How does Narendra Modi’s lofty slogan Sab ka Saath, Sab ka Vikaas (inclusion and development for all) square up with India’s social-political reality as experienced by the religious minorities? The honest answer is that these groups had the most to fear from a Bharatiya Janata Party election victory, and some of their fears are coming true. BJP leaders, Modi included, have done little to allay them although it’s their duty to do so.
A common fear among India’s Muslims and Christians was that they would continue to face exclusion and discrimination while being asked to subordinate their religious identities to a ‘larger’ pan-Indian national entity or cultural super-identity which is essentially Hindu. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat recently demanded that all Indians must be called Hindu just as people who live in England are called English.
Worse, the Modi cabinet’s sole Muslim, minority affairs minister Najma Heptullah, endorsed this by saying that there’s nothing wrong with the term Hindu being used for all Indians as a label of “national identity”. Under flak, she claimed she had used ‘Hindi’, an Arabic geographical description, not ‘Hindu’. This claim was belied by the interviewer’s audiotape.
Earlier, Heptullah had declared that Muslims, who form 13.4 percent of India’s population, cannot be called a minority; the term is valid only for tiny groups like the Parsis. How she can reconcile this with the post she occupies passes comprehension.
The BJP had made a dismal start in the Lok Sabha elections by giving tickets to just seven Muslims of the 482 candidates it fielded, not one of whom won. This is the first time in Independent India when the ruling party has no Muslim Lok Sabha MP. This speaks poorly of inclusion. The same trend was also reflected in the abysmal share (0.7 percent) of funds allocated to minority welfare in the latest budget.
At a symbolic level, Modi himself sends out a similar message. He has put on every conceivable headgear (Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and tribal) in the past six months, but never a skull-cap, even when one was offered to him. His is also the first government which did not host an Iftar party during Ramazan, something that even the Vajpayee government regularly did.
Symbols do matter. That’s why the Indian government declares national holidays on days important to the followers of all significant religions. Many scholars consider this as a hallmark of Indian secularism which does not oppose politics and public life to religion, but follows the principle of non-discrimination between different religions.
The minorities had other fears too – of coercion and violence by Sangh Parivar elements. These too have materialised, with more than 80 communal riots instigated in 100 days in Uttar Pradesh alone, and with 72 Dalit Christians being converted to Hinduism in UP’s Aligarh district.
Potentially even more dangerous is the insidious propaganda being unleashed in UP through the ‘love jihad’ campaign, which claims that young Muslim men entice innocent Hindu women into a romantic relationship or marriage only to rape and abuse them after converting them to Islam. This has led to harassment of innocent Muslim men, and the demonisation of an entire community.
The BJP’s Uttar Pradesh president Laxmikant Bajpai has stooped to saying: “Youngsters should be vigilant against ‘love jihad’. Why is the government lenient to those who indulge in such practice? Have they got a licence to convert the girls of the majority community…” He was soon joined by Union minister Kalraj Mishra. The entire Sangh Parivar is mobilising itself to fight “love jihad” in UP, inspired by the likes of Yogi Adityanath, an MP who is in charge of the state BJP’s campaign for the coming 11 by-elections.
This is a throwback to the 1920s when the Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha exploited the idea of violation of a woman’s body as a means of creating an artificial Hindu identity. A shuddhikaran (purification) campaign was also launched to ‘reconvert’ Muslims, especially Dalit Muslims, to Hinduism.
The strategy behind such campaigns is to create irrational fears and insecurities and bring them into intimate spaces: the home, the family, the bedroom. The campaign does not need a cataclysmic event or even a genuine case of forced conversion. Carefully planted rumours and whisper campaigns serve the purpose of sowing fear and polarising communities.
It does not matter if the young Hindu woman, declared a victim, entered into a relationship with a Muslim man out of free will. In fact, the whole idea is to deny such free will or independent agency to the woman. She is, by definition, innocent and gullible, while the Muslim man is wicked, sexually charged and violent. She must be protected against the ‘love jihadi’s’ vile designs.
These terrible stereotypes exploit the patriarchal dread of female sexuality and free will, and permit self-appointed guardians of community ‘honour’ to police young women’s behaviour. This is similar to, but more despicable than, khap panchayats banning the use of mobile phones by young women, as has happened in several villages in Punjab, Haryana and UP.
The anti-‘love jihad’ campaign is meant to cover up the male aggression inherent to the patriarchal family and to externalise it by attributing it to another, hostile, community. It is socially regressive because it reinforces masculine authority, tyrannical hierarchy and women’s oppression. It is calculated to promote the idea that a woman cannot make free choices about love, pleasure or marriage; these must always be made for her by men, her self-proclaimed protectors.
It is nothing short of disgraceful that the BJP should stoop to banking on “love jihad” to help it win the coming assembly by-elections, just as it had instigated the Muzaffarnagar communal riots before the Lok Sabha polls. But then, this is part of a well-established pattern.
Now Yogi Adityanath, who has a number of hate-crime cases pending against him, has launched a provocative communal attack on Muslims by telling a TV channel: “In places where there are 10 to 20 percent minorities, stray communal incidents take place. Where there are 20 to 35 percent of them, serious communal riots take place and where they are more than 35 per cent, there is no place for non-Muslims.”
There is a clear case for prosecuting Adityanath under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code for promoting hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or caste or communities. But there is a deafening silence from the BJP’s top leadership on the issue.
In particular, there isn’t even a squeak out of Modi, who exhorted political leaders from the Red Fort to ensure that there is no communal and social strife “for the next 10 years”. But some will detect a menacing sub-text here: India can safely return to strife after 10 years! Anyway, the exhortation sounds hollow given what is happening under Modi’s own nose.
The BJP’s leaders should know better. If they want to build a minimally inclusive and secure society, in which religious minorities don’t feel persecuted and fear that they are being reduced to second-class citizens, then the Sangh Parivar, the party and its government must change their ways. Or else, they will divide India further – violently and irreparably – for narrow political ends.
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and rights activist based in Delhi.
Email: prafulbidwai1@yahoo.co.in
Praful Bidwai, "BJP and ‘love jihad’," The News. 2014-09-07.Keywords: Political science , Political issues , Political leaders , Government-India , Minorities , Election , Jihad , Population , PM Narendra Modi , Yogi Adityanath , Mohan Bhagwat , India , England , BJP , UP