If the just concluded elections in Uttar Pradesh have been phenomenally significant on account of the acknowledgement of Dalit leadership in a state that has traditionally been the high-seat of Brahminism in North India, a collateral consequence has been the unequivocal rejection of the hegemony of the RSS and its many street-level mujahids who were let loose there during the course of the event.
Nor is it a matter of small satisfaction to the polity as a whole that the BJP should have had to make an abject public apology for the venomous Compact Disc it issued formally, and to condemn it.
At both ends, the occurrence stoutly emphasizes that India’s republican democracy carries a dynamic which neither casteism of the long-entrenched nor communalism of the RSS are strong enough to thwart, whatever the price.
Speaking of price, two young and talented art students at the M.S. University, Vadodra are now paying it—an ugly reminder that Mullah Modi remains recalcitrantly committed to snuffing out the least expression of freedom that contravenes the fascist edicts of lumpen, majoritarian gangs. Clearly, Modi has failed to take in the message that the elections in U.P. have delivered. Having effectually seceded from the secular, democratic republic, Mullah Modi thinks he can keep Gujarat forever outside the reach of national preference and sanity. He ought to think again, and before too long. Let him note that none other than Maneka Gandhi has now felt impelled to counsel Advani in a document released to the press and the public that “we offend the entire cultural and thinking world” in the way artists are treated. Maneka Ji deserves the nation’s compliments.
Lest any secular and well-meaning mullahs—which is a preponderant majority—should take offence at my use of that term to define Modi, I hasten to the point that is sought to be made. Put simply, the stark irony of the day is that while in Pakistan “Mian Musharraf” is fighting a grim battle against the Talibani cultural fascists on behalf of the secular and liberal citizens of that country, here in India it is Modi who continues to wear the mantle of the Hindutva Taliban. Clearly, the “Mian” shines in contrast to the “Mullah” in Gujarat.
Come to think of it, if since the carnage in 2002 it is the likes of Sreekumar, Geeta Johri, Rajneesh Rai, Citizens for Peace and Justice and other Gandhian organizations, and hundreds of ordinary men and women striving across communities against tormenting odds who have indomitably kept alive the hope of renewal, after the disclosures of the murders committed in Gujarat with tacit state endorsement, and the lessons of the UP elections in mind, it is time for the whole nation to rise as one against the practice of fascism in Gujarat.
As to the tom-tomed “developmental” achievements of Mullah Modi, let it be remembered that the wonderful Autobahns in Germany were largely built by Hitler’s say-so. And both Hitler and Modi seek “development” to enrich corporates who have next to no stakes in democracy or the lives of ordinary millions. Nor should it be forgotten that just as Hitler had no use or place for Jews in his Nazi-racist grand vision, Modi has reduced Gujarat’s muslim Indians to a state of existence that everyday reminds us of those unfortunate Jews. It is another deep irony, of course, that the Zionist state of Israel today replicates the same kind of “apartheid” (Jimmy Carter’s appellation) against Palestinian and other Arabs muslims as the Jews that comprise it not long ago experienced at the hands of the Nazis. What surprise then that Hindutva fascist should so want to transform the Indian republic into a Hindutva-Zionist state!
It is time to insist that lumpen vigilante hounds will no longer have a field day at unraveling the republic brick by bloody brick. Just as it is time to remind the Indian state that should it continue to be greedily laggard at meeting and enforcing the covenant it has made with “we the psople” it may not have much leeway or breathing space left to it either. Look where you will in India, and people are increasingly willing to take things into their own hands. Should that be allowed to happen, then Mullah Modi’s hounds will not be the only ones manning the streets and the barricades.
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Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.
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