Pseudo-Secularism

Hindu dharma is implicitly at odds with monotheistic intolerance. What is happening in India is a new historical awakening... Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Modi: Taken at the flood

by Sandhya Jain,

Few men in modern history have dared to meet a tide in flood and ride out boldly into the open sea. Yet this is precisely what Mr Narendra Modi has done. Baptised quite literally by fire, battered by a sensation-mongering media, chargesheeted by ideologically committed activists and hounded by an irrationally oppositionist Election Commission, the cornered Chief Minister battled formidable odds to present the Bharatiya Janata Party its most credible electoral victory in recent years.

The Gujarat elections are a major watershed in national politics. First and foremost, they have upheld Mahatma Gandhi's desire to give India's native religious and cultural traditions a place in the public arena. Gujarat has demonstrated that Hindus, whether Adivasis, Dalits or educated middle and upper classes, perceive themselves as one community. Surely it is poetic justice that this has happened in the Mahatma's own State. Of course, this centre-staging of the nation's civilisational ethos has gone down badly with Congressmen who blame Mr Modi's communal campaign for his spectacular victory. But this only proves that the Congress was insincere in accommodating Hindutva in its electoral strategy, and that it actually hoped to win the election on the basis of the old formula of en bloc minority vote plus support from certain castes.

Gujarat has given a fitting reply to such vulgar communalism, which lacks respect for the dharma and way of life of the majority community. It has demonstrated a grand affirmation of the Hindu identity and self-respect. Henceforth, political parties hoping to come to power on a minority of the total votes polled, and functioning on the basis of colonial stereotypes about the Hindu community being a mere aggregation of castes, will have to do serious rethinking.

I emphasise this because I have noticed the crystallisation of Hindu sentiments across the country, affecting the core support base of each party. Therefore, no political party will be able to trifle with Hindu sentiments while seeking votes on the basis of caste affiliations and minority votebanks. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati, was the first leader to discern this trend, and accordingly made startling changes in the Bahujan Samaj Party's political rhetoric and electoral strategy. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J Jayalalithaa, showed equal deference to Hindu concerns by enacting the law against forcible conversions, brushing aside the protests of rootless secularists. Now, following Gujarat, Hindu-baiting parties may find the going politically counter-productive.

Politicians, however, can be trusted to learn some lessons sometimes, but not so the media. It would be an understatement to say that the media was biased against Mr Modi. Sitting in the Capital and subscribing to five newspapers daily, I can say that most newspapers failed to even hint that the BJP was heading towards a landslide victory. Common sense said that Mr Modi could not lose after Godhra; that after Akshardham even the Patel community could not afford to sulk over the loss of Mr Keshubhai Patel; and that the people of Gujarat were bound to give a sharp snub to the shameless aggression of the CEC, Mr JM Lyngdoh. But I had no clue about the mandate heading his way because the newspapers told me to place my bet on Mr Shankersinh Vaghela.

Besides the biased coverage, what is unforgivable is the complete failure of the media to introspect and take responsibility for the communal polarisation that it lays at Mr Modi's door. Now that the elections are over, it is time to state a few home truths. The entire media approach towards Godhra was driven by the attitude that it was a tragedy richly deserved by innocent children, women and men because they had dared to visit the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya. That Godhra occurred without any provocation was simply blacked out. Even more despicable was the manner in which the subsequent riots were delinked from the Godhra carnage and treated as a suo moto aggression on the part of the Hindu community. The media-assisted international vilification of India was simply outrageous.

The scandalous commentary and visuals relayed by a television channel during those troubled times upset citizens across the country, yet the channel itself remains benignly unrepentant. On the very day of counting, a programme was aired live from Ahmedabad. And in a city that gave a thumping mandate to Mr Modi, the organisers were unable to find even a sprinkling of persons favourably inclined towards the BJP! Talk about fair play!

As if this were not bad enough, some sections of the media have taken to playing up minority fears, as though planned pogroms are in the offing. I think it is time to bell the cat about so-called minority fears and to challenge outright the media dishonesty in this regard.

To begin with, there is no truth in the insinuation that the minorities are in danger in this country by virtue of being minorities. This may be true in societies that practice monotheism (of whatever persuasion), but it has never been true of Hindu society on account of the enormous tolerance and innate decency of the Sanatana dharma. So we must no longer tolerate such canards about ourselves; nor should we permit people to disarm us with such vicious falsehoods.

The second issue we need to face is the sheer aggressiveness of the minorities and their intolerance towards the native faith and traditions of this country, as witnessed in their insistence on the right to convert. Moreover, readers may recall that Leftist historians have claimed for decades that medieval invaders who razed Hindu temples did not do so because they were iconoclasts but because they wanted the enormous wealth of the temples. This Leftist assertion was falsified by accounts of the invaders themselves, but citizens were not allowed to utter such politically incorrect truths! Yet today, given the fact that Hindu temples continue to be soft targets of fundamentalists, we need to ask why this is so. The fig-leaf of an economic motive does not exist, so another explanation will have to be found. I am waiting for our secular apologists to offer it.

Some Muslim analysts have noted with dismay the sharp drop in the number of tickets given by the Congress to Muslim candidates. Indeed, falling Muslim presence in State Assemblies and Parliament has been a matter of concern to Muslims for some time now, but has been generally disregarded on account of the specious claim for proportional representation. My suggestion is that the Muslim community can no longer avoid a long overdue introspection about its future course in a modern, forward-looking nation like India.

Muslims believe that secular parties take the Muslim vote en bloc but do not transfer their own committed Hindu vote to Muslim candidates (of whatever party) on account of a secret communal bias. This is not true. The reality is that Muslim candidates are unable to appeal to other groups in society because they do not have a modernising or non-communal agenda.

For instance, why should Hindus vote for a candidate who opposes the Shah Bano judgment giving alimony to an abandoned wife or supports triple talaq and polygamy? Muslim intellectuals have long lectured us about the nation's composite culture-it is time they let it take root on their own home and hearth.

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2 Comments:

At 11/17/2005 08:22:00 AM, Blogger lost in thoughts said...

wonderful article by sandhya jain.

 
At 11/17/2005 05:11:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sandhya, please continue bringing truth to people. Thanks.

 

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