Opinion Plurality is the Indian idea
IN our remembrance of 26/11 last week there was for me one really moving moment. It went unnoticed amid the cacophony of tawdry talk shows full of tawdry celebrities....
IN our remembrance of 26/11 last week there was for me one really moving moment. It went unnoticed amid the cacophony of tawdry talk shows full of tawdry celebrities and the channels that showed it missed its importance and switched too quickly back to someone banging on about middle class rage. That special moment for me was when there were Jewish prayers for the dead being said in Chabbad House at the same time as Muslim prayers were being said at the Gateway of India. Its hard to think of another country where this kind of effortless plurality is so routine that it goes unnoticed. It is this plurality that defines India. It is this plurality that is the antithesis of what the Islamists stand for. It is what we must fight with all our strength to defend.
The ideology of the jihad is totalitarian. It is an interpretation of Islam that allows no questioning. Anyone who has seen the CCTV footage of the 26/11 attack would have seen that when the controllers in Pakistan urged their foot soldiers to go forth and slaughter innocent people,they did so in the name of this totalitarian version of Islam. When the killers faltered out of weariness or humanity,as they did in Chabbad House before killing their terrified hostages,they were told by their jihadi controllers that they were going to be martyrs for their religion and Allah is waiting for you. He is waiting for your sacrifice. This Allah of the jihadi imagination is a God who approves of the murder of infidels. So the killers could talk proudly of how they had killed the owner of the boat they hijacked,as if they had performed a religious rite. They used the word ziba to describe the slitting of his throat like they would have done for a goat being slaughtered for Eid.
In India,nobody is an infidel. Everyone has a right to their gods and their beliefs. That is what plurality means. Whenever I write this,it annoys not just Islamists but moderate Muslims who point out angrily that in Islam everyone is equal before God while inequality and untouchability are at the core of Hinduism. While this may be true it is as true that caste discrimination is not ordained by some merciless God and written in some revealed text. The caste system has been the cause of many evils in India and is rightly attacked for giving apartheid religious sanction. It has to go and will some day soon. Already,it has virtually disappeared in Indian cities because it has been unable to survive against modernity and the natural constrictions of urban life.
Hindutva,which tried during its brief flowering to challenge Indias plurality,is another idea whose time has gone. Proof comes in the Liberhan Commissions report. Seventeen years ago when the Commission was set up it was possible to think of Hindutva as a juggernaut. The RSS,Shiv Sena,Bajrang Dal,BJP…etc are collectively an immense and awesome entity with a shrewd brain,a wide encompassing sweep and the crushing strength of a mob… Today this description is a joke. Hindutva is such a defeated idea that its combined forces were unable to defeat an incumbent,complacent,ineffectual government in Maharashtra despite the election taking place weeks before the first anniversary of 26/11.
As for the party that built its whole reputation by using Hindutva as its ideology,it is in such bad shape that obituaries have been written for it,including in this space. The BJP is bereft not just of new ideas but also of leaders. So desperate is its condition that when Rajnath Singh packs his bags next month he will be replaced by yet another provincial leader of neither national standing nor proven abilities.
The once mighty RSS is in still worse shape. Its ideas have no appeal for young Indians who have little time for religious fanaticism or the old fashioned gymnastics that once constituted the main activities of the morning shakha.
So although last week was a time of sadness and horrible memories,it was also one of hope and renewal. Those who threatened Indias plurality,those who threatened the idea of India,appear to be in terminal decline. But,there is no room for complacency. While Hindutva has lost its appeal,Islamism continues to be so powerful a force that the military might of the United States of America has been unable to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and the might of the Pakistani army has been unable to defeat the Talban-e-Pakistan in Waziristan and Swat. Its hard for us in India to understand what the appeal of so totalitarian an idea can be but we need to remember that it is the enemy of the idea of India.
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