The state of India’s democracy is reflected in the many instances where it is infringed with impunity. Apparently we have all the freedoms as given in the country’s Constitution. But in reality everything is conditional. We have the Home Minister of the country say the other day that after 2002 the troublemakers will not ‘dare’ raise their head in Gujarat again. The Election Commission finds nothing wrong in this since no community was named by Shah and ignores the implied reference to the Gujarat riots.
The lesser version or the more grievous version of this, you take your pick, is the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh who presides over Bulldozer Raj meaning the houses of rioters are demolished without any recourse allowed to them on the plea that they are illegal. State terrorism is another word for this where intimidation of citizens is executive policy. Interestingly the majority of those whose houses are demolished are that of Muslims. The bulldozer policy has reached Kashmir where the other day a terrorist’s house was razed to the ground. One does not know whether it was illegal or not. One does not know whether his family is having alternate shelter. One does not know whether in the height of winter where temperatures in the Valley have been plummeting below zero degree, it is humane and proper to do this if his family was staying there.
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In spite of the horrendous Nirbhaya rape case in Delhi in 2012 which raised the question of women safety, where a woman could be raped by a group of men in the heart of Delhi, the nation’s capital, we have similar cases occurring with clockwork regularity across the northern States of the country. A decade has passed by but women safety remains as much as a concern as it was earlier. Recently Bilkis Bano, the pregnant woman who was raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots, has decided to go to the Supreme Court against the State government’s decision to release her rapists from jail on grounds of ‘good behaviour’. She fears for her life if the rapists are allowed to roam free in Gujarat. It is not only Bilkis but also a woman in Karnataka who had accused a seer in Chitradurga of raping her two minor daughters.
Law and order is another area where the situation is becoming progressively alarming. After the ghastly murder of Shradha by her live-in partner Poonawala in Delhi, there have been a spate of ‘me-too’ kind of murders across northern India, including Bengal, where close family or with those with relationships have been killed, dismembered and disposed of in suitcases, gunny bags and the like.
Not only that the minorities and lower caste people are being systematically attacked more so those of the Muslim community. We even had a student being called ‘Kasab’ by a professor at the reputed Manipal University in Karnataka since ostensibly he had a name sounding similar to that of the terrorist and when objected to by the student said it was a joke! The head scarf worn by Muslim women, the hijab was not only in the news in Iran but had hit headlines in India too as also the matter had reached the Supreme Court. The issue here was very simple where the hijab is particularly worn in the Malabar and Dakshina Kannada region for generations and is an external covering and has nothing to do with education which is a matter of the mind.
It is not just the minority community but also the lower castes and tribals are being treated shabbily and shame and insult is being heaped on them if they deviate an inch from the track laid out from them. One feels ashamed that this continues even today in the 75th year or Amrut Mahotsav of India’s Independence from the British, our colonial rulers. Modi, while speaking to the media before the opening of the winter session of Parliament, said that India in its Amrut Kaal will show the way to the world. But one thinks that he has to look back at his own home and country and put it in order before he attempts to give lessons to the world.
The problem with our leaders and our governments is that they remain in denial and refuse to accept even if world leaders and other countries highlight the issues in India that relate to the minority communities and the underprivileged as also women. UN Secretary General Gutteres on his last visit to India had mentioned these issues but was met with a rebuttal from our Foreign Minister that it is all an attempt to show India in a bad light to the world. The USA had also raised the issue of human rights atrocities sometime back on the minority communities and women at the level of the Secretary of State but India responded by saying that the USA needs to concentrate on its own human rights record relating to the black, Hispanic and the underprivileged which is pretty bad. Similarly the other day when India took over the helming of the UN Security Council for this month – December 2022 – and in the media briefing for that the India UN Permanent Representative responding to a question about the state of democracy in India in the context of reported atrocities on the minority community and weaker sections of society, said that India does not need lessons in democracy from anybody since Indian democracy has sustained through the ages and will remain strong and vibrant. These are semantics played around with by diplomats and politicians that is intended to deflect and hide the deeper malaise that is eating away at the roots of Indian democracy and converting it into an autocracy of a small minority of doggedly communal minded people.
