It almost seems to have become
a time-tested maxim throughout our subcontinent by now that engineering
differences, propagating hatred which leads to a neat polarization of citizens
between "Us" and "Them" and which is necessary for the
build up to the bestialities, masterminding and precipitating communal
carnages could be an easy means of gathering political clout and reaping rich
rewards at the hustings. We, in India, saw this happen in Gujarat last year.
At a national level, the same process was at work most starkly in the
astronomical growth in the BJP’s electoral support from a mere two seats in
the Lok Sabha after the 1984 polls to 89 seats just five years later. And in
Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena-BJP combine rode to power in 1995, riding on the
back of the pogrom against Mumbai’s Muslims in 1992-93.
In neighbouring Bangladesh,
religious hatred and the communal targeting of the country’s minorities
helped bring the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the fanatical
Jamaat-e-Islami coalition to power nearly two years ago. The intensified
violence against the country’s Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and tribals in
the last two months, forcing desperate human rights groups in the country to
send out a global SOS (see our special report in this issue) is presumably
aimed at a fresh harvesting of hate.
At least in India, the world’s
largest democracy, the dangerous communal drift in recent years should have
alerted our institutions into urgent remedial action. But sadly, though laws
we have aplenty, of their enforcement there is little sign. In ensuring the
rule of law, practicing non-discrimination, delivering justice and ensuring
peace, institutions of Indian democracy have seriously failed the people and
the Constitution.
Fortunately, the interventions
of the Supreme Court in the Best Bakery case in recent months have brought
fresh hope on the horizon. The apex court’s observation that a government
that fails in its ‘Rajdharma’ of protecting the life and liberty of
citizens and punishing the perpetrators of violence has no right to rule has
infused new faith in the system and reinvigorated the belief that
accountability, not impunity, is the hallmark of institutions of democracy.
And refreshing as a breath of
fresh air in these hate-filled times were the transparently honest testimonies
of family members of the four Hindu women who died a terrible death in the
inferno that raged in the S-6 compartment of the Sabarmati Express 19 months
ago. While they more than anyone else would like to see the perpetrators of
that inhuman act to be prosecuted and punished, their reasons for coming to
Mumbai and the warning they sent out publicly was against honest, innocent
Indians being made pawns in the politics of hatred.
In their accounts before the
mass media, there was a lot of pain, sorrow and grief and anger at the
perpetrators of division. But of sentiments such as hatred and revenge, there
was not even a trace. Peace between people of different faiths, they pleaded,
must take precedence over mandir-masjid disputes. The message of the Godhra
victims and the signals emanating from the Supreme Court in the Best Bakery
case are the focus of our cover story this month.
With elections due in four
states in over a month’s time, efforts are on through home-grown
perpetrators of hate and division to repeat aspects of the Gujarat ‘experiment’
in neighbouring Rajasthan. In the wake of the Gujarat carnage last year, both
neighbouring Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh had risen to the occasion and shown
a firm commitment to the rule of law.
Disturbingly, however, in
recent weeks communal forces appear to have got the better of the Rajasthan
administration. As our special report from Rajasthan reveals, the tribal belt
of Jhalawar is being cultivated by the BJP-RSS-VHP-BD combine in a process
dangerously similar to what happened in Gujarat. Recent developments in the
tribal belt of the state expose how the present leadership in Rajasthan is
being subverted by sections of its own administration, especially the SP of
the district. (Inciteful speeches followed by violent behaviour against the
Muslim minority in Aklera were reported and no less than the BJP’s candidate
for chief minister, Vasundhara Raje, found guilty of the same. As we go to
press, 40 per cent of the terrorised minority has been driven out of the
villages in Aklera and still live outside their homes).
And as if to remind us that
communalism is not the only problem that plagues India, a letter in our
Feedback section highlights the continuing indignities of caste. The Savarnas
from Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh would under no circumstances tolerate
Dalits worshipping Lord Ganesha, for even by touching the idol they were
"polluting" it. And, never mind the Indian Constitution, there was
nothing that Chandrababu Naidu’s police and administration could do to
protect the right of the Dalits to worship whom they please. This shocking
incident only reinforces our conviction to combat the evils of caste with the
same energy that we fight the communal demon.