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Modi's unrelenting anti-minoritism

THE SO-CALLED "FREEDOM of Religion" Bill adopted by the Gujarat Legislature last week which, in fact, seeks to clamp a ban on citizens' fundamental right to freedom of religion enshrined in Article 25 of the Constitution is a fresh blot on the democratic and pluralist ethos underpinning our society. The adoption of such a law is yet another evidence of the brazen pursuit of a politics of hate and provocation by the Narendra Modi Government in Gujarat since the revenge massacre of hundreds of innocent Muslims in the State following the torching of 59 kar sevaks in Godhra in February 2002. Ostensibly aimed at putting an end to religious conversions accomplished by force, allurements and fraudulent means, the Gujarat Bill is, both in spirit and content, similar to the infamous law enacted by the AIADMK Government in Tamil Nadu last November. Betraying a total lack of sensitivity to religious doctrines in general, the Gujarat law, like its Tamil Nadu precursor, seeks to construe all references to divine displeasure, basic to almost every world religion, as use of force. Such a provision is absurd insofar as the application of this law would depend entirely upon the audience to which a pronouncement of divine displeasure is addressed.

If stray instances of citizens embracing a new faith were trotted out as justification by Ms. Jayalalithaa to clamp down upon the socially and economically marginalised sections of Tamil Nadu and the activities of Christian missionary institutions, the campaign for an anti-conversion law in Gujarat gathered fresh momentum ever since the bloody carnage last February. Far from assuaging the feelings of Muslims — raped and butchered by organised mobs of the Sangh Parivar backed by a complicit State machinery — and restoring a sense of security and normality to the State in the aftermath of Godhra, an emboldened Mr. Modi had gone about his incendiary campaign of lies, hate and humiliation against the minorities in the run-up to the Assembly elections. It was at one such election rally that Mr. Modi, in utter disregard for norms of basic human decency and civilised behaviour, hurled the abominable epithet "ham paanch hamaare pachchees" with a deliberate intent to reinforce old canards about the Muslim community. Likewise, the promise of a law to ban religious conversions in the BJP's Gujarat election manifesto was, above all, meant to remind the minorities that their security depended on the goodwill of the majority in this country.

Whether it is the BJP's vested interest in keeping alive the vexed issue of the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya or the new-found zeal it exhibits to prevent conversions to other religions, or even the connection it seeks to impute to Muslims in this country on the question of cross-border terrorism, the undercurrents of the Sangh Parivar's political agenda are obvious. This is one of continuously seeking legitimacy for its brand of politics in the name of the majority community. It achieves this end by undermining the equal citizenship rights of the minorities in this country and holding them responsible for all the "historical wrongs". Against this background, any effective counter to this agenda from democratic forces must necessarily begin by an unambiguous affirmation of the rights of minorities as integral to a modern constitutional democracy, coupled with a decisive shift away from the politics of communalism. Additionally, it calls for a more emphatic upfront confrontation on the democratic turf rather than engagement at the level of semantics. Expressions such as pseudo-Hindu to describe the BJP, or attempting to delineate genuine Hinduism from Hindutva are unlikely to counter the Sangh Parivar's campaign effectively. On the contrary, the argument needs to be based squarely on democracy and secularism.

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