November  2003 
Year 10    No.93

Campaign


In defence of democracy

Humanists and civil-rights groups propose a nationwide campaign to ensure that communal forces are denied a further stranglehold over India after the next general election

By VM Tarkunde

Dear Friend,

This communication is on be half of several non-governmental organisations including the Indian Radical Humanist Association, the Indian Renaissance Institute, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Forum for Democracy and Communal Amity (FDCA), the Indian Social Institute and some other bodies. They are agreed that non-governmental organisations as well as persons who stand for democracy and freedom of the individual should oppose communalism in the coming elections.

In a multi-religious state like India, communalism and democracy cannot co-exist. Democracy stands for equality between all citizens of the state while communalism necessarily implies the superiority of one religious community over citizens belonging to other religions. The BJP, which is the main communal party in India, stands openly for establishing a Hindu Raj in India. This necessarily means that the position of Hindus will be far superior to that of persons of all other communities, such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Jews, etc.

A distinction must be made between communalism and religious faith. Religious people do not necessarily have any antipathy towards people belonging to other religions. They become communalists only when they entertain some degree of hatred against persons belonging to other religions. Communalist Hindus in India are hostile to Muslims and to a lesser extent to Christians.

In a country where the people of one religious community constitute an overwhelming majority, its communalism tends to be aggressive, because in any communal conflict they will be able to cause much greater damage to the persons and property of the community to which they are hostile. For the same reason, the communalists in the minority community remain docile and submissive so that less harm may be caused to them by communal enemies.

Since the partition of India, the numerical strength of Muslims in our country is far less than before, with the result that in all communal conflicts since the Partition, the Indian Muslims have suffered far more than the Hindus. That is why Muslim communalists remain docile in India, while the communalists in the majority community take an aggressive pose.

State sponsored genocide

It was during the BJP rule in Gujarat that members of the RSS became more effective in their traditional work of spreading the poison of communal hatred among Gujarati Hindus. This led to a merciless attack by the communalised Hindus against the Muslims. The latter naturally tried to retaliate to protect themselves but being a minority, they could not succeed. There is ample evidence that the BJP government of Gujarat led by Narendra Modi had instructed the police not to do anything to protect the victims of the riots although it was their duty to do so.

The result was that thousands of innocent Muslims were killed in the riots. There can be no doubt that the instructions given to the police by Modi and his BJP government amounted to abetment to murder, not one murder but thousands of them. Yet in the elections that followed, the communalised Hindus returned Modi and his government to power, with the blessings, it should be noted, of both LK Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The main question in the coming elections is whether a communal party which is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent Indians should be rewarded with another term of rule over our vast country. The answer, if we have any regard for justice and equality, must be an emphatic, ‘No!’

The second reason for not voting for the BJP and any other communal party, as well as for any other party which has agreed to form a coalition government led by the BJP is that, while the present BJP-led government has done nothing to improve the living conditions of the poor and needy masses who constitute an overwhelming majority of the people of India, its performance has been positively harmful in many ways. These can be summarised as follows:

Nuclearisation of the sub-continent

The BJP was mainly responsible for the nuclearisation of India, which was initially hailed by all political parties, including the Opposition parties and most of the upper-class individuals, but which soon began to show its evil consequences. In the first place, it has completely failed in achieving its main purpose, which was to enhance India’s security. Instead of enhancing India’s security, what it has achieved is to make India more insecure than before.

As was to be expected, Pakistan has also acquired nuclear weapons, and what is more, it has refused, in view of its much smaller army, to join India in declaring that in any international armed conflict, it will not be first in making a nuclear strike. Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons is thus a standing threat to India. Even if Pakistan increases terrorism in India or encroaches on Indian territories by crossing the line of control, India will have to hesitate before taking military action against Pakistan because this may result in a nuclear war between the two neighbouring States.

The second evil consequence of India’s becoming a nuclear state is that India is required to utilise all its available resources for the acquisition and maintenance of nuclear weapons and the carriers of nuclear missiles. As a result, the Indian government has hardly any resources left which can used for carrying out the reforms that are essential for improving the living conditions of the poverty-stricken majority of the Indian people.

The financial resources required for promoting primary, secondary and vocational education, for removal of poverty by employment generation and other means, and for improving health and hygiene in villages and towns, are actually being reduced because of the expenses involved in maintaining nuclear weapons.

Communalisation of education

During the BJP’s regime, Indian history has been distorted in order to show that the Muslim rule in India was highly oppressive to its Hindu subjects. There is hardly any justification for this distortion of India’s history. This distortion is carried out in the history books prescribed for schools and colleges so that the communal poison may spread in the younger generation. This process is likely to be augmented if the BJP gets a second term in forming the central government of India.

Saffronisation of bureaucracy

During the BJP regime, vacancies in several departments such as education, industry, police, etc. were filled up by the appointment of supporters of the sangh parivar. If the BJP gets another term to rule at the Centre, this process of communalisation of the Indian bureaucracy will be carried on in these and other departments, so that communalism in India will be strengthened not only by the political rulers, but also by the Indian bureaucrats.

Rampant corruption

The BJP regime was expected to be less corrupt than the previous central governments which were mostly formed by the Congress. What happened, however, was that the BJP government and the government of its coalition partners have become even more corrupt than the previous governments.

Since this is a generally accepted fact, it is not necessary to give instances in support of the above statement. The fact that the BJP regime has been worse than previous corrupt governments in shown by the manner in which it encouraged the killing of thousands of Muslims in the Gujarat riots.

There is a third reason for not allowing the BJP to have another term in forming the central government in India. The majority of the Indian people, like many other people in the world, are worshippers of power. This makes it easier for the RSS and other members of the sangh parivar to spread the poison of communalism in different Indian states. They have already communalised the state of Gujarat and they have done this to a considerable extent in Maharashtra.

If the BJP gets another term of forming the central government, the poison of communalism is likely to be spread in many other states, such as Rajasthan, MP and UP. Communalism will thus be more firmly rooted in India and it will be much more difficult to remove it through future general elections. The ultimate result of this process may be the replacement of Indian secular democracy by the establishment of communalist rule. We must, therefore, do our best to see that communalism does not succeed in the coming elections.

After the last general election, the BJP did not get a majority in the Lok Sabha, but it became the largest minority party. It was then necessary for the President of India to first call upon the largest minority party to form the central government. When the President did so, some opportunistic parties agreed to join a coalition government which would be led by the BJP and that is how the BJP came to power in spite of it being a minority party. If we desire that communalism should not succeed in getting a firm hold in India, we must try to see that the BJP does not again become the largest minority party after the next general election.

In the coming elections, it is likely that in many constituencies, several candidates who are opposed to communalism will be contesting for the election of a single seat. If the anti-communalist vote is divided between several candidates, the one candidate set up by a communalist party like the BJP is very likely to succeed in getting elected for the one seat. If communalism is to be defeated, it is essential that the anti-communalist vote not be divided between various candidates. For this purpose, it is essential that the voters should cast their vote not for any particular party but in favour of the one candidate who is likely to get the largest number of votes so as to defeat the communalist candidate.

It may happen that in a large number of constituencies the real contest will be between one communalist candidate and a candidate set up by the Congress. Because of its mistakes in the past, the Congress may not be a very popular party. The voter should nevertheless cast his vote in favour of the Congress candidate because communalism is at present the greatest enemy of democratic freedom. They should act on the principle that if one has to make a choice between the two evils, he should espouse the lesser evil. Since communalism is at present the greatest danger to the survival of democracy in India, it is the duty of every freedom loving voter to cast his vote in favour of the candidate who has relatively the best chance of defeating the communalist candidate.

Those who are committed to secular democracy but are not members of any political party are requested to convene meetings, preferably seminars, in as many constituencies in their respective states as possible. The object of the meeting or seminar should be to decide how the communalism of even the majority community is inconsistent with democratic freedom and how a second term of communalist rule may amount to the beginning of the end of democracy and freedom in India.

Copies of this long letter should be sent to all invitees to the meeting or seminar. The invitees should not be confined to the members of the supporting NGOs, but all progressive persons among writers, poets, lawyers, social workers, leaders of trade unions and other occupations should be invited. Particular attention should be paid to leaders of the minority community and the Dalit communities. Members of even anti-communalist political parties should not be invited because they will have their own programme of work during the election period.

Our meeting or seminar should end in the formation of a ‘Peoples Committee for the coming election’. The purpose of the committee should be to chalk out a programme for promoting freedom and secular democracy and opposing communalism. The programme should consist of meetings, pamphlets, processions, and, if possible, songs and plays.

All the functions should be held on behalf of the Peoples Committee and not on the platform of even a friendly political party. In the five states where voting is to take place on December 1, the above programme will have to be hurried and minimised, but should be carried out as soon as possible. (This letter was put into circulation on October 13 – Editors).

A very successful seminar was held in Delhi on the above lines on October 11, 2003, and a Peoples Committee was formed. A short report of that seminar is being prepared. Copies of the report will be sent to you as soon as possible.

Propaganda is being made to mislead the public by saying that in the coming elections, the voters have to decide whether Atal Behari Vajpayee or Sonia Gandhi should be the supreme leader of India. This is not the real issue, because the voters cannot vote for Vajpayee as an individual. Success of Vajpayee means the success of communalism and the defeat of India’s secular democracy.

Peoples’ participation in an election on a non-party basis for a democratic purpose is a new experiment being undertaken by some NGOs. I hope you will do your best to make it a success. n

With warm regards,

Yours sincerely,

VM Tarkunde
(VM Tarkunde is a former judge, Bombay High Court, and a doyen of the human rights movement).


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