Modi’s
300 days
Hate,
persecution and Impunity
JOHN
DAYAL
The
Bharatiya Janata Party Government of Mr. Narendra Modi, it is becoming
increasingly clear, intends to remain focused on expanding the national
penetration of the religious nationalism
ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak sangh, whose cadres and polarising hate campaigns against
Muslims and Christians brought it to power ten months ago. Its secondary
objective is to try to keep alive the
flow of foreign investments and the Indian corporate sector, even if it means
whittling away whatever safeguards there are
to protect the environment, land and forest rights and basic
constitutional rights of association
such as trade unions.
Since May
2014, there has been a marked shift in public discourse.
The 300 days have seen an assault on democratic structures,
the education and knowledge system,
Human Rights organisations and Rights Defenders and coercive action using the
Intelligence Bureau and the systems if
the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act and the Passport laws to crack down on
NGOs working in areas of empowerment of
the marginalised sections of society, including Dalits, Tribals, Fishermen and
women, and issues of environment, climate, forests, land and water rights.
Environmental
norms have been diminished to an extent that now they will be almost non
existent, threatening the environment and the climate. Land acquisition laws
are being changed to benefit crony capital.
The
immediate focus is on the threat to secularism, which underpins India’s modern
existence as a country.
Despite a
tongue lashing by President Pranab
Mukherjee on Republic Day and repeated assertions of freedom of faith by Vice
President Hamid Ansari – not counting the naming and shaming done by visiting
United States President Barack Obama – the government has learnt little. Mr
Modi, at a public function called by the Syro Malabar Catholic church, spoke of security of minorities, but failed
to name the Sangh parivar as the spruce of much violence. In fact, he put the
aggressors and the victims on the same platform.
His
Home minister, Mr Rajnath Singh, a former president of the BJP and like Mr
Modi, a lifelong member of the RSS, has been transparent in announcing his
sympathies. He has called for a national ban on conversions, a national ban on
beef, total opposition for scheduled
caste rights for Dalit Christians and Muslims. And he too has hedged in saying he will punish the spewing of hate and
coercion.
This
official patronage and impetus given to
the divisive and corrosive politics of
the Sangh Parivar in the 300 days of the government of Mr. Narendra Modi has
further endangered the security of
religious minorities, assaulted national institutions and the education system.
Mr. Modi came into office riding a promise of development, his election
campaign fuelled by unbridled hate
against Muslims and Christians.
Development remains a mirage, but the hate has fuelled violence across
the country.
A civil
society report “300 Days –Documenting Sangh Hate and Communal Violence Under
the Narendra Modi Regime” lists least 43 deaths, Muslim and Christian, in over
600 cases of violence, 168 targeting Christians and the rest Muslims. The
number of dead is other than the 108 killed in Assam in attacks by armed tribal
political groups on Muslims. Desecration
and destruction of churches, assault on pastors, illegal police detention of
church workers, and denial of Constitutional rights of Freedom of Faith
aggravate the coercion and terror
unleashed in campaigns of Ghar Wapsi and cries of Love Jihad.
An analysis
of the Christian data alone shows Chhattisgarh topping the list with 28
incidents of crime, followed closely by
neighbouring Madhya Pradesh with 26, Uttar Pradesh with 18 and Telengana, a newly carved out of Andhra Pradesh, with 15 incidents. Of the deaths in communally targeted
violence, two were killed in Orissa and
Telengana, 8 in Gujarat, 12 in
Maharashtra, 6 in Karnataka and 25 in Uttar Pradesh. Apart from these, 108
people were killed in Assam in attacks by Bodo militant groups. The violence
peaked between August and October with 56 cases, before zooming up to 25 cases
during the Christmas season, including
the burning of the Catholic church of St Sebastian in Dilshad garden in
the national capital of New Delhi.
Much of the
violence, 54 percent, is of threats,
intimidation, coercion, often with the police looking on. Physical violence
constituted a quarter of all cases, 24 per cent], and violence against
Christian women, a trend that is increasingly being seen since the carnage in
Kandhamal, Odisha, in 2007 and 2008, was
11 per cent. Breaking of statues and the Cross and other acts of desecration were recorded in about 8 per cent of the
cases, but many more were also consequent to other forms of violence against
institutions.
A
disturbing trend is the rising communal
violence in West Bengal where the BJP
and the RSS have redoubled their efforts to fill what they see is a political
vacancy following the decline of the Communist Party of India Marxist and the
Congress party in recent times. The violence has peaked in the gang rape of a
72 year old Nun in a convent and school
in West Bengal. The official apparatus is now busy trying to prove to the world
that it is just another crime, committed by foreigners or professional
criminals.
There has
been a relentless foregrounding of communal identities, a ceaseless attempt to
create a divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The BJP leaders guaranteed to abuse,
ridicule and threaten minorities. Hate statements by Union and state ministers,
threats by Members of Parliament, state politicians, and cadres in saffron caps
or Khaki shorts resonate through the landscape. But most cases go unreported,
unrecorded by police.
The Prime
Minister refuses to reprimand his Cabinet colleagues, restrain the members of
his party members or silence the Sangh Parivar which claims to have propelled
him to power in New Delhi. Mr. Modi calls for a ten-year moratorium on communal
and caste violence. His government soon declares Christmas to be a “Good
Governance Day” in honour of the BJP
leader and former Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee. There are fears at
a severe whittling down of the 15 Point Programme for Minorities, a lifeline
for many severely economic backward communities, and specially their youth
seeking higher education and professional training.
Mr. Modi’s
“assurance” to religious minorities is challenged and countered by Mr. Mohan
Bhagwat, the head of the powerful Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, who asserts,
repeatedly, that every Indian is a Hindu, and minorities will have to learn
their place in the country. Speaking at the 50th Anniversary of foundation of its religious wing,
Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Mr. Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS Sarsanghchalak bluntly stated
that “Hindutva is the identity of India and it has the capacity to swallow
other identities. We just need to restore those capacities.” In
Cuttack, he asserted that India is a Hindu state and "citizens of
Hindustan should be known as Hindus".
Sadhvi Prachi, a central minister, Members of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj
and Adityanath are among those urging measures to check Muslims, including
encouraging Hindu women to have from four to ten children each. In Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and other states, the terror, physical
violence and social ostracising of Dalit and Tribal Christians, in particular,
continues.
But
India was not meant to be, and cannot
be, a homogenised nation-state, the sort of “one nation, one people, one
culture” that the Sangh parivar speaks about.
A common allegiance to the Constitution and its guarantees of religious
and cultural freedom is the basic ingredient for lasting peace, and therefore
an environment in which all communities can prosper.
The
government and state structures must
communicate with religious, ethnic and cultural minorities, address their fears
of threats to their identity and security and economic progress.
And
the Hindu majority community should not have any fear of a demographic threat
from Muslims and Christians. That is the sort of paranoia that religious
nationalism and its proponents seek to propagate for their ulterior ends. As
the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, which has set up a helpline for
Christians in distress or facing violence, says: “We love India. It is our motherland. All we
seek are rights of a citizen of India, including those of security, expression, association
and Faith.” Hopefully, Mr. Modi is listening. Even if Mr Rajnath Singh, Mr.
Mohan Bhagwat and sundry Sadhvis and Sants, in government, the BJP, or elsewhere, are not.
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