The Hindu : Facing intolerance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 20, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Facing intolerance

By Pratap Bhanu Mehta

All we can hope is that Hindus will find more honest ways of confronting their complexes; that they will have confidence to not succumb to meaningless paranoia.

THE BJP'S stunning victory in Gujarat raises a profoundly troubling question. How does a politics of communal polarisation, with its brutalities, innuendos, lies and paranoia succeed? Whether we admit it or not, the Gujarat elections were fought on one issue: the threats that Muslims supposedly pose. The claim that Muslims did not condemn Godhra enough, the insinuations of a demographic deluge, the continuing references to appeasement, the alignment of minorities with terrorism, were all designed to produce an image of Hindus suffering at the hands of Muslim minorities. Hindutva thrives on this fear. Why is this fear so resistant to sensible and rational considerations?

We know for instance that Pakistan has premised its India strategy during wars on significant Muslim uprisings within the country. That support has never been forthcoming or else the scale of violence would have been uncontainable. Yes, there is Pakistan sponsored terrorism, but that is even more reason to seek the cooperation of Indian Muslims, not marginalise them. As Thomas Friedman, no Muslim appeaser, pointed out, the one sizeable Muslim community that has not produced either a massive fundamentalist movement or a rush to join terrorists is Indian Muslims. The visions of a demographic deluge are baseless. One might disagree with a policy or two the state has towards Muslims. But the benefits of these pale significantly in comparison to their overall condition. Muslims are mostly underrepresented, poorer and the more likely targets of political violence. The flimsy politics after Shah Bano was a creation of the Congress more than Muslims. The total lack of opposition amongst Muslims to the judgment in the Daniel Latifi case suggests that the issue of Personal Laws is a red herring. In any case, which community is not the beneficiary of the state's resort to expediency rather than principle? And why can't these differences be settled in the normal course of politics? Why are we over invested in this fear of minorities?

We often find others threatening not often because of what they do, but because of our own inadequacies. We hold them responsible for whatever we happen to think are our failures: our inability to become a vibrant prosperous nation, our own internalised sense of inferiority vis-a-vis the rest of the world, the precariousness of our own social worlds and identities. Blaming the complex social process, the unwise policy choices that have made us who we are, is often too abstract and remote. We need a personification of feelings; the tumescence of our souls requires a singular object to blame. We hate because we are in search of an offender; the hatred is probably more important than the object itself.

Arguably, the Muslims have come to perform this function for many Hindus, religious and secular alike. They are blamed for our weaknesses, our sense of incomplete nationhood, and a sense of our own powerlessness in the international system when we appear not to be able to take decisive action against our regular "enemies". This is why a "rational" defence of Muslims in India stands little ideological chance. Gujarat reminds us chillingly how easily widespread negative attitudes towards Muslims have become. So long as this sentiment persists, Hindutva, despite occasional political reversals, will continue to cast a shadow on Indian politics. Gujarat also reminds us that this fragile Hindu identity, that can at the slightest pretext adorn the apocalyptic politics of self-esteem, will not be easily combated with reasoned argument. The more Hindutva is frontally attacked, the more emboldened it becomes. It draws sustenance from being under siege. With what ideological arsenal do we combat Hindutva?

Any prospects of long term ideological success against the BJP's brand of Hindutva will have to confront and overcome the crisis within Hinduism. Hindu nationalism represents a crisis of Hinduism in many ways. It has hollowed out all the admirable moral content of Hinduism and made the public face of Hinduism sullen and resentful. It represents Hinduism not at its self-confident best but at its anxious worst. It has replaced whatever spiritual content it might have with a loveless tribal idolatry. The difficulty is that a sense of being under siege is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think your condition is precarious, then any argument is seen as an assault: secularism, the English media, the Congress Party, intellectuals, liberalism or whatever is seen merely as another conspiracy to marginalise Hinduism. We have reached a stage where the supporters of Hindutva see most arguments in this vein. What is required it seems is not arguments over truth or justice, but something that can almost therapeutically liberate us from our suppressed complexes.

This is of course easier said than done. There are no credible sources of authority left that can do what Nehru argued Gandhi had so successfully done: like a psychoanalyst he found out the origins of our complexes, exposed them to view and rid us of their burdens. Second, we live in such risk prone environments that there is always the possibility that some small event will give the narrative of being under siege some succour and comfort. Third, no powerful religious currents are resisting Hindutva.

Many suggest that there is a cultural gap between the idiom of secularism and the vernacular culture of politics. A more effective strategy for combating communalism might be to invoke the possibilities of Hindu tradition rather than the bloodless abstraction of secularism. But there is no reason to be confident that simply invoking an indigenous idiom will work. The question is not the idiom in which reasonable moral argument is made; the question is whether we are in a state of mind where we are receptive to the relevant moral considerations at all. An identity fraught with anxiety is as impervious to self-examination as it is to appeals to more abstract values.

How will Hindus overcome a patently self-fulfilling sense of feeling embattled? Perhaps, if as a nation we had something enduring to cheer about. Perhaps if we achieve a measure of self-respect, we might not be so susceptible to a politics of paranoia. But this is easier said than done: while Indians are respected, India is, largely because of our own doings, not.

Perhaps Pakistan will be so transformed that it will no longer be seen as an uncontrollable threat. But this is wishful thinking. Perhaps the Ayodhya dispute might be settled. But the political momentum of Hindutva makes it an open question whether even an amicable settlement will cut the wind from under the sails of the VHP, or whether it will simply feed its appetite for more victories. Perhaps we will simply be lucky enough that nothing that can possibly be fed into the narrative of being threatened will happen: no secessionist movements, not terrorist attacks. Perhaps we will simply change the subject. We are not sure what will give Hindus enough confidence to examine the true sources of danger to this nation, and not pick upon minorities as a personification of all threats.

Till we answer this question our only hope is that the normal venalities of opportunism will tame the fires of fanaticism. This is not an implausible hope but it is not a robust one either. All we can hope is that Hindus will find more honest ways of confronting their complexes; that they will have the confidence to not succumb to meaningless paranoia, and will have the moral imagination to become the best their traditions enjoin them to be, not the worst that the VHP is trying to make them. How will we transcend the fears that have become our own worst enemy, so much so that we harbour the illusion that Narendra Modi is our ultimate saviour?

(The writer is Professor of Philosophy and of Law and Governance, JNU.)

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