A new low in politics of polarisation
THE RSS’s goal of making Hindus proud of being Hindus can and should be achieved without dividing the country along religious identities. The BJP, which is universally accepted as the political manifestation of this desire for Hindu pride, has used the growing divisions in society for political ascendancy. It had noticeably succeeded in its efforts, as the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 and 2019 showed.
In the crucial states of UP, Maharashtra and West Bengal, the strategy of dividing voters on communal lines has not worked.
After the results of the recent Lok Sabha elections were announced and the BJP was compelled to form a coalition government at the Centre, it was expected that the strategy of causing a rift between the majority community and the principal minority, the Muslims, would be watered down. Unfortunately, that did not happen. It still is not only ‘business as usual’, but a new initiative to hit the Muslims where it hurts the most — their livelihood — has been rolled out in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
It all started with the police in Muzaffarnagar ordering all eateries to display the names of their owners so that Shiv bhakts who make an annual pilgrimage to Gangotri and Haridwar can avoid ‘pollution’, said to be caused by eating at Muslim-owned eateries. The police, it appears, felt that this ‘pollution’ could be avoided if the religion of the vendor was known to the pilgrims!
That the Yogi Adityanath government endorsed the order of the Muzaffarnagar police the very next day and extended it to all police stations in UP along the yatra’s route gives observers the feeling that the original idea emanated from the state government itself. It was immediately picked up by the Pushkar Singh Dhami government in Uttarakhand, where Haridwar is located and where the yatra ends.
No plausible reason was advanced for depriving Muslim vendors of an occasion to make provision for their families, possibly for a year or greater part of the following year. Though the number of kanwariyas has touched a crore, no complaints had been received, despite the route taken by the yatris passing through thickly populated Muslim localities. On the contrary, Muslims attend to the kanwariyas’ needs. The question that arises is whether Muslim-baiting now is not confined to the lynching of cattle traders and ‘love jihad’ but is now also meant to deprive members of the minority of their very sustenance.
I am reminded of the story told to me by my friend PGJ Nampoothiri, a former Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad and later DGP of Gujarat. After retirement, he had employed a Muslim driver. During the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat, he was telephonically ‘ordered’ by Vishva Hindu Parishad activists known to him to dispense with the services of that driver. Nampoothiri, a devout Hindu who visited a nearby temple barefoot every morning, decided to shelter the driver in his home amid the riots lest he be harmed on his way to or from his place of work.
What exactly does the Yogi government hope to gain from this misconceived step? The regular yatris who traverse the same route year after year must be aware that the vendors are local Muslims. The ultra-conservatives among them must have excluded non-Hindu vendors from their patronage years ago. Why was it necessary to publicise this newly minted initiative which would only serve to pointedly divide the communities on religious lines?
In the recent Lok Sabha elections, even religious polarisation did not help Yogi’s party, which lost almost half the Lok Sabha seats it had won in UP in 2019. Does he really think that more pronounced division, with an economic tag attached to it, will help him restore his image in the eyes of the BJP high command?
In the crucial states of UP, Maharashtra and West Bengal, the strategy of dividing voters on communal lines has not worked. In Haryana, Jat farmers did not support the BJP this time because of their anger against the now-repealed farm laws. The agitation of women wrestlers against a BJP MP, who doubled up as the president of the Wrestling Federation of India, was another factor for the defeat. It is true that in some states, notably Gujarat and lately Uttarakhand, the BJP is on solid ground. This time round, it also swept Odisha, riding on the back of former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s fixation with a Tamilian IAS officer in preference to his party loyalists.
The Modi government introduced the Citizenship Amendment Act, pointedly keeping Muslims out of its intended benefits. But why was this Act necessary except to needle the minority community and impress on their own supporters that Muslims are not welcome in India? Personally, I do not know of a single instance in the Congress regime where Hindus from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan were not granted shelter and citizenship in India on request (in Assam alone, there was a problem because the Assamese youth felt that Bangladeshi Hindus as well as Muslims illegally entering Assam were depriving the locals of employment. Hence, special laws were enacted for Assam. Since these special laws treated Hindus and Muslims equally, they fell short of the BJP’s desire to favour only Hindus).
The hollow promise of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’ is being repeated often, primarily for international consumption. In India, we know the truth. When Muslim traders are compelled to advertise their identity at yatras and fairs, the mirage of equal treatment for all will remain what it is meant to be — only a mirage.
Three of the parties supporting the BJP in this NDA government have protested. The Supreme Court, which is hearing petitions from Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and others, has reacted by putting an ‘interim stay’ on the compulsory display of owners’ names on shops and handcarts.
But even more impactful is the defiance shown by a traditional Muslim dhaba owner, Choudhary Wahid Khan of Delapeer in Bareilly district. He immediately complied with the mischievous order while ornately decorating his eatery and printing words of affectionate welcome to the yatris. One regular yatri brought his entire group of kanwariyas to the dhaba, thereby making a statement that should worry Yogi and his ilk.
