New Year greetings on this first day of 2023. May it be a happier year than the one just ended. Before writing this piece, I skimmed through the columns I wrote in 2022 and it was a depressing exercise. The year began with the world going into a collective spasm of horror because of Vladimir Putin’s monstrous war on Ukraine. India chose not to condemn it outright despite there not being two sides to this story. A peaceful, democratic country was attacked by a tyrannical despot, but we chose to sit on the fence because we believed it was in our best interest not to make an enemy of Putin. Maybe this year India can at least help bring peace.
The war in Ukraine is not so much a war as a sickening litany of war crimes. Perhaps, one day Putin will be tried as a war criminal but as the year ended, he showed no signs of stopping his horrendous bombing of Ukrainian cities. Iran has eagerly partnered with him. Why would it not since it is ruled by a bunch of murderous mullahs who publicly execute protesters for demanding basic human rights. Has India spoken out against the crimes being committed by the mullahs and their henchmen in Iran? If we have then we have spoken so feebly that nobody heard.
It is a sad truth that Indians have little time for world affairs. We have our own problems. The year just ended will be remembered as one in which the BJP’s ugly underbelly became clearly visible in acts of bigotry and hatred. The most recent example is that of the MP from Bhopal, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, urging Hindus to keep sharpened knives ready to kill ‘love jihadis.’ The idea that Hindu women are so braindead that they can be lured by Muslim men who only want to convert them to Islam is stupid and should not merit discussion, but it was discussed a lot last year by senior BJP leaders obsessed with ‘love jihad.’
Personally, for me the one of the ugliest moments of 2022 was the sight of Bilkis Bano’s rapists being garlanded. It was even more depressing to learn that their life sentences were commuted on the orders of the Home Minister. What have we come to as a people that men convicted of gangrape, and murder should be treated as heroes?
A defining symbol of last year was the bulldozer. Municipal officials used them to demolish the homes of rioters. Somehow only the homes of Muslim rioters got demolished in a clear message that Muslims can now be punished without due process. The Home Minister of Madhya Pradesh boasted of this new system of justice. He said on record that those who throw stones at (Hindu) religious processions will have their homes replaced by stones. Sadly, after Yogi Adityanath won a second term his bulldozer justice has been copied by other BJP chief ministers who also emulate his bigotry.
The year just ended will also be remembered for hate crimes. The worst were committed by jihadis who beheaded a tailor and a doctor because they believed they had supported the comments made by a BJP spokeswoman about the Prophet’s personal life. But there is a long list of other hate crimes committed by both Hindus and Muslims. Hate crimes in the name of religion reached such a point that the RSS chief had to speak up and demand an end to violence. This had no effect on Hindu priests who publicly declared that the solution to India’s Muslim problem was genocide.
Bollywood did not go unpunished by the warriors of Hindutva who have taken it upon themselves to revive the wounds of history. Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt were denied entry to the Mahakala temple in Ujjain by self-appointed guardians of the faith because Ranbir allegedly admitted long ago to having eaten beef. Films that do not support ‘Hindu values’ have been a special target. Shahrukh Khan has attracted the special attention of Hindutva’s culture warriors, so it was no surprise that his forthcoming film was targeted in the last days of last year because of a saffron-coloured bikini worn by Deepika Padukone as she danced with Shahrukh in a green shirt.
Religiosity and fanatics bore me, but violent, religious fanatics determined to reopen the wounds of history terrify me. In a country that has already been divided once in the name of religion the last thing we need is to remind young Indians that this country was once invaded by barbaric Islamic marauders who came here and looted our temples and destroyed the first universities in the world. These things did happen. A recent description of Nalanda before it was destroyed broke my heart. This does not mean that all Indian Muslims are accountable for what happened centuries ago.
So, from me on this first day of a New Year comes the prayer that 2023 becomes for India a year of healing. This will only happen if more political leaders speak out against hatred as Rahul Gandhi has done repeatedly on his Bharat Jodo Yatra. His economic ideas remain stuck in a time warp but on this Yatra he has sent the right political messages. More political leaders need to speak up. The battle is no longer between secularism and communalism but between hatred and harmony. India badly needs harmony right now.
