The unwillingness to
face the challenge of minority communalism is now coming home to roost.
An obscure body claiming to speak for minorities has called Kolkata's
secular credentials into question. It was more keen to ensure the
expulsion of Taslima Nasreen from the city than resettle the displaced
refugees of Nandigram.
The West Bengal government and Left parties will explain it away as the
work of anti-social elements, if not that of some Islamic militants
from across the border. But the fact that a number of people responded
to the call and played havoc with life in the city stands out over and
above these explanations. We are paying the price for underrating the
threat of minority communalism. Now, it has assumed proportions serious
enough to pose a threat to government that projected itself as the
chief protector of minorities.
“Secular” mobilisation has lent strength to the notion that while all
communalism is bad, majority communalism poses a much greater threat to
the nation than minority communalism. We are left with only majority
communalism as a strong adversary. The “secular” parties' unwillingness
to question, challenge and confront minority communalism has thus
created a space for it to grow, as its leaders realise the power vested
in it as a political force or vote bank. Almost all parties have
contributed to this growth: the Sangh Parivar by posing a threat to the
physical existence of Muslims, the Congress by playing up this threat,
the Left by underplaying minority communalism and the liberal Muslim
intelligentsia by harping on the decline of Urdu and safeguarding of
Muslim Personal Law and so forth.
There have been voices of dissent within the Muslim community. Rajiv
Gandhi's minister Arif Mohammad Khan was against surrendering to the
demands of dogmatic mullahs on the Shah Bano case in the 1980s. He even
resigned from the government when Rajiv Gandhi decided to go ahead and
defy the Supreme Court in the hope of cornering Muslim votes. Khan lost
the election.
But these are lone, individual voices, pitted against not only the
orthodox leader-ship within the Muslim community but almost every
government. In the absence of a larger social movement, the orthodox
leadership's hold on the Muslim community has increased. The expansion
of political space for the assertion of communal identity has only
helped conservative elements. Secular parties, including the Left, abet
such tendencies by their silence. Given these developments, some of the
assumptions of India's modernisation project can be called into
question.
Jawaharlal Nehru's enthusiasm for parliamentary democracy based on
universal adult franchise was based on his perception that colonial
exploitation had left India and its people “backward” vis-a-vis the
indices of modernity - industrial economy, education and political
awareness. Hence, they fell back upon their pre-modern identities of
caste, community and religion.
It was believed that industrialisation, bringing together workers of
all religions and castes, will obliterate their pre modern mindset and
forge a new collective identity of class. Modern education was expected
to raise them above pre-modern identities.
The experience of parliamentary democracy, where each individual is
left alone before the ballot box, with the symbolic withdrawal of all
extraneous controls - those of the family, the community, and caste -
was expected to act as a catalyst for creating modern political
sensibilities.
All this has not happened. Casteism, communalism and regionalism have
never been stronger as a political force. The clash between secularism
and communalism has come to imply multi-community mobilisation as
opposed to single community mobilisation.
If the majority and minority communalisms are left to challenge each
other, it is hard to imagine a greater disaster awaiting India, for
their mutual challenge leads to mutual reinforcement. As a fallout of
the happenings in Kolkata, one can visualise one man laughing all the
way to his vote bank: Narendra Modi in far off Gujarat.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Minority_report/articleshow/2570180.cms
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