2014-05-19

By Ab. Qayoom Khan
                           
“A civilization can be judged by the way it treats its minorities.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

India, the world’s largest democracy, was recently in the midst of parliamentary elections, which finally culminated in the historic, landslide win of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The issues of Religion, Regionalism, Caste, Corruption and Development dominated the political spectrum.

Narendra Modi, 63, a pro business Hindu Nationalist, who will now become India’s next Prime Minister, has once again divided India on the basis of religion. What does the rise of Modi represent and if he becomes Prime Minister, what kind of India do we get ?.

Most of the Hindus in the Hindi heartland, feel that only Modi can “save” India, that Modi is the only decisive, effective, clean, visionary and astute leader in the country, who can carry out the Hindutva agenda. How has he earned today’s most popular election slogan “AB KI BAAR MODI SARKAR”. As staunch believer of R.S.S ideology, the tone and tenor of Modi’s public campaign from inception of his political carrier had overtone of bias against Indian Muslim. In the present parliamentary elections, Hindu-Muslim divide has taken centrestage in the poll discourse. First there was Bihar’s BJP candidate Giriraj Singh who was categorical that those oppose Narendra Modi “will have only place in Pakistan”. Seen as warning to Muslims, this was followed by Vishva Hindu Parishad President Pravin Togadia, who too said “the Muslims should be stopped from buying property in Hindu majority areas”. When Amit Shah a close associate of Modi, in Muzaffar Nagar made his remarks about taking “revenge” through ballot, it was clearly aimed to further deepen the Hindu – Muslim divide. Narendra Modi claiming to have “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” did not then uttered a word on these statements.

Even Modi himself as chief minister of Gujarat is not without blemish. In the days  following burning of train near Godhra, Gujarat in 2002, according to eye witness news reports, Muslim children were forced to drink gasoline and then set on fire. Muslim infants were speared, held aloft, and thrown into bonfires. Muslim women and girls were gang-raped. The bellies of pregnant Muslim women were slit open and their fetuses thrown into the streets. Hindu mobs barricaded and flooded Muslim homes and electrocuted the families inside. While this violence was convulsing Gujarat, Modi was, at best, doing nothing to stop it, rather having allegedly encouraged the rioters through state administration. Modi has never directly expressed his regret for the 2002 Gujarat violence. In fact, the closest Modi has come to such an expression was in a Reuters interview in 2013, in which he compared his feelings to those of a driver involved in an accident: “…… if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is ”. Such a statement is needlessly callous, if not darkly revealing of the smallness of Modi’s politics. Such a failure of moral character and political ethics is incompatible with India’s secular constitution, which claims to be based on pluralistic characteristics.

In the given scenario Muslims of India seemed to have voted against Modi and they have every reason to express their dissent for Modi becoming the country’s prime minister and presiding over the largest democracy of the world. They feel there is every danger that a Modi-led government shall be marked centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent social economic contracts suppression of officer over terror and with a policy belligerent nationalism. India claims to be a secular state, which means equal treatment of all religions by the state. The First fundamental right of Constitution of India  guarantees right to equality, and prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion , race and cast. The constitutional morality of democratic society also establishes limits for tolerance, pluralism and freedom to dissent. In a constitutional democracy each individual is guaranteed the legal freedom to also challenge its fundamental principles. However, while the constitution defends the right to dissent, citizens and society must be able to and capable of developing civil sentiments that do not destroy the social fabric. Moral limitations of individual freedom and tolerance guaranteed by the democratic constitution are, or should be, intrinsic to the ethos pervading democracy itself. Human societies are held together by something more than convenience, calculation or the threat of punishment. There is certainly something in a state’s constitution, especially in democratic states, that is permanent, never to be questioned, and that political institutions must protect and preserve. A democratic constitution is in fact far more than a writing on a piece of paper. It envisages cultural and moral loyalty to certain values and explicit commitment to the basic ideals i.e that the law of the state incorporates.  In political systems, dissent is formally expressed by way of opposition politics. While politically repressive regimes may prohibit any form of dissent, leading to suppression of dissent and the encouragement of social or political activism. Individuals who do not conform or support the policies of certain political parties  or persons are known as “dissidents”. And they can not be dubbed as anti national. Human history tells us that when dissent is eliminated, the most regressive forms of government are allowed to arise.

Politics in India may soon settle down into a game of power at the top, with the media conditioning the public attitudes to which the politicians adjust their ‘images’.  It seems probably that Indian Muslims can do nothing to prevent Modi’s election to the post of prime minister. But perhaps it is not too little to keep before us this biased political history of the man who will preside over the largest democracy in the world.                  

Such insistent memory may prove the strongest bulwark against the recurrence of state-sanctioned violence in India during Modi’s likely tenure as prime minister, and our only way of redeeming the unprecedented act of democracy currently underway in India. As the fascism rises, establishes itself and consolidates its hold through the structures and systems of democracy, India may celebrate the victory of majoritarianism but it need to remain worried about Integrity of India which has been put to a great risk. If Modi trumps, 180 million Indian Muslims, who for last six decades are living a life of fear and  subjugation need to standup united and refuse to live as a silent minority.  In these challenging and oppressive times, we do not need more people asking fewer questions, but rather fewer people asking no questions.
We need to take to heart Albert Einstein’s admonition that “if I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity.”

And we must never plead guilty to complicity by silence.

(The views of the author are personal)    
                                                          
[Ab Qayoom Khan, (IFS) Rtd., is Member of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, New Delhi. He can be contacted at qayoomkhansnn@yahoo.co.in]

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