Attempts of sorts to polarise on communal lines the multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual society of our country are on, rather vociferously. They have been making headlines almost on daily basis and in some cases umpteen times a day, in the electronic and alternative as well as print media since the BJP-led NDA II came to power in May last. But in the past few weeks they have increased to an alarming extent.
Efforts are being made to eulogise, honour and award killers and murderers, damned as well as accused, like Nathuram Godse and Dhananjay Desai. Contentious issues like those of uniform civil code, Article 370 and Ram Temple on the debris of now demolished historic Babri Masjid are being reemphasised. Provocative statements like the demand to declare a particular scripture as the ‘Rashtriya Granth’ and the ‘Haramzada’ vs. ‘Ramzada’ diatribe are being dished out in public as well as in Parliament. Education is being saffronised. Minorities are being targeted, subjugated and side-lined; their poor, illiterate and gullible members are being converted in the name of so-called ghar wapsi with palpable use of force, threat and allurement. Most brazenly, donations are sought to conduct mass conversions. All these frantic efforts are in sheer violation of the law of the land and are tantamount to attacks on the Constitution and the plural fabric of the nation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as BJP’s PM material in the last general elections, had sought votes in the name of development, achche din and sabka saath, sabka vikas. But it seems all these promises were meant for only those who owe allegiance to and support the ideology of the party and its patron. All the policies devised and measures taken ever since are moving in the direction of serving the cause of RSS and the corporates that support it. They go against the interests of large segments of masses, especially minorities, weaker sections and Dalits as well as against the larger interests of the plural nation.
The ruling dispensation ought to realise that it is in the corridors of power on the basis of mere 31 per cent minority votes while 69 per cent majority of the country refused to buy its plank even in the much polarised general elections. The peace- and justice- loving persons and groups, including Muslim organisation need to think over the ways and means to save the nation from further degeneration. They must push for the proportionate representation electoral system as the present first-past-the-post electoral system has brought the country to such a sorry pass.