Fear of Khalistan had prompted Rajiv to sign accord! With Akali moderates, though now the ac cords stands short-circuited under the pressure of Hindu chauvinists. Signing of the accord was projected by the Indian press as capitulation to Sikh militant tactics, creating the impression that only force pays when dealing with New Delhi.
This logic was stressed again in northeast when Gandhi readily accepted the “Assam for the Assamese” demand, agreeing to the arbitrary expulsion of thousands of Tong settled Bengalis and Muslims. The truculent Assamese had triumphantly defied New Delhi’s writ for four years, refusing to allow elections and periodically paralyzing all administrative and commercial activity through strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and bloody riots,
But fearful that his Assam pact might cost him the votes of about 100 million Muslims all over India, Gandhi recently gave in to Islamic fundamentalists and passed a law to deprive divorced Muslim wives of any claim to maintenance, His Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on divorce) Act, as it is titled in what opponents have called a cynical demonstration of doublespeak, has given great offence to feminist organization and liberal Muslim leaders, But the fundamentalists are happy and Gandhi counts on them to bring in the votes at election time.
The decisions real danger is not moral, but practical. By placing Muslims in separate category from other Indians, it can encourage other groups to demand similar privileges. Sikhs are already clamoring for Vatican City status for their holy city of Amritsar and for a special radio station to beam only Sikh religious broadcasts.
Nor is this the only such demand, India’s 8 million Nepalese settlers have stridently campaigned for more than 20 years for constitutional recognition of their language. Rebuffed, the ethnic Nepalese in West Bengals Darjeeling hills have now unsheathed their kukris the short, slightly curved dagger to fight for a separate homeland, Gorkhaland.
The Nag as and Mizos on the Burma border, animist Mongolian tribes now converted to Christianity, have not given up their hopes of independence. Guerilla movements are active in Tripura and Manipura states. Assam’s Bengali speaking Cachar district wants to secede, and aborigine tribes in Assam West Bengal and Bihar have unfurled the standards of three separate states to be called Udaychal, Uttarkhand and Jharkand respectively; Easter Mahar ashira seeks a separate identity under the name of Vidarbha, and there are plans to carve up India’s two biggest states, Uttar Pradesh, the Nehru Gandhi home and wielding the most political clout, and sprawling backward, but min-eral-rich Madhya Pradesh, the Central Province of British days, Not all these. Movements are secessionist. But if they succeed, India will end up as a loosely held federation of pocketsize city states, each with all the collaborate trappings of governance and often refusing access to people from other units. Seven communities that do not ask for a territorial definition want special privileges that would have the effect of create in a large number of distinctly separate nations within a fragile Indian political entity. The possible end result is mind boggling, There are 15 official languages and nearly 1,700 recognizably different dialects, six main religions and thousands and thousands of sects and cults, each with its own jealously guarded rituals of worship. Apart from Muslims and Sikhs, there are about 50 million aborigines and 90 million Harijans (untouchables) who will not be bracketed with Hindus.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 8, 1986
