Preserving the sense of nationhood

By Malini Parthasarathy

THE ATTITUDE of the BJP-led NDA administration to the disturbing trend of attacks on the Christian minority and its palpable lack of a sense of outrage over the Shiv Sena chief, Mr. Bal Thackeray's brazen and incendiary defiance of the rule of law suggests that the project of converting this polity into a Hindu Rashtra has not quite been abandoned. There is now ample evidence that the majoritarian Hindutva campaign has made distinct headway in its effort to gain control of India's multicultural civil society by aggressively sweeping away the minorities to the margins. But what is also disquieting is that there has been very little resistance to this process from those who claim to be custodians of this country's traditions of pluralist and secular governance - particularly the former party of government, the Congress(I).

The Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, and the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, might continue to ritually and dutifully intone their adherence and commitment to this country's traditions of secular governance. But there is a visible lack of indignation on their part and little evidence of real concern over the implications of the recent trend of attacks on the Christian community and Mr. Bal Thackeray's provocative anti- social behaviour. First, the Government has not yet faced up to the reality that the entire spate of attacks on the Christian community, its clergy and its churches began only after the Vajpayee administration came into power. When the attacks on the Christian minority in Dangs district in Gujarat first hit national headlines, the response of the BJP leadership including the Prime Minister was to imply that the violence against that hapless community was only retaliation for the alleged proselytising activities of the Christian clergy, as if that offered moral justification for such horrendous behaviour.

In an indication of its utter disregard of its obligation as a ruling party to provide assurances of its capacity for impartial governance, the BJP continues to dwell on this provocative thesis despite its alienating potential. It reveals an appalling insensitivity towards the predicament of the Christian minority, a community with an exemplary record of sacrifice and commitment to Indian civil society and which until now has had no hesitation in identifying itself as belonging to the Indian nation-state. Instead of rushing to this community's defence, spokesmen of the ruling party have been relentlessly battering its sense of belonging.

After the recent bomb blasts in churches in Southern India, the BJP general secretary, Mr. K. N. Govindacharya, launched a blistering attack on the Christian church for its ``proselytising activities'' which he said ``pollute the motivation of service''. He went on to allege that ``the fabric of social unity in India had been damaged by overzealous activists of the Church''. Earlier in June, another spokesman, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu, dismissed criticism of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal for their hate campaign against the Christian community and charged that it was the Christian organisations instead which were ``conducting a hate campaign against Hindu gods''. Blatantly partisan and distorted representations of the facts such as these have served to erode the faith of the minorities in the capacity of the Government to be an impartial interlocutor. It must be recognised that such an erosion of faith in the political system on the part of the minorities could only lead to their alienation from the idea of subscribing to a common Indian nationhood. This, more than anything else, can cause the dreams of a resplendent and resurgent India, so assiduously being marketed by the BJP's dream merchants, to turn sour.

Setting, as it were, the cat among the pigeons, is the latest theory being peddled by the BJP State units in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, echoed by the Union Home Minister, Mr. Advani, that an ISI conspiracy, executed by local Islamic groups, designed to destabilise the Vajpayee administration, was behind the recent bomb blasts in the churches in these States. To be sure, police investigations in these States, ruled by non-BJP administrations, have pointed the finger at the Deendar Anjuman, a shadowy Islamic sect, thus confirming the Home Minister's prior hunch(?). Ironically, this verdict made it possible for the highly provocative role of the Hindutva fundamentalists in creating this inflamed atmosphere to escape critical scrutiny.

Given that Mr. Advani had already preemptively articulated his suspicion that ``anti-India elements'' were behind the blasts even before the police investigations had arrived at the same conclusion, the onus was most certainly on the Government to establish the veracity of these assertions and demonstrate that the police findings had independent validity. By suggesting that the Christian community was ``asking for trouble'' because of its proselytising activities and that the Muslim community was up to its usual conspiratorial activities, its nationalist credentials under attack for the umpteenth time, was not the BJP-led administration revealing its deep majoritarian bias and worse still, lending respectability to the dangerous hate campaign spearheaded by the Hindutva fanatics?

The abrasive and searing hate campaign consisting of slander and stereotype directed at minority citizens which is being taken all over the country by the Bajrang Dal, the RSS and the VHP provides a handy umbrella for criminal and anti-social elements such as Dara Singh to strike with impunity and terrorise civil society, as would not have been possible before. In such a painfully polarised political context, the Government would necessarily have to anticipate that its version of events that have traumatised the collective psyche of the minority communities would not be accepted as credible or authoritative. If the ``conspiracy'' conclusion is to have unassailable validity, it would require scrutiny and verification by agencies such as the National Human Rights Commission or even by other independent human rights groups that are seen as trustworthy intermediaries by the minority communities.

It must also be recognised that the bruising sweep of the ``ISI conspiracy'' thesis would not be limited to the Christian community but would again be seen as aimed at the Muslim community. By implication, the thesis questions the loyalty of the Muslim minority to the Indian state. The Christian community today is stung by the visible reluctance of the Government to acknowledge that it is the Sangh Parivar's hate campaign which has provided the context within which the members of the community are being singled out for attack by anti-social and criminal elements. Yet, members of the Muslim minority feel equally impugned, with the insidious old doubts about their unflinching loyalty to the Indian state surfacing again, questions that had haunted and traumatised them during the harrowing ordeal of Partition and have since been flung at them time and again. This latest case of the church blasts, in which the police have decided that members of an Islamic sect executed the strategic design of Pakistan's ISI to destabilise Indian civil society, is only one example of what is now a distinct trend of linking all the recent criminal acts of sabotage to the ISI, working through local Muslim collaborators. This is a grave charge for a community which prides itself on being a historic part of the Indian social mosaic to digest and must be substantiated rigorously before it is made public. Yet the Government has not hesitated to tread heavily on this sensitive ground. Even if it is the case that local Muslim zealots are working in concert with Pakistan, it would only point to the fact of the deepening alienation of the young people in the minority communities.

There is now overwhelming evidence that the corrosive tenor and substance of the hate campaign organised by the Bajrang Dal, the VHP and the RSS is primarily responsible for the terror and alienation that the minorities are experiencing in this country today. An unwillingness on the part of the NDA Government to acknowledge the incendiary potential of the Sangh Parivar's hate campaign, which relentlessly pours venom and ire on the hapless minority communities, will be seen by these minority citizens as further evidence that the Government is working towards the creation of a Hindu Rashtra.

At this painful moment in India's history when the positive experience of the decades of pluralist co-existence is sought to be overturned, it is for the opposition parties such as the Congress(I) to grasp the nettle and lead an effort to preserve the sense of nationhood shared by millions, belonging to different faiths and with diverse social identities. Not to recognise the imperative of protecting the stakes of these different communities in the idea of the Indian nation would be to place this country's future as a cohesive and integrated society in grave jeopardy.

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