The lamentable state of affairs in India is such that the opposition is supremely dysfunctional, and we choose not necessarily the best but the least bad among them all. The Hindus err in placing idolatrous faith in Prime Minister Modi, and stated as hereunder are the reasons why.
Foremost, the government waited too long to comprehensively explain both the historical context and legal facet behind the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act. It did not respond forthwith to the prevalent anarchy over a non-issue. Lawyers such as Harish Salve and intellectuals such as Dr. Anand Ranganathan were able to defend the Act in much better a manner than the Government’s inept spokespersons could. What is exasperating and outrageous to most clear-minded Indians in general and Hindus in particular is its lack of action against, as Dr. Ranganathan described it, the island-state of Shaheen Bagh. Erroneously called a protest site, this island-state metamorphosed into a deep and dark blot on India’s reputation as a mother brought her four-month-old infant at the site who died due to exposure to cold. The mother was so bereft of shame as to declare that she would not hesitate to sacrifice her two other children for the cause.
Defence analyst Abhijit Iyer-Mitra goes so far as to contend that the very fact that law enforcement was not deployed in order to break the island-state effectively indicates that Prime Minister Modi colluded with the woman who, err not, effectively had her infant killed. INFANT! As Abhijit Iyer-Mitra views it, this lack of government action was a deliberate ploy by the Centre to ensure that its brain-dead devotee-base gets more angry and militant in its support for Mr. Modi as it sees the sanctimonious and verily anti-national nature of the Leftist-Islamist nexus, and votes for him yet again. It may have been electorally beneficial to Mr. Modi, but it was evilly deleterious to India.
The failure to deploy law enforcement could either be construed as incompetence or as deliberate refusal keeping future electoral victories into consideration. Neither of the possibilities indicate good leadership. Short as public memory in India has often proven to be, the public has forgotten all about the loss of an innocent life, which might have been saved had the island-state been dismantled with the power of law enforcement.
In blatant contravention of Government orders of a lockdown in view of the Coronavirus pandemic as well as the ban on the assembly of people, the members of an Islamic missionary movement named Tablighi Jamaat began congregating in large numbers at its headquarters in Delhi called the Markaz. As Aljazeera reports, “In a 28-minute audio clip of a sermon posted on March 19 on Markaz’s YouTube channel, Jamaat chief Maulana Saad called Coronavirus an “azaab” (God’s punishment) and asked his followers to run to the mosques. He also called the assertion that people gathering in the mosque will lead to more infections as “baatil khayal” (falsehood).”
His later appeals to obey government orders were too late. That alone did not exacerbate the situation. As the doctors and nurses proceeded to discharge their duties of the quarantined Tablighis, they were spat upon and harassed by the very individuals they were sent to ensure the well-being of.
Across the country, there were instances of a few members of the Muslim community pelting stones at police officials ensuring the lockdown. Top officials from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs revealed to Hindustan Times that the National Security Advisor (NSA) of India himself, Mr. Ajit Doval, reached around 2.00 am on March 28–29 night at the markaz and convinced Maulana Saad to get the occupants to be tested for the Covid-19 infection and be quarantined. While the markaz allowed 167 Tablighi workers to be hospitalised on March 27, 28 and 29, it was only after the intervention of Doval that the Jamaat leadership yielded to cleaning up of the masjid. The efforts by Mr. Doval may be applauded, yet there remains a fact that everyone ignores, the opposition especially so considering that it never has India’s interests in view. India’s nuclear command structure is such that it is not the PM, but the NSA who launches India’s nuclear arsenal upon orders from the PMO.
What the negotiation incident with the Tablighis reveals is that the government effectively sent India’s nuclear shield willingly into a biohazard zone! Imagine the sheer ignominy of it! Was India even taking its nuclear security seriously? This is not how a responsible power is supposed to conduct itself! Imagine the possibility that NSA Doval might have had contracted the Coronavirus, and passed it off to the PM, which in turn could have had infected the Cabinet. Can the nation begin to imagine the horror of having the national cabinet infected? In absence of cabinet leadership, the possibility of factions emerging in the bureaucracy emerges, and no meaningful work could be ensured. It is the elected leadership that eventually ensures cohesion in the bureaucracy. One may well contend that the Tablighis would have relented to none but Mr. Doval. This only proves that there is a systemic malaise within India’s state apparatus that leads it to propitiate the Muslim community.
As Abhijit Iyer-Mitra notes, the Muslims have perfected the art of holding the government at gunpoint. It is a negotiation tactic. That the Shias do not engage in such tactics, are by and large loyal to India and that it is mostly the economically disadvantaged Sunnis who do so, is a topic for a separate discussion. The Tablighis registered FIRs against the conscious citizens who exposed them on social media, and the police was so unabashed as to accept such FIRs and act on them. Abhijit notes that when one questions the police, their helplessness could be evinced as they say, “We have no choice, sir! We do not want riots. You know not of what these people are capable of”. It is a systemic, institutional malaise. The message it sends is that law-abiders shall be punished and law-breakers incentivized.
When Ms. Shabana Azmi was injured, Mr. Modi forthwith tweeted his hope that she got well soon. However, just days prior to that incident, India lost seventeen CRPF soldiers in a Maoist attack. There was not a tweet from Mr. Modi. What message does this communicate? That Ms. Azmi mattered more to him than the lives of our soldiers?
In his first term, Mr. Modi had made an impassioned appeal to the people about living in harmony and respecting law and order when a few Muslims were lynched by gau-rakshaks, conveniently forgetting, as Abhijit noted, that those lynched were cow smugglers and very violent as well. However, he could not be moved enough to pen a tweet condemning the despicable manner in which two venerable Hindu saints in Palghar were handed over by the police to a mob, which beat them up and killed them.
Wherefore this selectivity? Why such insouciance towards the Hindus? Nothing but a deep-rooted inferiority complex and desperation to earn credibility in the eyes of the most vitriolic of his haters, could explain such outrageous acts. The problem does not rest exclusively with Prime Minister Modi, but with the larger Hindu community.
Placing the overarching foundations of Hindutva on one man shall prove truly detrimental to the very cause of Hindutva. Supposing that Mr. Modi is perfect, what next? He shall not permanently lead India. Sooner or later, he would retire. Who after Modi? The BJP must create competitive candidates. There also need be created alternatives to the BJP insofar as Hindutva is concerned. The aforementioned instances only proves the utter failure of the BJP to prove its commitment to Hindutva.
The Hindus would do well to recollect that the BJP shall not remain in power forever. What, then, would happen to Hindu interests? Enough has been documented about the second-ratedness the Hindus have been subjected to. The ill effects thereof are that mere voicing of issues that concern the Hindus is construed as inimical to non-Hindus. Could anything be more unfortunate and bereft of logic? No rationale can equate Hindutva with repression of religious minorities, for there exists no such concept in any teachings of Hindu culture.
Alternatives to the BJP are a must. Hindus must make it expedient upon political parties to champion the cause of Hindutva. The politicians shall otherwise only be too glad to keep dividing Hindus along caste, regional and linguistic lines.
