The Hindutva Fascists & the Road towards Disintegration of India

Annihilation of the conceptual premise

A state can sustain its geopolitical solidarity only on a solid conceptual premise. The conceptual collapse can only precipitate its rapid disintegration. Pakistan was created on an intense pan-Islamic zeal of the Muslims of different Indian states and languages. But in 1971, the country disintegrated as it lost its conceptual cum ideological premise to the radical nationalists. India is not an exception either. An ideology of ethnic or religious supremacism can never forge any geopolitical compatibility between people of various ethnicities, castes and religions. India is known for its plurality of race, religion, language, culture and cast. So it stands fractured in its own body polity. Hence, during the last days of the British rule, the leaders of the Indian National Congress like Gandhi, Nehru and others could easily realise that supremacism of any religion or ethnicity can only jeopardise the project of a united India. So, they were left with no other option but to take secularism as the only conceptual alternative to create a united India. Even the embedded Hindutva elements in the Congress like Ballav Bhai Patel had to accept such reality and hide his own agenda in the back seat. Hence in 1947, India was created on the basis of secularism –as it is incorporated in the Indian constitution.  

Now the greatest threat to India’s integration doesn’t come from Pakistan, China or other foreign powers, rather from the own people. Such home-grown enemies are the ruling Hindutva fascists. They have successfully annihilated the secular paradigm. Hence, the path of disintegration that the founding fathers avoided in 1947, the country is now plunged into that with the ruling Hindutva supremacists in its driving seat. They have created a new ground-breaking reality in Indian politics that stands dissimilar to that at birth. Such a new political reality always brings new political dynamics and outcomes.

The Indian subcontinent could enjoy a united geopolitical entity only under three non-Hindu ruling powers; they are the Buddhist Asoka, the Muslims and the British. It is also true that India could enjoy a long-lasting geopolitical unity only under the Muslims. And it owes to the Muslim rulers’ inclusive policy. On the other hand, the Hindutva ideology could only show its divisive power in the name of different castes, customs, ethnicity and deities. The same divisive trend has strongly resurfaced with the advent of the Hindutva fascists in power.

 The policy of exclusion & the lost raison d’etre

Fascism could never bring any peace in any part of the world; it could only promote politics of exclusion, hatred, wars and genocidal cleansing. India now pursues the same divisive route. Adolf Hitler has died; but his ideology thrives among disciples like Narendra Modi, Amit Sha and many others. Hitler excluded Jews from German politics, economy and administration because of their dissimilar race and religion. The Hindutva fascists are doing the same against the Muslims. The exclusion of the Muslims has gone to the extent that in the 2014 election, 44 million Muslims of Uttar Pradesh (UP) didn’t have a single MP in India’s parliament.   

To make India a Hindu state, the Hindutva rogues argue that since Pakistan hasn’t adopted secularism as the state ideology, India doesn’t need to be secular either. They also argue, since Pakistan is an Islamic republic, why India shouldn’t be a Hindu state? With the same breadth, they rebuke Muslims for demanding a secular India. With such a depiction of a pure Hindu objective, they indeed dismantle the conceptual premise of India’s creation. Secularism is indeed the raison d’etre for India. The founding fathers of India never argued to make it a Hindu state. India got disproportionately a larger geographical territory only because of its declared secular political agenda. Otherwise, India would have been much smaller than the current size. As a Hindu state, the Indian Hindus forfeit the moral, political and legal right to keep 200 Million Muslims, 30 million Christians and 25 million Sikhs and their genuine territorial entitlement under the occupation of a Hindu state. Such a problem doesn’t crop up in Pakistan with its 98% Muslim population if its Islamist population want to pursue the Islamic objective. Because pursuing an Islamic objective was declared basis of its creation.

If Hindu India had been the agenda of Gandhi, Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad and other Congress leaders, the ancestors of the current 255 million non-Hindus would have surely detested being the citizen of such a communal India from day one of its creation. Only because of a secular India, the Congress leaders could argue to keep states with the majority of the non-Hindu population like Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal and Tripura within a united India. Abrogation of such a promise will only provide the moral and legal right to the non-Hindus to disintegrate from a Hindu India.    

On the other hand, the leaders of the Pakistan movement didn’t keep it hidden the ideological basis of Pakistan –which could be embedded later on in Pakistan’ constitution as the 22 points of the basic ideological objectives. The Muslims create a state not only to meet the economic and the domiciliary objectives but also to fulfil the obligatory Islamic objectives. It is obligatory on the Muslims to run the education, the culture, the judiciary and the warfare as per the Qur’anic prescription. The Muslim leaders of India could foresee such a project impossible to run in an undivided Hindu-majority India. They could also read the Hindu mind-set and could foresee the cleansing objective of the Hindutva majority against the Muslims –as being practised on and off since the independence in 1947. So they had no option but to create Pakistan to promote the obligatory Islamic cause. Because of the proclaimed Islamic agenda, the leaders of Pakistan movement couldn’t claim the neighbouring seven non-Hindu states that are on the north-eastern border of former East Pakistan. But if India wants to be Hindu state, it can’t claim these non-Hindu states either. 

Hindutva fascism and the incompatibility

The Indian leaders wanted to be secular as per their own choice -as proclaimed in the Indian constitution. The Muslims didn’t ask for that. But their hypocrisy in the name of secularism is huge. The Indian law against Muslim visitors exposes such hypocrisy. If a non-Indian Hindu visitor overstays in India, he or she is fined 100 rupees.  But if a Muslim visitor overstays, he or she needs to pay 21,000 rupees -200 time more than a Hindu. It is noteworthy that a non-secular country like Pakistan doesn’t have such an evil law. The Anandabazar Patrika of Kolkata wrote an editorial on it on 12.03.2020. The same hypocrisy is expressed through the National Registrar of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). As per CAA, discrimination is made to grant citizenship to Muslims but not to non-Muslims.

Law is sometimes framed to punish the targeted enemies. It is commonly practised by the fascists to eliminate their political enemies. For the Hindutva fascists, the Muslims are such enemy –as were the Jews unto to the German fascists. Hence in India, making laws that harm Muslims is a common practice. Secularism can never be a substitute of sharia –as prescribed by the All-Wise Allah. But the absence of law is better than an evil law. Hence, secularism is definitely better than toxic Hindutva ideology. But in India, secularism has turned into an outrageous mockery. It has become a face-saving façade for the radical Hindutva ideology. Sometimes it is the soft brand of Indian National Congress, and sometimes it is an extreme brand of the RSS-BJP axis.

Of course, if secularism could have convinced the Hindutva leaders to abandon their toxic ideology would have been better for India as well. However, one can never convince a Hindutva goon. In their mind, only a myth works and not a reason. This is why none else than Narendra Modi –the Prime Minister of India could tell in public that ancient Indians were expert in head transplantation. So, he claims, they could implant an elephant head to Ganesh –a Hindu deity! To fight coronavirus disease, drinking cow urine thus gets acceptance to such myth-inspired Indian Hindus. How can one argue with the people impregnated with such toxic belief? Such gross incompatibility with the reason, civility and morality can only end the peaceful coexistence of people with a plurality. Such incompatibility can only promote bloody conflict and disintegration. The World Powers like the Soviet Union and the USA could suppress the political will of 25 million Afghans. How can Hindu India suppress the will of 255 million non-Hindus? 18.03.2020