Gujarat: A Call
for Kristallnacht?*
By Angana Chatterji
Dissident Voice
December 22, 2002
The tyranny of
dogmatic Hinduism and Islam promotes and sustains cycles of violence in South
Asia. The crusade of Islamic fundamentalism in the region is a recognized fact
in response to which there is an increasing, and often strategically
ineffectual, assemblage of force and political will. Hindu militancy in India
is yet to receive similar scrutiny. Its rampage on secular India has been
growing, with devastating consequences. The current elections in Gujarat are
testimony to this.
In Gujarat, the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 127 of 181 seats. The BJP, compliant in the
post-Godhra slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat, has been exonerated. The judge and
jury have been the electorate, organized and delivered by the Hindu supremacist
movement. In Gujarat, the party has rewarded the Hindutva movement’s use of
hate and terror to divide and conquer. In return the BJP has been repaid with
votes. What does this mean for India?
The BJP heads a
20 party coalition at the center. It has instigated and utilized Ayodhya and
Gujarat for considerable electoral gains. It is aided by, among others, the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The VHP (World Hindu Council) is Hindutva’s
ideological platform, intent on consolidating its singular and violent mission
to pulverize India into a Hindu extremist state. It is rallying to slay the
opponents of Hindutva, and those committed to a secular India tolerant of the
faithful and irreligious that inhabit its reality. Hindutva is well mobilized,
well funded and well armed. Its ideology is venomous, its propaganda effective.
Most Indians are watching their ascent in horror. The international community
is silent. The conditions for a Kristallnacht are in place.
In a recent
press conference, the VHP has declared that Muslims and other minorities will
be subordinate citizens in India. In a democracy, the majority community has an
ethical responsibility to enable affirmative action so disenfranchised minority
class and ethnic groups can overcome institutionalized injustices. While the
disbursement of affirmative action has been less than ideal, the Hindutva
movement interprets its very existence as an absurd “accommodation” of minority
demands.
Indian
nationalism has been built at the prerogative of the Hindu elite, even while
the Indian state confers rights to diverse individuals and communities within
its borders. This has made India a vibrant democracy and a difficult country to
govern. The disempowered have organized to demand that the state grant them
their rights. India is a nation where 350 million live in conditions of
poverty. Poor rural women labor 1.5 workdays. The police are often complicit in
perpetrating social violence. Gay, lesbian and transgender communities, the
elderly and disabled, have few rights. Educational opportunities for adivasis
(tribals) are appalling. Irresponsible development displaces the poor without
any refuge. Sikhs have faced persecution, Muslims, dalits and other minorities
are often ostracized, and Christians have been forcibly converted to Hinduism.
The response by the state and its citizens has been inadequate, at best.
Forces of
resistance continue to challenge the dominance of the Hindu elite and middle
class. In response, Hindutva revivalism seeks to consolidate the power of the majority
through militant reform that defines Hindu majoritarianism as Indian
nationalism. This majoritarianism makes secularism subservient to Hindu
nationalism. Such an agenda requires that Hindutva assimilate the plural
traditions within Hinduism to create a narrow centralized code that promises to
unite Hindus. These principles are philosophically Brahmanical and
universalistic, in action segregationist. This strategy thwarts the complex
search for cultural identity that confronts the vast diversity of Indians
living at the intersections of pre and post modernity, inequitable
modernization and globalism. To realize its mission, Hindutva defines minority
interests as oppositional to Hindu, and therefore national, interest. The
struggles for justice of groups organized around ethnicity, religion, class,
caste, tribe, gender, or culture become hostile to national unity. Hindutva is
anathema to democracy.
Hindu militancy
is on the rise, and minority groups are the major victims of this sectarian
violence. Delhi, 1984, Gujarat, 2002, Ahmedabad, 1969. Hyderabad, 1981,
Bhiwandi, 1984, Moradabad, 1980, Assam, 1983, Aligarh, 1978, Ayodhya, 1992. On
and on. Muslim minorities in India are a primary target of Hindutva’s wrath,
whose master narrative de-emphasizes Hindu-Muslim coexistence, and creates
grievous misrepresentations of Indian Muslims as monolithic, anti-national,
violent, and without exception allied with Islamic fundamentalism. In the
Hindutva imagination, the village Muslim whose identity is shaped by kinship,
region, language, and culture becomes synonymous with the Taliban.
It is terrifying
that so many have responded with such vigor to the call of Hindutva. What
counter movements, what capacity building, are necessary to disrupt this
campaign of hate and genocide? How can the agenda for a tolerant and democratic
India be made central to all action at the grassroots level, within
institutions, political parties, trade unions, social movements, schools and
universities, non governmental organizations, families and neighborhoods,
public and private life?
Secularism in
India has been fraught with contention. Secularism as a strategy to oppose
communalism is increasingly defunct. Critics of the modern nation state and
purists dispute secularism as impossible and imposed. Hindutva argues that
secularism will destroy Hindu India. With increased communalization, secularism
has become a bargaining tool in national politics, used to deceitful advantage
by most political parties, a pretense useful in appeasing minority groups.
Secular reform with a conscience has been marginalized within the Indian polity
to accommodate Hindu hegemony. It limits necessary conversations regarding
religious reform or a meaningful role for faith in our times.
If India is to
endure, it is crucial that we conceive a nation where a profusion of cultures
and histories coexist with equal rights, weaving a script for citizenship and
change that is multicultural, hopeful, and pregnant with possibility. Inclusive
and respectful of all.
Angana Chatterji is a professor of Social and Cultural
Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/chatterji.htm
Email: Angana@aol.com
* Kristallnacht, or “the Night of Broken Glass” is the
pogrom carried out against the Jewish people in Germany and in the acquired
territories of Austria and Sudetenland in 1938. The Nazi Regime orchestrated
the pogrom.