Will Mr Narendra Modi be Able to Check the Sangh Loonies? Perhaps Not (John Dayal in Mainstream, 28 Feb 2015)

Mainstream, VOL LIII, No 10, February 28, 2015
Will Mr Narendra Modi be Able to Check the Sangh Loonies? Perhaps Not
by John Dayal

In retrospect, the Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi, would have done better, achieved a thousand times more, and helped India’s cultural integrity, unity and amity—and therefore its prosperity—by the simple visual action of putting on a Muslim prayer-cap, delicately crocheted in white cotton thread, in front of the global TV news cameras. Mr Modi need not have gone to a Jumma Masjid, or even to a meeting of Mr Modi’s favourite Muslim leaders in Gujarat, or a private function at the homes of the three Muslim Ministers in the Union Government and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s top leadership.

That would have perhaps undone much of the damage to Mr Modi’s reputation among religious minorities since he infamously refused to wear a cap innocently offered with much love by an insignificant moulvi some time ago. It could not have undone the culpability in the 2002 massacre of Muslims, but would have been a salve, no doubts about that. One of the fascinating things about Mr Modi is how impressive and even magnificent he looks wearing the various head-dresses of various communities and groups in the beautiful and diverse country that is Mr Modi’s and my motherland.

Muslims are the second largest majority in India, as they say, five times larger than the Christians in the land. They came a few decades after Islam was founded, and are indistinguishable from anyone of us. They have beards, but both Mr Modi and I also sport facial hair, albeit neatly trimmed. In the 10,000 or so cases of targeted violence against religious minorities, Muslims have been victims perhaps 8500 times. Christians about 150, as recorded by the Evangelical Fellowship of India report for 2014. They are subject of much targeted hate. They have been called traitors by Mr Modi’s ardent followers and political aides, Pakistani agents, breeding like rabbits to overwhelm the One Billion Hindu population, and seducing women in Love Jihad. In contrast, Christians are accused merely of using Dollars to Harvest Souls. “Just” two Christians have been killed last year allegedly by the Sangh activists. We are still awaiting data on the number of Muslims killed.

But Mr Modi chose a Christian, a Catholic, platform to articulate his commitment to secularism.

The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church invited Mr Modi to a function to celebrate the canonisation of two Catholic Saints born in Kerala. We would be ingrates if we did not therefore thank Mr Modi for speaking up at last on hate crimes, as we had been urging him to do for the past six months, and specially as we requested Mr Modi to do when a delegation met him at his residence on Christmas eve last. Mr Modi were not exactly very warm at that meeting, blaming the Christian community of [exaggerating] minor incidents in the international media, even insinuating their “compulsions” prevented them from standing with Mr Modi on his development agenda.

Mr Modi made the statement now, at a time of his choosing, and, in many ways, at an audience of his choosing. There was no occasion for questions, no opportunities to request him to explain some ambiguities in his address, deliberate it would seem, and a few omissions. A major omission is any reference to the 60-year-old issue of Dalit Christians and their demands for parity in Scheduled Caste rights with Sikhs and Buddhists [and of course Hindus] of Dalit origin.

But Mr Modi’s statement now is a change from what he had said then, after first ordering the cameras to be switched off. I would like to hope Mr Modi wants it to address the Trust Deficit of religious minorities—not just Christians—in his Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar, now certainly quite the mainstream of political discourse with its religious nationalism, which claims to have brought it to power. In many ways, however, it is addressed to an international audience, and specially the investing bankers and corporate giants, whose concern at the Human Rights and Freedom of Faith issues in India—which ranks as a Country of Concern in many international lists—was articulated by the United States President, Mr Barack Obama, as much as by the editorial in the New York Times. The Indian development agenda depends on massive infusions of Western capital.
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FULL TEXT AT: http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article5501.html