Communal elements across the country are feeling emboldened after the new government took power at the Centre, former Union Minister and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar alleged a few days back. “A specific class has captured power in Centre, resulting in the spread of communal fever across the country. Certain communal elements, who were sidelined till now, feel that the power is with them,” he said during the party’s 15th anniversary celebrations in Mumbai.
He cited the examples of recent attacks on minorities and the killing of an engineer from Pune at the hands of activists of a fringe right-wing group, the Hindu Rashtra Sena. Two weeks ago, violence erupted in many parts of the State and over 200 buses were burnt and people belonging to a particular community were targeted for attacks after morphed photos of Shivaji Maharaj, Sambhaji Maharaj and late Bal Thackeray went viral on the Internet.
“Keeping a certain section of society under threat will never take you to the path of development,” Pawar warned, asking NCP activists to stand in solidarity with the weakest sections of society.
Such intemperate actions of such elements were not confined to the country alone but seem to have extended to other countries also where they are settled now.
A “pro-Modi supporter” has threatened Hindustani classical vocalist Shubha Mudgal during her concert in California last week for her vocal and public opposition to “Hindutva forces.”
The classical singer was to perform with Carnatic vocalist Bombay Jayashri at the Sunnyvale Hindu Temple and Cultural Centre’s auditorium. Just ahead of the performance, Ms. Mudgal was accosted by one of the office-bearers of the temple. According to her, the office-bearer said he had received several mails complaining that she had written an “anti-Modi, anti-Hindu, anti-national letter” to (former Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh.
“The complainants [had] asked him not to let any anti-Hindu activity take place on the premises,” Ms. Mudgal said, adding, “I told him that it was no secret that I am anti-Modi but couldn’t see how that gave him the right to accost me in this fashion.”
As the argument got heated, other musicians joined them in the wings of the auditorium and threatened to call off the performance. However as the concert was sold out and the organisers requested them to perform, the musicians decided to go ahead with the performance under heavy security.
When such reports on intemperate action of communal elements emboldened by the BJP capturing power at the Centre were reported by the media, a disturbing development in the communally sensitive Coimbatore city in Tamil Nadu was reported in ‘The Times of India’ on June 6 under the heading “Bid to rake up social tension in Coimbatore” which stated:
“BJP activists in Coimbatore have tried to rake up questions regarding the identity of migrants in the city, drawing fire from various quarters for creating social tension. BJP State Secretary GKS Selvakumar and others lodged a petition with Coimbatore district collector Archana Patnaik on June 5 seeking action against migrants who they allege are refugees from Bangladesh living illegally in the area. BJP has blamed them for a rise in crime in the city.
The allegations have been condemned by some sections which pointed out that most such people are long-time residents who have migrated from West Bengal for jobs in jewellery and construction sectors.
“Indians have the right to live anywhere in the country. If they commit any offences, as per the law, action should be taken. People from West Bengal have been working as gold smiths and construction workers. BJP does not have any evidence that these workers are from Bangladesh. They should stop making allegations without evidence,” said former Coimbatore MP PR Natarajan from CPM.
District Collector Patnaik said the petition had been received and they would look into the matter. City police commissioner AK Viswanathan warned that, “Stringent action would be taken against those who disturb the people of West Bengal who are constitutionally protected. As per the law, police would take action against illegal immigrants.”
This is the crux of the matter? Who will decide on ‘illegal migrants’? Will all Bengali speaking Muslims be declared as illegal migrants? All such questions have already caused social tensions, riots and killings in Assam. Do they want repeat of such untoward incidents to happen in Tamil Nadu also? How was the BJP State Secretary emboldened now to rake up such an issue, keeping quite all along and now after the end of the recently held Lok Sabha elections?
It was because their prime ministerial candidate for the Lok Sabha elections and now the Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first to rake up this issue in Assam in February last only with the motive of communally polarising people and seeing political benefit, which led to riots and carnage in western parts of Assam later threatening the situation in the neighbouring West Bengal also.
As tension remained high in parts of Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) in Assam after killing spree in the first week of last month (May) in which the death toll has rose to more than 50, the Centre said it was an attempt to trigger a full-fledged communal conflagration. Angry residents had to be persuaded to bury 18 victims by Siddique Ahmed, Minister of Cooperation and Border Areas, sent to stand in for Chief Minister TarunGogoi. Hundreds of Muslims, who were targeted for the killings, were fleeing from their areas and accommodated in camps.
When such a situation prevailed threatening communal flare-up elsewhere, no responsible political leader would have attempted to stoke communal feelings and appealed for calm and peace. But that was not the case with the Sangh parivar, whose choicest Prime Ministerial candidate was the post-Godhra carnage fame Narendra Modi.
Some hundred miles away from these places of arson and killing spree in Assam, campaigning in Bankura in West Bengal, Narendra Modi, however, repeated a crudest line that was a controversial theme of his campaign in the Northeast: “Illegal Bangladeshi migrants who are being brought to India in the name of vote-bank politics will have to go back to Bangladesh.”
Who were the legal migrants and illegal migrants, according to Modi and his party and parivar? Legal migrants are ‘Hindu refugees’ who have to be welcomed and accorded citizenship and illegal migrants are ‘Muslims’ who had to be sent back to their country- be it Pakistan or Bangladesh.
The BJP election manifesto declaring India as ‘a natural home for persecuted Hindus’, triggered an animated debate on the nature of the State a Narendra Modi-led government would create if elected to power. BJP supporters termed it as an ‘obvious step’, but critics pointed out that this puts a Hindu country tag on India and went against the principle of secularism.
Bangladesh was mentioned only once in the entire manifesto, in terms of illegal immigration into India from that country. BJP said it would address the issue of “infiltration and illegal immigrants in the Northeast region [of India] on a priority basis. This will include clear policy directions and effective control at the ground level.” The party also vowed to complete the construction of a border fence along India’s borders with both Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma).
Modi had floated this idea at a rally in Assam in last February itself, making a distinction between Hindu and Muslim refugees from Bangladesh and arguing that the former should be accommodated and the latter should be sent back.
“We have a responsibility towards Hindus who are harassed and suffer in other countries. India is the only place for them... we will have to accommodate them here,” Modi had said. He also claimed that the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had devised measures to accommodate Hindu refugees from Pakistan.
“For all the talk about putting India first, this one line shows BJP continues to think of Hindus as primary constituents of India,” said Siddharth Varadarajan of Centre for Public Affairs and Critical Theory at Shiv Nadar University. “Why should a Fijian Indian who happened to be Muslim have any less claim over refuge in India than a Fijian Indian who happened to be Hindu?” he asked.
He said that the principle of ‘non-refoulment’ – it protects refugees from being returned or expelled to hostile places – does not allow the denial of refuge to a persecuted person on the basis of his religion. “BJP could have said all victims of religious, political, ethnic persecution are welcome.”
Narendra Modi’s anti-Muslim bashing was attempted to be given an ‘intellectual’ interpretation by the parivar ideologue and BJP leader Arun Jaitley. In a vicious statement issued by him he said, “There are many who see virtues in polarization. Regrettably, we in the BJP are accused of benefitting from polarization even if polarization is encouraged by political opponents.
The issue of infiltration of Bangladeshis into the Indian territory is one such case. A section of the Congress leadership in Assam had consciously followed the policy of encouraging infiltration since they wanted to offset the domination of the ethnic Assamese in Assam. Mass infiltration of Bangladeshis has changed the demographic character of Assam, West Bengal and some districts of Bihar. Any patriotic Indian could be seriously concerned with this Infiltration. It is pressure of economic resources. It is a pressure on land. It impacts national security. The fact that every district in Assam adjacent to the chicken’s neck have witnessed a significant demographic change on account of the infiltration is serious security concern.
The BJP’s stand is that infiltration must be stopped and the infiltrators must be sent back The root cause of social tension in several parts of North-east is infiltration. Some political parties in Assam and West Bengal have regrettably made infiltration into a secular cause because infiltrators are their vote bank.
Narendra Modi’s stance against infiltrators is justified and legitimate. We must also understand the difference between an infiltrator and a refugee. A refugee is a person who on account of his religious beliefs or political views is persecuted. An infiltrator gate crashes only for economic opportunities. To place them at par would be naive. I have a lurking suspicion for critics of this view understand the distinction but compulsions of vote bank won’t make them agree to this view”.
The political impact of the Assam killings was felt in the election campaign in other States. A day after J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah alleged that Narendra Modi was responsible for stoking communal fires in Assam, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made a similar, but veiled attack on the BJP prime ministerial hopeful.
“Certain comments of some political parties, including the aspirant of high offices are adding fuel [to the violence in Assam],” she posted on Facebook. At a rally in Nadia district, she said “fires would burn throughout the country” if a candidate who talked about driving away certain sections of people, was elected to head the nation.
The then Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said in New Delhi that the objective of the massacre was a communal conflagration as the victims belonged to a minority community.
Now Narendra Modi has become the Prime Minister of India and Arun Jaitly is the Union Finance Minister with additional charge of Defence portfolio. The BJP is the ruling party at the Centre. People of India hope that sanity will prevail over them now with the responsibility of governance vested in them.
But the BJP leadership or the Prime Minister Narendra Modi have not so far disowned and condemned the statement of their MP Anil Shirole from Pune, the city of killing and riots now, that “some amount of repercussions” after the posts on social media was “natural” or the petition presented to the district administration by their Tamil Nadu State Secretary GKS Selvakumar for identifying and returning ‘Illegal migrants’, an euphemism for Muslims.
People of Tamil Nadu, essentially peace and harmony-loving and accommodative, will want to know whether Vijayakanth of DMDK, Ramadoss of PMK and Vaiko of MDMK, who enthusiastically aligned with the BJP for the elections and still claiming to be a part of the ruling alliance at the Centre, identify themselves with the demand of the State BJP leader or distance themselves from such dangerously communal outlook. While they, just like the people of India, want Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be different from BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Modi, also want Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha, who is keen on cosying up to the new ruling dispensation at the Centre, to nip in the bud the bid to create social tension in the communally sensitive city of Coimbatore, putting aside her political manouvres. r
No comments:
Post a Comment