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With the development of different
norms of peace and justice all over there are many a global
organizations and organizations set up by some countries, which
monitor the state of delivery of justice to its citizens. India
has been in the focus of many such organizations, not for very
good reasons. The issues being observed regarding India are peace
and religious freedom. In both these the records of India are not
very flattering for the country.
India’s rank currently stands at 135 out of 153 nations (2011)
assessed on this scale called Global Peace This global Peace Index
ranks the countries according to how peaceful they are. India
currently falls amongst the 20 least peaceful nations. Similarly
for the third successive year US Watch dog on religious freedom (USCIRF)
has underlined the need to pursue investigation against Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his role in Gujarat 2002 carnage,
and has put India on the Watch List. This body also points out
that another reason, apart from lack of action against Modi, for
putting India on the watch list is that the justice for the
communal violence victims continues to be slow and ineffective.
Both these observations put together highlight the rise of
divisive sectarian politics, after the demolition of Babri Mosque
in particular. The present state of affairs is also due to nature
of response of state and the political leadership to the
phenomenon of religious violence and the process taking place in
the aftermath of the well orchestrated violence. The process of
violence is generally initiated on the pretext of some event.
Already in the society the ‘Social Common Sense’ has been
manufactured. Due to this social common sense large sections of
society look at religious minorities as a threat to the majority
religion. This social common sense has been manufactured over a
period of time through the work of communal organizations, (Muslim
League, Hindu Mahasabha and RSS Combine) later intensified by the
education and section of media. This ‘Hate Other’ propaganda
creates the ground on which ethno-preuners (political leaders
using religious divides to come to power) take up their initiative
to get the violence initiated against minorities. In the last
decade the massive violence against Muslims in Gujarat and the one
against Christians in Orissa have been particularly disturbing.
This violence in turn displaces the sections of minority community
from their houses-localities, forcing them to stay in refugee
camps in wretched conditions. The apathy of state and political
leadership deliberately creates a situation where the displaced
persons-families are denied proper rehabilitation and justice.
This not only polarizes the communities on religious lines but
goes on to ghettoize the minorities in particular. The process of
social exclusion of minorities is going on at very rapid pace.
This leads us to question of assessing the changing nature of
Indian state and polity. Are we able to nurture and promote the
values of equality enshrined in our Constitution or we are going
downhill towards a Hindu majoritarian state? Though the major
ruling party will swear by secularism on paper, when it comes to
halt communalism in its tracks it shows no will power to protect
the secular fabric of our heritage from freedom movement. The
other major electoral party, BJP, is part of the Combine which
does want to convert India in to a Hindu nation, is aiming at
Hindu majoritarian state. So when in power indifferent states BJP
does push its agenda of Hindu nation, while its affiliates,
progeny of RSS, Vishwa Hindu parishad, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and
Bajrang Dal etc go on intensifying the hatred against minorities
and creating a situation where minorities can not live a life of
dignity and equal rights.
In this scenario the question of justice in Gujarat, Kandhamal and
role of people like Narendra Modi become more frightening.
Surprisingly things have come to such a sorry pass where the
guilty of violence are moving with their bloated chests and the
human rights activists are being hounded on purpose. As an example
of this the case of Teesta Setalvad is a major example, as to how
the Gujarat State under Modi is trying to target her through
different legal means.
It is time to introspect as to where our democracy is going. The
deeper infiltration of divisive political ideology and its impact
on the nature of our polity needs to be negated to ensure that the
deviation from the values of our political pluralism and the right
of minorities to live with dignity and justice, like every other
citizen, is restored. The state of health of a democracy is
reflected by the equity and security of minorities. The rot seems
to be all around in different aspects of life; still the state of
affairs is not same all over the country. There are states where
this process of sectarianism is partial while in states like
Gujarat, post carnage 2002 the minorities, barring a small
section, has been pushed away to live in ghettoes, the live the
life of second class citizen. In other states this process
prevails in different degrees.
The politics resulting form the aftermath of violence is
supplemented by the lack of will of the state to ensure the proper
implementation of recommendations of the committees like Sachar
Committee and Rangnath Mishra committee. The grass root level life
of the minorities has been allowed to rot. The affirmative action
has been projected as ‘Minority appeasement’ by the intense
propaganda which the communal forces are unleashed relentlessly.
It is time that all the social movements, the dedicated political
leadership and section of state have to wake up from their slumber
and try to do the course correction related to the basic aspects
of the nature of democratic ethos. Can we let our democracy slip
in to a sort of ‘ Majoritarian Democracy’ where section of people
of only one religion enjoy part of the equality, while the rights
of minorities are trampled recklessly? It is overdue that those
committed to the goal of India as Plural-Democratic India shed
their complacency and come forward to bring in the substantive
equality for all, irrespective of their religion.
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