Hope or despair? The choice is ours

Can you recall the name of the political party Hitler belonged to? Or Mussolini? Or in our time, Recep Erdogan’s party in Turkey? Probably not. But everybody knows what party Joe Biden belongs to, or Sheik Hasina. Unlike in democracies, political parties don’t play a pivotal role in a dictatorial or fascist state. In these regimes, one man comes to power riding on a party, and over time, he makes the same party irrelevant as he gradually usurps all the powers of the state. I think we have come to a stage in India where BJP and even its ideological big brother, the RSS have become irrelevant. One man calls the shots in India today, Narendra Modi, MA (Entire Political Science).

And this man has basically done two things during his nine years of (mis)rule. 

He has systematically weakened the foundations on which the structure of our democracy stands: the parliament, the judiciary, the election commission, and the agencies that maintain order, like the CBI and the ED.

His other major “contribution” is that his followers and a section of the media systematically spread hatred against minorities, of whom Muslims are the first target. Hate campaigns humiliate them relentlessly. Muslim Indians—most of them don’t have a forefather who ever lived anywhere outside India—are told they have no place in their country. They should go to Pakistan. They are lynched; they are killed in manufactured riots; the culprits aren’t punished. Rather, mass murderers and gang rapists jailed in an earlier regime are released prematurely and feted by the master’s followers. In the states ruled by Modi’s party, the situation is the worst. If you go to Ahmedabad, the laboratory of Hindutwa hooliganism, you will see that all Muslims, from former IAS officers to peons live in a ghetto, where the civic amenities are terrible. In at least three states, UP, MP, and Haryana, for every real or perceived offence committed by Muslims, the state government sends bulldozers to destroy Muslim homes. No notice, victims get no opportunity to defend themselves in court. Bulldozers arrive and demolish their homes. The news is carried in some newspapers the next day and that is the end of it. No legal process, no judge has the courage to call out the grotesque illegality. 

All these monstrosities go unchallenged because a large section of the majority Hindu community has been blinded by hate against Muslims (and Christians). Hatred and anger are a dangerous mix. It makes decent people blind and unable to think rationally. (This fact was seen time and again in history and also proved experimentally by psychologists.) In India today, there are millions who don’t believe demonetisation lead to massive damage to the economy. Millions think if bodies floated in the Ganga during COVID, the Modi government had no fault. Millions believe—without a shred of evidence—that Muslims will somehow become a majority in the country and decimate Hindus. Hindu khatre mein hai!

By an accident of birth, I am a Hindu. And I am ashamed of the poison that many of my friends (or former friends) carry in their dysfunctional brains. If you haven’t succumbed to the poison, please open you heart to your Muslim friends, colleagues, and neighbours. Please tell them you don’t belong to the bigoted, insane lot. It will not change the system, but it will be your contribution to the sanity of the nation.

 There is no sign that the Modi bhakts’ collective madness will be cured anytime soon. No let up in the blizzard of poison. Rather, there’s every sign that Indian politics will become even more poisonous. As things stand today, there seems little chance that Modi will be defeated in the elections in 2024, although a lot can change in politics in the next eight months. And it is more or less certain that if did win next year, he would possibly be able to change the Constitution and convert India a Hindu Rashtra. We are already following Pakistan in a similar path of destruction. If Modi wins next year, we will reach a point of no return.

But however bleak the immediate future may seem, if we gave up hope, it would be our defeat at the hands of autocracy. That cannot happen, despair is not an option for us. We must speak up and speak to anyone who cares to listen. The message must be kept alive. The revolutionary poet from Telangana, Varavara Rao, who has spent many years in jail, gives us hope. Let me close this short note with a few lines written by him.

“Political prisoners know the meaning of hope but they do not know the meaning of despair. Chera called me a frightful optimist for this, and yet I must honestly admit that although I have known pain, suffering and anxiety along with hope, happiness and enthusiasm, never have I been plunged into despair and frustration even in the most trying times. … In personal matters, I felt sorrowful indifference at moments and said, ‘Let troubles and hardships come if they must.’ I have felt detachment, but never have yielded to cynicism even for a moment in my solitary cell.”

Varavara Rao, quoted by Arvind Narrain in his book India’s Undeclared Emergency p199 (Westland Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2021). Varavara Rao’s picture courtesy Wikipedia.