RECENT political developments in India are dominated by the tragic and systematic suppression of various groups: linguistic and religious minorities, various regional identities, the schedule castes and tribes, and other backward classes.
This vast majority is largely illiterate and powerless. The powerbrokers of the dominating minority can easily divide them into helpless segments or, worse, into hostile factions by manipulating the degrading but powerful symbols of Casteism, communalism, linguistic and regional chauvinism. Ruling over this dismembered body of subalterns with provocations, with incitements to riot and massacre, and, failing these, with fascist methods and fascist laws has come to be known as secularism and national integration.
The results are there for all to see. This so-called secularism and national integration has eroded communal harmony, created linguistic and interregional discord and rivalry, incited ethnic and caste violence, and, now, it threatens the very existence and development of the nation. In view of such a situation, patriots and democrats belonging to all sections of the Indian nation are increasingly asking: Whither India? Is India to slide into a vicious circle of governmental and private terrorism and heartless ethnic strife? Is it to be balkanized out of existence? Is an increasingly brutal and brutalizing centralized state its only destiny? Are all identities dissolved by throwing the nation into a vitriolic mixture of corruption, economic stagnation, discriminatory distribution, gender suppression, and brutal state violence?
Or is India to strike out on a different road which combines growth with equality, and unity with a multilayered process of autonomy that recognizes both disjunctions and conjunctions in the various caste, tribal, national, regional and religious identities?
This choice of roads confronts every Indian today. We are convinced that the present turn in Indian history will lead us to culdesac of disaster and liquidation. All well-meaning Indians must rise to the occasion and devise ways and means for achieving a truly democratic and secular nation.
The crisis is indeed serious, Unable to solve the basic problems of the Indian masses and confronted with their growing struggles, the ruling classes and their party, the Congress of the Gandhi family, have been fermenting the virus of communalism among the people. They have largely succeeded’ in turning Punjab into a “Sikh” problem. By raising the fake issue of national integrity and unity and by flaming a countrywide hysteria around it, they have put the entire Sikh community on the spot. All over India Sikhs are today treated as suspects ridiculed and humiliated. And it is no longer the question of the Sikhs or Punjab. These have already served the initial purpose of inflaming fundamentalism, in the name of nationalism. Today, every religious minority, and every distinct ethnic, regional and linguistic identity, is under attack. Muslims as the largest religious minority was never quite secure in India. Today the very survival of their distinct cultural identity is under threat. Their mosques are being occupied or trespassed. Their religious beliefs are being challenged. The same is the fate of the Christians in India, about as big a minority as the Sikhs. Organized forces of fundamentalists are going around burning churches and undertaking programmes of “shuddhikaran” (reconversions). The tribal people unless they declare that they are with them are being subjected to similar threats. The Dalits (the untouchables and other low castes), for long the most oppressed in Indian society, are being put under similar pressures. There is a phenomenal, frightening growth of chauvanistic fundamentalism which is taking militant, armed, and organized forms. This growing chauvanism, abetted and endorsed by the State policies, is increasingly forcing every minority group into a situation where they have to prove that they are Indians.
Under this facade of growing communalism, there are clear signs of the emergence of fascism in India. It will be fascism much more dangerous than the emergency rule of the 70’s. This will be fascism with a social ideology of control through punishment. Signs of it could be seen in the manner the fundamentalist forces are attempting to equate being an Indian with being a supporter of Rajiv’s government.
India is rich because among other things, of its diverse people: their languages, religions, cultures, and regional identities. The ruling Congress and the ruling party are posing a serious threat to this diversity by promoting forces of fascism based upon Hindi belt uniformity.
It is to fight these trends that the democratic people all over India are uniting. The Calls given by humanists have resulted in a countrywide mobilization in the form of national Conventions. Other regional conferences have followed, Under the leadership of revolutionary and democratic forces, new organizational forms on a national scale are in the process of emerging which bring together the many distinct religious, linguistic, ethnic and regional identities. More importantly, a new realization is emerging that put together all the minorities and powerless people of all religions constitute an overwhelming majority in India and they are ready to take on the aggression.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 19, 1987
