How Hindu Right ends up justifying Muslim communalism
From 1993 Bombay riots to unsporting acts by cricketers, the Hindu Right's anti-Muslim agenda risks making India similar to Pakistan's style of functioning
The three middle-aged men were huddled, visibly frightened, under a leafy tree near a shuttered fuel station in the thick of the 1993 communal orgy that ravaged Bombay. One of them, believe it or not, was a local Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM).
Like hundreds of other Muslims in the city, the three were clearly on the run to escape marauding Shiv Sena mobs determined to put the minority community in its place following the Babri Masjid razing a month earlier.
It will be impossible to forget what the SDM officer conveyed in dismay, and with a mix of undisguised anger and bitterness.
“Sir, it would have been much better had our families gone over to Pakistan in 1947,” he said, speaking in Hindi. “What a shame that an SDM officer like me, who is supposed to provide security to others, is forced into hiding.”
The other two men did not speak. The SDM officer himself clammed up after a while, clearly disgusted by the turn of events in his and the lives of other Muslims in the teeming city.
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Aggressive Hindutva push
Millions of Muslims chose to remain in India when the country underwent a horrific partition on communal lines in 1947. Their decision was the biggest setback to Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who decreed that Muslims and Hindus were two distinct and separate “nations”.
Over the decades, including when East Pakistan broke away to become an independent and secular Bangladesh, Jinnah’s two-nation theory faced more decisive punches, raising questions mark over its theological relevance.
It is only the rise of aggressive Hindutva push in the 1980s, leading to the frenzied destruction of the 16th century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which made many – and not just Muslims – ask if Jinnah was probably right after all.
The Hindu Right appeared to enjoy its campaign across the country, as it slowly and then rapidly put the minorities, Muslims in particular, on the defensive with a cocktail of truths, half-truths and lies that gave birth to 'animal' passion in the minds of numerous Hindus.
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Asim Munir's remarks
What was once the fringe slowly enveloped broader sections of Hindus, making Hindu communal feelings respectable as “Hindu pride”.
If Hindutva ideologues and foot soldiers earlier ended up justifying Jinnah’s anti-Hindu phobia, immature and foolish Indian cricketers have now proved Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, right in retrospect.
In his infamous remarks in April this year, General Munir, revisited and justified Jinnah’s two-nation theory as he told Pakistanis to tell their children about the “stark differences between Hindus and Muslims” in all aspects of life.
“Our religion is different. Our customs are different. Our traditions are different. Our thoughts are different. Our ambitions are different… That was the foundation of the two-nation theory.”
In the terror attack that killed 26 people in Kashmir, soon after, the terrorists slaughtered innocents.
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Unsporting activity
On the cricket field, by playing against Pakistan but going against civility by not shaking hands with their sporting opponents, the Indian cricketers de facto justified that the two religious communities were destined to be separate, the very basis of the two-nation theory. No amount of wailing that ‘Pakistanis-are-to-blame‘ while ‘we-are-innocent’ will hold good, all through the Asia Cup tournament.
It is evident that the idea not to shake hands and then air controversial remarks about Operation Sindoor post-match and later could not have been the sole prerogative of the cricketers, the Indian captain’s claims notwithstanding. Whoever thought of it, the cricketers cannot escape responsibility as they executed the unsporting advice on the ground.
For decades, as India remained a functional secular state despite known and unseen blemishes, the propagandists of the two-nation theory were on the defensive even if they raised the issue every now and then.
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'India could accommodate non-Hindus too'
The Hindu Right, with its aggressive anti-Muslim agenda, inadvertently sought to prove that Muslims, India’s largest minority, could only be considered second-class citizens even if slogans that claimed otherwise were frequently mouthed.
While this narrow vision was supposed to cover only India and Pakistan, little did the Hindu Right realise – or perhaps care – that such a worldview would seriously hurt respect for India’s long-standing core values in the larger world too.
That is precisely what has happened. Illiberalism may be becoming popular in some sections of the world, but a large mass of people now view an India minus its traditional secular values as no different from, of all the countries, Pakistan.
In other words, the Hindu Right has put India on par with Islamic Pakistan even as Indian government leaders increasingly assert that Islamabad is a failed State.
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What Hindu Right want?
By branding all Pakistanis (cricketers included) as Islamists and so an object of hatred, India has stifled a significant section in Pakistan which is opposed to the mullah-military complex and has always desired genuinely better ties with New Delhi.
It may be fashionable to claim that India’s win in Asia Cup is a replay of the military victory over Pakistan but this claim has a dangerous overtone. What if India had lost this really close match?
With cricketing fortunes being what they are, and notwithstanding the Indian captain’s arrogance, what if Pakistan were to defeat India in another match? And if not in cricket, then in some other sport.
Will that be considered a defeat for India in the sporting arena’s Operation Sindoor?
One thing is crystal clear. The Hindu Right simply cannot even contemplate a world where Hindus and Muslims and other minorities can be equal and hand-shaking partners.
Is this precisely not what Jinnah and General Munir also preached?
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not reflect the views of The Federal.)
