Politic | What Will Change in the New Year?

Leave utopias to fairytales. Let’s settle for the basic minimum as the public expectation in this New Year. So little as to expect that no girl is murdered for resisting sexual exploitation by a VIP. Or even less; adequate punishment for all those involved in such heinous crimes like rape and murder. A decent civilisation, having sanctimonious pretensions of greatness, must grant that little to the poor and the powerless.

Can the ‘janata’ dream up a bit more? Let’s hope the supreme leader also becomes the voice of conscience, not the voice of deceit. Let’s hope politics and governance become instruments of public welfare, not personal aggrandisement. Let’s hope the religious heads stop spewing venom and guide their followers to peaceful coexistence. Let’s hope judges pass verdicts on legal merit, without getting swayed by extraneous considerations. Let’s hope law-enforcing agencies do not act as executioners of political agenda. Let’s hope journalists remain committed to truth and justice, instead of decaying into carriers of lies and propaganda. That’s obviously not asking for the moon in a country of saints and philosophers, and a constitutional democracy.

Let bygones be bygones. Let’s hope we don’t see uneducated thugs distributing swords to gullible Hindus for protection against the fictitious threats from Muslims. Let’s hope intellectual thugs won’t fool us by categorising cows as edible and sacred. Let’s hope municipal thugs will not kill people with toxic drinking water. Let’s hope cultural thugs do not sing unity tunes while spreading communal poison. Let’s hope political thugs are not allowed to issue threats to owners of Indian Premier League (IPL) teams for hiring Bangladeshi cricketers.

We need to seriously examine how such foolish and deviant pronouncements harm the national interest. Sangeet Som, a prominent BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh who is known to be close to chief minister Yogi Adityanath, issued a public threat to superstar Shahrukh Khan, berating him for including a cricketer from Bangladesh in his IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders. Some religious heads also joined the chorus, calling the actor a traitor.

Instead of doing this drama, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders should have written to home minister Amit Shah for imposing a formal ban on players from Bangladesh. It was for Shah’s son, Jay Shah, not Shahrukh Khan, to handle this crisis first. Khan's team immediately released the Bangladeshi player after the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) decided against allowing Bangladeshi players in this year’s IPL.

There are far more serious dimensions to this complex issue than Sangh Parivar foot soldiers can comprehend. Like Pakistan, has the Narendra Modi Government decided to break sporting and cultural ties with Bangladesh? Perhaps not, because India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar had flown to Dhaka with an emotional letter from the prime minister around the same time when the world heard Sangeet Som’s ugly rhetoric. Is India itching to spoil relations with all her neighbours? Acerbic rhetoric used by Som or Shah, who called Bangladeshi infiltrators termite, do affect relations. The ceaseless communal propaganda does affect global perceptions. The BCCI decision is unfortunate because sporting ties make that critical bridge in difficult times when diplomacy fails. Why target sports and actors when Gautam Adani and many other Indian entrepreneurs continue to do business with Bangladesh? It’s wiser to keep the long-term perspectives in mind instead of playing to the gallery. Let’s hope the ruling party becomes more responsible and less hypocritical in 2026.

Hitler comparison

This isn’t just a lament from Kashmir; this is a bleeding wound that hurts India. Responding to the series of attacks on the hawkers of Kashmiri shawls in different parts of the country, the veteran Farooq Abdullah said, “This is our fate. Some people follow the path of Hitler and want to introduce Hitler’s system here.” We have seen Muslim fruit-&-vegetable vendors being targeted by Hindu bigots in several North Indian cities. Calls for boycott of Muslim businessmen and service-providers are heard every now and then. What’s worse, prime minister Modi and home minister Shah never speak on such unlawful activities even as their reckless utterances whipping up communal passions can be heard frequently.

Adolf Hitler used the strategy of systematic alienation of Jews in Germany, putting curbs on their businesses, travel and social practices in a phased manner, finally reaching a violent crescendo when the torture ended in macabre culmination in gas chambers. Many people insist that India will never witness the horrors of Nazi Germany. While we haven’t seen any intense national outrage among the masses at the incidents of lynching over the last decade, the fear among Muslims and Christians should be a cause for worry in a healthy democracy.

After all, 11 years make a long time for any prime minister to convince the minorities that they are safe and will continue to enjoy the constitutional safeguards in the context of social, political and religious rights. Abdullah, the former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister, a Muslim, expressed his apprehensions at a time when attacks on Christmas celebrations gave India a bad name across the world.

It is true Modi’s rule can’t yet be compared with Hitler’s regime. But it is obvious Modi’s sabka saath sabka vikas posturing has lost its relevance, singed by the heat toxic communalism that has simmered in his first, second and third term. India’s social fabric is in tatters. Divisive politics has acquired unprecedented legitimacy. Tensions, however, aren’t restricted to followers of different religions. Hindus were never so fragmented. Most Hindu families are divided over questions of religious bigotry, constitutionalism, anti-intellect ambiance and institutional decay. Imagine the next phase, when political resistance disappears, when the hegemonic control is complete, when the fear of democratic uprising dies away. Imagine the scenario when Farooq Abdullah’s apprehension of “Hitler’s system” being in place becomes a reality.

Secularism debate

Most Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-BJP leaders condemn or ridicule secularism. They coined this vulgarity: sickular-ism! They say secularism failed India, slowing down the process of national renaissance after Independence. The media, particularly in the post-2014 trance, hawked this nonsense, psyching up the gullible masses for an undefined ‘New India’ that would automatically be treated as the Vishwaguru.

What’s alarming is that even the educated middle class bought this idea, insisting that the pristine glory of ancient India would be restored by the Hindu Rashtra. You discover both young and old people in both posh drawing rooms as well as filthy slums rationalising Nathuram Godse, condemning Jawaharlal Nehru and showering encomiums on Modi’s brave and tireless efforts to recreate the mythical grandeur of the “greatest civilisation” that we used to be. Ask these gentlemen and women some specific questions and this illusory project of restoring greatness crumbles.

They don’t understand this simple fact: whether secularism harmed India or not can be debated, but communalism is bound to destroy the country. They parrot the same stuff supplied by the BJP leaders – that minority appeasement ruined India. Ask them whether instigation and persecution of minorities will redeem India and the answer is invariably in the negative.

Only the crudest of them, barely 2% who have criminal mindset, support discrimination and violence against minorities. The rest wallow in fantasy of Hindu supremacy, without ever analysing if Hindu supremacy entails Hindu dominance, which in turns crushes the sacred constitutional concept of equality and justice. Majority of BJP supporters, both from the middle class and the poor, want peaceful coexistence, privatization of religious domain and respect for cultural heterogeneity. The message is clear: Divisive politics has survived because of ignorance and confusion; because politics deploys tricks of deception and subterfuge, because the media has refused to explain the real intent and purpose of Hindutva project.

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