“Nothing good can come of digging into history to relive its horrors, or to scour its wounds till they again bleed. We must learn from mistakes other nations have made, which have ruined their economies and social fabric, and brought them to the brink more than once”, the 103-year-old All India Catholic Union, with its headquarters in Goa, said this week.
India, it said, had faced challenges such as massive violence during the 1947 Partition, the 1984 anti-Sikh Violence, the bloodshed in the name of caste, and the death and destruction in the wake of Babri mosque demolition. “The nation has always come back to the path of peace and has assured its minorities, Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalised communities that their future is safe under the Constitution and culture of India”. I have personally also been a documenter of the last half a century of this often-last-minute swing back to peace and calm.
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India is not an exception to this pendulum between tension and violence on the one hand, and a return to reason and reconciliation on the other. There is almost no nation on earth whose history is not beset with great violence. Many were born in armed conflict, though India perhaps broke with history to get its freedom from colonial rule.
Most nations, specially ancient civilisations such as India, have emerged from those fires to become leaders of peace and development.
This has been so because the political and religious leaderships of the day have seen the danger that lies in the path of suicidal divisions and strife, and suppurating wounds. They have found the strength to act strongly, and in concert to strengthen peace and amity.
Our leadership too cannot look away from its responsibility. At the centre and in the States, it must understand the folly of policies and politics of division. And it must take remedial measures with great urgency to work towards peace, harmony between religious and social groups, and the integrity and progress of our country.
The widening chasm between Hindu and Muslim interests is for everyone to see. Its intensity threatens to overwhelm the senses as it has already overwhelmed the media. Many social scientists and political activists have cautioned on the rapid pace with which a chain of events and situations is being forged to bring the two communities into open conflict. Targeted, conniving officials and eager aspirants to a political future, have collectively traumatised discourse in several parts of north India.
But it is not just Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh which are fuelling the communal fires. Recent developments in Punjab after the elections also raise a flag, though not a bright red at present. The current collapse of the Akali Dal does not mean a weakening of its link with religious institutions. The issue of dealing with sacrilege reported in the State with alarming frequency, the caste divisions which are barely under the surface, and the issue of Khalistan still roil political waters. The new chief minister of Punjab has done well to act swiftly and admonish a major religious leader for his emotional call for every Sikh to get himself or herself a licensed modern firearm.
Rajasthan’s caste wars are legion. And they are not confined to what the rest of India understands as caste divisions, between the self-styled upper castes and the scheduled castes.
The current confrontations are not on gods, but the case identities of kings of a thousand years ago. It will be dangerous to laugh these things off. They have led to violence in the past, apart from muddying the political scene.
Language was once a powerful political issue. Independent India demarcated its States not on the basis of development and administrative cohesion, but on linguistic lines. It placated passions in various regions, specially the Andhras, Orissa, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana.
If religion was a bad basis on dividing nations, as Bangladesh proved for the sub-continent, language too did not end controversies and conflicts. State languages spelt the doom of all small but ancient languages. And supporters of Hindi as the national language apparently never learnt the lesson from the anger in Tamil Nadu in the first two decades of independence on this matter. This year sees another turbulence triggered by insensitive and unthanking remarks from big leaders.
These are obvious issues and fault lines, even if they are not easy to address, and perhaps not easy to resolve forever. They will need continuous attention, in the emergency room when needed, but almost always in a hospice with a nurturing environment for dialogue and an attempt at reconciliation based on justice and truth.
The larger issue cuts across every container of religion, caste and sub caste. The macro issue of poverty needs redressal in all its components – land reforms, the issue of landless labour, migration, nutrition and housing in the rural sector, and unemployment, the real elephant in the room.
We may be in denial of the real number of people dead or impacted by the Covid pandemic, but there is little controversy on its terrible impact on employment and national development.
The other issues may or may not be diversionary tactics to create new targets for the people’s frustration and anger. But it is for those in government to understand there can be no running away from the interconnected issue of poverty and unemployment. Unfortunately, we have not seen even the beginning of serious effort to face it squarely. An increase in the number of billionaires in India does not mean a decrease in poverty or joblessness.
(John Dayal is an author, editor who lives in New Delhi.)
