"Self"-criticism

Being born and brought up in India, I have seen, especially in my childhood, and to some extent contributed to as well, an ambivalent “otherness” in the society at large; ambivalent because the people we see as “others”, have been told to us, by the constitution and the books of moral science, atleast on hypothetical level, are my brothers and on the a more practical “day-today” level these “others” have been ghettoized, both on physical and mental level, by “us”. Yes being a Hindu, I am referring to “us” as Hindus and “others” as Muslims. 

Well, I am not of the opinion that many today might be of that all of sudden things between the Hindu “self” and Muslim “other” have become acrimonious and before BJP came into the power things have always been hunky-dory during the Congress tenure. BJP, however, has not created any such rift but it definitely fueling the prevailing rift by emboldening saffron-accentuated disharmonious extremist sentiments.

The general perception of the other’s practices being in direct contradiction with those of the self had ghettoized others’ habitations in the past and the practice is in continuance, something that is condemnable in a democracy. To what extent, relations between the two were tenuous is debatable but it is confirm that the social harmony has always been vulnerable because of being of the ideologies in mutual contradiction. Then came the partition that brutally damaged the social foundations of India. But even after the partition the situation or the brotherhood that we idealize in films and literature never ever seemed to be materialized, in the society at large.

It is not as if it is only Hinduism and Islam which share a relationship of mutual strain. In the west, a bitter hostility can be seen between Judaism and Christianity. I have been to Sunday Church services quite a few times. There I have seen the way Chirstian religious gurus deride the Jewish practices like sun worship. Jews do the same in their Synagogues. But not a single incident, we have heard, of any kind of bloodshed between them, from any of the countries where these beliefs are being flourished. They all, in some way or other, have distanced themselves from the contentious conflicts of Israel. They definitely have conflicts but their conflict is on ideological level. In these societies they never combine national politics and individual’s belief systems.  Barak Obama or Tony Blair has never signaled to American or British Christians to put diplomatic pressure on Israel to push the Jerusalem agenda in favor of Christianity in order to lure Christian votes. Something that BJP always does in form of advancing the issue Ram Mandir to entice Hindu voters.

Bloodshed that the partition caused was an unfortunate incident and nothing could compensate the lose people suffered but I think the time has come when we should move on. Germany moved on after a brutal, organized and political genocide Holocaust, however less in numbers but equivalent if not bigger in symbolic and historical significance. Partition-killings were stimulated on personal level and, the times of emotional vulnerability made innocent Hindus and Muslims, or brothers as they romanticize in popular culture, blood-thirsty of each other. But holocaust was altogether a different case. It was orchestrated by the state to send a whole community into absolute oblivion. It went on for more than 11 years and hundreds of thousands of Jews were brutally tortured or killed and the rest who left had to expatriate from Germany.

The issue of politics and religion as I have earlier mentioned is very complexly intertwined in case of India. However, like many other countries India is a secular nation but some of the very basic ideologies that the Indian state sponsor or if not sponsor then definitely ignores as if they don’t exist offer a vast field for investigation under democratic norms.

In my childhood I had to often change my schools, however, I haven’t attended any big fancy “lavish”  or “posh” school, most of the schools I attended were either government schools or private schools, considered to be the best in the small towns I spent my childhood. There was one thing which was common in all the schools - their proclivity to infuse children with cultural and religious values of “self” or in simpler terms the majority Hindus. I am not saying it is wrong but it seems “unfitting” in case of, atleast, schools run by the state that claims to be the biggest secular democracy in the world. In every school I attended, both public and private, it was compulsory for all the students, irrespective of their identity as “self” or “other”, to partake in the assembly where the whole school, in a very Hindu way, used to honor and appease the Hindu goddess of wisdom Saraswati by placing her idol or picture in the front, something that the “other” finds in dissonance with the ideas and values he/she is growing up at home.

Similar observations can be made in the case of all other social institutions too where the domination of Hindu practices can easily be seen. 

On the other hand, “self” enjoys the privilege of being in ideological and cultural consonance and unintentionally begins to consider his/her ideological and cultural position righteous in the social fabric. It creates a psychological isolation that forces the “other” towards finding their position in the social fabric.

Such yearning of “other” creates a comparatively larger scope of appeasement that the Congress party has so far using as a weapon in hands to gain political support. The politics of appeasement helped Congress party on various occasions but at the same time it raised a bigger question does the definition of secularism is to politically appease minority? Well to what extent the “other” were benefited through this politics of appeasement is a totally different issue of discussion altogether.

Many are saying that people have become intolerant all of a sudden. But in my opinion they have not. Taking cues from the historical background discussed here, it can be said that a certain fury has always been there against the others but as the people in the power were abide, atleast in the best of their pretension, to the constitution and were masquerading their real intentions under the mask of secularism and democracy. So a democratic and secular ethos used to be wafted from the political lobbies into the society.

But today the story is totally opposite. The government is pushing a pro-“self” agenda and it is evident by the way it is functioning and the way people in power are making unwarranted statements. People holding grudges against the “other” so far, today, feel free to blot social space with their regressive and undemocratic expressions. The communal hatred is singeing the democracy. Supporting secularism or quoting constitution to curb the “self”-imposed cultural monopoly poses certain disapprobation as if something sacrosanct has been philandered with. All of a sudden people have got “gumption” to question and debate the constitutive values.

If we try to analyze the core problem here is the falling confidence of people in the constitution. With the irresponsibility India has been governed so far is the primary reason of such diminutive stature of general belief in democracy. People today are looking for an alternative system that will prove to be (more) efficient. In such times “self” is supporting the hardliner Hindutva agenda, agenda endorsed by the BJP. This agenda atleast prima facie appears fascist – a political ideology that gives little space for tolerance. The way historical facts are being altered in order to glorify “self”hood; rationalists are being cornered, in some cases by killing, and “self”-centered personnels are being appointed at the positions at various national institutions; and the way cultural “other” – his kitchen, customs, religion everything are being brought under “self” investigation all are fascist tendendies.

In simpler words the most celebrated democracy in the world is surrounded by the gloomy clouds. Fascism creates watertight ideological binaries of majority and minority where majority always is in action to strike out minorities, something that cannot be allowed in democracy.