Taking potshots at ‘infiltrators’

Julio Ribeiro

ADDRESSING an election rally in Banswara (Rajasthan) recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi forgot that he had to adhere to the model code of conduct laid down by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Without naming them, he implied that Muslims were ‘infiltrators’ who had at some time or the other sneaked into India. He also hinted that they had many children.

Having many children is a common trait in poorly educated families mired in poverty, both Muslim and Hindu.

What set him off? My guess is that he has come to realise that his own popularity, which was more than double that enjoyed by Rahul Gandhi in quantitative terms, has slid and that of Rahul has risen. There is still a gap in Modi’s favour, but it is nowhere as comfortable as it was earlier. This knowledge is making him fretful and nervous.

Instead of maintaining dignified control over his biases, he blurted out in a moment of distress and anger that the Congress was scheming to take away the gold ornaments squirrelled away by the wives of the affluent and distribute them among the ‘infiltrators’ and those who birthed many children! The gaffe having been realised, the official version of his speech, put out by his propaganda team the next day, omitted references to infiltrators and large families.

The ECI of yore, which had built a formidable reputation for conducting elections with justice and fairness, would have intervened swiftly if such extreme transgressions of the model code were brought to its notice. It is a shame that today’s ECI has not thought it fit to act more swiftly and decisively in the PM’s case. This sign of weakness will be exploited by those who are convinced that all institutions of governance are under an unwritten obligation to uphold the sole authority of the head of the ruling dispensation by bypassing the Constitution, which has guaranteed the independence of the ECI and expects it to function without fear or favour.

Let us analyse the charge hurled at the Muslim community of being infiltrators. In a huge and populous country like ours, there will not be many who have crossed borders. On the militarised western border, the number is small. They sneak in to create mayhem in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir. India has been attending to the problem. These particularly ‘unwanted guests’ are not interested in gold ornaments. They have come to keep our security forces on their toes 24x7.

Infiltration was a live problem on our eastern borders. It was more of an economic problem of the kind faced by the US, Canada and the UK, which our boys from Punjab or even Gujarat try to enter illegally in search of greener pastures.

Bangladeshis crossing over into West Bengal or Assam was a major problem that has eased in the last decade or two as the Bangladeshi economy improved, riding on the back of textile manufacture and exports. Bangladeshis, both Hindu and Muslim, had crossed over into Assam even before the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistani domination. That influx caused a massive economic and social problem in Assam, leading to the implementation of the National Register of Citizens in that state. That matter has not been resolved as yet because more Hindus than Muslims were declared infiltrators in the count that followed. The expulsion of Hindu infiltrators went against the Hindutva ideology and led to the formulation of the Citizenship Amendment Act.

If the PM was referring to all Muslims, his frustration had no legal or moral ground to stand on. The Mughals and the Afghans who invaded India left behind descendants of mixed lineage, but so did Alexander, whose Macedonian army reached the shores of the Indus after conquering the Persians.

There is hardly any country in the world which can say that it is free of ‘infiltrators’. All civilisations have experienced the movement of aliens. In India, the Aryans followed the Dravidians and the indigenous tribes we call Adivasis. The Mongoloid races that populate the North-East add another dimension to the scenario. And talking of Aryans, Adolf Hitler got rid of Jews and Gypsies because he wanted to ensure the purity of the Aryan race! One of the titles assumed by the Shah of Iran before the Ayatollahs took charge of the country was Aryameher (I have no intention of belittling the Aryans because my own ancestors were of that lineage, having arrived in Goa millennia ago with the sage Parshuram).

In Modi’s home state, Gujarat, there is a community of Muslims called the ‘Muslimeen Gherasias’ of the Rajput stock, who converted to Islam during the Mughal reign. The eldest son of the family assumes a Muslim name, but the other sons and daughters continue to have Hindu names. In the old Bombay province, there was an IAS officer, Fateh Singh Rana, at one time Home Secretary of the state, who was a Muslimeen Gherasia.

What I am trying to impress upon Modiji is that all Muslims are not infiltrators in the sense that he is apparently describing them. Those who have Mughal, Afghan or Persian blood have become part and parcel of Bharat, like the Aryans who settled here thousands of years ago.

The second accusation against Muslims is that they have many children. This is a common trait in poorly educated families mired in poverty, both Muslim and Hindu. Where women are educated, or even only literate, and the economic status of the family is comfortable, reproductive activity is kept in check, as such families soon realise that large families are a hindrance to economic progress.

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is an Abrahamic religion. The Bible, too, said: “Go out and multiply.” That was the necessity then. The precept is no longer relevant. And even the Pope remarked recently that no one is expected to breed ‘like rabbits’. Since most Christian women are literate and most Christian men are gainfully employed, the question of fathering too many children has long been abandoned. Islam will catch up as soon as education spreads, especially among women, and their economic status improves.

If the ECI is afraid of taking strict action against the PM, it should give him a rap on the knuckles. That’s the least it can do.

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