Current Events
India Is Being Ruled By A Hindu Taliban
Sir ANISH KAPOOR, The Guardian
Narendra Modi is clamping down on tolerance and freedom of expression in India. In Britain we have a responsibility to speak out against it
The Hindu god Vishnu has several incarnations, many of them human. The latest of these appears to be Narendra Modi.
All over India there are images of the man, right arm raised in the benevolent gesture of good fortune. But this strong-but-enlightened-man image hides the frightening and shrill reality of an increasingly Modi-led Hindu dominance of India.
The country’s openness to social and religious minorities (more than 500 million people) and regional differences is at serious risk. Of late, Modi’s regime has effectively tolerated – if not encouraged – a saffron-clad army of Hindu activists who monitor and violently discipline those suspected of eating beef, disobeying caste rules or betraying the “Hindu nation”.
In the UK, people might perhaps be familiar with India’s cricket prowess, atrocities in Kashmir or the recent horrific rape cases. But beyond that, many of us choose not to know. India’s global image now mimics China’s – a rising global economic power with attractive trade and investment opportunities. As a result, business trumps human rights, with little concern, especially on the part of David Cameron’s government, for the rising wave of Hindu tyranny.
All this is good news for Prime Minister Modi, who flew into London yesterday. He won’t be seriously called to account for human rights abuses or systematic thuggery.
If there is one thing that has marked the man’s first year and a half in power it is this: he is not a man who takes kindly to scrutiny or criticism. In fact, he has used the very economic agenda that causes Britain to turn a blind eye to his regime’s human rights abuses to muzzle dissent within India.
Modi’s latest move has been the strangulation of Greenpeace India, culminating last Friday with the organisation’s licence to operate being removed. Respect for human rights and environmental organisations is so often a litmus test for the democratic state of a country.
Worryingly, the Indian government has been cracking down on all “foreign-funded” charities for the past year, claiming that the national economy is threatened by environmental restrictions and other “un-Indian” activities. 9000 NGOs have been “de-registered” in a concerted effort to force out these “nuisance” groups and cast them as foreign enemies.
Of late, many Indian journalists and human rights activists have been harassed and threatened with “sedition” charges: for example, Teesta Setalvad, who still seeks justice for the victims of communal violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002, when Modi was the state’s chief minister; and Santosh Yadav, arrested in September in the state of Chhattisgarh on what Amnesty International believes are fabricated charges resulting from his investigatory journalism exposing police brutality against Adivasis (indigenous people).
A few weeks ago, even a musician who sang a satirical song criticising the state governor of Tamil Nadu over alcohol sales was charged with “anti-Indian activity”.
This alarming erosion of democracy is a slippery slope that may end up targeting not just minorities and “outsiders” but any dissenting “insiders”. What I’ve seen happening is a spirit of fear taking hold, which threatens to silence activists, artists and intellectuals alike. We’ve never known that before.
A Hindu version of the Taliban is asserting itself, in which Indians are being told: “It’s either this view – or else.”
A friend told me: “There is huge oppression of anyone who’s different.”
Last month, dozens of Indian writers handed back their literary awards in protest, following communal violence against Muslims and attacks on intellectuals.
India is a country of 1.25 billion people, including 965 million Hindus and 170 million Muslims. We have a long tradition of tolerance and, despite differences, have managed to pull our huge country together. But the government’s militant Hinduism risks marginalising other faiths and tearing apart these bonds.
Many of us dread what might then happen.
We in Britain cannot bite our tongues any more; we have a responsibility to speak out. And we need to work on at least two fronts: demand that Cameron not make business deals at the cost of human rights, and press Modi to answer for the Indian government’s abysmal rights record; and recognise and support the many Indian citizens, journalists and organisations that are resisting growing Hindu fanaticism and state authoritarianism.
I’ll be joining protesters outside Downing Street.
Following the lead of India’s opposition groups, we have a duty to speak out for the people Modi is trying to silence, precisely because we are free to do so.
[Courtesy: The Guardian]
November 13, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Dharam Shastri (Jaipur, Rajasthan, India), November 13, 2015, 10:52 AM.
We've sent away our biggest Goonda to the UK to give him some time off from the mounting humiliations at home. But it looks like the world has already pierced the veil and come to know him well as a thug by now. His days are numbered, I hope, along with the RSS and BJP rascals. It is time to send them off, like the Congress rogues, to the dustbin of history!
2: Jasbir Kaur (London, United Kingdom), November 13, 2015, 10:58 AM.
Here's a headline from today's 'The Times': "Hold Your Nose And Shake Modi By The Hand"! Reminds me of when one of our earlier prime ministers shook hands with a man called Adolf Hitler ... We never learn, do we?
3: Kanwarjeet Singh (USA), November 13, 2015, 5:31 PM.
Funny how these non-Sikh writers have suddenly become so concerned about their rights (including this author). Hey, hypocrites: the reason you are all in a shithole is your own attitude during the last four decades where you let Sikhs get slaughtered and brutalized. Serves you right. I give it another two years before civil war breaks up.
4: H Kaur (Canada), November 14, 2015, 8:49 AM.
Some TV journalists in India felt that the western media are anti-India and haven't gotten out of their colonial attitudes due to western reporters asking Cameron or Modi tough questions. It really shows the crazy mentality many Indians have ... and the Indian media too.
5: Kaala Singh (Punjab), November 15, 2015, 12:07 AM.
On the one hand, India is trying to portray a tolerant, modern and liberal image to the outside world to attract capital and, on the other, people are getting killed over beef. The world has not missed these contradictions. In this age of modern technology where information travels quickly from one place to another, it would be hard for such politicians to defend themselves now with misinformation than say 30 years ago when 1984 happened. Whatever may happen in India, the world is surely losing its tolerance for bigotry.
6: Ajay Singh (Rockville, Maryland, USA), November 15, 2015, 7:21 AM.
Shocking to hear that people are being charged with sedition and harassed for being critical of the government of India ... "And then they came for me ..." only took 70 years. I am still confused: are scheduled castes Hindus or are they born to serve upper caste Hindus? Shouldn't they be in their own category of 600 million of non-Hindus? I don't care how many titles you bestow on a Hindu, Mahatma, Sir, you can't get the disease of caste out of him.
7: Rup Singh (Canada), November 15, 2015, 6:31 PM.
India has always been ruled by a Hindu Taliban since independence. Does not matter which party is in power, policies towards minorities and have been the same. It's amazing how the Hindu fanaticism of the past is conveniently overlooked by most authors and journalists and is only seen as a issue caused by BJP, RSS, VHP and their right wing supporters. I sometimes think this is all being done by Congress to reinvent itself as the party of the people and an effort to sweep their terrible past under the rug.
8: GJ Singh (India), November 15, 2015, 11:32 PM.
@6. Congress is going to be back, unfortunately. The Muslims are not going to vote for the BJP in the next election. They got taken in by the sweet smell of Rupees that Modi promised. Most Muslims are living in fear and counting the days to the next election. Congress is the lesser of two evils for them. For the Sikhs, currently, the choice remains between the frying pan and the fire. Minorities without a political voice will continue to be oppressed, no matter who rules, if they do not constitute a strong enough voting bloc to change the outcome of an election.