#irfan engineer

by Irfan Engineer

Ashutosh Varshney in his article in Indian Express (Modi the Moderate) writes that “Modi may not have Vajpayee’s style but, substantively, his campaign over the last few months shows roughly similar traits.” Varshney gives instances of Modi paying tribute to Maulana Azad in one of his election speeches; stitching alliances with the dalit parties, including with those who fought against him and finally, Modi pointed out in one of election speeches that Haj quota from Gujarat was full whereas quotas from Bihar and UP could not be filled as Muslims were backward as compared to Gujarat. In all the three instances cited, Varshney claims that Modi’s campaign has departed wholly or very substantially from the tenets of Hindu nationalism. There are two issues here – whether the three instances cited amounts to departing from Hindu nationalist position; and second, if it does, is it merely an election strategy or a substantial ideological repositioning on part of Modi?

A section of liberals hope that responsibility of governing a nation as diverse as India would require the Hindu nationalist party to moderate its stand and politically shift towards the centre without which it cannot be governed. Varshney implies that compulsions of running a coalition government moderated Vajpayee and the BJP. However, others debunk such hopes as Hindu nationalists’ approach towards state is instrumentalist – using the state apparatus to reconstitute and re-imagine India and the Hindus as a homogenous nation, gradually obliterating the cultural diversity and liberal democratic values and in the process reconstitute the state itself as an authoritarian-cultural state – Hindu Rashtra. To achieve the goal of homogeneity in a highly diverse society with entrenched caste hierarchies; religious, ethnic, linguistic and regional diversities, it is necessary to reconstruct and inculcate and foster common cultural patterns within the populace and reshape attitudes and inculcate conformist behaviour using educational institutions, mass media and bureaucracy, particularly security forces. State power enables to wield substantial influence over all the three sectors.

Media and Educational institutions are used as soft power to achieve the objective of progressive homogenisation or cultural assimilation. Intolerance of diversity and use (or rather misuse) of security forces and authoritarian non-state actors to attack manifestations of diversity constitutes hard power. Minorities being most vulnerable get attacked more violently and frequently as they are most likely to resist homogenization on the turf of family laws, their dietary habits, celebrations of their religious festivals, etc. Diversity located within the religious minorities is problematized as instance of existence of separatist mentality within them posing a security threat to the “Hindu nation”. The soft power (media and educational institutions) and hard power (security forces and the bureaucracy) is further deployed to stigmatize the minorities as baby boomers, illegal immigrants (or rather, infiltrators) from Bangladesh, terrorists, temple demolishers and Hindu culture destroyers while Muslim rulers ruled India and coercive religious converters. Through soft power and hard power, they also try to legitimize the idea of seeking revenge from the present generation for the alleged misconducts of the past generation of the religious minorities.

However, it is not only the religious minorities that resist homogenization. Resistance to homogenisation can be located in various sections, including among people belonging to lower and middle castes, people from backward and marginalized regions, women, adivasis, sexual minorities, and other dissenting sections.

Vajpayee’s political compulsions:

Due to coalition compulsions, during Vajpayee’s regime, the BJP thought it best not to take up some issues on which the Hindu nationalists are usually vocal like the uniform civil code and construction of Ramjanmabhoomi temple in place of demolished Babri Masjid and repeal of Article 370 of the Constitution which gives some degree of autonomy to J & K State. Not pursuing these divisive agendas was not out of change of their political programme but because they did not have the necessary numbers in the Parliament to push them. Yet they used the state to pursue their progressive homogenization project.

Murli Manohar Joshi as the HRD minister appointed J S Rajput as Director of NCERT who withdrew History books written by eminent Historians and communalized the History books, appointed Hindu nationalist cadres in various posts and distributed grants accordingly. MM Joshi introduced astrology as a subject at university level and a course to train Hindu priests. Gujarat (and Rajasthan when Vasundhara Raje was in power in her first term as a CM) text books eulogized the efficiency of Hitler’s government without mentioning about the pogrom against the Jews. It is during Vajpayee’s regime that the 2002 Gujarat riots were executed and the “liberal” Vajpayee echoed Narendra Modi’s action-reaction explanation of riots by posing the question, ‘but who burnt the s-6 compartment of Sabarmati Express in Godhra?’

It is during Vajpayee’s regime that attacks on Christians were mounted on a large scale since the year 1998, including in the Dangs District of Gujarat and in Jhabua Dist (Madhya Pradesh). The response was not succour and compensation to the survivors of the attack, nor bringing the guilty to justice, but Vajpayee demanding that there should be a debate on conversions. The Hindu nationalist cadres receive shot in the arm when BJP is in power, they are patronised by those in power and state resources are made available to them. They become bolder and less accountable to law. The attack on Prof. SS Thakur in Khandwa alleged by ABVP cadres, the former ABVP activist from Indore - Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s alleged involvement in planting bombs in Malegaon in 2008 and many other places, are a few examples. Getting Hindu nationalists recruited into the bureaucracy and giving them strategic postings to carry on with their agenda through the state machinery is another activity that goes on even when they cannot pursue their core agenda.

Departing from the tenets of Hindu nationalism?

After a series of election petitions before Bombay High Court which successfully challenged the election of Shiv Sena and BJP MLAs for canvassing for votes in the name of their religion and promoting ill-will animosity or hatred. These challenges were to elections held in 1995 for Maharashtra Assembly. After these challenges, the communal parties stopped publicly canvassing for votes in the name of religion or propagating hatred, ill-will or animosity through any means. No party should be judged for its communal agenda based only on election time propaganda. But their communal message is coded. The candidates, their election agents and political parties appear secular publicly. However, other organizations associated with communal parties rake up communally polarizing issues. Amit Shah was sent to UP as in-charge of the BJP. He visited Ayodhya Ramjanmabhoomi temple for media purposes and through media he conveyed to the people that he prayed for a grand Ramjanmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya. VHP then wanted to undertake chauryasikosi parikrama for politically polarizing UP. When that failed, Jat Mahapanchayat was organized and communal riots were fomented. Modi did not condemn any of these and his man Friday was directly associated with them. Can we still say that Modi has departed from the tenets of Hindu nationalism? Modi himself answered the questions by saying that he was born Hindu and he is a nationalist (and therefore a Hindu nationalist). If the appeal of Hindu nationalism was sufficient to bring BJP to power, the party would have only banked on its ideological appeal. Hindu nationalism is BJP’s core ideology and it deploys the ideology to galvanize its cadres and to appeal to the limited constituency which gets mobilized based on the ideology. BJP, as do other front organizations of the RSS, constantly work to increase the constituency and expand its influence. However, during elections it is compelled to go beyond this limited constituency and without departing, mobilize others on anti-Congressism, posturing and muscle flexing against Pakistan, and campaign on development to attract 35% young voters.

Anti-Congressism of BJP is not premised to deepen democracy and democratic institutions and increase accountability of the state. Anti-Congressism of the BJP is premised on two aspects - Italian origin of its President (constant attack on the first family of the Party on account of its charismatic appeal to the Party members) and for inclusive (though not inclusive enough) programmes for minorities, which it chooses to call minority appeasement. Anti-Congressism of the BJP is itself premised on its Hindu nationalism. Constant muscle flexing against Pakistan and demonizing it too is political programme of Hindu Nationalism. Posturing against Pakistan enables the Hindu nationalists to present the Muslim community as suspected fifth columnists and ISI agents. Let us not forget that Modi’s first election as Chief Minister of Gujarat was fought “against” Mian Musharraf!

The agenda of development is hyped through advertising techniques. It is only the corporate world and crony capitalists that see opportunities opening up for them to drastically scale up their profits without the ordinary citizen of the country benefitting, particularly the marginal peasants, workers, dalits and adivasis. There is no mention of distributive justice in the fruits of development. Therefore adding agendas during election time should not be read as departing substantively from Hindu nationalism. Tiger can never change its stripes!

RSS and Modi:

Role of Police and administration in controlling communal violence has been wanting and in fact prejudicial to minorities. Communal riots in India are generally well planned. Riots that are spontaneous in nature can be controlled within 24 hours unless the police or the district administration or the government wants it otherwise. In other words, there are two necessary conditions for riots to continue beyond 24 hours – it should be well planned and the administration, including police, should want it to continue and should be otherwise complicit. Vibhuti Narain Rai, an upright IPS officer with hands on experience in controlling riots and one who has studied communal riots and role of police extensively, argues that Indian society is not torn apart with civil war and existence of armed militias as in west Asia, Europe or other parts of the world. Therefore, if the police and administration is unable to control a riot a riot within 24 hours, it only means that their actions, conduct and behaviour need proper examination. Through his research, Rai has arrived at a conclusion that police and the administration have deep-rooted communal bias that prevents them from controlling communal violence within 24 hours. Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer also observed that during his investigations, constabulary in Mumbai were reading Samnaa, a daily news paper published by a communal party Shiv Sena. The constabulary which was deployed to control the communal riots in 1984 in Bhiwandi proudly proclaimed that they were Shiv Sainiks in uniform. In his investigation of Jabalpur riots in 1961, Engineer gives account of armed constabulary molesting Muslim women inside their homes and several accounts of police biases in his aforesaid article, though cautioning that there are unbiased and impartial police officers as well.

First stage: planning riots, exploiting issues to escalate tensions and early warnings of riots

Police are complicit at three stages. The first stage is that of early warnings when the riots are being planned. During this stage, religion wise data and their spatial distribution is being compiled. In Gujarat for example, the rioters attacked even those establishments and businesses having Hindu names, Hindu employees and Hindu partners. Even these establishments were not spared where, either one of the sleeping partners or the financers of the establishment was a Muslim. The data of Hindu establishments having Muslim partners was probably collected from sales tax authorities and registrars of partnership firms. Then Hindu and Muslim homes are marked for precise identification of the targets by the rioters. In Surat and Ahmedabad, Hindus were told to write “Jai Shri Ram on their houses”. During my investigation of Surat riots in 1992-1993, many of my informants told me that some individuals pretending to be from census authorities had come to check their ration cards and the data in the ration cards were noted by them. Next, equipments to be used during riots are collected, like fuel oils and gas cylinders, to burn houses and weapons for stabbing. As an early warning, it is easy to observe escalating confrontation over practical non-issue/s between the two communities and mobilization of the communities through provocative speeches that promote enmity between two communities. If there were no riots in Bhiwandi and Aligarh, otherwise communal hotbeds, after demolition of Babri Masjid, it was because of effective and impartial preventive measures in the two towns. Every major riot has its early warnings spread over weeks and sometimes over months. L.K. Advani’s rath yatra before the demolition of the Babri Masjid is an example. Kandhamal riots had their early warnings from 24th December 2008 when the arches erected by the Christians to celebrate Christmas was demolished by Sangh Parivar members and anti-Christian mobilization through provocative speeches were given, is another example. Police or the administration can pro-actively intervene during this stage, arresting those making provocative speeches or collecting equipments for riot or planning the riot, bringing together notables and ordinary members of both the communities together and facilitating interaction between them, undertaking confidence building and working out mechanism to counter rumours. If the administration is determined, outbreak of violence can be prevented at this stage. An early warning of a riot is fairly evident to any ordinary person of ordinary intelligence, let alone police, whose job is to gather intelligence. At this stage, the police are required to collect intelligence, take preventive actions like detention of anti-social and communal elements or execution of bonds, and instil fear in the minds of mischief mongers through show of force or diffusing tension through reconciliatory measures.

Often policemen’s attitudes towards abusive and objectionable slogans shouted during religious processions intended to be communally provocative and humiliate minorities is that of tolerance and inaction. They are not even perceived as objectionable or provocative and humiliating and they do not arrest or pull out such element from the procession nor take any action after the procession. In such cases the police report is that the procession was peaceful. During Bhiwandi riots in 1970, the unruly sections in the procession were obviously encouraged by the attitude of the police into believing that they had a licence to indulge in their misbehaviour and, therefore continued doing so with greater impunity (Madon, 1974, pp. 24, Vol. VI, Part VI). The Mohalla Committees are packed with the Hindu communal leaders as they are not perceived as communal. Provocative speeches routinely made by communal elements are not acted upon.

The second stage is when the communal violence has erupted. At this stage the police must use adequate coercive force like baton charge, or gunfire to disperse the rioters, enforce curfew or other prohibitive measures like prohibition against carrying of arms; protect victims of violence, comb areas where arms and ammunitions may have been stored and arrest the rioters. The third stage is that of investigation of riot related offences and bringing the culprits to the book.

The police and administrative impartiality is lacking at all the three stages. On account of their prejudices against minorities and at times due to instructions of political leaders in power, the administration fails to recognize early warnings of impending riot or ignores the early warnings and do not take any preventive measures (Sengupta, Kumar, & Gandeviya, 2003). Minorities are perceived by most police personnel as those who are likely to trigger off a riot and therefore preventive measures, if at all, target the minorities. At the height of Ram Janmabhoomi agitation led by right wing communal Hindutva zealots, it was very difficult to find the names of Hindu inciters in the list of communal elements maintained by the Ram Janambhoomi police station in Ayodhya writes V N Rai in his research paper. Police believe that to be communal is only prerogative of Muslims. Though demolition of Babri Masjid was a well planned conspiracy, none of the intelligence agencies reported the conspiracy before 6th December 1992, and the Liberhan Commission findings make this amply clear.

Second stage: maintaining law and order after outbreak of riots:

The campaigns for 2014 elections have sort of begun. Media and many other players are expecting it to be a match between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi. If that is what the match is going to look like, the contestants are nothing to choose from.

But the real contest is between authoritarian state that the Congress wants to build, and a totalitarian state – Hindu Rashtra that RSS-BJP combine wants to construct. The differences may not be sharp and apparent but not difficult to find to a searching mind. In an authoritarian state, the elite try to limit democratic rights of the citizens and place authoritarian laws and structures which tends to centralize power and restrict accountability and inclusion of diverse interests through devolution. Authoritarian state suits elite with futuristic goals like liberalization and growth of corporatization as against a federal state where the elite of diverse nature and interests are included and fruits of development benefit more interests than in authoritarian state. The authoritarian state facilitates the elite to push its goals. In India, authoritarian structures are unstable and temporary with diverse interest groups resisting and favouring federal system and voice of social justice being strong.

The RSS-BJP combine’s polity and ideology however, go a step further with a goal to build totalitarian state with Savarkar’s motto of Hinduizing the society and militarizing Hindudom. For the BJP, power is not the end, but a means to reconstruct a Hinduized society to ensure homogenization and semitization of Hindu society, using state to impose a certain religious practices and culture that justifies hierarchies as desirable. Thus introduction of draconian and intrusive cow-protection legislation, surya namaskar and teaching of Gita in schools are some examples. The totalitarian state or what they prefer to call Hindu Rashtra, that RSS-BJP wants to build would draw from the selective authoritarian traditions of upper caste Hindus and a culture of intolerance with civil society’s autonomy being seriously eroded. The reconstructed hierarchical society and culture ensured by state does in no way conflict with the agenda of growth, liberalization and protecting the interest of the economic elite – the corporate sector as we are witnessing in Gujarat.

The biggest challenge for secularists, human rights activists and democrats in this elections is therefore to protect and strengthen democracy and to ensure that most marginalized sections of the society enjoy the protection of the Constitution to form their interest groups unhindered and further their struggles for justice and equality. There is therefore no hesitation in giving a call to defeat politically the totalitarian designs of the communal forces.

The secularists will have to do that deftly and consistently, looking beyond its traditional methods that are aimed at appearing to be politically neutral and equating the danger of authoritarianism with totalitarianism. The secular democrats will have to issue statements and campaign actively making people aware of the danger of totalitarian agenda and ideologies even accepting the risk of appearing partisan. All available means should be adopted to focus the campaign on the totalitarian nature of polity of communal forces, including traditional media, new social media and through various election meetings. The totalitarian Pakistan that was created on the slogan that all Muslims have same culture could not survive as a single nation, and it is now imploding from within due to totalitarian forces dominating there, targeting, among others, even Shia Muslims. It is only because the Constitution of India embraced diversity by giving freedom of conscience to all persons; liberty of thought and action; equality; social justice, dignity of all individuals and ensured that India survives as one nation in spite of its rich diversity and in spite of the fact that India houses second largest Muslim population in any country.

On 6th December 2007 the incident of demolition of Babri Masjid will complete 15 years. After the immoral, irreligious and illegal act of demolition of Babri Masjid, a lot has changed as far as Muslim politics is concerned. Demolition of the Babri Masjid was attack on secularism and democracy.

One unfortunate repercussion of the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the communal riots that followed in which Muslims were victimized was that the influence of ISI increased. Under world don Dawood Ibrahim and gold smuggler Tiger Memon conspired with the ISI to carry out serial bombings in Mumbai on 12th March 1993. Muslim Youth who were victims of communal riots that followed the demolition of Babri Masjid  could be persuaded to undertake training in Pakistan to carry out the bombings in which over 287 people died. Anti-social elements amongst the Muslim community in the south was also attracted to religious fundamentalism after 1992 and plethora of communal organizations like Al Umma sprang up in the South for the first time. Muslims in the South always identified themselves with the Dravidian Movement. However, after 1992 there was rise of Militant Islam and RSS head quarters were bombed in Tamil Nadu to seek revenge of demolition of Babri Masjid. There were Communal riots for the first time in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, in which 27 Muslims were killed by the police in firing on unarmed mob followed by attack by Hindu Munani in the year1998. The unilateral attack on Muslims was followed by bomb blasts in the same year in Coimbatore. In Kerala, Maulana Madani started militant organization Islamic Sevice Society to counter RSS. ISS attracted hundreds of youth in its fold. Madani was ultimately jailed and spent several years in prison, for his role in Coimbatore Bomb blasts but was acquitted recently. There were bomb blasts also in Jammu region of J&KState, on Akshardham temple in Gujarat, in Shiv temple in Varanasi (UP), near Jama Masjid in Delhi. There were bomb blasts in a BEST public transport bus in Mumbai and series of bombings in local trains in Mumbai in which 147 people died. Most of these bombing were motivated the spirit of revenge for attacks on Muslims in Gujarat in the year 2002 and in other communal riots. ISI provides training, weapons and financial resources.

The confrontationist strategy of the Babri Masjid Coordination Committee and Babri Masjid Action Committee led by Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi and Zafaryab Jilani utterly failed to stop the demolition of the mosque. The Muslim leadership which thrived on emotional and identity related issues also nearly collapsed along with the Babri Masjid. The community is very cautious in responding to any identity related emotional issues. There is a feeling within the community that education is the only salvation. Many organizations focusing itself on secular education have been more popular after the demolition of the Babri Masjid than before. Particulalry, Muslim girls have topped the Secondary School Certificate examinations in Maharashtra and other states. Recently in Mumbai, two girl students defied the edict of few conservative elements within the community to attend college and sought police protection for the purpose. There is increased awareness and urge for secular education within the community.

  Some fundamentalist or political islamist organizations started rethinking their ideology and are now working for communal harmony, secularism and justice for all. Jamat-e-Islami is one such organization which has reviewed its stand on the issue of Islamic State. It has formed organizations to promote communal harmony. The organizations related with Jamaat are working for peace and justice for all sections of the society.

The backward classes amongst the Muslims are now organizing for extension of benefits of affirmative actions to the backward classes to them. In doing so, they emphasize their regional identity and identity of the caste from which their forefathers were converted. The Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (Forum of Backward Muslims) in UP and Bihar is one such organization. It is a welcome democratization of Muslim identity emphasizing on plural culture within the Muslim community. Islamic religious identity is only one small but important factor in the identity, but even more importantly not the only factor. The backward Muslims, by claiming their former caste identities are proud of their Islamic identity as well as their local cultural identity. It acts as a bridge between Islam and regional identity as backward Muslims are proud of both aspects of their identity. It connects them to their Hindu brethren and builds harmonious relations with them. Claiming backward Muslim identity, the backward communities amongst the Muslims also engage with the state to be more democratic and extend affirmative action to them on the ground that they are backward classes too and not to discriminate between Hindu and Muslim backward classes. Andhra Pradesh Govt. has recently added to the list of backward classes, names of Muslim communities and passes legislation to extend 4% reservation to Muslim backward classes.