Like a meteor in slow motion, it was only a matter of time that this would hit us. Even so, August 5, 2020, is a day of profound sadness and loss. History will remember it as the day on which the bumpy but colourful and often hopeful journey of India as a humane and inclusive republic of equal citizenship was formally halted by an incumbent government. A government of unmatched hubris, rooted in an ideology of Hindu supremacism, the complete reversal of the pledges that we the people of India made in our Constitution.
Was it an announced tragedy? From the moment 3 bullets were pumped into the fragile framework of Mahatma Gandhi in his interfaith prayer assembly on a winter afternoon in January 1948, does his killer’s ideology deserve in spite of all triumph? Was it inevitable that the iridescent dream of building a country that one day also belonged in all respects to other people of all religions, castes, classes, sexes, languages, ethnicities, colors, sexualities and talents would be broken? And this dream has been destroyed by generations to come?
When the Prime Minister dismisses all constitutionally owned scruples by choosing to preside over a personal program of a Hindu temple built on the site of a medieval mosque ravaged by frantic crowds, it marks the triumph of militant and masculinist Hinduism. Its aim is to make India’s devout minorities transparent that their position in the new republic of India is that of terrifying subjugation.
The nearest lieutenant of Narendra Modi could possibly not physically witness the big event, as his death was interrupted by a virus independent of ideology. But history will have to recognize the role of his amoral and ruthless politics, from 2002 to the present, to help Modi get to where he is on this historic day of the monsoon in Ayodhya. His other closest ally, an unscused practitioner of saffron’s difficult-to-dress policy, Prime Minister Adityanath, leaves no detail to the possibility when organizing a primary event.
It is cruel, some would say, a proper irony, that the true architects of the motion for the demolition of Babri Masjid, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, have been relegated to the shadows. Photographs of the Toyota Rath in which Advani traveled in 1989, leaving a trail of blood and terror, rarely reveal Modi as a young volunteer of the motion. Today, Modi is unwilling to share with anyone the glory of his moment in history, when his footsteps in Ayodhya mark the transmutation of the republic in the eye of the majority mind of his ideological polar star, the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh.
But the Modi-Amit Shah-Adityanath triad has only resulted in a decisive and dramatic culmination of a war of a much older era. For more than a century, supporters of organizations such as Hindu Mahasabha and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh fought tirelessly for a Hindu Rashtra, in which Muslims and Christians would be allowed to live through them as second-class citizens. The motion for the structure of a giant Ram temple at the precise site of the Babri Mosque through the demolition of the mosque has become the hard symbol of this imagination of choice, freeing itself from the policy of deceptive housing represented through the lifestyles of Ram Chabutra and the state of Babri Masjid appearance.
Ram Temple’s motion at Babri Masjid’s site was the biggest stimulus for network violence and post-partition killings. Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi apparently establishes the base of the Ram Temple, its bases have already been established, deeply immersed and incorporated into this set of bleeding, from Bhagalpur to Bombay to Bhopal and Gujarat to countless small towns and cities. in the Hindu regions of northern India, and in the unpunished and unrepentant of the charter and the law through the government authorities.
However, the guilt (or credit, whatever their eyes) for laying the base stone of the Ram Temple through Prime Minister c on the site of a mosque that was razed by a multitude of vandans applauded others later destined to run the country: it is not alone with the combined RSS-BJP and its supporters. The republic would not have reached this level if the political opposition, and especially the Indian National Congress, had done enough to protect the legacy of the struggle for freedom of which they are the national guardians of Indian political life.
Instead, we discover in its repeated prevarications, a language of double trap and, more dangerously, its open or tacit help for the advancement of political movements and government decisions that, like termites, eroded the discoveries of the republic. It was a prime minister of Congress who opened the locks of Babri Masjid; was another deputy minister of Congress under whose supervision the mosque was demolished; It was under the open leadership of many leading ministers of Congress that most of the communal fires were lit.
Even today, when the first stone of the Ram Temple is laid, the maximum political opposition behaves like a deer trapped at night in the light of the headlights, paralyzed, anxious, motionless, confused, unable to head in which direction. As Hannah Ardendt reminds us: “The unhappy fact is that the greatest harm is done through other people who cannot be bad or good.” There are sections of Congress that explicitly wish to exploit your help for the temple structure; others advise remaining silent so as not to disturb the separate Hindu voter. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, one of the most influential voices in Congress, tweeted: “With the message and kindness of Lord Ram and Mother Sita, laying the foundations of the Ramlalla Temple is an opportunity for national unity, fraternity and culture. Convergence.”
Outside the left, no one needs to say that the symbolism of the Prime Minister, who is the prime minister of all Indians and not just Hindus, presides over a service as to the structure of a Hindu temple where a giant mosque had been erected. who demolished himself through a mafia challenging the law and court orders. The arsenal for which leaders are not yet penalized can never be an opportunity for unity and fraternity.
It symbolizes the antithesis of these, the violent suppression of most of the diversity of cultural worship and expression, and their forced fusion into a Brahman and militant Hinduism. Moreover, at the height of the political spectrum, it is ready to reassure Muslims in India and other devout minorities that they will never grant majority subjugation of their rights and culture.
Supporters of the ruling regime may argue that this is a democratically elected government, a government that was rejected with an even larger one-party majority at the time for consecutive power. They have a mandate to reshape India according to the vision of their party and ideology. If we look more closely at the percentage of the votes of the Bharatiya Janata party and who contributed to it, we see that the BJP received 37.6% of the general vote, of which 36% were Hindu electorates. Most of the Hindu electorate, 52%, voted for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Although a higher proportion of privileged caste electorates opted for the BJP, one in 3 Dalit voters in 2019 pressed the BJP lotus symbol on electronic voting machines.
Unlike 2014, when Modi also promised jobs and growth, the political message of 2019 is undoubtedly that of tough Hindu nationalism. As a result, Modi would possibly feel justified in believing that most of the Hindu electorate in India has ordered him to advance the law and practice a Hindu nation. But the joy of Nazi Germany in the 1930s is a terrifying reminder of what a democratically elected government voted and passionately supported through vital sections of religion, race, or the dominant majority ethnic organization that it can do to the practice of human democracy. A democracy is empty if it does not protect each and every minority from the possible violent dominance of the majority.
At the beginning of this essay, I asked: is it foreseen that hatred will one day, sooner or later, triumph over love?
Prime Minister Modi’s first stone in Ayodhya marks India’s formal abhishek or ordination as what political scientist Ashutosh Varshney describes as a bigoted democracy. A giant temple will be erected where a mosque was held for more than 500 years. In the long shadows of this temple, the country I grew up in will be increasingly obscured, lost forever.
However, I am convinced that this country is bigger than the small sectarian men who are now their destiny. I recognise that the concept of a human country of equality of citizens has suffered a severe blow. But I’m convinced he didn’t die.
Harsh Mander is a rights and peace worker, writer, columnist, researcher and who works with survivors of mass violence, hunger, homelessness and street children. His Twitter nickname is @harsh_mander.