Dialogue, not demolition

Rajesh Ramachandran

About 24 years ago, veteran journalist Amulya Ganguli had analysed and written about a clutch of reports of commissions of inquiry into various big communal riots across the country and I was also a part of the effort to examine these reports. What was shockingly similar was the common template or the recurring standard operating procedure used to ignite a communal clash: take out a militant procession on a religious occasion, lead it into narrow bylanes where people of the ‘other’ community lived and, lo and behold, in no time there would be a conflict. And a further electoral analysis of the political consequences would show a voter consolidation in favour of parties practising communal polarisation. This is a time-tested practice perfected over decades and there is a sense of déjà vu when such eruptions happen in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand or now in the national capital. The only new addition to this old SOP is the bulldozer that has begun to roll into the Muslim-dominated bylanes the day after the clash to criminalise and to hand down instant, extra-judicial punishment to just one section of the rioters.

The strategists and social engineers in the RSS should introspect and define their perception of the Indian Muslims for a clear vision about the nation’s future.

But the question that remains unanswered is — why? Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti processions taken into Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods triggering communal clashes would immediately make one wonder what the political objective of such eruptions is in a largely polarised polity. Is there an immediate political provocation? Do the political beneficiaries of communal polarisation perceive a threat to their dominance across the country that necessitates a nationwide communal divide? Do they feel their political grip loosening in time for the 2024 elections? Is it a response to the electoral reverses in West Bengal or Punjab? It should not be so, simply because of their record-breaking return to power in Uttar Pradesh and the performance in Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa in the recent polls. UP was not won merely by stoking communal hatred — rather, it was a classic case of caste dynamics, over-the-top policing and freebies working in favour of the incumbent against a weak and discredited opposition. In fact, the greatest success mantra for the BJP has been the tattered credibility of the opposition.

Yet, the emergence of the latest variety of mutant Hindutva militancy forces one to make an assumption about the possibility of an attempt to radicalise Muslims across the country. If that is the case, India as a nation and we as a society are in for immeasurable pain and misery. Muslims are a sizeable minority of about 15 per cent of the Indian population; peace and prosperity of a growing economy would be the first casualty if such a large section of about 20 crore people is pushed to a corner, prompting the hotheads among them to pick up arms against the Indian State. If there is no State-guaranteed protection for life and property of one section of the population, that group would obviously lose all stakes in keeping the peace. The result could be much worse than what Pakistan-sponsored Islamist terrorism has been inflicting on the country. It would be the making of a Trojan horse.

It might seem easier for a mighty State to crush a radicalised rebellion than a democratic, Gandhian movement for equal representation and rights. But that could just be a shortsighted gamble. Subjugation of a radicalised minority in the Indian context will not be like the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians because here it is impossible to stop even the targeted killing of Hindus and Sikhs in the Kashmir valley — since October 2021 nine people were killed simply because they were not Muslims — unlike the Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti processions that would need municipal corporations’ bulldozers to threaten the ‘other’. Kashmir’s Islamist politics of communal killings and ethnic cleansing, no doubt, legitimised the rise of Hindutva politics in the Hindi heartland, but that does not mean that it would benefit Hindutva politics to create more festering wounds in our body politic.

When Sangh Parivar practitioners rule the country, Hindutva obviously becomes mainstream politics and for purely opportunistic reasons, the propagators of Hindutva politics should analyse their attitude towards the largest minority group. The strategists and social engineers in the RSS should introspect and define their perception of the Indian Muslims for a clear vision about the nation’s future. The RSS has always claimed that it does not hanker after political power and it has civilisational goals for the Indian nation; how, then, can it wish away 20 crore citizens of this nation? An organisation that takes pride in the great Hindu ideal of ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ cannot obviously invite global derision for creating a radicalised second-class citizenry. Instead, the best minds of the Parivar should initiate a dialogue with the Muslim intelligentsia to find a meeting ground of ideas and possibilities.

It is anti-democratic to ask victims to seek a dialogue with those perceived as perpetrators. Yet one has to admit that Islamist radicalisation, from Kashmir to Kerala, is a fact of Indian life and it has only helped polarise Hindu votes in favour of the BJP, and hence it is in the best interests of the Indian society for Islamic scholars, too, to think in terms of a conversation with the Hindu Right. Beyond electoral considerations, from a societal perspective, intolerance towards the ‘other’s’ rituals and religious practices could be mitigated to a large extent if regressive practices can be curtailed by all sections on a mutually agreed platform. Public display of devotion and religious conversion are two issues over which there ought to be a national debate to reduce points of friction. Religion per se is anti-modern and regressive and nothing can be gained by seeking to uphold one and denigrate another through rituals and proselytisation. Unfortunately, the lasting memory of this Ram Navami is the image of the ugly teeth of the bulldozer and not the beatific smile of Lord Ram. Let there be dialogue instead of demolition.

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