 1585 people from January 1990 to October 1992 out of which 982 were Muslims and 218 Hindus.

We have been taking a path where democratic norms are being stifled, and the promises of autonomy which were part of treaty of accession being ignored. Can it solve the problem of Pundits?

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