ByDr.
Firoz Mahboob Kamal
‘Rising Asia ’ now runs as a myth in many Asian and non-Asian
countries. But such a myth hides many awful realities. The case of ‘rising
Europe’ in the past with its mighty economy, military and technology provides
valuable insights to analyse the so-called myth of ‘rising Asia ’.
While Europe showed its fastest economic
growth, also showed its fastest morale down-turn. Because of such moral
down-turn, Europe could become the fertile
breeding ground for evil ideologies like colonialism, imperialism, white
supremacism, nationalism, racism and fascism. In fact, genocidal wars, colonial
wars, World Wars and ethnic cleansing owe to such moral down turn. In those
rising days of the west, the moral down-turn went so low that it couldn’t find
any wrong in elimination of Red Indians from Americas ,
aborigines from Australia
and Maoris from New Zealand
The same
myth of economic development now dominates the socio-political spectrum of South Asia . The economic development has overruled the
importance of moral development. And moral ill health or death now shows its
own expression. In India
The Muslim
population of India is about
200 million –larger than the combined population of France ,
Germany and the UK India India stands
lower than even Bangladesh
Currently,
Muslims constitute about 15 per cent of the Indian population; but only 4 per
cent of them are graduate and only 5 per cent are in the government jobs.
(Sachar Committee Report, 2006). The maximisation of economic wellbeing of the
Hindus and their access to the government offices are being achieved and
sustained by maximum deprivation or exclusion of the Muslims. Such a
discriminatory and restrictive policy was first initiated by the British
colonial occupiers since they snatched power from the Muslim rulers. But it
hasn’t been changed by the subsequent Indian governments. Now, with the
Hindutva forces in power, the exclusion of the Muslims has become an overt
government policy. More than 44 million Muslims live in Uttar Pradesh –the
country’s largest province, but in 2014 election not a single Muslim was
allowed to sit in the parliament. It is also worth noting that the Hindutva
forces are not happy with the current level of exclusion, they want to put more
restriction. In order to put permanent prohibition, they want to deprive
Muslims of their citizenship rights. So, tools like National Citizenship
Registrar (NCR) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are introduced. BJP’s West
Bengal chief told in public that 10 million Muslims will be evicted from West Bengal by deploying NCR. (Ananda Bazar Patrika, 17
February 2020). Millions of Muslims are targeted to make them stateless on the
accusation that they have illegally infiltrated from Bangladesh Bangladesh has already labelled it baseless and
has expressed its refusal to take any stateless people from India Assam
The
Hindutva fascists want to make India India India India India India
While M.S
Golwalker became the RSS President in 1940, he set it a goal not to fight
against the British. (M.S Golwalker, 1974). Muslims were stipulated as the
number one enemy and not the British occupation. Hence, from day one of its
inception in 1925, RSS was focussed on mobilising and strengthening the
Hindutva recruits to fight against the Muslims. In 1927, within two years of
its creation, the RSS launched its first Muslim cleansing operation in its
birth place in Nagpur in Maharashtra .
Its militants launched an organised attack against the local Muslims and the
campaign went on for 3 days and forced the Muslims to leave the city. The
creation of Pakistan in 1947
infuriated the RSS cadres; as if Pakistan
has cut into pieces their mother India Pakistan Punjab
in 1947. In 1948, it was banned for killing Gandhi. In 1992, it was banned for
destroying the historic Babri Mosque. Since Norendra Modi -a lifelong member of
RSS, became the Prime Minister, everything changed. The RSS is no more alone in
its mission; the whole state apparatus, the media, the police and the army are
now working hand in hand to attain the Hindutva objective. The policy of
political and economic exclusivity and even cleansing operations against the
religious minorities gets sanitised in the name of the democratic rights of the
majority. Thus, the Hindutva majority has established marginalisation of the
minorities and deprivation of their basic rights as the new normal.
The NRC
project was first started in the north-eastern state of Assam India , can get
citizenship because of his religious identity, but a Muslim born in India
Cross-party
epidemic
Like virus,
toxic ideologies never stay confined within the premise of a single political,
religious or terrorist outfit. It shows a cross-party, cross-country and
cross-border epidemic. Hence, what is happening in India ,
Myanmar and Sri Lanka kingdom of Rama
However,
Rajiv Gandhi is not the only Congress leader to embrace the Hindutva ideology.
Even, Mr. Nehru -the first Prime Minister of independent India
Nehru’s
policy towards the Muslim rule in Hyderabad and
the Muslim population in Kashmir –the only Muslim majority state in India Hyderabad
Under
Nehru’s rule, a massive genocide also took place in Jammu – a southern district in united Kashmir . Prior
to Indian occupation in 1947, Jammu Kashmir
-as a part of the desperate move in his last days of rule, to make it Hindu
majority area. Since there was no body-count, there exists gross variation on
number of the death. It is stated 20,000 to 100,000 Muslims were killed and
many more were evicted from their home. (Snedden, Christopher, 2015). But most
the researchers agree that RSS cadres were brought in to conduct the genocide
under the direct watch of Maharaja Hari Singh. (Chattha, 2009). Although Prime
Minister Nehru considered Hari Singh guilty for the massacre, but gave him a
safe sanctuary in Mumbai. (Praveen Swami, 2007). Because of signing the
‘Instrument of Accession to India
Mr.
Narasima Rao – Congress Party’s another former Prime Minister also showed
anti-Muslim sentiment from his early career. He joined an armed group to fight
against the Muslim ruler in Hyderabad India Nagpur India
Mr.
Hedgewar’s ideology and his political objective were never hidden. Mr. Hedgewar
proclaimed that India India Nagpur India
Deployment of more than 700,000 troops in Kashmir – the only Muslim
majority state in India ,
tells another story of ongoing marginalisation and persecution of the minority
in India Kashmir is now the most militarised zone in
the whole world. Because of recent abrogation of Article 370, Kashmir no more
exist as a state; it has become a federal territory directly under the rule of Delhi Kashmir . Such
state-run killing, oppression, injustices and marginalisation only could work
as the precursor of social unrest and militancy among the victims. As usual,
such state-ran terrorism gets cover-up in the name of keeping stability and
fighting the militancy. Because of similar punitive policy of the Myanmar Sri Lanka is not different either; it only
differs in severity from that of India
and Myanmar
All RSS
compounds in India indeed
work as training centres to make the party cadres ready for a Hindutva victory
over the whole South Asia . The division of the
sub-continent into India , Pakistan and Bangladesh
has never been accepted by them; Gandhi –the father of India Nagpur doesn’t show Pakistan and Bangladesh India
Muslims
aren’t the only target
Muslims are
not the only target of the Hindutva fascists. Non-Hindus like Sikhs, Christians
and the untouchables also became the victims. What happened in Delhi India India
Right to
rule as if the right to murder
Appointment
of Mr. Narendra Modi as the chief minister of Gujarat tells a lot about the
political objective of the Hindutva forces in India
Mr.
Vajpayee is usually projected as moderate leader in the RSS-BJP camp. But how a
moderate man can be compatible with an extremist man who could engineer
destruction of a mosque? People of opposite intention and ideology can never
work together. They need ideological match. Later on, Modi as a chief minister
of Gujarat revealed not only his own color,
but also the color of Mr. Vajpayee. That moment came within 4 months of his
appointment. In 2002, a train carrying
Hindu extremists returning from the site of demolished Babri mosque caught
fire. Fifty-eight people were burned to death. Mr. Narendra Modi didn’t wait
for the police enquiry, rather grab it as an opportunity to do what he wanted
to do. He instantly called it the work of the Muslim extremists. Modi’s
announcement was enough to incite genocidal massacre against the innocent
Muslims in Gujrat. In one Muslim neighborhood, a mob of about five-thousands
Hindus made their way through a slum and hacked ninety-seven Muslims to death
and a mosque was blown up with liquefied petroleum. Across the road from the
scene of carnage, stood a reserve police quarters. But no one from there lifted
a finger. (Human Rights Watch, 2002). In a civilized country, police reach
within minutes if a house is under attack by a killer or robber. But Modi
proved that India Gujarat
turned into a deep and distant jungle; no police appears in the site of carnage
-not in hours, and not even in days. So the killing, the mass rape and the
arson continues unabated. Thus, as a chief minister, Modi showed his own
complicity in the crime. He need not kill or rape anybody himself; but his
robust inaction worked as huge encouragement for the killers, the rapists and
the arsonists to commit such crimes in thousands.
In an
anti-Muslim pogrom, social position or contribution of a Muslim makes no
difference to make him the worst victim. Mr. Ehsan Jafri -a former MP of Indian
Parliament, was a very prominent Muslim leader of Gujarat .
He had close acquaintance with Sonia Gandhi –the leader of Congress and
personally known to Prime Minister Mr. Vajpayee. Mr. Jafri was sheltering about
250 helpless Muslims in his residence. He spent hours making desperate calls to
Chief Minister Modi’s office, but received no help. Modi turned deaf. At the
end he urged the attackers, “Whatever you want to do with me, do it; but please
don’t kill those who have taken shelter in my house.” But his appeal felt on
deaf ears. Mr. Jafri was dragged out of his house by the Hindu mob, tortured
with all possible cruelty and sliced open with swords. At the end, he was burnt
alive. Sixty-nine people of those who were seeking refuge inside Jafri’s house
were killed in broad daylight over seven hours. But during the long period of
seven hours, the state police didn’t bother to show up in the scene to stop
this preventable massacre. (Vinod Jose, 2012)
The
calamities of unequal development
Social, political
and economic calamities in South Asia also owe
to highly unequal development of people and the society. Indicators like per
capita income, GDP (Gross Domestic Product), life expectancy and purchasing
power of the people can’t capture information on all indispensable elements of
inclusive development. The issues like moral and spiritual development, crime
prevalence, per capita feeling of peace and sense of security, per capita
access or deprivation of social, educational, economic and democratic rights,
rule of law, state of access to the judiciary, and the state of persecution,
deprivation and marginalisation of the weaker community still stay out of the
focus. In fact, the UNDP’s indicators like life expectancy, education and
purchasing power parity appear more narrow and restrictive to reveal any real
state of the people. How one can give an estimate of human development without
a proper estimate of the development of humans in humane parameters. The
highest importance is given to security of the state, economic prosperity,
infrastructural development and purchasing power of the people. As a result,
moral failures like state-run policy of discrimination, persecution,
deprivation, fascism, concentration camps and even genocide against minorities
stand unrecorded in a maze of so-called economic development. India Europe and proved
catastrophic for the whole mankind. Because of wrong parameters, the lethal
ideologies like racism, nationalism, fascism, colonialism, imperialism and the
projects like ethnic cleansing, lynching of the minorities, slave trading,
colonial wars, World Wars could find foot-soldiers to carry out the vicious
plans.
It is true
that the South Asian countries have made some economic progress. But the newly
gained economic strength is enhancing the political ability of the ruling elite
to execute their evil agenda. The fascists always thrive on political
polarisation based on hatred against the people of other faith, land and
ethnicity. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious demography in India , Myanmar
and Sri Lanka India ,
Myanmar and Sri Lanka Myanmar ,
lynching and genocidal massacre of Muslims in India
and attacks on the lives and properties of the Muslims in Sri Lanka tell a lot about the horrors that are
being inflicted on the minorities in South Asia .
In a hype of Islamophobia, such crimes usually get sanitised, belittled or
ignored by the global players only to promote their business interests.
Therefore the travel ban on Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India USA China Asia indeed moving fast to
that end.
Conclusion
The fate of
a people is not decided by mere economics; rather more decisively by dominant
ideologies. While two World Wars caused terrible havoc on earth, the economy
wasn’t bad either. Persecution of people and peace can’t go together.
Therefore, toxic ideologies like fascism, racism, must nationalism, colonialism
and imperialism that promote persecution of people must not exist anywhere on
earth. Otherwise, peaceful co-existence of people with diversity become
impossible. Then, war may not be on the frontiers but enters into cities,
villages and houses to kill innocent men, women and children. Because of
Hindutva fascists in India ,
military racists in Myanmar ,
power-grabbing fascists in Bangladesh
and ethnoreligious opportunists in Sri Lanka
such wars have already done a great damage against the prospect of peace in South Asia . It is indeed a huge humanitarian as well as
social science issue. Economy can’t fight toxic ideologies; it needs an
ideological fix. Strong economy can even strengthen the lethal power of evil
ideologues –as German’s strong economy did to fascist Hitler. It is indeed the
most responsibility of the social scientists to bring social pathology to the
limelight so that the political activists, the social engineers and the
reformist philosophers can take cues to make an appropriate treatment plan.
Only this way the growth and sustenance of human civilization can be influenced
positively. Otherwise, in this global village, peaceful co-existence of people
with pluralities will survive only as a dream.