Bharat Bhushan: How our society transformed from a robust democracy into a fearful one
NB: Quite true, and this is directly related to the blatant of deployment of violence and intimidation by none other than the allies of the ruling authorities. This is the reality that most of our hypocritical opinion-makers and media pundits refuse to face: those sworn to uphold the law are encouraging lawlessness and murder: otherwise why would cow-vigilantes videograph themselves committing heinous crimes? DS
Peace as a punctuation mark in eternal war
Samjhauta case order delayed, daughter of Pakistani victim wants to come and depose
As India moves towards
Lok Sabha polls 2019, it is useful to recall how our society has been
transformed from a robust and raucous democracy into a suspicious and fearful
one in the past five years. This time around, voters must decide whether or not
they want to be constantly prodded into a siege mentality that is fearful of
real and imagined enemies. Congress leader Sachin
Pilot touched upon something important when he observed that people were
increasingly using WhatsApp services and landlines rather than mobile phones to
avoid invasive eavesdropping by the state. Fear indeed is the key to
understanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s persona and politics.
Regardless of whether
the bombs destroyed 19 trees on a forested hillside, as claimed by Pakistan, or
killed 250 terrorists as the BJP claims, a national security narrative has been
built around the Balakot strike. Whether that belligerent act has worked on
Pakistan remains to be seen, but it has certainly silenced critical voices
within India. Opposition parties
became afraid to question the government’s policy lapses and intelligence
failures that led to the death of 40 security men in the Pulwama terrorist
attack. They could have well asked how those able to detect 3 kg of beef in
someone’s refrigerator were clueless about 300 kg of RDX materialising in Jammu
& Kashmir. They could ask how the suicide bomber was so definitively
identified in the absence of DNA tests, merely through a conveniently available
video. Fear of its electoral prospects prevents Opposition politicians from
asking these questions.
The Balakot bombings
have also turned Prime Minister Modi’s critics within the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh into his cheerleaders. Union Minister for Road Transport Nitin Gadkari
was famous for his double entendres, such as his jibe that those who could not
even look after their families could not take care of the nation. Now he is
only heard on radio spots counselling car users to use seat-belts and follow
lane driving.
The heightened
national security narrative has had its most pervasive effect on people. They
have come to believe that they are constantly under threat, even though there
hardly have been any terrorist incidents in the past five years outside of
J&K and along the Punjab border. When the prime minister claims, “Modi
conducted a surgical strike” and like a Marvel comics superhero says with
zooming hand gestures, “They expected a surgical strike on the ground but Modi
hit them from the air”, the message is that he alone can protect the vulnerable
republic. Opposition leaders are
publicly described as corrupt and the prime minister threatens to lock them up.
Although he has not been able to prosecute and jail even one of them, they
remain on tenterhooks over what the law enforcement agencies might do.
Prime
Minister Modi recalled to an audience in Varanasi that Lord Shiva had cautioned
him to deliver on his promises saying, “Bete, baateinbahut karate
ho, aaoidhar, karkedikhao.” Although the reference was to
renovating a temple, Lord Shiva might well have been speaking of his
extraordinary loquaciousness and lack of delivery. Non-state instruments
have also instilled fear in citizens with covert support of the state. Prime Minister
Modi let cow-vigilantism come to full boil before he mumbled criticism of such
acts. By then, the purpose of frightening the beef-consuming communities of
Muslims, Dalits and Christians had been served even as they were converted into
objects of hate deserving of ‘punishment’. Similarly, love between two
consenting adults from different religions acquired the frightening epithet of
‘love-jihad’ legitimising violence. The deliberate delay in punishing
vigilantes also allowed Hindutva supporters to muscle up and consolidate their
support. The same strategy played out when Kashmiri students and traders were
attacked in North Indian cities after a terrorist strike in Pulwama.
Singing the national
anthem used to be a somewhat pleasant and voluntary way of celebrating the
republic. It is now a mandatory performance of nationalism in cinema halls and
non-compliance is threatened by public vigilantism. Do we even know why we now
have to prove our patriotism by responding to slogans like “Vande Mataram”
and “Bharat Mata ki Jai”? Critics from civil
society have been relentlessly silenced by setting the police upon them.
Intellectuals have been branded as anti-national and the fear of being
incarcerated as ‘Urban Maoists’ is used as a deterrent.
At one time the BJP
accused former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of conjuring up fear of the
‘foreign hand’ to persecute political dissenters. The Modi government has
followed the same script by cancelling the licences of 20,000 non-governmental
organisations, mostly working in the area of rights-based advocacy under the
Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, while political parties are allowed to
receive contributions from foreign funders!
Modi’s
authoritarianism inevitably comes with anti-intellectualism. His government has
taken direct aim at academics, writers, students and universities. The revenge
of the uneducated demanding their share in forming the public opinion is
best represented by those in the Modi Cabinet who celebrate the achievements of
ancient Hindu science while fudging their own academic qualifications. At a
time when one of India’s foremost scientific organisations, the TIFR, is unable
to pay salaries to its staff, research funds are being used to examine
extracting gold from cow-urine in Junagarh Agricultural University in the Prime
Minister’s home state.
Fear tactics have been
most blatantly on display in J&K. Prime Minister Modi has shown no empathy
for civilians blinded or killed by the security forces. Indeed, his government
rewarded the army officer who drove his jeep around with a Kashmiri man tied to
the bonnet as a warning to the local population. Prime Minister Modi’s
narrative has no room for guilt about the damage he has wrought on Indian
society and polity. When as prime ministerial candidate in 2014 he boasted of
having a 56-inch chest, he sounded like an aggressive primate, like apes and
howler monkeys who inflate their air sacs to intimidate and frighten
challengers. As he continues to work the fear-psychosis of voters for a second
term, they must decide whether they want to continue to subscribe to his
construction of India as the ‘Republic of Fear’.
see also
Ajmer
blast case: Two including a former RSS worker get life imprisonmentPeace as a punctuation mark in eternal war
Samjhauta case order delayed, daughter of Pakistani victim wants to come and depose
