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December 09, 2014

China is passé, learn from Nepal (Jawed Naqvi)

http://www.dawn.com/news/1149671/china-is-passe-learn-from-nepal


ISLAMIC tradition advises Islam’s followers to travel to China to seek knowledge. India’s Hindus, particularly the ones combating the Hindutva juggernaut that seeks to turn the country into a theocratic state, need not go that far. They could arm themselves for the fight by simply taking a leaf from Nepal.

For the record, Nepal is a former Hindu kingdom, the globe’s only such, which recently became a secular democratic state. The journey took years of struggle in which blood was unfortunately shed on both sides. Nepal’s monarchs, who had claimed divinity as avatars of Lord Vishnu, have been firmly relegated to the dustbin of history, hopefully for all time to come.

So this is the given equation, an impoverished and landlocked Hindu kingdom pulls a rabbit out of the hat to become secular and democratic nation as a proud sovereign member in the comity of nations.

On the other hand, a secular democratic state created primarily by the Hindus of India, including Gandhi, is hurtling towards a theocratic order. The Nepal example could be useful for those liberal and leftist Indians that you may have been meeting over the past month in seminars and group discussions. The meetings usually aim to appreciate and applaud the scientific spirit that Jawaharlal Nehru strove to breathe into India’s moribund social arteries.

Nepal has shown, however, that Nehruvian dreams, though essential in many ways for India’s tryst with modernity, cannot be realised in seminar rooms alone. The once robust mass struggles against exploitation, inequality, superstition and institutionalised prejudice have either run aground or have been handed over to NGOs. India’s opposition has had more than six months to recover from its debilitating defeat at the hands of a right-wing upsurge it did not anticipate. It doesn’t have much more time to act.

There is no dearth of issues, primarily economic plunder of natural resources, that seek its urgent attention. These could become the opposition’s vehicle to revitalise democratic institutions at risk.
Modi has been wearing his religious zeal on his kurta, presenting copies of Hindu scriptures to every foreign leader he befriends.

Dozens of women died recently in Chhattisgarh, which is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, during what should have been routine sterilisation operations. An unacceptable number of old men and women were left blinded the other day in Punjab when their cataract operations went horribly wrong.

Another working woman was brutally raped in Delhi at the weekend, reviving memories of the horrific incident in a bus during Congress rule. All these are fresh events that took place in regions that are ruled directly or indirectly by the prime minister’s party. Discussing Nehru is necessary, particularly when Hindutva is challenging his legacy, but a more effective challenge can be thrown to his critics by organising for what promises to be a long and bitter struggle.

Organising for any battle needs an assessment of the adversary and perhaps an even greater grasp of one’s own strengths as well as weaknesses. There are easy conclusions and their counter-arguments that India is headed for a religion-led fascist state. Two models seem to fit or perhaps inspire Hindutva in the latter direction. In the way it seeks to penetrate and overwhelm state institutions as strategy it bears a canny resemblance to Gen Ziaul Haq’s fervent moves to Islamise Pakistan.

The right-wing religious Jamaat-i-Islami’s innate propensity for street violence coupled with its cadre-based discipline is reflected also in the various structural organs of Hindutva. Like the Jamaat, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mainly targets the country’s liberal identity, chiefly the Hindus be they communists or caste-based resistance leaders in places such as Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. Targeting religious minorities is a strategy at best, not the objective of this mission.

Another feature from the Zia era that underscores the likeness with the current political climate in India is the fact that Pakistan registered what was perhaps its highest economic growth during the first half of the military dictatorship that toppled the Bhutto government. As India’s respected economist Prof Prabhat Patnaik said during a lecture on Nehru’s centralised planning model last week, any emphasis on growth that doesn’t do due diligence for poverty alleviation is essentially fascist in character. The Indian obsession with growth has smacked of this tendency.

A second Hindutva model for India that comes to mind is a mishmash of Iran and Nepal. The endeavour is to strengthen the clergy à la Iran by chipping away at or the sudden dismantling of the state’s inbuilt secular foundations. Consolidation of this impulse could come with an authoritarian whip hand in the manner of the erstwhile monarchy in Nepal, which the RSS admired and supported.

Mr Modi has been wearing his religious zeal on his kurta, presenting copies of Hindu scriptures to every foreign leader he befriends. His foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, not hitherto known to be of a publicly religious deportment, seems to have fallen in line. She reportedly said in Delhi on Sunday the Bhagwad Gita should be made a national scripture. The opposition as always is being tested and so far only Mamata Banerjee has come out to openly slam the resolve.

A truly resounding snub to Mr Modi’s missionary zeal reportedly came from Nepal though. According to reports out of Kathmandu, Mr Modi cancelled a planned visit to the Ramjanaki temple in Nepal after a group of 22 Nepali parties officially protested. They opposed Mr Modi’s plans for religious propaganda.

Indeed, according to Nepali reports, a special procession from the Indian temple in Ayodhya had arrived overnight to celebrate the promised speech.

Noting that Mr Modi was the leader of a clearly Hindu party, Maoist leader Ramchandra Jha, who led the protest, was sanguine. “We asked the governments of Nepal and India to cancel this meeting and proposed that Modi speak at another, secular venue. We fought for years to have a secular federal republic.” Indian liberals should applaud Mr Jha for speaking up.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

Published in Dawn December 9th , 2014