Hindutva's damaging game

Violence against minorities will affect everyone

Civil society has been shocked by the recent call for genocide against Muslims and for Hindus to arm themselves to create a Hindu Rashtra by religious leaders at a Dharam Sansad in Haridwar. It is remarkable, however, that although sundry opposition politicians have protested and Supreme Court lawyers have written to the chief justice to take suo motu notice of the incident, no major ruling party leader has cared to condemn this public incitement to mass murder, nor have any arrests been made (though FIRs have been filed), even as the video footage of the incendiary speeches is freely available. Evidence that the forces of majoritarian violence were scarcely chastened showed when Hindutva activists in Haryana and Assam — states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party — disrupted church services. In Pataudi in Gurugram district, men were seen barging into a venue of a Christmas prayer, pushing choir members and snatching a mike to exhort children to shout Jai Shri Ram. In an Ambala church, a statue of Jesus was broken. In Silchar, members claiming to be from the Bajrang Dal demanded that the service be stopped because Hindus could not take part. In these incidents, too, police action has been minimal, though all the incidents have footage available.

These overt attacks on minorities this month merely amplify a trend that has been gathering momentum this past year. As recently as October, a mob of around 500 people in Haridwar attacked worshippers in a church attending Sunday mass. In Gurugram, a fierce campaign has been waged by right-wing Hindu groups to disrupt Friday prayers by Muslims on land designated for the purpose by the city authorities. Though over 30 arrests were made over the past few weeks, the controversy has not abated, prompting a Muslim group to appeal to the Supreme Court for redress. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has said offering namaz in public places would not be tolerated and Muslims must pray in mosques. This not only contradicts his own administration’s ruling but also ignores the fact that the prayer areas were designated because Gurugram does not have enough mosques.

This implicit political tolerance for brazen violations of law and order by vigilantes is of a piece with the systemic and institutional aggression that is being openly displayed against those who do not fit the Hindutva paradigm: Dalits and tribals, journalists, activists, comedians, and academics who speak truth to power and, of course, Muslims and Christians. But political leaders of this persuasion may discover that the wilful suborning of the institutions of the state — the police and the courts — to their majoritarian, nationalist agenda may be damaging the national interest. Majoritarianism, which encourages a weakening of state institutions that safeguard law and order, can just as easily rebound on those who are wielding the instruments of societal coercion today. The question that political leaders who pander to lumpen elements must ask themselves is whether they really want the fragmented, lawless society that they are encouraging. Democratic India, with all the multicultural soft power at its disposal, has the example of Pakistan on its doorstep to exemplify the perils of allowing the rights and security of ordinary citizens to wither away in the interests of creating a narrow societal vision. In the end, all Indians will be the losers, not just the minorities that Hindutvadis seek to intimidate.