The eclipse of shining India
Straight talk is what we need rather than escapism in loops
Indian Premier Narendra Modi. PHOTO: REUTERS
“Ami, masjid torh rahein hain (Mom, they are tearing down the mosque)” was the fearful scream of a little girl to her mother during the recent turmoil in New Delhi, heard in a video clip circulated on social media; where the RSS goons are seen damaging the mosque and hoisting the saffron flag on its minaret. A lot has been written about the hate-filled Hindutva brigade of Prime Minister Modi and his RSS-laced BJP. Even the ambivalent Western press and global conscience has been unable to wish away the atrocities committed by “shining India” against its own people. People who once upon a time were mostly low-caste Hindus converted to Islam or descendants of Muslims living in India for centuries. With each passing day, the popular belief in the “Two-Nation Theory” is fortified and with each such incident, one is reminded of what a blessing Pakistan really is.
What has become of India? An India for Hindus, an India for Muslims, an India for Christians, an India for Sikhs, is fast becoming an India for Hindus only. Look at what Modi’s gang has done to the soul of India. When hate is nourished, divisions and non-common ground are cherished, history is re-written, place names are Hinduised, mosques are torn down, churches are vandalised and minorities forced to live in perpetual fear; you fall from grace, you fall from civility, and then you fall from humanity. Narendra Damodardas Modi should be congratulated for being an RSS vigilante in the Prime Minister House of a once vibrant, mostly tolerant and cosmopolitan country, which was India.
Straight talk is what we need rather than escapism in loops. It is under the care of Hindutva-inspired BJP that a young Muslim had 400 stabbing marks on his body. His eyes were gouged out. His corpse thrown in a drain. Just imagine the hate by his detractors and their psychopathic orientation. The poor lad was stabbed 400 hundred times by knife. Citizens of India, under Modi’s watch, are being burnt alive, lynched and killed with abandon… for the only reason that they are not Hindus. The police and state machinery are not silent spectators; they are accomplices, in and out. If the above are not crimes against humanity — after the systematic Muslim genocide in Gujarat with Modi as the then chief minister — what are they?
The largest state in India, Uttar Pradesh (UP), is ruled by an RSS activist, Yogi Adityanath, in saffron robes, whose hate against minorities especially Muslims knows no bounds and he prides himself in showing it off. The free and independent Indian press is mostly silenced today. The judiciary is afraid to give conscience-based constitutional verdicts. The state under BJP is bent upon implementing its bigoted and racist policies with glee and without restraint. The intelligentsia is muzzled with a whimper. And even the once secular Indian Armed Forces, under the brand new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, are justifying state policies rather than providing saner advice to save the federation and the system that was ostensibly the bedrock of shining India. Such unravelling is unprecedented and Indians with a conscience like the longtime prime minister, Manmohan Singh, lament the loss of India as was known to them.
This is the beginning of the end for the secular and tolerant India that now only shines in the dreams of its miniscule and mostly silenced liberal cadre. The forces of hate and intolerance unleashed by Prime Minister Modi and his cabal will not stop here. Today these forces brutalise Muslims, tomorrow it would be the turn of other minorities, till the last non-Hindu is killed or converted. All this, apparently is not being done discreetly as BJP wants to convert India into a Hindu state in an open and brazen manifestation of Hindutva — its hate-laden rallying ideology. It would not stop — as it was never meant to — under Modi, Amit Shah and the other leaders of BJP and RSS combined. They have been preparing for this systematically for decades and patiently waiting for this to happen. This is their rendezvous with history.
It is hard to imagine life in locked-up Kashmir and across the breadth and width of India, if you are a Muslim. The discrimination on a daily basis; the fear of losing your life, property and most importantly, your honour on the flimsiest grounds; the horrors of being lynched by a mob on any engineered pretext; and the constant accusation challenging your Indian-ness are the hard ground realities of contemporary India. RSS will get you, wherever you are, whoever you are, regardless of how deeply you are rooted in secular India. It is life under the rule of vigilantes — roused by fake news — running amok under the security forces even for the rich and famous Indian Muslims. The Bollywood Khan Club has been accused of silence. They cannot speak. Mostly married to Hindus, they just cannot air what their conscience feels. In the cut-throat competitive world of Bollywood, there are forces lurking in the shadows ready to replace them, if they do. The RSS dominance is complete and the silence deafening.
It is hard to fathom how India got here; why it is all happening at this time of global liberalism, openness and egalitarianism, and where will this tide of xenophobia and fascism take India? Prime Minister Modi is not concerned. After releasing the genie of hatred and revulsion all across India, either he does not care or he has no idea about what this means for the world in the 21st century, and not just India. By inciting hatred at this scale, he needs to be reminded of the carnage of the Partition alone. In today’s connected world, the ramifications for Hindus could be far and wide and not confined to India. Hatred is blind and bigotry has no brains. There are innocent Hindus living in other countries, equally vulnerable to reprisals just like the reciprocal violence of Partition.
India has changed forever. The more intolerant it becomes, the more fissures it endures. In 1947, it was Pakistan alone that separated; in 1971 it was Bangladesh that India tore from Pakistan. Who knows where this wave of prejudice and hyper-nationalism will take shining India, whose shine is now eclipsed. Politicians are known to play dangerous games, but this one is too dangerous for India, the region and the world, which need to take notice and put Modi on notice.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 12th, 2020.
What has become of India? An India for Hindus, an India for Muslims, an India for Christians, an India for Sikhs, is fast becoming an India for Hindus only. Look at what Modi’s gang has done to the soul of India. When hate is nourished, divisions and non-common ground are cherished, history is re-written, place names are Hinduised, mosques are torn down, churches are vandalised and minorities forced to live in perpetual fear; you fall from grace, you fall from civility, and then you fall from humanity. Narendra Damodardas Modi should be congratulated for being an RSS vigilante in the Prime Minister House of a once vibrant, mostly tolerant and cosmopolitan country, which was India.
Straight talk is what we need rather than escapism in loops. It is under the care of Hindutva-inspired BJP that a young Muslim had 400 stabbing marks on his body. His eyes were gouged out. His corpse thrown in a drain. Just imagine the hate by his detractors and their psychopathic orientation. The poor lad was stabbed 400 hundred times by knife. Citizens of India, under Modi’s watch, are being burnt alive, lynched and killed with abandon… for the only reason that they are not Hindus. The police and state machinery are not silent spectators; they are accomplices, in and out. If the above are not crimes against humanity — after the systematic Muslim genocide in Gujarat with Modi as the then chief minister — what are they?
The largest state in India, Uttar Pradesh (UP), is ruled by an RSS activist, Yogi Adityanath, in saffron robes, whose hate against minorities especially Muslims knows no bounds and he prides himself in showing it off. The free and independent Indian press is mostly silenced today. The judiciary is afraid to give conscience-based constitutional verdicts. The state under BJP is bent upon implementing its bigoted and racist policies with glee and without restraint. The intelligentsia is muzzled with a whimper. And even the once secular Indian Armed Forces, under the brand new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, are justifying state policies rather than providing saner advice to save the federation and the system that was ostensibly the bedrock of shining India. Such unravelling is unprecedented and Indians with a conscience like the longtime prime minister, Manmohan Singh, lament the loss of India as was known to them.
This is the beginning of the end for the secular and tolerant India that now only shines in the dreams of its miniscule and mostly silenced liberal cadre. The forces of hate and intolerance unleashed by Prime Minister Modi and his cabal will not stop here. Today these forces brutalise Muslims, tomorrow it would be the turn of other minorities, till the last non-Hindu is killed or converted. All this, apparently is not being done discreetly as BJP wants to convert India into a Hindu state in an open and brazen manifestation of Hindutva — its hate-laden rallying ideology. It would not stop — as it was never meant to — under Modi, Amit Shah and the other leaders of BJP and RSS combined. They have been preparing for this systematically for decades and patiently waiting for this to happen. This is their rendezvous with history.
It is hard to imagine life in locked-up Kashmir and across the breadth and width of India, if you are a Muslim. The discrimination on a daily basis; the fear of losing your life, property and most importantly, your honour on the flimsiest grounds; the horrors of being lynched by a mob on any engineered pretext; and the constant accusation challenging your Indian-ness are the hard ground realities of contemporary India. RSS will get you, wherever you are, whoever you are, regardless of how deeply you are rooted in secular India. It is life under the rule of vigilantes — roused by fake news — running amok under the security forces even for the rich and famous Indian Muslims. The Bollywood Khan Club has been accused of silence. They cannot speak. Mostly married to Hindus, they just cannot air what their conscience feels. In the cut-throat competitive world of Bollywood, there are forces lurking in the shadows ready to replace them, if they do. The RSS dominance is complete and the silence deafening.
It is hard to fathom how India got here; why it is all happening at this time of global liberalism, openness and egalitarianism, and where will this tide of xenophobia and fascism take India? Prime Minister Modi is not concerned. After releasing the genie of hatred and revulsion all across India, either he does not care or he has no idea about what this means for the world in the 21st century, and not just India. By inciting hatred at this scale, he needs to be reminded of the carnage of the Partition alone. In today’s connected world, the ramifications for Hindus could be far and wide and not confined to India. Hatred is blind and bigotry has no brains. There are innocent Hindus living in other countries, equally vulnerable to reprisals just like the reciprocal violence of Partition.
India has changed forever. The more intolerant it becomes, the more fissures it endures. In 1947, it was Pakistan alone that separated; in 1971 it was Bangladesh that India tore from Pakistan. Who knows where this wave of prejudice and hyper-nationalism will take shining India, whose shine is now eclipsed. Politicians are known to play dangerous games, but this one is too dangerous for India, the region and the world, which need to take notice and put Modi on notice.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 12th, 2020.