Returning
honors is an attempt to save democracy
Ram
Puniyani
Last few weeks have
seen a flood of ‘returning’ honors by writers, scientists and artists. These
awardees in way have stood up to make themselves to be counted. There are also various
statements from academics, historians, artists and scientists showing their
concern about the growing intolerance and erosion of our plural values. Those who
returned the honors are amongst the outstanding contributors to literature,
arts, film making and science. They in a way have been pouring their heart out
at what is going on at social level. The growing intolerance has taken the
lives of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi. There are incidents like where the
lynching of one Muslim on the issue of beef eating which has shaken the
conscience of the society. In the face of this strong statement from diverse
sections of society those related to the ruling party, BJP; its parent organization
RSS and many of its affiliates have been strongly criticizing these people on
flimsy grounds.
At the same time the
President of India disturbed by the happenings in the society; time and again has
been reminding the nation about our core civilizational values of pluralism.
The vice President has told that it is the duty of the state to protect the
‘right to life’ of citizens. The international rating agencies like Moody have
pointed out that unless Modi reins in his colleagues, India stands to lose her
credibility. Disturbed by the current growing atmosphere of intolerance the
eminent citizens are feeling uncomfortable. So we have the earlier statement of
Julio Rebeiro that he is feeling disturbed as a Christian in India. Now Naseerudding
Shah said that he is being made to realize his Muslim identity for the first
time. The poet, film maker Gulzar stated that the times have come where people
ask your religion before they ask your name. Many prominent entrepreneurs like
Narayan Murthi and Kiran Majumdar Shaw have shown their concern over growing
intolerance. In the same boat of those calling for preserving values of
pluralism are people like Raghuram Rajan, the RBI Governor.
The ruling
dispensation, the BJP leaders have come out scathingly on these creative
people-scientists and labeled the whole process as ‘manufactured rebellion’ as
put by Arun Jaitley. It has been alleged that those returning awards are the leftists
or those who were recipients of privileges from the state when Congress was the
ruling party and now with BJP coming to power from last one year, they are
baffled and so the protests. It has been alleged that these people are trying
to derail the ‘development story’ being written by the BJP under the leadership
of Narendra Modi. Jaitley even goes to say that Narendra Modi is the victim of
intolerance by these people returning their awards. Some like Rajnath Singh have
pointed out that it is a mere ‘law and order’ problem for which state
governments are responsible while these people are targeting Modi government.
As such what has
happened is neither a law and order problem nor the one related to loss of patronage
as it is related to the much broader phenomenon related to intense
communalization of society. This time the degree of communalization has crossed
the civil limits. The jibe that these people did not return their awards at the
time of emergency, anti Sikh violence, migration of Kashmiri Pundits and at the
time of Mumbai blasts of 1993 is a very superficial way of dealing with the social
response to the phenomenon of growing intolerance and its degree. As the awards
which have been returned and the statements put out by different groups do give
the reasons for the same and these reasons pertains to the cumulative process and not this or that event. All these incidents mentioned
by Jaitley and company have been a tragic part of recent Indian history. Many a
writers did protest against most of these incidents, many of them had not even
been awarded at that time.
The present times
cannot be compared with the tragic incidents of the past for various reasons.
Take the case of emergency for example. It was a dark chapter of Indian
history, still it was the authoritarianism imposed mostly from the top. What is
most disturbing in the current times is the vast network of organizations
related to the ruling party whose followers either they themselves create
hatred in the society or they mobilize the social sectors through hate speech;
the result of which is violence. Currently there is a twin attack on the values
of tolerance and liberal space. From the top the ruling dispensation has people
like Yogi Adiyanath- Sakshi Maharaj, Giriraj Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti who
keep spreading sectarian message while basking in the glory of power and at the
societal level divisive statements prevail.
At yet another level is
the institutional control by communal ideology. Our major institutions and
educational places are being mauled by divisive ideology. Our frontline areas
of science and technology are being tampered day in and day out. The promotion
of blind faith is the byproduct of this very policy. Blind faith and the large
section of religious entrepreneurs (Babas, Modern Gurus) have a major say and have
a major influence on the present political powers. As such the ideology spread
by RSS, the one of Hindu nationalism, is dominating on social and political field.
And lastly at the level of social thinking the ‘Hate other’ ideology has been
promoted through various conduits using the issues like Ghar Wapasi, love jihad
and beef. It is this which is creating the intense social insecurity amongst
the religious minorities. It is this which is leading to incidents like Dadri.
Such incidents are being projected as law and order problem to deliberately
overlook the erosion in democratic space.
Essentially the insane
communal violence has its roots in the prejudice leading to hate for the
religious minorities. And that’s what flows from the ideology of Hindu
nationalism, or any other sectarian nationalism, in the name of any religion or
race. In current times the fountainhead of Hindu nationalism which is, the
major factor here, is RSS. Not to say that Muslim sectarianism has its own
divisive and supplementary influence. Through different conveyer belts this
ideology assumes the ‘Hate other’ sentiment and that’s where cow slaughter, beef
eating become the ground to kill the people. The practitioners of sectarian
nationalism vow that ‘we will kill and get killed’ while defending our Holy
mother the cow.
This is just one case
in point. The major factor leading to present atmosphere lies in the qualitative transformation of ‘hate for
others’. The stereotyping of minorities which began with Hindu nationalism has
assumed horrendous proportions where the likes of Gulzar have to say what he
said. So while the Jaitleys will keep undermining the steps taken by these
people and while the Rajnath Singhs’ will keep dubbing it as a law and order
problem, the dissatisfaction amongst those standing for democracy is growing,
liberal space and tolerance is shrinking. We will have to keep thinking of more
ways to draw the attention of larger sections of society towards the threat
looming large on our democratic society, the threat of sectarian propaganda and
politics leading to stifling of democratic space. And these are not the
ordinary times, the divisive process have assumed menacing proportions and
cannot be hidden by the illusory growth
story!
