Fate is Sealed

It takes a considerable time to build a nation and move it towards the path of prosperity and growth. And when it happens otherwise, a crowd of vested interests comes together on the basis of their sinister objectives and takes the charge of the state matters by replacing the lot of flag-waving people, loyal to their country from head to toe. The founders of a multiethnic, multicultural and racially diverse country like India too aimed at building the nation along the secular lines, where there would be no segregation, exploitation or inequality on the basis of caste, ethnicity, religion, language, minority status, economic standing and such like. However, long past are the days when the likes of Nehru and Gandhi were able to run the show in a wise manner as today’s India is surrounded by hard-line Hindutva activists and saffron-robed rabble-rousers, who not only have a firm belief in the decisive supremacy of a particular religious ideology, but also employ the most abominable means to thrust their ideology upon others, and that too in broad daylight, amidst the roar of light, camera, action.

Portraying itself a responsible democracy on the world stage, the inner but actual face of India is quite the opposite, offering least space for its minorities to the extent of pushing them to a corner or even wiping them out from the face of the earth. It makes an iota of sense when the country’s dominating Hindu majority, which makes 84 per cent of the population, projects itself as a people under threat at the hands of Muslims who are merely 14 percent of the country. The credit of creating a deep sense of Hindu victimhood goes to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Narendra Damodardas Modi, only the second non-Congress prime minister in the country to win two consecutive terms. Propagating a purist majoritarian nationalism, Prime Minister Modi has achieved the remarkable but shameful feat of seeding such a victimhood mindset among the Hindu majority, along with continuously stoking anti-Muslim fervour through state-sponsored disinformation spree and hate speech. In today’s India, thanks to Modi ji sarkar, the echoes of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ have been overpowered by the right-wing refrain ‘Hindu khatre mein hain’ (Hindus are under threat). Believing it being more than a gospel true, the like-minded political junta goaded by supremacist vigilante groups and xenophobic rhetoric, then feels no harm in expressing its innermost desire in their election speeches to remove the Muslims from India, dead or alive.

The aforementioned is not an occasional, one-time episode as such vitriolic against the country’s minorities, particularly the Muslims, has become a norm which neither makes top headlines in the media, nor does it surprise the people at large. Carrying the facade of secularism, today’s India can frankly be referred to as the unofficial Hindutva state, where even the enlightened Hindu followers will be soon fated to toe the line of lunatic fanaticism as a predominating doctrine. In spite of carrying out a dilatory march from secularism to Hindutva nationalism, India is now on the road from fanaticism to religious fascism. And fate is sealed.

Syed Jawaid Iqbal
President & Editor in Chief