In a democracy it is only a majority that can be a danger to the communal harmony. Under these conditions it is only the Constitution that can protect the minorities but some recent happenings have nullified the safeguards provided by the Constitution.
These safeguards provided to the minorities thus become meaningless. The minorities are completely at the mercy of the religious majority A communal trouble always sparked off from the dominant power. If at all it is attempted by a minority it would at once be extinguished by vote and force both. The strong initiate; the weak retaliate.
The minorities look with doubts on certain attitudes of the majority community such as slogan of Hindi Hindu
Hindustan; communal riots; Hinduisation of minorities etc.
A simple and just demand for protection of the fundamental rights by a minority is dubbed as anti-national. The minorities are treated as second rate citizens of India.
These trends of the ruling class have culminated into separatist movements in India notably in Kashmir Punjab and Assam states and the same scenario is fast emerging in Tamil Nadu; besides all north eastern states are clamoring to maintain their cultural identities.
Use of state force to suppress separatist movements
The ruling class because of its religious intolerance is not interested in taking the minorities back into the mainstream for confrontation with them provides to the former a veritable political goldmine. That is the reason the powers that be is using state violence to suppress the genuine struggles in various states.
The successive regimes during the last decade have used brutal force to kill thousands of political activists engaged in the active resistance against the state tyranny just to put down their aspirations under the garb of maintaining law and order situation and to save the unity and integrity of the country.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 3, 1991
