(The Times of India
26 Nov 2007
Minority report
by Harbans Mukhia
The unwillingness to face the challenge of minority communalism is now coming home to roost. An obscure body claiming to speak for minorities has called Kolkata's secular credentials into question. It was more keen to ensure the expulsion of Taslima Nasreen from the city than resettle the displaced refugees of Nandigram.
The West Bengal government and Left parties will explain it away as the work of anti-social elements, if not that of some Islamic militants from across the border. But the fact that a number of people responded to the call and played havoc with life in the city stands out over and above these explanations. We are paying the price for underrating the threat of minority communalism. Now, it has assumed proportions serious enough to pose a threat to government that projected itself as the chief protector of minorities.
“Secular” mobilisation has lent strength to the notion that while all communalism is bad, majority communalism poses a much greater threat to the nation than minority communalism. We are left with only majority communalism as a strong adversary. The “secular” parties' unwillingness to question, challenge and confront minority communalism has thus created a space for it to grow, as its leaders realise the power vested in it as a political force or vote bank. Almost all parties have contributed to this growth: the Sangh Parivar by posing a threat to the physical existence of Muslims, the Congress by playing up this threat, the Left by underplaying minority communalism and the liberal Muslim intelligentsia by harping on the decline of Urdu and safeguarding of Muslim Personal Law and so forth.
There have been voices of dissent within the Muslim community. Rajiv Gandhi's minister Arif Mohammad Khan was against surrendering to the demands of dogmatic mullahs on the Shah Bano case in the 1980s. He even resigned from the government when Rajiv Gandhi decided to go ahead and defy the Supreme Court in the hope of cornering Muslim votes. Khan lost the election.
But these are lone, individual voices, pitted against not only the orthodox leader-ship within the Muslim community but almost every government. In the absence of a larger social movement, the orthodox leadership's hold on the Muslim community has increased. The expansion of political space for the assertion of communal identity has only helped conservative elements. Secular parties, including the Left, abet such tendencies by their silence.
Given these developments, some of the assumptions of India's modernisation project can be called into question.
Jawaharlal Nehru's enthusiasm for parliamentary democracy based on universal adult franchise was based on his perception that colonial exploitation had left India and its people “backward” vis-a-vis the indices of modernity - industrial economy, education and political awareness. Hence, they fell back upon their pre-modern identities of caste, community and religion.
It was believed that industrialisation, bringing together workers of all religions and castes, will obliterate their pre modern mindset and forge a new collective identity of class. Modern education was expected to raise them above pre-modern identities.
The experience of parliamentary democracy, where each individual is left alone before the ballot box, with the symbolic withdrawal of all extraneous controls - those of the family, the community, and caste - was expected to act as a catalyst for creating modern political sensibilities.
All this has not happened. Casteism, communalism and regionalism have never been stronger as a political force. The clash between secularism and communalism has come to imply multi-community mobilisation as opposed to single community mobilisation.
If the majority and minority communalisms are left to challenge each other, it is hard to imagine a greater disaster awaiting India, for their mutual challenge leads to mutual reinforcement. As a fallout of the happenings in Kolkata, one can visualise one man laughing all the way to his vote bank: Narendra Modi in far off Gujarat.
The writer was a teacher of history in Jawaharlal Nehru University.
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