Fearful Symmetry: Hindutva Brigade on the offensive

by Chanchal Chauhan

During the election campaign Narendra Modi had assured all sections, communities and religious minorities that he would look after their well-being. While taking the oath as the Prime Minister of the country he, in the name of God, had made the similar statement. However, before taking this oath he had mixed religion with his politics by visiting temples and worshipping Hindu deities and seeking blessings from Pundits of Kashi who for him had arranged an ‘Arti’ at the bank of the Ganga, the sacred river of Hindus and that is now the most polluted river. Hindus, perhaps, may not gauge the psychological reaction of those communities and citizens of India who follow different faiths and religious practices and different cultures. Narendra Modi and his Party should never forget that it got only 31 per cent share of the total votes polled in the country and 69 per cent voters still do not favour them, and, therefore, such practices of mixing religion with politics may further alienate them and create bad feelings that may hamper the progress of our beloved country. That is why secularism has been made the strong foundation for maintaining nation’s unity in diversity.

 
These acts of showing zeal for Hindu religion have emboldened the Hindutva Brigade to terrorise those who differ with the ideology of the RSS-Shiv Sena and other communal outfits. Some of such obscurantist zealots sent threatening letters to U R Ananthamurthy, a famous Indian writer who is known for his opposition to Hindutva ideology and believes in secularism as the foundation of a modern nation state. There are thousands and thousands of intellectuals, writers, poets, novelists, cine-artistes and dramatists who do not like narrow vision of communal forces that spread hatred based on religious beliefs and cultural practices of different citizens of India. Even the Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen openly expressed his views against the ideology of the Hindutva forces.

Now the most heinous crime has been committed by the Hindutva forces in Pune where a young Muslim techie has been murdered for no fault or doing anything wrong to any one. Some body had put a remark on the Face Book criticising Bal Thackery, and the innocent Mohsin Muhammad Sadique Shaikh who had nothing to do with it was attacked and murdered. This is communal fascism and deserves condemnation from all people of India. This terrorism should not be the part of ‘NaMo model of development’ and if it is, it may lead India not to any progress or development, but to devastation, arson, murders and misery. The editorial of the Hindustan Times dated 6^th June has rightly commented on this heinous crime, ‘Narendra Modi’s campaign has been all about development and inclusiveness. Communalism has no place in today’s India and it must be nipped in the bud when it raises its head.’

It is baffling that NaMo who mocked at Manmohan Singh’s silence on various issues adopted silence on this heinous crime committed by Hindu Rashtra Sena, a Hindu communal fascist group. One may recall that in 2002 Atal Bihari, the then PM had lost no time criticising Narendra Modi for his failure in his duty, ‘Rajdharma’, now the same Narendra Modi is failing once again in his duty of Rajdharma (duty of administrator) for which he was sworn in as the PM of India. Where is gone his lion’s thunder that was heard in every house live on TV channels.

Now with clear majority in terms of numbers in the Lok Sabha, some of the BJP ministers too in NaMo’s team began to take recourse to statements that do not augur well. Dr Jitendra Singh expressed his intentions of annulling article 370 that provides special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The statement emanating from a member of the PMO team thus created fear and anger in the minds of people of Jammu and Kashmir. What was the compulsion to touch a sensitive issue that does not help any section of people of India? Will poverty of people of India be eradicated by doing so? Will all the unemployed youth get employment by this act? This type of irresponsible behaviour may help only insurgency and further alienation of Kashmiri people. Any sane person may see the repercussions of such statements.

Another Minister of NaMo team raked the issue of common civil code. One may see this issue also in the light of the same logic. Is this priority issue of a country like India? Will the common civil code be, in any way, helpful in eradicating poverty or in evolving the ‘NaMo model of development’? We can strengthen the unity of our nation by respecting the diversity. If we threaten the foundation of this unity, we will weaken our national unity. The uniform civil code may be the part of the Preamble, but it is not the priority item of the present day society. Our Constitution also says that we are a ‘socialist’ republic, will any Party including Samajwadi Party, Communist Parties and others can take steps to usher in socialism today. They cannot dare to raise even a slogan of establishing socialism that would mean end of private ownership of all property i.e. all means of production will be the property of our society. Will the big corporate houses allow such a step that may bring end to capitalism and move to set up socialism? It is just a word printed on the book known as the Constitution of India and no body is serious about it. There are many words and phrases that signify nothing and if made a law they may create more problems than they can solve.

So raising provocative issues at this time disappoints those who voted for seeing the development and better living conditions under the new regime. People expect some steps in the direction of fulfillment of the tall promises made by NaMo in every part of the country. They want to see the concrete steps for providing jobs to all, housing to all, medical facilities to all and food for all on reasonable rates. What we see happening at the level of the ministries is hardly different from the earlier regime. The new finance minister who is better half Minister for finance and rest if the half for Defence is busy in preparing the budget, but following the same procedure and same method chalked out by the international finance capital and conveyed to the FM through the RBI governor who recently met the PM and the FM as he used to do so during the earlier regime. Can the new government change the RBI governor also as they are going to change the state governors? The bosses at the World Bank and the IMF will not tolerate the removal of their man holding the reins of Indian economy that is under heavy pressure of foreign debt from the IMF and other financial institutions.

At present no fundamental change appears to be in the practice and work culture of the NaMo Ministers. Most of them are hardly aware of the work done at the level of a Ministry. NaMo could not find suitable MPs for various Ministries. The MP who could be suitable for legal affairs is forced to handle finance Ministry in the forenoon and defence Ministry in the afternoon and prepare budget at night so that no body can see who advises him.  The HRD Minister who is supposed to look after Education is under controversy over her allegedly false affidavit about her educational qualifications. One may recall that NaMo himself had submitted a similar affidavit hiding his marital status. So this may be the normal practice of the BJP culture now manifest in all spheres.