Rise and sway of the Sangh Parivar

During a routine family gathering, I heard an uncle say it was time “we” stopped buying fruit from Muslim vendors. I must have been 12. It’s taken more than half a century for such advice, given behind closed doors among trusted family members, to be given publicly and even implemented in some states.

I grew up hearing gory accounts of Hindu girls buried alive in Sindh for marrying Muslims. Today, 11 states have enacted laws that criminalise such marriages.

How did this ideology, which wants 78 per cent of the population to regard 14 per cent as a threat, as enemies who must be punished for simply living everyday lives, become dominant, even official?

The feeling that Muslims had been relegated to second-class citizen status, a section that must live at the mercy of the Hindus — the goal of Hindutva — is not new. In every Hindu-Muslim riot, it comes through in the double standards of the police when dealing with the two communities. Judicial commissions have pointed it out, but no government has punished the police, who therefore see no need to change.

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Indeed, Muslims started wondering about their status after the spate of riots from 1987 -1989, at the height of the Ayodhya movement to demolish the Babri Masjid.

These riots included the police action in Hashimpura, Meerut, where the PAC picked up 42 Muslims and shot them dead; and Bhagalpur, Bihar, where police connived as bodies of 116 Muslims were buried in fields, the fields ploughed and cauliflowers grown on them to hide the evidence. The police weren’t simply being sadists. They were punishing Muslims for what they’ve accused them of in every riot: loyalty to Pakistan, which is also the charge made against them by the Sangh Parivar. No government has thought fit to change the police’s mindset.

Today, you don’t need a riot; in BJP-ruled states, Muslims can be arrested for anything, including praying in public. When they do protest en masse, or actually riot, their homes are demolished. In these states, even police are helpless before the wrath of Sangh supporters: remember SHO Subodh Singh’s lynching by “gau-rakshaks” in Bulandshahr? Released on bail after eight months, they were hailed as heroes.

In Assam, Karnataka, Haryana, UP, and MP, the Hindu Rashtra has arrived. Here, Muslims must remain invisible, confined to their ghettos. In Karnataka, Christians praying inside their homes have been attacked by Sangh Parivar followers and arrested on unproven charges of conversion. That Muslims and Christians live only to convert Hindus is an article of faith for Hindutvawadis. In 1981, 600 Dalits converted to Islam in Meenakshipuram, Tamil Nadu, to escape caste oppression.

In 1982, the Vishva Hindu Parishad took out a nationwide yatra to “arouse Hindus” to the dangers of conversion. In a city like Mumbai, they went door to door, distributing pamphlets, and issuing receipts for donations of Re 1 to Rs 11. Even jobless textile workers on an indefinite strike donated. Did the government stop this campaign of lies and hate? Which Congress government has stopped Sangh Parivar’s campaigns? The VHP’s Vanvasi Ashrams that ‘Hinduise’ Adivasis receive government funds. On Meenakshipuram, echoing the Sangh line, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi spoke of a “foreign hand” (the charge was disproved). After 1980, communal politics became her forte: from appealing to Hindu sentiments in Jammu’s 1983 elections to propping up Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and then ordering Operation Blue Star.

As for the young, dynamic PM Rajiv Gandhi, not only did he demonise Sikhs during his election campaign after his mother’s assassination, to him must also go the credit for kickstarting the Ayodhya movement and making the VHP the spokesman of the Hindus, to balance out his appeasement of Muslim orthodoxy after the Shah Bano judgment. PM PV Narasimha Rao even denied calling the Babri Masjid by its name in Parliament when some “sants” objected!

The demolition of the Babri Masjid, with neither state nor central forces caring to save the monument, signalled to many that the Hindu Rashtra was here. That happened under a “secular” Centre. Today, those who’ve always propagated a Hindu Rashtra rule India, thanks to their own hard work and the blessings they’ve enjoyed from a “secular” Congress that ruled over independent India for 60 years. Did Congress bother to inculcate secularism among the people? Did it tell people that not all Muslims voted for Partition? Did it counter the Sangh Parivar’s “hum do hamarey pachees” campaign against Muslims? Did it open schools in Muslim areas? Had it done so, the most dangerous stereotypes that the Sangh Parivar feeds on would have been demolished. The media can’t be absolved either; simply by parroting the police version, which always holds Muslims responsible for riots and bomb blasts, it has contributed to the reach of the Parivar. For today’s situation, we are all guilty.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.