We are back to normal. A week after the BJP sounded somewhat concerned about the alienation of Muslims, it's back to its polemics. BJP President Amit Shah is calling the Dadri incident an isolated one and not the centre's problem as it happened in a state ruled by the Samajwadi Party. He also said that that BJP ministers' remarks have been misreported. Moreover, he has reverted to the traditional line that the BJP stands for all communities but is against the appeasement of minorities. And finally, the Prime Minister seems to have forgotten his support for the President's message of secularism and has raised the bogey of a Grand Alliance victory in Bihar leading to "some communities" getting a share of reservation. So vote BJP and keep reservation for OBC (Other Backward Caste) Hindus.
It is possible to take a cynical view of this and say that the BJP, facing an uphill task in Bihar, needs whatever fuel to fire support for the party in that state, as the stakes are very high: to lose Bihar would embolden the opposition, probably end any hope of a productive Parliament session next month, delaying whatever economic reforms that the government wants to introduce. However, Bihar is just one of many state elections coming up - next year West Bengal, Assam,Tamil Nadu and Kerala go to the polls around April. So the BJP, which is keen to do well in West Bengal and feels it could capture Assam, will again feel the need to stand as the party of the Hindus, and in doing so, will it resort to fanning the flames of communalism.
And as if that were not enough, next up in 2017 is the big catch of Uttar Pradesh where the BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections and will want a repeat in the assembly elections. So can we wait patiently for the BJP's electoral compulsions to end, and ask those at the receiving end of them to ignore what is happening?
The reality is that the BJP leadership made some effort to assuage the feelings of the "secularists'' following the large-scale media coverage of Dadri, the writers' agitation and the President's call that "humanism and pluralism should not be abandoned under any circumstance". However, except for Union Minister Kalraj Mishra who comes from Uttar Pradesh and is probably aware of the rising communal tensions there - he has called for stopping this "spreading of hatred" outright - other BJP leaders have been quite mealy-mouthed in their responses. Basically, the BJP leadership took the line that the Dadri lynching was a deplorable thing that happened. That is the problem - believing or asking people to believe that these are isolated events which have no long-term impact. And that is not true.
When a reasonable, quiet and diplomatic Vice President Hamid Ansari has twice in the space of two months spoken about the concerns of the Muslims in the country, it is time to introspect. He has
said "Constitution of India is like a religious book for everyone. It provides the right to live, also the government should protect this right. It is also our responsibility to protect our neighbours." And he called for interaction between the communities and
warned against efforts to isolate Muslims and had said "The default by the State or its agents in terms of deprivation, exclusion and discrimination (including failure to provide security) is to be corrected by the State..."
Is it not important for the state to worry about what the Vice President is trying to communicate - that there is a disquiet in the Muslim community about what is happening in the country. Some may argue that this is paranoia but even if it were, paranoia needs to be assuaged and people told clearly that they do not face a problem and that they are not a fringe element; that the Hindutva dream does not encompass changing everyone's lifestyle to conform to the Parivar's interpretation of it. And nobody in the BJP has done that clearly and succinctly.
Instead, it has allowed a large-scale cow and beef agitation to spread. This is not some disorganized campaign by disparate Hindutva groups. It is a well thought out plan to raise the bogey of one issue that a large number of Hindus find unpalatable and propagate it with half-truths so as to convince them that the Indian sacred cow is in danger. The fact is that most states ban cow slaughter anyway, and those cows that are slaughtered are old and no longer produce milk and are of no use to farmers. Most of the farmers who sell these cows are Hindus. Moreover, most of the so-called beef in the market is buffalo meat. The beef ban is symbolic of the Hindu state: don't eat beef in India because Hindus don't eat beef.
There is absolutely no question that there has been an increased intolerance towards those who don't want to conform to idea of the Hindutva state since the general elections, and Muslims have borne much of the brunt of it. That this has not necessarily come from the BJP may be true, but the electoral victory has been seen by many on the extreme fringes of the Parivar as license to preach their brand of Hindutva. The last three incidents of lynching (Dadri, Himachal and Jammu), all over beef, are clear indications that there is A strong belief that the State will not act against such brazen behaviour. Clearly, there is the sense that the rule of law does not apply to those who are defending the "sacred cow" and other symbols of Hindutva. The Shiv Sena's and others' acts of violence against events that they believe do not conform to "cultural values of India" are just another facet of this.
The real question is does no one in the Sangh Parivar fear that they could be alienating enough numbers within the Muslim community, especially among the youth, thereby providing a veritable base for those outside the country who are keen to de-stabilize us? In other words, provide the milieu for extremism and terrorism. Have they forgotten that the demolition of the Babri Masjid led to increased support for the Students Islamic Movement of India or SIMI and turned it into a terror organization? And have they forgotten that by the early evening of December 6 1996, Mumbai was aflame?
It only needs a few hundred people who become disillusioned to provide the backbone of a terrorist organisation. But more importantly, it takes the alienation of a community to provide those few the cover and protection they need to survive. So far, the majority within the Muslim community has been able to "control'' the more militant within them. How long will this last, if the Muslims feel that they must live not as equals but, as Ansari fears, "inferior" to the rest? The Indian state is a soft state and is badly equipped to protect itself against small cell-based terrorism; with just under one in four Indians a member of the minority, India's only real protection lies in continued support of the majority of all communities of the idea of a secular country.
This is not a question of appeasement of a minority. There is no appeasement in treating people of different religions with equality, respect and justice. Instead it is important to show that the state is not appeasing that "minority'' within the Hindu community who seem to want to turn the nation back into some 5th century AD glorious Golden Age fantasy. And if there has been any appeasement of the minority, it was by the Fadnavis Government in Maharashtra that tried to impose a meat ban last month during a religious period for the Jains. Why is the BJP allowed to choose which minority to appease and which to confront?
Finally, does this government not recognize that this continued violence against minorities is not improving the image of this country abroad and probably scaring away real foreign investment? If you see the news about India that has been carried by the international press, it is not about the travels of the Prime Minister but the communal violence, lynching and rapes. Not a particularly pretty picture to draw investment.
As Shailaja Bajpai (disclosure: my sister)
wrote last week and Arun Shourie echoed the other day, the Congress was about corruption and the BJP has become about the cow.
Can our politicians stop playing cowboys and Indians and get down to the task of developing this country for everyone?
(Ishwari Bajpai is Senior Advisor at NDTV.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.