CAA and rising Hindu nationalism in India
CAA and rising Hindu Nationalism in India
WRITTEN BY PRASHANT KANDPAL
19 May 2020
The end of World War II marked the beginning of a new era, as nations across the world put their efforts towards a common goal for achieving equality and dignity for all, mutual respect and unity in different faiths and thereby creating base for a democratic society. India entered the race after getting independence in 1947 under the leadership of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Somehow for almost seven decades, India a Hindu majority nation has been held together by its constitution which gives her a secular identity. Her leadership if not fully, has managed and maintained the essence of a secular democratic nation. Sudden changes however has been witnessed in the last five years within Indian society. Since the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), a right-wing Hindu nationalist party, came into power in 2014, a huge communal propaganda campaign has been unleashed in India. The BJP has successfully influenced a large part of the Hindu community under the pretext of religion and an identity crisis.
Communalism is not a new term for India; it has been present in India ever since the colonial era because of the British policy of “divide and rule”. In independent India too, it was the sore point but was largely dormant and surfaced occasionally in the form of communal violence.
In December 2019, the BJP government led by Prime Minister Modi introduced the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) which was to amend the previous Indian Citizenship Act 1955, an act for the acquisition and determination of India citizenship.
Since coming to power in 2014, there has been a surge in the violence against the minorities in India, especially against the Muslims. The violence against Muslims is not new but in 2017, under the BJP rule, the nation has witnessed an increase of 28% in communal violence
On December 11, 2019, the Indian Parliament passed Citizenship Amendment Act which was then signed by the President and became a law. This was for the first time in independent India that a religious criterion was added to the nation's naturalization process. This law gives Indian citizenship to all non-Muslim minorities who entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh on or before December 31, 2014, and it also reduces the aggregate residence or service period required under this law to five years which earlier was eleven years. However, no provisions have been mentioned in this law for the Muslim community, making this law, religion-based discrimination.
This law led to nationwide protests in December 2019 and have continued since, claiming that the act is anti-Muslim and has violated Article 14 of the Indian constitution, which grants the right to equality to both citizens and non-citizens. India has an approximate 200 million Muslim population out of which many are impoverished and are currently spending their money and labor to acquire the documentation for proving their India citizenship. This is not the first time when BJP is coming under the controversies, the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Babri Mosque demolition in 1992 are two major events after which BJP was accused of promoting the Hindu nationalism in India.
From its origin, Hinduism has been regarded as “Sanatana Dharma” meaning an eternal law. Since its origin it rejected the theme of dogmatic adherence or any supreme/central authority, it gives freedom of ethical and moral living to its followers and has been followed in the same way by its followers for the past 5000 years.
The 20th century witnessed Hindu reform movements and religious revival, an ideology generated in 1924 when V.D. Savarkar articulated a thought of “Unified Hindus” in his book “Essential of Hindutva” that influenced a major part of Hindu community who were advocating the right-wing ideologies. V.D. Savarkar along with Md. Ali Jinnah advocated the theory of two-nation, which further led to the religious-based partition of India.
In 1925, RSS (Rashtriya Sawayamshevak Sangh or National Volunteer Corps) was formed as a result of the emerging coherent Hindu ideologies. RSS is a reactionary Hindu organization famous for its politico-military hierarchy, fascist ideologies and its great influence in the Indian society. RSS praises the Nazi ideologies and aims to revive the moral and spiritual tradition of India, that in their view have been destroyed by the western influence. RSS has around 70,000 branches all over India and about 2 million participants and volunteers. BJP (Bhartiya Janta Party) that succeeded Bhartiya Jan Sangh party and VHP (Vishva Hindu Parishad or Universal Hindu Council) are known to be two political arms of RSS. RSS also has a foreign affiliate IDRF (India Development and Relief Fund) – a US-based organization that funds the Hindutva operations in India.
The RSS also conducts weapons training classes for their members and volunteers hence also sometimes called paramilitary natured organization.
Since coming to power in 2014, there has been a surge in the violence against the minorities in India, especially against the Muslims. The violence against Muslims is not new but in 2017, under the BJP rule, the nation has witnessed an increase of 28% in communal violence and in 2015 a year and half after BJP came in power, ranked fourth in the “social hostilities involving religion” index after Syria, Nigeria and Iraq.
The Indian constitution in Article 25, 26, 27 and 28 gives its citizens the right to freedom of religion with no restrictions on any religion. But in 2015, among the 25 most populous countries, India ranked second in the “restrictions on religion” index and after a couple of years after, in 2017 India ranked first and was ahead of the countries like Nigeria and Pakistan. Communal propaganda against the Muslim community has been present through the means of hate speeches, accusing them of killing cows. These accusations have led to many incidents of mob lynching of Muslims. Further, there have been accusations of converting Hindu girls to Islam in the name of Love-Jihad.
All the accusations that have been created and presented in front of the society in the pretext of identity crisis had influenced the youth of the society, common uneducated people, and the hardliners. The central government has failed when it comes to controlling religion-based violence where they have not taken any strict measures to control it. In contrast when we see the case of Kashmir, many intellects forecasted that the abrogation of Article 370 would increase the level of disturbance and there would be a surge in the number violent protests. The current government proved everyone wrong by proactively implementing strict measures to avoid any possible threat. But the case is not the same for the rest of India, according to the data of the Ministry of Home Affairs; communal violence is on the rise and especially in BJP led states.
Over the six years that the BJP government has ruled India, they have made many decisions that directly or indirectly affect the line of faith. These decisions including the abrogation of Article 370, the shutdown in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Citizenship Act, have succeeded in manipulating the principles of the Indian constitution and judiciary system. The state governments of India are accountable for the laws in those states.
Delhi is the exception, where the central government has authority over the law and the police. Delay by the government in deploying paramilitary forces during the recent Delhi riots, the participation of the Delhi police personnel in the riots and not lodging the First Information Report (FIR) against the BJP ministers for giving hate speeches have shown how the Central government is maneuvering the Indian judiciary system. This further becomes clear when the government transferred a Judge of the Delhi High Court Dr. S Muralidhar, who during a hearing of the Delhi riots slammed the government and Delhi police for their delayed response during the riots, and negligence of intelligence.
This incident straight away proves the government’s interference with the Judiciary system. In addition to maximizing their influence over the Indian society, BJP has purchased 53% of the media space and has used selected topics like Pakistan and religion issues that actually touch the sentiments of a typical Indian society.
There has been a dramatic shift in India where voters would rather elect officials with majoritarian and ethno religious nationalism ideologies rather than those with more centralized platforms. The surge in communal violence, right-wing extremism and rampant casteism under the BJP government has changed the essence of a secular democratic country to a semi-feudal system.
Seeing the rising unemployment rate, economic slowdown and the rising cases of COVID-2019 in India, a change of plan can be expected from the Central government that will leave divert the thought process of Indian society towards some more complicated issues and will leave the current situation to get cool by the pass of time. But the process implementing the Citizenship amendment act and National register of citizens will again see the government playing a crucial role as per its basic nature.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Prashant Kandpal is Security professional having experience in Hydrocarbon industry and International financial firms in the field of Security/Geopolitical Intelligence, Counter-terrorism and Crisis Management. Currently working as an Associate (Threat Analyst) - Asia Pacific in an international bank. He is also a Counterterrorism Analyst intern in The Counterterrorism Group USA and Contributing writer- India for Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism a UK based counter-terrorism think tank. Image credit: Al Jazeera/Flickr.