Hindutva attacks on India’s unity!

DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL

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Unfortunately, communal fanaticism has made deep inroads in Indian society and system because it is state sponsored. 

Even India's foremost secular party the Congress has plenty of Hindutva supporters with RSS links. Thus, the BJP and Hindutva allies are not the only parties and organizations that operate against Muslims in India. They use use Pakistan as a useful tool to persecute Muslims where possible. 

Needless to state that Congress party, the longest surviving political party with claims for successful freedom struggle, cannot tolerate any opposition to its indirect Hindutva projections or of the regime directly.  Indian stubbornness could be  explained only  by way of  sticking to its guns over issues of Babri Mosque which  they shamelessly pulled down to prove an invalid point and the riots to harm the minorities.  

Congress government always firmly dealt with disobedience and opposition to sustain Hindutva glory, though the overt Hindutva parties like BJP do all this quite openly, ensuring the go regime support.

Equaling Hindutva with Indian national prestige, the core wing of Congress party when in power has used tactfully all Hindutva parties and organizations to suit its designs to help India pursue Hindutva policies vigorously.

Ghastly destruction of Babri Mosque in Uttar Pradesh in 1992 on false claims of Hindutvawadis and prior to that the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 exemplifies the crude fact that the regime in new Delhi after Indian independence in 1947 wanted to showcase the rise of Hindu power in a Hindu majority India, notwithstanding the fact the Constitution clearly opposes such nasty overtones towards Hindutva and communal fanaticism.

Indian obsession with vague prestige has led to repeated attacks on Indian unity.

In destroying Babri Mosque with Hindu criminal forces, India had sent a clear message to minorities and world at large that Islam has been defeated in India and none can save the mosque or Muslims themselves in India if the regime decides secretly or otherwise to annihilate them.

In engineering anti-Sikh riots in Delhi state, Indian regime has send a clear message that Hindus and are free to kill minorities the way they feel fit and none can save them or protect them.

Congress party, having  committed to cause of Hindutva  and engineering all attacks indirectly  have also  determined not to feel sorry for the crimes committed against minorities as repentance or being apologetically would mean exposing the Hindutva s weakness to minorities. After all, India is meant to promote Hindu interests as Indian national interests- both indoors and abroad. (In fact officials to be deputed aboard are chosen in keeping with their commitment to Hindutva agenda of the regime. This explains why Indian government, even during the Congress rule, never trusted Muslims and did not promote many Muslims abroad, not even in Muslim nations)

Since the Congress government is responsible for the ghastly destruction of Babri Mosque it also denies Muslims their rights to worship in their Babri Mosque. And hence, the UPA government adopted all techniques to delay the court judgment on Hindutva forces  canvas around courts and the homes/offices of judges, coercing them to deliver judgment that make only Hindus happy and Muslims should feel defeated in India.  Both Congress and BJP  forces wanted the position of  Muslims to be  further weakened in the country. They argue if Hindu criminal lose the Mosque case where else can they win a clear anti-Muslim case. They also argue, like the Hindutva Congress core gang also does, if Babri Mosque is allowed to be rebuilt, then, all the strenuous efforts by the Congress-BJP governments have gone waste and which might even amounts to insulting Hinduism. Their sheer stubbornness is shameful and is a matter of national as well international worry. 

The demand to apologise might seem unjust to Rahul because no such pressure is being mounted on Modi, who was chief minister in 2002 when Gujarat witnessed the 1984-type pogrom. Not only has he refused to apologise for it, he has become the country’s prime minister and as PM which the final authority now in Indian system he is not going to do that.

Unlike the RSS and its countless mutants that are bent upon destroying  secular content of India, officially speaking, the Congress has ideologically believed in an inclusive India, in which caste-religious-linguistic identities co-exist with the national identity. So, not for the Congress party the idea that India is Hindu, not for it the notion of building a nation through assimilation that dissolves all other identities. India is not supposed to remove all religions other than Hinduism. By contrast, the Sangh perceives India to be Hindu, Hinduism ot grow allover world to outwit other religions. This ideology is evident through the speeches of its chief, Mohan Bhagwat. It believes the minorities are innately disloyal to India and, therefore, must be assimilated in a way that deprives them of their religious identity or they must accept the status of second class citizen. It is this worldview of the Sangh which has it baiting the minorities every time it is in power, manifest in the tension its cadres have been fanning in India over the last five months.

In fact, it here and in comparison with BJP-RSS ideas exposing the hidden state ideals, that Congress claims to be secular and not in deeds, coercing the Muslims to support it if they want to protect themselves from BJP-RSS manipulative politics. Congress needs Muslim votes to win seats and capture state assemblies and parliament.  Threatened by the rise of aggressive Hindutva communalism, Muslims vote for Congress party most of the occasions. Supposing BJP borrows the Congress brand politics, Muslims would vote for them as well. They have to exist in India

The BJP government isn't the only one to have failed to check a riot. You can’t condone the Congress’s complicity in the 1984 riots and condemn Modi’s in 2002, the BJP argues. 

Congress party should know that the violence against Sikhs in 1984 had a telling impact on the national psyche almost at par with the Hindu-Muslim violence post-Independence.

Communal violence before India’s Independence and the bloody history of Partition have all been harnessed to stereotype the Muslims and spawn a culture of justification for perpetrating violence against the Muslims, leading to the demolition of Babri Mosque as  self serving  technique of hardcore Hindus.

Despite the unconscionable nature of the Gujarat riots, it wasn’t a shocking exception, but one more addition to the long list of the government’s culpability in the Hindu-Muslim violence. By contrast, the rioting against the Sikhs, despite the backdrop of raging Sikh militancy in Punjab and the assassination of Indira Gandhi, was unprecedented and, therefore, unbearably shocking. It also undermined the very idea of Hinduness being equivalent to Indianness, perceived as the Sikhs are, despite their own reservations, as an inextricable element of Hindu society because of common names.

The Congress is in a veritable shambles, uprooted from many states, lacking both cadres and leaders. While, Sonia can still relax, Rahul can hope to rebuild the party through practicing a style of politics which is rooted in morality. His apology for 1984 could help him to occupy the high moral ground, from where the launching of a popular movement on an issue of his choice could have greater credibility and impact.

Every December 06 and every Oct 31, the Congress-BJP duo is being justifiably reminded of its duplicitous role in encouraging Islamophobia and fomenting the riots and sabotaging the attempts to provide justice to its victims. Not only is an apology a moral imperative, this gesture might help both Congress and Rahul to resurrect themselves.  

It is India’s, Indian regime’s responsibility to bring a to the Babri issue by rebuilding it at the site and closure to 1984 riots, to ensure its ghosts don’t haunt the party. Apology is indeed an honourable method of achieving a goal. Repentance and atonement are the essential traits of human civilization, positive cultural legacy. Repentance and atonement can be sincere enough on the part of Indian government and parliament which could be  real only  when Babri Mosque is allowed to be back  on the land where it stood till 1992 as a powerful testimony of Indian secular democracy.

The Gujarat riots of 2002 are an extreme expression of the R.S. Sangh’s prejudicial politics. In contrast, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 testify to the hypocrisy of the Congress, to the betrayal of its own ideology. Today's foremost RSS ideologue Prime Minister Narendra Modi  has invented a new persona, harnessing Gujarat’s economic indices, not all of which is his doing, to project himself as Mr. Development but later it come out that it was the entire media gimmick. This has overshadowed his earlier image of resorting to communal mobilisation for electoral gains.  

Narendra Modi has rightly linked communal riots to an attack on the country’s unity and announced monetary compensation for the survivors of those who perished in the 1984 riots. Conversely, destruction of Babri Mosque also is an attack on the country’s unity. Even attacks on Muslims in Gujarat doing his rule as chief minister was also an attack on India‘s unity and integrity.

Indian government is always keen and particular about dates to embark upon new tasks. Mahatma Gandhi’s birth day on October 02, Nehru’s birthday on Nov 14 etc could suitable days Modi government can embark upon the rebuilding of Babri Mosque. BJP can even choose the birth day of their own leaders to start this important national patriotic task.