Communal polarisation is a wrong lesson to teach

The government and the ruling BJP appear to be consciously allowing prejudice and hatred towards Muslims to assume epidemic proportions with the intention to polarise the electorate on religious lines.

The most worrying aspect of the recent incident in a primary school in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, is the lurking thought that there are innumerable similar incidents where people are targeted for their religious identity, but which are not being reported.

For every video depicting violence against Muslims that surface, there are several incidents that are either not filmed, or not made public. By now there is little or no shock value in the assertion that large swathes of India, especially in northern, central, and western India (in relative terms eastern and southern India are somewhat spared), are witness to widespread hatred for Muslims. What used to be front page news until recently, are now often tucked away in the inside pages, reflecting the ‘low news value’ to such atrocities.

Even within this new ‘normal’, the violence against the seven-year-old Muslim schoolboy marks a new low: He is the first victim who did not commit a so-called social crime: the ‘misdeed’ he committed that his teacher-cum-owner of the private school saw befitting to punish was his failure to correctly recite the multiplication table for five.

 Vigilante groups began acting against members of India’s religious minorities, mainly Muslims and Christians, within a few months of Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister in 2014. Within eight months, these attacks became so rampant that then United States President Barack Obama, while on a State Visit to India, in his only public appearance without Modi by his side, raked up the rights of religious minorities:

 “The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts; it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe and rejoice in the beauty of every soul”. He added that no society "is immune from the darkest impulses of men. India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.”

Despite cosmetic gestures in response to Obama’s prodding, the Centre never initiated stringent action against any form of vigilantism to dissuade those contemplating similar offence. In each of these actions, whether in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, in October 2015, or in Nuh, Haryana, in February 2023, the Hindutva fringe always had a ‘righteous reason’.

The victims were either accused of transporting cattle illegally for slaughter, or carrying beef, or being ‘love jihadis’ – the pejorative for Muslim youth accused of ‘luring’ Hindu girls into relationships. In case of attacks on minority places of worship, these were either accused of being centres of conversions or places where anti-national activities were hatched.

In contrast, the teacher guided an unknown number of fellow students into hitting one of their classmates in part because he was Muslim. The child is an ‘existential victim’, and is a pointer to a possibly worrying future.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 prohibits ‘physical punishment’ and ‘mental harassment’ under Section 17(1) and makes it a punishable offence under Section 17(2). This makes the Islamophobic teacher liable for punishment. She is also guilty of spreading prejudice against Muslims for making sweeping statements about the community. However, the Uttar Pradesh Police has booked her under less weighty sections of the Indian Penal Code which are bailable and so she has not been arrested.

A common thread that runs through these violent attacks on Muslims and Christians from 2014 is the usual silence of not just Modi, but of the leadership of the Sangh Parivar as well. The Prime Minister returned to India from the BRICS Summit in South Africa and his whistlestop visit to Greece a day after the Muzaffarnagar video surfaced. Not just Modi, but even Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are yet to make a statement condemning the incident, or reach out to the schoolboy or his family.

If the State wants it can prevent all such actions. But the Centre and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appear to be consciously allowing prejudice and hatred towards Muslims to assume epidemic proportions with the intention to polarise the electorate on religious lines. This will, in turn, enlist the support of a large section of Hindus, which can then ensure a parliamentary or legislative majority for the BJP in the elections.

In the recent past we have seen several incidents that have the potential to communally polarise society. This demonstrates that the BJP is effectively a ‘one-issue party’; what was initiated with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement continues.

To comprehend this, it is important to recall Lal Krishna Advani’s statement after the Babri masjid’s demolition: The campaign wasn’t just limited to building the Ram temple in Ayodhya, but was part of a larger plan to propagate the idea of cultural nationalism.

Almost 27 years later, then RSS joint general secretary, Dattatreya Hosabale, said that the "construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya should not be limited to religious symbolism, but should be seen as a form of cultural renaissance and nationalism.” This establishes that the temple was never an end in itself.

The Supreme Court’s judgment in the Ayodhya issue in November 2019 was expected to lead to a closure of decades of communal animosity. Instead, many more ‘disputes’ have been opened over other mosques or Islamic places of worship that were believed to have the protection of the Places of Worship Act. The law passed by Parliament so presciently in 1991 is under legal and political challenge.

Not only have these new frontiers been opened, but the systemic hate and vilification campaign against minorities also continues unabated.  In this context, answers need to be given by the Prime Minister of India. If he is praised for the success of Chandrayaan-3, shouldn’t Modi be held accountable when a seven-year-old is targeted. Also, for the sheer clout it has over larges sections of the populace, fingers need to be pointed at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Over time, RSS leaders have repeatedly asserted that every citizen of India is a Hindu even though people are free to practise their religion of their choice. In recent years, a campaign has been mounted to prevent Muslims from performing namaz in public places, especially on Friday afternoons when they are mandated to offer congregational prayers.

Actions like the one in Nuh or Muzaffarnagar are part of the effort to invisibilise or terrorise Muslims. The intention is clear: create a situation where Muslims do not display their religious identity in any manner while in public places. They are also being constantly told to shun co-religionists, even within four walls. There is clearly a concerted campaign to ensure that Muslims, and to a lesser extent Christians, stop being themselves, as far as their faith is concerned.

(Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Delhi-based journalist, is author of ‘The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India’. Twitter: @NilanjanUdwin.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.