The Modi regime recently announced the observance of June 25 as “Samvidhan Hatya Divas” (Murder of Constitution Day) to mark the imposition of emergency by Indira Gandhi on that day in 1975. How ironic, then, that within a few weeks of this declaration, the BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh tried to throttle the very Constitution by asking eateries, hotels, dhabas and shops located on the route of the kanwar yatra to display the names of their owners and employees working there.
The objective behind this divisive measure was to indirectly label the food and beverages sold in those establishments as ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’.
The Supreme Court has fortunately stayed the absurd order of the UP and Uttarakhand governments. Still, the parallel with pre-independence India – when the British colonialists encouraged vendors in railway stations to offer Hindu pani (Hindu water), Muslim pani (Muslim water) and Hindu tea and Muslim tea – is striking.
Divya Goyal has documented how Maulana Habib-ur-Rahman Ludhianvi opposed the divide-and-rule policies of British officials when they put two separate water pitchers for Hindus and Muslims at Ludhiana railway station in 1929. He found it unacceptable that the colonial regime could even divide water based on religion. His protests drew people’s support and their united opposition to the idea of Hindu and Muslim water forced the authorities to replace the two pitchers with one single pitcher marked “Sabka paani ek hai. (The same water for everyone.)”
Of course, elsewhere, the divide-and-rule policy continued. The British used to serve Hindu water, Muslim water and Hindu tea and Muslim tea to inmates in prisons. For instance, soldiers of the Indian National Army belonging to different religions and held in a British prison in Delhi in 1946 were being served ‘Hindu tea’ or ‘Mussalman tea’ and ‘Hindu food’ or ‘Mussalman food.’ When Mahatma Gandhi visited them in jail on April 11 that year, they told him with anguish that their identity as Indians got disparaged by prison officials who served them in this way. When Gandhi asked them, “Why do you suffer it?” they answered by saying, “We mix Hindu tea and Mussalman tea, exactly half and half and then serve ourselves. The same with food.” Gandhi had a hearty laugh and said, “That is very good.”
Even earlier, in 1945, Gandhi’s “Constructive Programme” text dealt with the issue of achieving communal unity and stressed fostering ‘heart unity’ among people pursuing diverse faiths by appealing to Congressman, whatever their religion might be, to “represent in his own person Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Zoroastrian, Jew, etc., shortly, every Hindu and non-Hindu. He said that such heart unity would lead to political unity and then added, “In such a happy state of things there would be no disgraceful cry at the stations such as “Hindu water” and “Muslim water” or “Hindu tea” and “Muslim tea”. “There would be,” Gandhi wrote, “no separate rooms or pots for Hindus and non-Hindus in schools and colleges, no communal schools, colleges and hospitals”. He claimed that it would usher in a revolution.
Perpetuating untouchability, normalising boycott
Ninety-five years after Maulana Habib-ur-Rahman Ludhianvi opposed the provision of Hindu water and Muslim water and 79 years after Gandhi described the division of food and beverages in British India along religious lines as disgraceful, BJP-ruled states such as UP and Uttarakhand are replaying that outrageous division by the orders of their respective governments.
The Senior Superintendent of Police of Muzaffarnagar tried to justify the official notice to shops and eateries by saying, “Preparations have begun for the Kanwar Yatra. In the area under our jurisdiction, which is around 240 km, all eateries – hotels, dhabas, thelas (roadside carts) – have been instructed to display the names of their proprietors or those running the shop. This is being done to ensure that there’s no confusion among the Kanwariyas and no allegations are raised in the future, leading to a law and order situation. Everyone is following this of their own free will.”
The so-called “free will” is nothing but a euphemism to compulsorily comply with what the police officials are asking them to do.
Once the names of the owners and employees are displayed it would be easy, in most of the cases, to decipher their religious persuasions and even caste identities. The names of the owners and employees of the shops denoting Islamic faith and low caste status would inevitably face discrimination and possibly even violence from the Harris who quite often get driven by religious frenzy while walking on the route.
It is quite tragic that such a call from the police authorities amounts to creating fertile conditions for upholding the scourge of untouchability abolished by the Constitution and encouraging an economic boycott of Muslims who own shops on the route taken by yatris. Such measures normalise the call for a social and economic boycott of Muslims issued by several Dharam Sansads which are attended by several BJP leaders and legislators.
Such boycott calls fatally assault the Constitution. Modi, who talked about consensus and coexistence of all faiths before beginning his third term as prime minister, is silent about the letter and spirit of the Constitution getting violated in this manner. Ordinary Indians made the defence of the Constitution an electoral issue during the recently concluded general elections. And they will do so again.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.
