Bharat Mata is suffering from pain of self-inflicted wounds. No point in just shouting praise to the motherland when evil forces are destroying the very fabric of nationhood. Not a single day passes without reading or hearing the cries of the anguished people caught in the crossfire of communal hatred. The very idea of India is at stake. There’s so much fear and loathing across the land that for some it’s either become a living hell or just another day in the life of the nation. For those who believe that India will survive no matter what, it should be a delusional feeling. When all around you, the walls are collapsing and the heart and soul lies exposed to the vagaries of human kind in all guises and plots.
Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, there was hope that the change the new government promised would materialise without any hardships to the common folk. But in the year that has passed, India has seen many changes, especially the change in course the nation has taken. The government has inevitably taken a sharp right turn, and it would not be far off the mark to say the country is veering towards the Far Right.
That the BJP is a “rightist” party is saying the obvious. But letting it be guided by the nose by its extremist elements, such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), has proved to be its worst enemy. The RSS may change its uniform and appear modern in outlook, but it would be hard for it to change its mindset. In the same way, the VHP is behest with the desire to unite all faiths under the umbrella of Hinduism, for it believes that India is Hindu in nature and practice. That both are, respectively, the brainchild of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (reinforced later by Veer Sarvarkar), and MS Golwakar, the indefatigable and self-determined idealogues of Hindu culture. Hindutva was bound to be in the air, and as we have seen today, the skies are filled with dark clouds. Indian pluralism, or whatever we know it was, is perhaps dying, if not already dead.
When Narendra Modi came riding to Delhi in an open-carriage of the Sangh Parivar, there was jubilation among the BJP party and its supporters at large. He created for himself the space to occupy both in the minds of the BJP bigwigs and the BJP family at large with his ferocious and high-handed rule in Gujarat. Modi came riding on the Hinduvta brigade, so to say, not necessarily in the form and shape of the Rathyatra that LK Advani took and which resulted in the disastrous Ayodhya tragedy. It’s unfortunate that Advani was kicked sideways as Modi rode to glory, and sits regal in Delhi.
Modi comes to mind often when I see Donald Trump on TV and hear his speeches. America is currently in the throes of despair, as the campaign for a new US president rolls on. It is said that the election has been turned into “Reality TV”, which once had Donald Trump as its prime actor. The Apprentice, as his show was called, had him yelling, “You’re Fired”. Now, he’s fired America, and it’s burning bright.
Mind you, just as India has its BJP “bakhts” see no wrong in what Modi and his BJP does to the country, so there are those “fringe” groups who see Trump as the new messiah. They believe that he’s the Saviour (since Easter was just yesterday) to deliver America from all evil and make it great again. The race for the White House is driven with nasty roadblocks. If ever Trump triumphs in this battle for votes and occupies the world’s best address, one can hope that the world will never be the same again. He’s killed mainstream Republicanism, and only last-ditch efforts by the Republican establishment can stop him in his tracks.
Hearing Trump brings to mind Modi and his eloquent speeches. Though Trump is outrageous in his blatant remarks against Muslims and Mexicans, he’s no lover of all immigrants, while Modi obliquely hinted at Muslims during last year’s election, and his Gujarat rule is a living testimony to it. Like Trump wants to make America great again, not that it has sunken far below on the greatness scale, Modi pitched for economic resurgence.
Will India reach out to its tribals and dalits? Will those who are underprivileged and downtrodden be taken into its national embrace? Will all the religious minorities be accorded the same respect and warm-heartedness that’s given to the majority people?
India must regain its consciousness. Even the Modi supporters feel that both RSS and VHP have hijacked Modi’s developmental plans and substituted it with a raucous and nation-splitting diversionary tactics to undermine the very foundation of nationhood. A million mutinies, as Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, an Indo-Trinidadian wrote in the book by the same name, is needed and not just the JNU event that has snowballed into sort of national revolutionary pastime, to put India back on the road to reconciliation with his minorities and its downtrodden people.
As someone said, a thousand Kanhaiya Kumars will rise up. If that is so, let it be. If Kanhaiya is the spark, so be it. Now is the time, young India must rise up and take up the cudgels. Only such action can save India, and not the histrionics of Smriti Irani.
Eugene Correia is a senior journalist who worked for The Hindu, The Free Press Journal.
