India strongly resists decisive polarisation push. Can new leadership emerge to confront march of Hindutva Brigade?

Chandigarh: The Narendra Modi government must be given credit for moving ahead with the implementation of its agenda that is rooted in Hindutva, the divisive discourse that provides ideological inspiration to it. It reflects commitment to its manifesto unlike most of other poliutical outfits in democratic domain.

On the face of it, this push is targeted at the Muslims. However, the resistance is secular  as it is the poor from every formation who would be hit.

The latest in the series is the Citizens (Amendment) Act which, when followed by National Register of Citizens, would create upheaval. BJP’s officiating president J P Nadda reiterated at a meeting with a delegation of Afghan Sikh immigrants on Thursday that NRC would follow in due course.

It is for the first time since the BJP came into power in 2014 under the command of Narendra Modi and entered second term in 2019 that the divisive agenda has faced such strong resistance and that too from every section.

Jamia Millia Islamia, the university in Delhi that is considered to be one of the centres of excellence,  has emerged as the symbol of resistance. The resistance has spread out across the country. Going by the present situation, however, it is West Bengal where fierce battle is likely to be fought with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee commanding the liberal forces.

This move to demolish the idea of liberal and secular India had started with the attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University and the subsequent introduction of the term ‘urban Naxals’ for the liberal activists by the Right brigade. The CAA is the latest in the series.

All such moves by the BJP government since 2014 have gone virtually unchallenged.

The degenerated Congress is not in a position to confront this ideological onslaught. This party too has been using communal politics from time to time.

The Congress, especially under Indira Gandhi, targeted the Sikhs. It is a different issue that she had to pay the price for that politics. The Sikhs constitute the second biggest minority on the country. Of course, this minority is more vocal and aggressive.

The target now is the first minority. The BJP systematically pushed this section out of the main political discourse by denying them direct participation in the electoral discourse. The BJP has ignored this section in the allotment of tickets. It is also a fact that there have been no major riots since 2014, only lynching.

The issue under focus is migration from the neighbouring countries.

Punjab provides some insight into migration from Bangladesh.

This is with relation to Operation Bluestar, the army attack on Darbar sahib (Golden Temple) in June 1984. “Ten boys, aged 10 to 16 years, arrested from the Darbar Sahib complex during the army action, were released in September from the Ludhiana jail following a petition filed in Supreme Court by the well-known social worker Kamladevi Chattopadhya. They said after the release they were beaten up with rifle butts, hung upside down and tortured by the army and the police personnel to find out their connection with Sant Bhindranwale. Two of them happened to be Bangladeshis”. (Jagtar Singh: Khalistan Struggle A Non-movement, p 190).

Earlier in 1980, the Amritsar police had detained some Bangladeshi women from some villages married to the locals. Groups of Bangladeshis used to come to Amritsar through some trafficker for crossing over to Pakistan. It was an open border at that time and fencing started after Operation Bluestar. Their young women used to be sold. These women who had been rounded up were from those people. They did not want to return. Many of the Bangladeshis would be detained by the police and sent back to Calcutta with money for tickets having been provided by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. The police at the district level did not have fund for such contingency.

The basic issue is the march of the Hindutva Brigade with Hindu Rashtra as the political objective. This is anti-thesis to the very idea of India.

Would some new leadership emerge from this resistance? The present mainline leadership is associated with abject failure.

One important dimension is the lifting of the fear of the Right Brigade.