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Hate How India is
at war with itself
A worried
India calls National Integration Council meeting,
but it only
underlines disintegration
WSN Bureau
NEW DELHI: As India watches helplessly the violence against
Christians not only continuing but even spreading to other states,
as its Prime Minister suffered the ignominy of French President
telling him in public that massacres of minorities are happening in
India, as news of Christians and churches being burnt moved from the
front pages to inside ones, as talk of ban on terror outfits like
Bajrang Dal was frustrated by noise over SIMI, as some senior
political leaders openly questioned the veracity of encounters in
which "terrorists" were killed, as the saffron hand of RSS
fronts became more and more visible, New Delhi seemed completely
helpless, and at times, even apathetic.
And then came the first feeble attempt. Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh convened the reconstituted-but-defunct Indian panel whose
primary task is to keep the country intact and integrated. Clearly,
the National Integration Council had long forgotten its job, and on
Monday it just proved that.
 Carried out under the gaze of 24x7 TV news cameras, national
limelight and much hype, the NIC proved that it has already become
the Disintegrated panel. Hours of froth-from-the-mouth deliveries
later -- and this when that paragon of national integration called
Narendra Modi did not even speak -- the NIC reached conclusions so
inane that you could have been sitting on the front bench, slept
through the meeting, and missed nothing.
India's tasked-with-maintaining-integrity minds reached a unanimous
conclusion that terrorism is bad, so is communalism, and both should
be contained. Also, minorities' rights should be protected. Now, who
among the political class can have an issue to join?
Except that the only issue that the NIC should have been discussing
-- how to control blood thirsty mobs of Hindutva terror elements,
how to identify such terrorists and mete out examplary treatment,
how to win back the minorities and send strong signals that
government means business -- were not even touched.
The Bajrang Dal versus ban on SIMI talk helps only prime time TV
chat shows, not national integration.
Filled with hate for minorities,
India is tottering ahead, but at this rate it will stumble again.
That this comes at a time when the country is being ruled by a
Catholic born Sonia Gandhi, a Sikh Prime Minister, a Muslim Vice
President, says much about the entrenched forces of brahamanism in
Indian society that control all the levers, and thus the resources
meant for development.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did talk about the need to deal firmly
with militancy spawned by forces, who were deliberately encouraging
religious clashes, but it is time for civil society and
truth-spewing politicians and citizenry to name the culprits who go
by the name of
Iron
Man.
Even a cursory glance on the Indian map shows disintegration
happening fast: North East,
Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa, Karnataka, Assam. Add to it the Naxalism
affected regions, the Telangana demands, the Muslim versus Hindu
clashes in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, the Shiv Sena style of goondaism
in Maharashtra, and what are you left with?
And we haven't even started talking about urbanisation versus
agriculture sector fights, Singur-Nandigrams, the haves-have nots
all over.
Hate is firmly on
India's agenda, and India is doing precious little to learn to love
the marginalised. It instead is smug in its image of a nuclear power
with a seat at the high table.
At
the same time, the impoverished masses of
India, the vast majority of minorities, Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs
are restless. This is the majority that India loves to call
Minority. But the NIC does not discuss a more pro-people,
anti-corporate house economic policy, it does not underline that
people want more empowerment, progress and prosperity. It takes
little notice of the Brahminism in politics that has been used since
the British era to suppress minorities and Dalits.
It
is simply refusing to take on the Hindutva RSS terrorists who kill
without guns, because they can get the Indian state to fight for
them. Remember the rape in Orissa where hordes shouted Bharat Mata
Ki Jai as a nun was being raped?
Shivraj Patil said nothing that you could not have guessed a week
earlier, Naveen Patnaik of Orissa has decided to continue with his
alliance with the BJP, so he won't say anything about Hindutva
terror, Mayawati did not attend, Modi refused to speak, and Sharad
Pawar did not think NIC was as important as a cricket match, so he
stayed home.
With such an approach to understand what is wrong with India, you
can be sure that Hate is the only agenda, and India is hating itself
with all the force at its command. If you fail to see it, you can be
Dead Sure some day, but by that time there won’t be any need to make
an effort to understand.
15 October 2008
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