As we helplessly watch India moving backwards...

What a “narrative” is being spread across India right now. The victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in four of the five Indian states which had recent assembly elections has not just emboldened the BJP and its large fan base which includes the media, it has also upped the hatred against Muslims and other critics.

The essence of democracy for India is that “majority rules”, the cry of the schoolyard at break time. And like flocks of sheep, we dance to the tune of the BJP and promote a film which vilifies one lot of Indians in order to put forward the plight of another. Being the BJP, the policy is always “attack Muslims” as we well know.

What the BJP and RSS know even better is that large events will no longer work. Notice how often they boast that there have been “no riots” since they came to power at the Centre in 2014 and in various states since. This is the yardstick they have set for themselves. The late Arun Jaitley even used the “no riots” excuse to justify Narendra Modi’s disastrous demonetisation policy in 2016.

Therefore, there will be “no riots” against Muslims like Gujarat 2002 that catapulted Modi to Hindutva sainthood but it also led to international infamy. Instead, there will continue to be a million cuts. Acts of lynching, cases against Muslim journalists which never go away, arrests on flimsy grounds where bail is never granted, cyber crimes against Muslim women where the culprits are freed, films which provoke mob violence against Muslims, attacks on various aspects of Muslim culture, usually hiding in the garb of progressiveness…

These million cuts are far more effective in destroying morale and in getting past the attention of a society which grapples with another group of a million setbacks – economic, social, health, educational. And it also gives strength to all the BJP-RSS’s large fan base of bigots. They know that they now have a free pass to attack Muslims in every way possible without facing any form of punishment, or even mild censure. The mobs have been given the power, thus absolving the BJP establishment and the government of all responsibility.

It’s not the rest of us do not know this. It is not that other political parties do not know this. But a frightening silence has fallen upon us. And this is justified as “strategy”. Falling into the BJP’s playbook, other political parties hint that one cannot win elections in India any more by antagonising majoritarian Hindu sentiments. The implication is that the rights of no one else matters to the Indian state, especially Muslims.

The upshot is that Indian society is now accepted by our larger political spectrum as pro-Hindu. By extension being anti-Muslim is perfectly acceptable. Being pro-Muslim is a political graveyard where no one wants to venture.

The other place no one wants to venture: being pro-democracy and pro-Constitution.

The BJP’s idea of democracy is majoritarianism whereas by its essence democracy is the exact opposite. Thus, we are all prisoners of someone else’s device. And we are either complicit or too stupid to see the difference.

The reactions to the film Kashmir Files perfectly encapsulate this thought process. The issue is the decades of injustice suffered by Kashmiri Pandits, an old wound which has never been addressed.

The result however is rabid mobs calling for violence against Muslims in movie halls. It does not matter if the movie is well made or historically inaccurate for the preferred purpose. Nor will it matter that no one will actually help Kashmiri Pandits. All that matters is that Muslims will be blamed, vilified and physically attacked.

Together with this, we have other fables being fed to us. That Narendra Modi does not sleep at night, he just spends 24 hours working. And that in close competition to him, Yogi Adityanath will also spend more time working and not sleeping. India will be run by these supermen, and we the subjects must remain in abject awe.

As things stand now, there is no light, there is just a never-ending tunnel. The BJP-RSS’s enormous support base cannot or will not see that even as attacks on their “enemies” -- not just Muslims, but also other religious minorities, Dalits, women, academics, anyone who is not one of them – continue, the state of India as a progressive, successful, developing democracy has come to a complete halt.

We move backwards on every measurable scale whether economic or developmental.

How far will hatred take us before we wake up?

(The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal)