The Door to a Theocratic Dictatorship
Demands for forced sterilizations and disenfranchisement of Christians and
Muslims would be unacceptable even in Rajrajya
JOHN DAYAL
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Mahtma was clear, if perhaps a
little defensive, when explaining a
phrase he so loved. “By Ramrajya, I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Ramarajya
Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God. For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same
deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of truth and righteousness. Whether
Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth, the ancient ideal of
Ramarajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen
could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure. Even
the dog is described by the poet to have received justice under Ramarajya. (YI,
19-9-1929, p. 305)”. Gandhi was shot dead by a man, in conspiracy with other
men of his political group who thought Gandhi was a bit too generous with
Muslims.
One went through the Hindu Rashtra Darshan of V D Savarkar to find
out what he had to say on the rights of citizens in a nation founded on the
principles of the Hindu deity’s kingdom. Savarkar, is deified himself by
proponents of religious nationalism, hailed as one of the greatest of freedom
fighters and given the honorific Veer. Even Bhagat Singh is just called
Shaheed-e-Azam. His detractors, mostly
not in political power in th present times, routinely remind us of his many
gratuitous and groveling letters to the British rulers seeking forgiveness,
swearing loyalty, and pleading release from incarceration.
One learnt many things from a reading of Hindu Rashtra Darshan,
though expectedly one did not find a definition of Hindu Rashtra that would
stand the a universal test of a modern nation. But even Mr. Savarkar, now
placed in the sanctum sanctorum, offers a semblance of equality to all humans
in his Rashtra, other than Muslims of course, for that would puncture his entire
thesis. Says Savarkar: “The Hindustan Sanghastanists Party aims to base the
future constitution of Hindusthan on the broad principle that all citizens
should have equal rights and obligations irrespective of caste and creed, race or religion,
provided hey avow and owe an exclusive
and devoted allegiance to the Hindustani state...whatever restrictions will be in the interest of of the public peace
and order of National emergency and will not be based on any religious or
racial considerations, but on common National Grounds.’ Savarkar did ruin this republican and
democratic promise with his exhortation to Christians, Sikhs and other
religious groups to side with Hindus against Muslims in the political discourse
of the times, but that one points out just to put the Rashtra Darshan in
perspective.
It was therefore with growing trepidation overtaking one’s
academic and professional curiosity that one read, and saw on Television news
channels and on YouTube, the various statements by bright young and middle-aged
luminaries of the Sangh Parivar that owes so much to Mr. Savarkar and his
fascination with some west European theses of resolving competing
identities.
They were openly very hostile to Muslims, which ifor Islamophobia
has a long and hoary tradition in India dating back, in political expression,
to some of the early 20th century leaders of the Indian National
Congress who befriended Gandhi when he first landed in Mumbai from South
Africa. Mr. Savarkar, and later Mr. Golwalkar, just distilled it, wedded it to
a Golden Age and purity, presenting it as Religious Nationalism.
It was not even lumping together of Christians with Muslims,
something that even some Christians have never thought about generally in
political, social and constitutional discourse within the community,
particularly on issues of the Dalit question, or in making common cause on
several other issues. The Sangh had a living and active history of dislike of Christians
despite Mr. Savarkar approving of the community’s peaceful coexistence,
specially in south India, with the Hindu community. It is not just identifying
the community – barring the Syrian Christians of the Kerala coastal land strip
– with the Portuguese “invasion” and the British Raj, or the Anglo-Indians, or
thinking of them as “collaborators” with the foreigners in the Freedom
struggle. Christian historians and
church luminaries while thumping their chests at the number of schools,
colleges and hospitals they founded, have never really tried to assert their
presence in the social and political dynamics of the country, thereby giving a
fillip to the Sangh argument.
But the biggest weapon in the armory of the Sangh Parivar is the
thousands of words they can sieve out of the collected works of Mahatma Gandhi
and Babasaheb Ambedkar critiquing, criticizing, condemning and mocking
“missionaries” even as they, at least on record, professed their admiration for
Jesus Christ.
What worried one were two issues which have nothing to do with
issues of Faith, philosophy, or even of ideology as one would think in the
context of say, the Communist Parties, the Dravida Parties, and even a
theocratic party such as the Akali Dal in the Punjab. These were the issues of,
first, advocating forcible sterilization of Muslims and Christians to reduce
their population to reduce demographic threat to Hindus, and second, to disenfranchise
them to eliminate their political presence in the country.
Both are grave issues, and one is surprised the Prime Minister,
Mr. Narendra Modi, has not found it fit to denounce this in his many electoral-sounding
speeches abroad, though he did abuse
perhaps with basis the earlier Congress government led by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh, of all sorts of evil doings.
Perhaps his hand-picked staff did not tell him what was happening back home.
Both issues go far beyond
mere violence, hate campaigns, Ghar Wapsi, desecration of churches [and the St.
Mary’s church at Agra was vandalized and statues broken while Mr. Modi was in
Canada].
The argument of disenfranchisement of religious minorities
questions the foundations of independent India, the validity of the Constitution
and its assurances of citizenship and the rights and duties that derive from
it, and India’s adherence to th Charter
of the United Nations on whose Security Council it so desperately seeks a
Permanent Seat.
The call for forcible sterilizations of Christian and Muslim men
and women, presumably in the reproductive age though that is no guaranteed zone,
may be born out of a demographic paranoia of being overtaken by alien hordes,
but is firmly rooted in historic roots of euthanasia, eugenics and :final
solutions” that have, in the past, brought about such tragedy on the global
scale, and not just by the Nazis led by Reichsfuhrer Adolf Hitler. No one has
yet recommended abortions of second and third pregnancies before sterilization,
but that is a matter of time.
Just to recall some of the more pungent bits from their present
day followers as reported in the media: The vice-president of the All
India Hindu Mahasabha party, Sadhvi Deva Thakur, was filmed saying that
"the population of Muslims and Christians is growing day by day". She
called for the imposition of a state of emergency, saying: "Muslims and
Christians will have to be forced to undergo sterilization so that they cannot
increase their number. She also exhorted Hindus to "have more children and
increase their population", adding that "idols of Hindu gods and
goddesses should be placed in mosques and churches".
According to the mass-circulated Hindustan Times, the Shiv Sena claimed the growing population of Muslims and
Christians would have ramifications for India and urged Muslim leaders to
promote family planning within the minority community. The Sena’s stance,
outlined in an editorial in its mouthpiece “Saamna”, came just three days after
party leader Sanjay Raut said the voting rights of Muslims should be revoked
for some years to ensure the community is not used for vote bank politics. “India
is facing the problem of population explosion. The population of Muslims in
India is going to be more than Pakistan or Indonesia. This will hurt the
culture and social fabric of a Hindu nation,” the editorial contended.
The Sena also came out in support of Hindu Mahasabha leader
Sadhvi Deva Thakur, who recently said Muslims and Christians should be forcibly
sterilized because their growing numbers posed a danger to Hindus. “The furore
raised following her statement was unnecessary. She used the word sterilization
instead of family planning. But the truth is that the growing population is a
problem and family planning is needed," the editorial said. The editorial contended that family planning
and population control were one and the same thing. "When we raise the
demand for performing 'nasbandi' -- sorry, family planning -- it is in the best
interests of the country and the Muslim community... With family planning, they
will be able to feed and educate the children and live better lives..."
the Sena said. The editorial claimed that if
the Muslim population continued to grow, it might lead to the formation of a
“new Pakistan” that will not be able to provide a healthy, disease-free
lifestyle for Muslims.
In Haridwar, meanwhile, BJP Member of Parliament and their lead
speaker in debates on secularism, Yogi
Adityanath called for barring non-Hindus in Har Ki Pauri, a famous ghat along
the banks of the Ganga in Haridwar. “Non-Hindus should be prohibited from
visiting Hari Ki Pauri. It is necessary both from the point of view of
religion and the security of the ghat,” Adityanath said addressing a
felicitation ceremony organized by the Panchayati Akhara Udaseen (Naya). One of
the most popular tourist spots in Uttarakhand, Har Ki Pauri is visited by
people from across the country throughout the year, especially on auspicious
occasions, to take a holy dip in the Ganga. Adityanath is also a leader of the
Ghar Wapsi campaign.
Memories of the State of Emergency, imposed by the then Prime Minister,
Mrs. Indira Gandhi from mid 1975 to
early 1977, remain forever fresh in community memory. Mrs. Gandhi’s younger
son, Mr. Sanjay Gandhi – whose wife and son are pillars now of the BJP, the first
a cabinet minister in Mr. Modi’s government – masterminded mass demolitions in
various metropolitan towns, specially the national capital, Delhi. He is
equally remembered for triggering mass and forcible sterilization of men and
women to contain the population, in general, and going by many accounts, the
population of Muslims in North India as a special focus. There were police
firings and many deaths in several towns and villages when the local people
resisted, according to contemporary accounts.
More recently, the notorious government of the state of Chhattisgarh
was in focus because of botched surgeries in mass sterilization campaigns of
Tribals and Dalit women in its move to curb their population. The fear is yet
to die out in the interior areas of that state which is rapidly losing its Tribal character.
Changing or modifying demographic patterns by such drastic means
are born of a politics rooted in paranoia of other communities deemed to be
alien or hostile. Muslims have long been classified as such in the right wing political
discourse. Now, Christians are firmly in that bracket.
But this fear of Hindus being overwhelmed by Muslims is not
based on statistical reality. The Christians remain a mere 2.3 percent of the
population, coagulated in just some regions and very thinly spread out
elsewhere so that they are almost irrelevant in political reckoning. Their
presence in three north eastern states – Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland – has
been touted as a threat to national integrity, but that is
generally treated as an index of the lunacy of the right wing in the country.
The Muslim population – once the target of jibes from the then
Chief minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi himself for allegedly taking four wives to
produce 20 children in that infamous slogan Hum Panch, Hamare Pachchis – has
according to the Indian census started shrinking with its rate of growth far
less than in earlier decades, though still higher than the national average.
The US-based PEW international survey of religions say that while Islam may by
2070 just edge out Christianity as the world’s leading faith population,
Hinduism will maintain its hegemony in India. It will in fact grow as a
percentage term and in absolute numbers both in Western Europe and the United
States, but also in other places such as the countries in the Pacific and
Indian oceans and in the Caribbean.
Voices in civil society have sought to question this deviation
from the Constitution which brooks no second-class citizenship for Christians
and Muslims, or for that matter, for Sikhs and Buddhists, Jains and Baha’is.
But it suits the Sangh Parivar and Mr. Modi’s BJP to keep the
cauldron of mutual suspicion between communities and an escalating hate boiling
in the pursuit of absolute, and presumably perpetual, political power.
One is therefore not surprised at Mr. Modi’s silence on this.
One is indeed surprised that neither the Supreme Court and the respective High Courts,
nor the Election Commission have taken cognizance of these statements, which would not have been tolerated
if they had been made by mortals lesser
than this luminaries of the Sangh.
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