A requiem for Indian secularism?

As 2019 draws to a close and we look back at the events of the past year, reflect upon the gains and the losses and the lessons learnt, the one issue that is impossible to ignore is the rapid decline of secularism in India.

The Modi regime, backed by a solid parliamentary majority it got in 2019, has set into motion changes that have fundamentally altered India by forcibly extinguishing its secular ethos.

Although, India proudly claims to be the largest democracy in the world, democracy in India has largely been confined to the successful holding of elections.

For democracy to be meaningful, adherence to other sacrosanct principles of democracy are necessary. These principles include respect for democratic institutions, a legislature that engages in meaningful debate, independent judiciary, a free and thriving media that encourages debate and dissent.

Under the new Modi regime, democratic norms have been severe constricted. Today, India under Modi has no patience for secular principles and is keen to enforce aggressive majoritarianism.

Two events that demonstrated this tendency are:

• The lockdown in Kashmir
• The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the implementation of the National Register of Citizens.

The Modi regime found a semblance of support for its assertive moves in Kashmir, primarily because many in India believe that the stalemate in Kashmir needs to be resolved. And if old methods haven’t yielded results in the last seven decades, new methods must be tried.

However, the lockdown of the state and its people since August 2019 is unacceptable, and a gross violation of people’s rights to freedom.

When the exercise of identifying illegal immigrants was launched in Assam after Modi was reelected, it raised legitimate concerns because New Delhi now had a government that swore by majoritarianism, and was not above using the state’s enormous reach to propagate its exclusivist philosophy of aggressive Hindutva.

Pertinently, the exercise of implementing the NRC in Assam proved how difficult, if not impossible, it would be for a large number of people to prove their Indian citizenship. Nearly two million people (including Hindus) could not prove that they were Indians. 

Perhaps in recognition of the anomaly that the NRC would result in the exclusion of Hindus, as well, the Modi regime amended the citizenship act to accord citizenship rights to non-Muslim immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Modi’s supporters may claim that the amendment is to help minorities in these countries emigrate to India. But the fact is that the purpose of both the NRC and the amended citizenship act is to exclude Muslims.

Amit Shah, India’s Home Minister and the second-most important minister in the Modi regime openly declared that the citizenship register would be implemented across India to ferret out illegal immigrants.

“It is our commitment to implement National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country to weed out the infiltrators. First, we will bring the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to ensure that eligible refugees get citizenship, and then we will introduce NRC to throw out the infiltrators. They are termites, they are eating into the country's resources,” Shah asserted.

He declared in the Indian Parliament, “Maan ke chaliye, NRC aane wala hai.” (Take it as a given that the NRC will be introduced across the country).

In July 2019, when the implementation of the National Citizens Register was launched in Assam, the following protest poem, “I am a Miya’ written by Hafiz Ahmed spread like wildfire on the internet.

Write Down ‘I am a Miya’

Write

Write Down

I am a Miya

My serial number in the NRC is 200543

I have two children

Another is coming

Next summer.

Will you hate him

As you hate me?

Write

I am a Miya

I turn waste, marshy lands

To green paddy fields

To feed you.

I carry bricks

To build your buildings

Drive your car

For your comfort

Clean your drain

To keep you healthy.

I have always been

In your service

And yet

you are dissatisfied!

Write down

I am a Miya,

A citizen of a democratic, secular, Republic

Without any rights

My mother a D voter,

Though her parents are Indian.

If you wish kill me, drive me from my village,

Snatch my green fields

hire bulldozers

To roll over me.

Your bullets

Can shatter my breast

for no crime.

Write

I am a Miya

Of the Brahamaputra

Your torture

Has burnt my body black

Reddened my eyes with fire.

Beware!

I have nothing but anger in stock.

Keep away!

Or

Turn to Ashes.

Translated by Shalim M. Hussain

Will this protest poem be a requiem for India’s secularism?

The internet informs me that a requiem “is a religious ceremony performed for the dead. ... The word requiem comes from the opening words of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead, which is spoken or sung in Latin (requies means “rest”).

In a nonreligious context the word refers simply to an act of remembrance.”

Some of the biggest composers of western classical music have composed requiems, and one of the most memorable compositions is Clint Mansell’s Lux Aeterna for Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film Requiem for a Dream. 

(You may listen to it here: Clint Mansell – Lux Aeterna – Requiem for a Dream).

'I am a Miya' will be a requiem for Indian secularism if the world allows India’s Modi regime to continue with its persecution of Indian Muslims.

Watch the video here:

Kashmir should top the Indo-Pak agenda

Hand-in-hand: Sharif-Modi Bromance

Narendra Modi has taken a bold decision to visit Pakistan and meet Nawaz Sharif. This spontaneity will undoubtedly lead to a breakthrough in thawing the relations between the neighbours; it’s about time for India and Pakistan to make a new beginning.

It’s a calculated risk that the Indian Prime Minister has taken, one that is fraught with inherent risks, and one that will certainly draw flak from his own party. But it’s a step that all sane people in the subcontinent will support, and encourage.

However, beyond the optics, and the people-to-people bhai-chara, it will be necessary for both sides to deal with concrete issues. For any meaningful forward movement, the Kashmir situation should be on the top of the agenda.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership has given the dark days of Emergency (1975-77) under Indira Gandhi nearly the same status as the Quit India movement (1942), because its leaders were part of the nationwide struggle to fight and overthrow Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s autocratic misrule; and they have always considered Jayaprakash Narayan, the socialist leader who led this fight, as one of their political philosopher.

Jayaprakash Narayan

It would do Narendra Modi a great deal of good to read what Jayaprakash Narayan had to say about the Kashmir situation (which has changed for worse since JP issues this press statement more than 50 years ago in December 1964; it’s reproduced here from Makers of Modern India, Edited by Ramchandra Guha, published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011; Guha has reproduced it from Balraj Puri’s JP on Jammu and Kashmir, Gyan Publishing House, 2005): 

“The question we must squarely face is whether constitutional integration of Kashmir with India is more important in the national interest than friendship with Pakistan and justice to the people of the Valley of Srinagar. Legal technicalities will not provide the answer. What is needed is a mature and realistic reckoning. As far as I can see, the disadvantages of the present policy far outweigh the advantages.

“Let me take up first the issue of justice to the people of the Valley. There has been no credible proof yet that they have freely accepted the legal fact of accession. Constitutional integration has little meaning in the absence of emotional integration. In this age and time, it is impossible to hold down by force any sizeable population permanently. If we continue to do it, we cannot look the world straight in the face and talk of democracy and justice and peace. Nor, on account of the historical circumstances, can we take shelter behind the internationally recognized limitations of the right to self-determination. Perhaps the most harmful consequence of the policy of forcible integration would be the death-knell of Indian secularism and enthronement of aggressive Hindu communalism. That communalism is bound in the end to turn upon the Hindu community and destroy it.

“As for friendship with Pakistan, let us calculatedly determine how dearly we need that friendship. No country can afford to buy friendship at any cost. So let there be a reckoning of gains and losses. First of all, let us be mature enough to understand that we persist in our present Kashmir policy, there can be no friendship with Pakistan. The leaders of that country have not left us in any doubt on that score. If we disbelieve them, we shall have only ourselves to blame.”

After analyzing the geopolitical fallout of the differences between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, JP concludes with a sharp observation on the emotional division the rift has perpetuated between the people of subcontinent.

Modi at JP anniversary celebration program

He says, “The last and in some way the most disastrous consequence of the quarrel is its human and moral cost and the alienation of peoples that it threatens to bring about…These conditions would be sure to cause mass human degradation on both sides. The political division of the subcontinent cannot hide the fact that the peoples of India and Pakistan are really one people. This is not the first time that India has been divided politically. But there had always been a feeling of oneness and identity among the people divided between kingdoms and republics. Today, Bengalis of the West and the East are one people, irrespective of region; so are the Punjabis. In like manner, the Bengalis and Punjabis and Sindhis and Pathans and Jats and Rajputs and others of both countries make up one single Indian people, who are distinct from all other people of the world. States are passing shows, but people are eternal. Therefore, I would consider this alienation of the people of India and Pakistan from one another to be the most disastrous consequence of the present quarrel.”

Images: 

http://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/modi-leaves-lahore-for-delhi-after-meeting-sharif-115122500527_1.html

http://www.kamat.com/database/content/pen_ink_portraits/jayaprakash_narayan.jpg