Communalism And The Politics Of India

                     

Politics is the last resort of a criminal, But the sad fact with regard to India is that criminals have saturated our politics and for them the easiest way to capture the attention of the electorate is to play the communal card. Deny it, suppress it, but the hard fact is that communalism and Indian politics are having a thriving symbiotic relationship.

Communalism has never been new to Indian politics. But the disturbing development is that the fringe elements are slowly gaining wider acceptance and are making inroads into the main stream. From the pre-independence days, we had organizations like the Hindu Maha Sabha (HMS), Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), Muslim League and other whipping up communal passions. The active encouragement to their separatist agenda by "the non communal" main stream political parties culminated in the most gruesome event of 20th century and in 1947 for the first time in human history, a nation was divided into two, solely on the basis of religion. The fragile nature of such a division was demonstrated by the formation of Bangladesh a quarter century later. It is indeed ironic that an active propagator of the two-nation theory, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had himself honoured with a portrait in the Central Hall of Parliament.



      

The partition had a lasting impact on the minority sentiment, which was actively exploited by politicians to cling on to power. Immediately after independence, the ruling party confused secularism with minority appeasement which can partly explain the rights of radical Hindu fundamentalism in the eighties. Times have changed, but the intensity of communalism has only grown. In fact it has graduated to community level. Kerala, which was once called the leading light in terms of introducing innovative political methods like the coalition government. It has a deplorable situation on the communal front. Saints like Shree Narayana Guru who had embarked on cleansing the caste system is now being projected as the symbol ofa particular community. His slogan of "one religion, one God for man" has been converted to "one religion, one God for one man". Along with the politicians, the electorate is also to be blamed. Governance comes far below in the list of priorities of the electorate, In fact, a party can be routed in an election if it falls to win the confidence of communities. Matters have reached such a hassle that the politicians are not shy of begging for vote in the name of religion. A relevant example is the communal flare in Gujarat after the Godra incident. 

Even though the majority killed was from the minority community, the leader of BJP in Gujarat, the Vallabhai Patel -2 was able to carry out modification of the electorate. Similar is the case for IUML (Indian Union Muslim League) which can win any election in the Muslim dominated area in Malabar region, which the former Chief Minister E.K. Nayanar dubbed as the Child Pakistan'. Even in UttarPradesh the BSP road to power play the Dalit card to the hilt. Communalism nourished by politicians has reached its acme and is visible in the social spec- trum. People are willing to strongly project their religious identities. Even the mass media do not feel shy of using religious symbols. Television channels do not have any inhibitions of using a community or religion's name in reporting communal flare ups. One of the biggest achievements of India in the eyes of the world has been its ability to run together as a nation inspite of its communal and euthenics division. But for an internal observer, the situation is far from comforting. I genuinely fear that this potent move of religion and politics is a dynamite that is waiting to explode. Unless corrective measures are taken, a catastrophe awaits us. Time in the form of "The sword of Damocles" hangs above Indian democracy. Lets hope for the best. God bless India !!