It is not wrong to say that our nation has gradually reached the point where it is rightly called ‘Hatistan’. Some persons have been calling it ‘Rapistan’ whereas others have been expressing their ire, calling it ‘mobocracy’. Words differ but the intention portrays the same truth which has become the palpable feature of the present day India. If it is minutely observed, it will be found that most of the politicians associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party have been audaciously making poisonous remarks against the members belonging to the minority communities, especially the Muslim community on this or that ground.
It is still fresh in memory as to how the Union Defence Minister very recently (on July 13, 2018) held an astonishing press conference where she (Defence Minster) uttered some words that, at least to me, appeared like a declaration of war. She, playing with words, gave a warning to India’s minorities and secular liberals to be ready for vicious attacks in the run up to the 2019 general elections.
It is to be noted rather with sadness that the Union Defence Minister exposed her deep and passionate anger against the Congress, saying that ‘the Congress has for a very long time openly done minority appeasement, now it has reached a crescendo, accusing the party of ‘getting back to a divide India mindset’, which was so overtly clear of the Partition era. She also uttered a dire warning: “I would also like to say that it will be Congress’s responsibility if we see incidents of communal disharmony between now and 2019.”
This is but an astounding remark that has come from one of the senior-most ministers in the cabinet. Undoubtedly, the fundamental responsibility of a government is to ensure law and order and safeguard social harmony. The Bharatiya Janata Party presently rules not just the Centre but in a majority of States. Despite this, a minister makes such a bald threat to minorities, making it clear that communal polarisation is on the anvil. It is a kind of message to the troll armies and Hindutva cadre to go for the kill.
If such remarks as that of the Defence Minister quoted above were made at normal times, it would have invited rebuke or at least a gentle reprimand from some more responsible members of the party and the government. But, as we have been passing through a very critical time, it is not difficult to guess that the Defence Minister’s assertion was part of a well-crafted electoral and ideological strategy of her party. The learned readers must not forget that the BJP can adopt any measure for the sake of winning elections. And, this was proved the very next day when the Prime Minister himself repeated the allegation that Rahul Gandhi had termed the Congress a Muslim party. After the Defence Minister’s press conference, a renowned historian, S. Irfan Habib, who had attended the meeting with Rahul Gandhi, categorically denied the charge and said, “It seems to have malicious intent, no such issue came up at all”.
Obviously, both the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister seized upon a fallacious news report to dub the Congress a ‘Muslim Party’. This makes the BJP’s game plan clear. Throwing away all the talk of development, the party has clearly decided to bank on communal polarisation as the only theme of its general election campaign. Similarly, Sashi Tharoor’s comment that India was in the danger of becoming a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ evoked the same kind of manufactured outrage that Rahul’s remark was attributed to. Speaking at a function in Kerala in the second week of July, Tharoor said, “If they (BJP) win a repeat in the Lok Sabha, our democratic constitution, as we understand it, will not survive, as they will have all the elements they need to tear apart the Constitution and write a new one. That new one will be the one which will enshrine the principles of Hindu rashtra. That will remove equality for the minorities and that will create a Hindu Pakistan.”
This must not be forgotten that CPI(M) General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury, too had expressed similar view during a landmark debate in Parliament a year ago. But with the country now in the election mode, BJP spokespersons and friendly nationalist television channels went on an overdrive condemning Tharoor and the Congress for ‘insulting’ India by comparing it to Pakistan.
It will be quite wrong on our part to view the BJP’s response merely as an electoral tactic which is far away from the truth. The denial of diversity and tolerance is ingrained in its ideological agenda. We have been witnessing in the country the rise of hate and bigotry and this is threatening us all. This has to be checked and bridled. Otherwise, the Muslims may be the most visible target. Hate knows no boundaries – like noxious air and raging fire, it contaminates and scorches not only the victor but also the victim. Members of both the groups – majority and minority – suffer from devastation and misery, though of varying degree and scale.
It must not be taken as a fallacious view that every time a minster garlands members of a lynch mob, every time a news anchor bays for the blood of an ‘anti-national’, every time a prime minister uses ‘alternative facts’ to conjure a polarising narrative, we become ‘blooded’ and acquire a taste for savagery. The threshold of our tolerance for intolerance keeps expanding.
Let us all get united to fight this menace that is going to envelope and engulf our country. If it is not done and done without any delay, there is every prospect of India becoming a ‘Hatistan’ that we all sensible and rational persons must resist.
It is known to most of the people that the Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, in response to the Supreme Court’s order, has said in Parliament that, if necessary, the government will formulate an anti-lynching law. That’s very good. But what is quite heart-rending is the truth that the said minister’s statement seems to have increased the intensity of the leaders’ love for lynch-men. I wonder if it is the cow they want to protect, or murderers. Most probably, they just love anything and anyone that promotes hatred. In the light of this it is rightly predicted that under the present dispensation our country is moving rather rapidly towards the shameful point, reaching where it rightly becomes ‘Hatistan’. Obviously, the foundational values of the Indian republic and extolled India’s diversity and composite heritage seem to be under threat more than ever today.
I conclude this article with an Urdu couplet by Rashid Afroz, Assistant Editor of Urdu bi-monthly Gulbun published from Lucknow: “ Hum Apni Be-gunahi ki Saza sey Bach Nahi Saktey /Yazeed-e Waq’t key Lashker mey Sub Peyasey Lahuu key Hai’n.” (We can’t escape from punishment of our impeccability / (for) In the army of Yazeed of the time everyone is blood-thirsty). This couplet of Afroz rightly strikes at the very root of the vitiated communal situation we have been passing through.