Top right-wing leaders must realise that politics of hatred could damage India beyond redemption

In its desperation to prove secularism irrelevant and worthless, the rightist forces BJP and RSS are creating a Frankenstein monster by turning the historically arrogant police even more so, empowering it to challenge democratic institutions with impunity.

In their mission to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra, the saffron outfits are out to prove secularism as a worthless and ill-gotten idea, one which has lost its relevance.

Just a day ahead of the last day of the year 2021, Kerala BJP president K. Surendran acknowledged induction of RSS supporters in the state police and said Sangh sympathisers could be found across the spectrum of society. Not only in Kerala, in some other states too its cadres are found to be manning police stations.

The fact is the government has become authoritarian since 2014. As an inevitable consequence, the police, have become even more authoritarian.

The RSS and BJP leaders have launched a vicious campaign against Nehru and Gandhi who symbolise secularism. Though discrediting secularism has been the prime task of the rightist forces and RSS leaders, it acquired a new dimension and pace during the rule of Narendra Modi.

Both RSS and Modi know that unless the images of these two leaders are tarnished and maligned, the character of the Indian State cannot be changed. The diabolical hate speeches against Muslims and the clarion call to mercenary Hindus to kill Muslims are but a manifestation of the malicious design to distort Indian ethics and traditions.

The recent move of the Jammu and Kashmir police to terrorise people and deny them the right to seek truth has to be seen in that backdrop. Referring to the findings of the SIT about the killing of two businessmen by the security forces, Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbag Singh accused the Valley’s political leaders of “counting votes on dead bodies”. Only a person with a sadist mindset could speak such language.

Singh’s deputy, Kashmir inspector-general Vijay Kumar, had already accused a former chief minister of instigating people and told politicians, the families of the victims and media that they had no right to declare a police probe good or bad. Strange is the conduct of the police. Obviously, this behaviour of the police underlines that the UT’s administration has lost its relevance.

The audacity of the J&K police is also manifest in the warning given by Singh. He told media, “Such utterances are violative of the law and may be at some stage, if people will not mend their ways, law will take its own course. Counting votes on dead bodies may be the mission but we will not allow them to succeed”.

The IG has virtually redefined the entire procedure of law and civil rights by observing, “How somebody who was at a higher post serving as CM and had been in charge of the home department had passed judgement on the probe.”

It is as if for J&K police, India has already ceased to be a secular state. And what is happening in JK is a part of the Hindutva design.

The desperation of Hindu bigots to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra is manifest in the call given at the so-called Dharma Sansad of Hindu mahants, seers and sants in Haridwar on December 18. They instigated them to pick up weapons to kill Muslims. Shockingly, neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Minister or any other prominent BJP leader reacted to this call for genocide. A Muslim group has gone on to petition the Supreme Court over the hate speeches, stating that “insulting Prophet Mohammad is akin to attacking the very foundation of Islam”.

The Modi government does not prosecute Hindutva hate-mongers while human rights defenders are placed behind bars. It is absolutely clear that under a deep rooted conspiracy, the hate speeches dropped off the front pages of newspapers or prominent mention by media channels.

Earlier, several Supreme Court lawyers wrote to Chief Justice of India NV Ramana urging him to take suo motu cognizance of the hate speeches calling for a genocide of Muslims to achieve ‘ethnic cleansing’. The letter cited the Dharam Sansad in Haridwar and a meeting in Delhi between December 17 and 19 and named nine persons against whom action should be taken on the basis of videos of their hate speeches.

In the letter, the 76 signatories said the comments were not just hate speeches but they “amount to an open call for murder of an entire community”.

CJI Ramana is known for speaking his mind. His observation that the law of sedition belongs to a bygone era is a candid example. His participation at social events provides rare glimpse into his mind. For the first time in the judicial history of the country, he supported reservations for women in the judiciary and said, “It’s a women’s right. And they deserve to have it.”

The time has come for the CJI to intervene and take suo motu cognizance of hate speeches calling for killing of Muslims. The Haridwar event is just the tip of the iceberg. The presence of a senior BJP leader at the event makes it clear that the rightists are working under a well planned design.

Actor Naseeruddin Shah in a way was right in saying that “What they are calling for is a full-scale civil war. Modi government cannot throw 24 crores of Muslims out of India. They are born here, generations of their families have lived here”.

It is imperative for Mohan Bhagwat and Narendra Modi to adopt a rational political line and ensure that their politics of hatred does not destroy India.

(IPA Service)

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