(Times of India
23 Dec, 2006)
Communalism getting into the mainstream?
NEW DELHI: Rapid corporatisation, a disillusioned middle class and political forces that have redefined the essence of democracy – limiting it solely to the election process – has caused communalism to become a way of life in India.
Active or passive support of the government machinery in several states and failure of left parties to take a stand on issues have added to the process of "mainstreaming communal violence".
This was the essence of the discussions of a two-day seminar on "Human Rights and the rule of law: mob terror, state terror and bomb terror", organised by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and Communalism Combat at the Indian Social Institute.
A host of celebrity speakers, victims of communal violence and civil society organisations, participated in the discussions.
Author Arundhati Roy said, "While it is true that whichever party comes to power, the agenda of communalism remains unaltered, it is wrong to blame everything on the state. How can you say we are secular when even after the Gujarat genocide, Narendra Modi is voted back to power?"
The problem has been further complicated she said, by differences among social activists "who hate each other more than they hate the state."
While blaming political forces for utlising the inherent "benign biases" of different communities to further their hate agenda, lyricist Javed Akhtar said, "the middle class has changed.
With increased pace of life they are less tolerant and less in touch with real India. The idealism that was present in the Indian middle class in the initial years after independence has been replaced by relentless pursuit of materialism. These are the things divisive political forces are taking advantage of."
Be it in Malegaon or Khailanjee or Chikmagalur where the Sangh Parivar has already kicked up an Ayodhya-like controversy, activists talked about police and state complicity in any kind of communal violence.
The need for a common platform and as Akhtar put it, a "common minimum programme" for activists to come together to fight state repression was stressed.
Kamal Mitra Chenoy, professor in the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University rued the fact that the country has no proper law against perpetrators of communal hatred.
"IPC 153 is the only law and the government's permission is needed to invoke it.Such clauses have to be removed,"he said.
Quoting media reports, S M Mushrif, a former IPS officer from Maharashtra pointed out how intelligence reports have been excluded from the RTI purview, is consistently leaked by the police to "further the agenda of the RSS which has its people at all levels in important agencies like the IB."
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