The Hate “Foreigner” Jihad of Hindu Nationalist Organisations Part - 2
Irfan Engineer
Hindutva is highly uncomfortable with cozy relations that develop due to common bonds between communities. Common worship, common culture, common civilization, shared localities and common marital relations are an absolute anathema with “enemy” communities. Savarkar writes in his tract on Hindutva, “Moreover everything that is common in us with our enemies, weakens our power of opposing them. The foe that has nothing in common with us is the foe likely to be most bitterly resisted by us”. Commonness is resisted by stigmatizing campaigns and use of violence. Most insignificant and routine differences, including culinary preferences are overemphasized and essentialized with the use of violence and propaganda accompanying it. Violence, invention and essentialization of differences and stigmatization has led to more popularization of the opinion that Muslims and Christians are essentially different from “us” than it was a few years ago. The opinion that Muslims and Christians are essentially different than “us” is more popular in areas where there have been higher outbreak of communal violence than in other areas. Muzaffarnagar is the latest instance of this. Before the communal violence in September 2013, Jats and Muslims followed the same traditions and social code, spoke the same dialiect and followed the same norms as regards to prohibited degree of matrimonial relations and gotra system is concerned, etc. with only one difference – they went to different places for their worship. The perception of difference from Muslims was palpable when we visited villages of Muzaffarnagar after riots and the language of “we” and “they” was liberally used. Every incidence of communal violence is followed by segregation of spaces where the community lives on religious lines. Mumbai has higher degree of segregation of living spaces and ghettoization after the 1993 riots. Huge Muslim ghettos have come up in Mira Road and Mumbra after 1992-3 communal violence. Pravin Togadia recently incited a mob to force a Muslim who purchased a flat in a Hindu neighbourhood to surrender the same and even seize the flat if necessary.
What we call Hindu community now is a diverse society speaking many languages, proverbially worshiping 330 million gods and goddesses, inclusive of atheists, following varied and at times materially different philosophies and texts, rigidly divided into hierarchical caste structures and defying any definition. Hindutva’s task was to undermine the diversity and differences within, nay, even retaining them, particularly the caste based hierarchies on one hand and yet fusing the community with caste based hierarchies into one “nation” – in Savarkar’s words, “if India had to live at all a life whether spiritual or political according to the right of her soul, she must not lose the strength born of national and racial cohesion.” To accomplish this task of national and racial cohesion retaining the caste based hierarchies, Savarkar, who is aware of the shared common culture between different communities, in his tract on Hindutva written in 1923, comes up with the proposition of common blood flowing through the veins of those who have their holy land in Sindhustan that is land between River Sindhu and the Arabian Sea. But the proposition of common blood was less likely to be bought by those on the bottom of the caste ladder facing oppression, exclusion and daily indignities and status even lower than animals. Therefore creating and essentializing differences, constructing a common foe through use of violence has been the second element in two pronged strategy to fuse the diverse social existence into Hindu nation. To Savarkar, talking “mumbos and jumbos of universal brotherhood” leads to rebirth of Asuras killed by Vishnu in the form of “Mlenchchhas” who “kill the Brahmans, destroy the religious rites like the sacrifices, abduct the daughters of the sages; what sins do they not commit!”
Therefore interreligious marriages are a huge issue for the HNOs. It essentially checks their march towards fusing the diverse community into a “cohesive nation and race” in spite of all the diversities and hierarchies. Savarkar warned of identifying anything common with the enemy weakens the nation. His 1923 tract problematized Mlechchhas abducting daughters of sages. After the post partition bloodshed, the first major communal riot in India was in Jabalpur in the year 1961 when Usha Bhargav eloped with a son of a Muslim bidi magnet who was gradually succeeded in enhancing his share in bidi industry. The aggressive media coverage accusing the Muslim youth of raping Usha Bhargav led to her commit suicide. In 1998, interreligious marriages in Randhikpur (Dist. Panchmal) and Bardoli became a pretext for fomenting communal violence in the BJP ruled state. VHP accused Muslim youth in Randhikpur of abducting Hindu girls and raping them without any substantiation. Communal violence on the 60-70 Muslim families in the sleepy village led to the minorities fleeing for three months from the village for their security. Varsha Shah and Hanif Memon in Bardoli married in June 1998. The incident not only led to violent attacks on minority and their social boycott and arrest of Hanif under PASA. The state ruled by BJP following the Hindutva ideology responded by making far reaching changes in fashioning state as an invasive state requiring prior permission for registration of interreligious marriage from revenue officials. Invasive inquiries are carried out and the HNOs learn about such marriages and make it impossible for such marriages to be solemnized even if the couple was willing and ready and parents too supported the couple. The Hindu Nationalist state then polices the communal-national boundaries. Recently in a Muslim women’s workshop in Ahmedabad, we were aghast when the participants opined that an interreligious marriage was impossible in Gujarat. The only way out for such a couple was to escape to another state and get married risking their families’ security, particularly the family of “enemy” community, and forced to give up their sources of livelihood in the state. It is not easy to find livelihood in another state and for each couple to choose getting cut off from their families and social support in times of crisis. Babu Bajrangi had specialized in even breaking up couples who had eloped. The modus operandi was simple – register a case of abduction and rape against the boy and get the Gujarat police to search for the boy, take him in custody and through proper “treatment” force the couple to break up.
.... to be continued
The Hate “Foreigner” Jihad of Hindu Nationalist Organisations Part - 1
