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India Committing Suicide

Its upper-caste Hindu mindset is driving India towards a destination of suicide, bypassing its rich history and heritage based on a pluralism that had merged people with different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds into a tolerant and forbearing society.

By Samia Shah | May 2020


Andia takes immense pride in claiming to be the world’s largest democracy. For a long time the assertion was not doubted but the second most populous country on earth seems to be descending into a terrible chaos that might tear the social fabric of the country.

The Bharatia Janata Party (BJP), which is considered a brainchild of the Rashtria Swayamsavak Sangh (RSS), champions the cause of Mother India but it seems to be pressuring its mother into treating her children differently. The mother, who believed in the secular values of universal brotherhood, is being forced to revisit her ideology that vehemently opposes discrimination between her loved ones. She is being coerced into abandoning millions of her children that need her love, affection, support and patronage.

The lethal approach adopted by the right wing Hindu nationalist parties seems to be turning the so-called world’s largest democracy into an authoritarian state where the ideals of Nehru and Gandhi are now replaced with the ideology of Mahatma Ghandi’’s assassin. The innocent minds of Indian children are being contaminated with the ideas of obscurantism and bigotry. The text books of the country’s schools are brimming with hate materials. History is being distorted to protect the interest of the ruling elite. The names of cities, towns and places are being changed to give the country a pure Hindu colour. The contribution of non-Hindus to the development of this ancient state is being ignored and erased from the memory of the people.

The story does not end here. The enactment of the CAA and the abolition of constitutional articles giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir indicates that the stalwarts of the BJP also want to make drastic changes to the Constitution of the country and its political system. But such changes will have serious political and social ramifications because India is a diverse country with the people of several religions and nations living here for centuries. The country is now home to many who came from Central Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world, fascinated by its cultural diversity, abandoning their own homeland and adopting this land as their own and investing their energies into its welfare and betterment. Their contributions to Indian society is a part of Indian history that should not be forgotten at any cost.

But it seems that the ardent supporters of Hindutva do not believe in this cultural diversity. They are seeking to establish a monolithic society in a country where more than 200 million Muslims have been living for centuries. Their dream to turn it into a Hindu state will certainly alienate millions of Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and others. Such a state would even be vehemently opposed by the Dalits (low-caste Hindus) and millions of others who are considered Hindus constitutionally but prefer to retain their individual identity which is different than the Hindus.

The Dalits would especially be skeptical towards a move of turning the giant South Asian nation into a Hindu state because to them it would be a Hindu theocratic state which would relegate the Dalits and other low caste people to second-class citizens. During the colonial times, the Dalits allied with the British on a number of occasions to extract favours from Gandhi because they knew the Hindu upper cast loathed to consider them even as human beings.

The attempts to turn India into a Hindu state would also be fiercely resisted by the Maoists, also known as Naxalites, who are said to have been dominating over 100 districts of the country. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared them the biggest internal security threat while he was in power. The Maoists have been waging a relentless struggle for decades to topple what they called Indian bourgeoisie democracy, replacing it with a communist government. These attempts could push lower caste Hindus towards the Maoists whose cadres are already brimming with the people from the bottom layer of the social strata. The Naxalites consider the religious ideology of the Hindu upper classas exploitative. Secularism prevents this Hindu ideology from exploiting the people of other faiths but once the bulwark has been abolished, it would provide opportunities to Naxalites to defame Indian democracy and put a question mark on its secular credentials which have already been damaged by anti-Muslim policies of the Indian state and treatment of its minorities. Separatists in the north east of India would also be furious over the prospect of such a Hindu state which may prompt them to intensify their struggle. Separatist movements in India are secular in their outlook and consider religiosity as an enemy of their ideology. They believe the ideology of Hindutva is a cover for the dominance of a large set of people who have no regard for their culture, traditions and customs.

It seems such a move could be catastrophic but the unwise leadership of the BJP and zealots of the RSS do not seem to realizing this. India is lucky that most of its neighbhours are weak. Pakistan was the only country that was accused of backing Kashmiri militants and Sikh nationalists in the past but Islamabad is no longer in a position to lend support to any movement in India. China follows a non-interventionist policy and it is apparent that it has no intentions to cross paths with India at present.

However, this does not mean that today’s India can still claim to be the world’s largest democracy. The country is fast moving away from the secularism that Nehru and his Congress Party claimed as an Indian ideal. In fact, the country is fast moving towards an implosion. If it continues following the policies that alienate Muslims and other non-Hindus, there is a strong possibility that the country would face a strong backlash that will shatter the social foundations of the Indian society. Such chaos could be exacerbated by such an economic crisis that has been fangled by Covid-19 and this will only render millions of Indian unemployed. What Modi and his party needs is a saner approach in which divisive policies are not adopted. Throwing millions of Muslims and others out of the mainstream would be suicidal for India. Hindutva is welcome but within India’s democratic traditions and not as a result of a totalitarian approach that only recognizes the upper-caste Hindus as citizens of India and treats the rest as unwanted scum.

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