Relentless Socio-Political and Economic Othering of The Muslims
By
N.C. Asthana
11 January
2021
It both
rattles and embarrasses me deeply when even my childhood Muslim friends tell me
that, in the end, when the mopping up begins, all my sympathies and ideology
notwithstanding, I would probably be spared because of my name – but no mercy
shall be shown to them.
Photo: Reuters
------
I do not
want to feel helpless like the Nobel laureate German physicist Otto Hahn. His
intimate friend and co-worker of over three decades, Lise Meitner, was born
Jewish. In 1938, she was eventually forced to flee Nazi Germany through the
Netherlands with just 10 marks in her purse. All that a distraught Otto Hahn
could do for her was to give her his mother’s diamond ring to bribe the border
guards, if required.
I would die
a thousand deaths if I were to receive a letter like the one Meitner had
written to Hahn, “You all worked for Nazi Germany… Certainly, to buy off your
conscience you helped a persecuted person here and there, but millions were
murdered without any kind of protest.”
No, I
cannot take that blame. I am acutely aware of my moral responsibility in the
face of the ever creeping evil and I must speak out for those millions who want
to say the same thing but are reluctant for the fear of being accused of
playing the ‘victim card’.
As the
communal divide deepens with every passing day, Muslims in today’s India have a
lot to despair about and much more to be afraid of.
This
article is not about any religion, organisation, political party or government
as they are all ephemeral. It is about our people who are enduring. I lament
that the venom of hatred has become the lifeblood coursing through the veins of
our body politic.
Relentless
Socio-Political and Economic Othering
The
concerted attack on the jewellery-maker Tanishq over something as trivial as a
TV ad was a small symptom of the ‘othering’ in which, not to speak of
maintaining any sort of relations, they would like the Muslims to vanish out of
mind and out of sight.
When the
Nazis’ Nuremberg Laws banned marriages with Jews, their objective was to
maintain ‘racial purity’. Their categorisation of Jews as sub-humans
(Untermensch) was based on race, not religion. In today’s India, through the
anti-conversion laws, they are making religion the basis of criminalisation.
Recently,
when a politico talked of carrying out a surgical strike on the old city of
Hyderabad (that is, the Muslim dominated area), it was not just political
rhetoric or slip of the tongue; it actually reflected their deepest, darkest
desires.
Another
leader said that every vote for Asaduddin Owaisi was a vote against India. Of
course, he could not be bothered to explain how a vote cast during elections in
India, held under the Indian constitution, becomes a vote against India.
The Indian
society is now increasingly being driven by a strict binary system. Either you
conform to the majoritarian narrative or you are a traitor of some sort –
jihadi, urban naxal, ISI agent, whatever – who must be jailed or banished.
That
Muslims are under-represented in all types of jobs and over-represented in
jails as under-trial prisoners is an old story. A relatively newer phenomenon
is denial of rented accommodation, residential or commercial, and ‘boycott’ in
trade and businesses – baby steps towards their eventual economic deprivation.
Majoritarian
Violence Is Seldom Punished
Majoritarian
violence is seldom punished. Riots take place all the time because rioters know
they will perhaps never be punished.
Surabhi
Chopra et al of Centre for Equity Studies, in their research ‘Accountability
for Mass Violence: Examining the State’s Record’, have shown that despite some
25,628 lives having been lost in communal violence since independence, there is
massive bungling by the police at every stage. From reluctance to register FIRs
to registering deliberately flawed FIRs; from extremely few arrests and remands
to deliberately poor investigations, it is natural that acquittal rates of the
accused have been extremely high. In fact, summary closure rates for communal
violence cases are ten times higher than the national rate, showing how the
police abuse the discretion given to them under the law.
Recently,
all the 32 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case were acquitted due to
‘lack of proof’ and more than three months later also, I could not locate any
information regarding the CBI having filed an appeal.
For the
notorious Hashimpura massacre of 42 Muslims by the UP police itself, it took
over 31 years for them to be convicted by the Delhi high court after they were
acquitted by the trial court.
The worst
part of majoritarian violence is that the victims are encouraged to ‘move on’
or it is simply presumed that they have moved on. A demand for accountability
and justice is described as one disturbing the peace.
Little do
they realise that peace without justice is a dangerous myth. No question is
ever settled unless it is settled right.
Criminalising
The Very Existence Of An Entire Community
In the wake
of the coronavirus scare, it took three high courts to debunk the summary
maligning of the Muslim community and call it ‘unjust and unfair’.
It took the
Allahabad high court to conclude that the anti-cow slaughter law in UP was
being misused against innocent persons leading to their languishing in jail.
Within just
one month of bringing in the notorious law against conversions primarily
involving inter-faith marriages (popularly known as anti-love jihad law), UP
police has raced to register 14 cases and arrest 51 people.
Remember,
inter-faith marriages are only one of the numerous pretexts possible. Tomorrow,
they could very well object to certain dress also on the pretext that it
facilitates the concealment of terrorists.
No
Reason To Expect Any Succour From ‘Protectors Of Law’
Experience
shows that, far from upholding the law, police have been acting as the agents
of communal forces in furthering their agenda. The law has been ‘weaponised’ as
the most preferred tool of harassment. Listing the cases of harassment of
innocent Muslims by the police by falsely implicating them in terrorism related
cases would be long.
Whether it
be the case of a comedian who did not crack any insulting jokes or a street
vendor who was selling shoes manufactured by a regular company, they were
charged essentially because they were Muslims – never mind that a string of
Supreme Court judgments make the police action palpably wrong.
Many people
taking part in a rally organised by right-wing groups in Mandsaur district in
Madhya Pradesh went on a rampage in the Dorana village, breaking open houses
and looting.
A nearly
100-strong police contingent decided to watch the proceedings with great
insouciance, without using any force at all to disperse the rioters.
Incidentally, a Muslim constable was obliged to watch his house ransacked,
vehicles damaged, and his brother’s grain shop looted over a video that was
shared amongst WhatsApp groups.
We must
hang our heads in shame that even 73 years after Independence, Muslims have so
little trust in the police that, on the rally day, they had to send their women
to another village for safety.
In a police
state, the government abuses its legal powers over its citizens. Ours is,
however, more of a case of selective abuse. We have therefore become worse than
a police state because the police are used to ‘selectively’ target and harass a
part of the citizenry.
Obtaining
justice through courts, given the inherent intricacies of our criminal justice
system, is such an uphill struggle that it will remain beyond the reach of most
people.
The
‘Grand Design’ Behind the Skulduggery
What could
be the ultimate objective of all this? Is it political gains? I do not think
so. The degree of communal polarisation already achieved is more than adequate
to ensure comfortable electoral victories for the communal forces for years on
end. Yet, they are unremittingly discovering new methods of harassing the
Muslims every day. Why?
The
ultimate objective of the overkill could only be to harass the Muslims so much
that eventually, they come to accept their ‘social defeat’. Having started with
the process of ‘othering’, they would force them first to accept a ‘second
grade citizen’ status, then a ‘pariah’ status, and finally the status of
‘nowhere people’. The ‘grand design’ is to break their very will to live with
self-respect, dignity and honour.
The British
had defeated several Indian kings militarily but ruled over vast multitudes of
Indians by compelling them to obey the laws they made for them only to keep
them subjugated. The communal forces of today’s India know it very well that if
just 1.55 lakh Britishers could rule over 35 crore Indians, 18-19 crore people
can easily be ‘socially, economically and politically subjugated’ in an
apparently ‘legitimate manner’ by 120 crore people through a clever
exploitation of the legal system.
States
implementing the so-called anti-conversion laws enthusiastically are actually
crucibles where ingredients are being melted to forge a sword that will ensure
the eventual and ‘complete subjugation’ of Muslims.
Ominous
Black Clouds Threatening To Burst?
During the
rampage in Mandsaur, the planting of a saffron flag on the local mosque as if
they had ‘conquered’ it, albeit for a little while, proved that the protectors
of law had once again failed Muslims. The triumphant pose struck by the rioter
with his arms raised up recorded on video, was acutely reminiscent of the
chilling photo of a man striking a similar pose during the Gujarat riots – a photo
that became synonymous with those riots.
The pose is
also adopted by many of their leaders during their speeches. It reflects their
triumphalism, celebrating what they love to describe as retribution for all the
‘historical wrongs’ of the past 1,300 years.
To me, the
writing on the wall is clear. Communal harmony, as we loved to envisage it, is
dead. Those amongst us who choose to ignore the inexorable envenomation of the
Indian society as some sort of fleeting aberration might be forced to stare in
the face of some very dehumanising acts, if not outright pogroms. Even blood
cancer initially shows up as low-grade fever only.
It is much
easier to hate and be jealous of someone than to be kind and love them. The
‘beast within the collective subconscious of the people’ has been awakened and
made to unleash all its fury without any feeling of guilt. If India has to
survive as the nation the founding fathers had hoped it to be, this is the
beast we need to watch out for.
-----
Dr.
N.C. Asthana, a retired IPS officer, has been DGP Kerala and a long-time ADG
CRPF and BSF. Views are personal.
Original
Headline: The Trials and Tribulations of Being a Muslim in Today’s India
Source: The Wire
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/relentless-socio-political-economic-othering/d/124039
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism