Varghese K. George
December 11, 2019 00:02 IST
Updated:
December 11, 2019 12:41 IST
The NRC-CAB combine seeks the reconstitution of
Indian nationhood on the lines of V.D. Savarkar’s idea
“With
India for their basis of operation, for their Fatherland and for their
Holyland… bound together by ties of a common blood and common culture (Hindus)
can dictate their terms to the whole world.” These words scratched by V.D.
Savarkar on the walls of a prison, and published in 1923 as a book that defined
Hindutva, are roughly 100 years old.
Political
boundaries are artificial and imagined barriers to human movement. Most
violence in the modern history of humankind emanated from attempts to enforce
boundaries that purportedly protect citizens and eject aliens. The Holocaust
and the Palestinian dispossession are two egregious examples. Ascribing, and
claiming legitimacy for a particular community-territory link is a political
project, and Savarkar did this with remarkable clarity.
During
the Second World War, he exhorted Hindus to join the British Army, not to fight
fascism, but to prepare for the civil war with Muslims that he thought was
inevitable. Muslims and Christians could never be loyal citizens, he argued. He
wrote, “The tie of a common Holyland has at times proven stronger than the
claims of a Motherland… Look at the Mohammedans. Mecca to them is a sterner
reality than Delhi or Agra.” The idea that nation is not territorial, but
cultural, was the core of Savarkar’s treatise. Though the notion of a Holyland
is emphasised, it is only “a basis of operation” to dictate terms to the rest
of the world. Not all those who are residents are a part of the nation, and not
all outside the territory are outside the nation. India’s founding fathers and
public opinion overwhelmingly rejected this notion at the time of Independence,
but an Islamic mirror image of it was born into reality as Pakistan.
Rooted and true
Though a
group of sedate political experts were hallucinating a delink between Narendra
Modi and Hindutva in 2014, he was clear in his promises and has been true to
them in government. The non-territorial notion of citizenship and nationhood,
the core of Hindutva, was reiterated in the 2014 manifesto of the Bharatiya
Janata Party, foretelling the amendment to the Citizenship Act, which was
passed by the Lok Sabha on December 9. “India shall remain a natural home for
persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here,” the manifesto
said. “The NRIs [Non-Resident Indians], PIOs [Person of Indian origin] and
professionals settled abroad are a vast reservoir to articulate the national
interests and affairs globally. This resource will be harnessed for
strengthening Brand India,” the manifesto foretold Mr. Modi’s diaspora
politics.
Talking
to the Indian diaspora in London on November 13, 2015, Mr. Modi said: “Our
relations are based on the ties of our blood, not on the colour of our
passports. All the rights of Narendra Modi has, you do too...” While the
Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019 (CAB) seeks to enact as law the notion of
India as the home for all Hindus anywhere, the National Register of Citizens
(NRC) seeks to weed out those who are already in the territory but are not part
of the nation, as per Savarkar’s doctrine, echoed in numerous resolutions and
statements of the BJP and its forebear, the Jan Sangh. For a non-Muslim
excluded from the NRC, there could be a route to citizenship once CAB is law.
This distinction between “infiltrators” and “refugees” that Home Minister Amit
Shah made during the debate on CAB in the Lok Sabha was made by Mr. Modi during
the 2014 campaign. As Mr. Shah told Parliament,
nobody
can complain of being blindsided by the government on CAB — it was part of the
BJP’s agenda on which it sought a mandate in 2014 and 2019.
The outlines
If
Muslims were not legitimate citizens of the nation, where would they go? While
he would not accept them as part of the Hindu nation, Savarkar would also not
concede to the demand for a separate country for them and he fiercely opposed
the demand for Pakistan. It was left to M.S. Golwalkar of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh, with whom Savarkar had a hostile relationship, to spell out
clearly what non-Hindus were supposed to do. They “... may stay in the country,
wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no
privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizen’s rights.”
When India debates what happens to those who will not be able to prove their
citizenship under the NRC, and are unable to seek citizenship under CAB, this
is the future envisaged for them in the Hindutva notion.
This
understanding of nationhood and citizenship is reflected in the government’s
move to end the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir, and demote
and divide the region into two Union Territories. Kashmiris, far from aspiring
for autonomy and enjoying special protection of their cultural identity, are
now reduced to seeking the restoration of basic citizenship rights and
statehood; as and when they are allowed to speak, that is. Far from holding a
veto on Indian politics as the BJP had accused them of for decades, Muslims
would be seeking to restore their voting rights, if unable to meet the onerous
requirement to be listed in the NRC. The shallowness and duplicity of the
government’s claim that the scrapping of the special status of J&K was
about uncompromising uniformity of laws across the country stands exposed
in CAB, that continues to provide special protection to the cultural rights of
several communities. Mr. Shah also made the reassurance during the debate that
Article 371 which protects the cultural integrity of many regions, would “never
be altered”. So, it is not a matter of principle for the government that no
community shall be granted special cultural rights; it is only that Muslims
will not be allowed that.
The U.S. and a parallel
The
ongoing attempts in India to remake itself have striking parallels in the
political project of U.S. President Donald Trump. In January 2017, soon after
taking over, Mr. Trump ordered a religious test for admission to the U.S.
Through an executive order he banned travellers from seven Muslim-majority
countries from entry. The order also a had a provision, echoing the Modi
government’s CAB, which was then pending in Parliament. The President ordered
to “prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of
religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a
minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality”. This would have
excluded Muslims from Muslim-majority countries — the exact intent of the CAB.
The American judiciary stalled the implementation of the order, and a third
version of the travel ban that was finally upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in
June 2018 did not have the above provision. Two non-Muslim countries were
included in the amended list of countries from where travellers are banned. The
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the principle that there cannot be a bar on entry
based on religious categories, though it allowed the third iteration of the
Presidential order to stand.
Justice
Sonia Sotomayor, speaking for the minority in the 5-4 judgment said the
Presidential order — even the revised one — was discriminatory and
unconstitutional. She held that a “reasonable observer” would view the
executive action “as motivated by animus against Muslims”, and termed the
majority decision as a repetition of the past mistake of upholding the Japanese
American internment camps in 1944. During the Second World War, when Savarkar
was recruiting future soldiers to deal with the internal enemies, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, hailed as a progressive President, was ordering the internment of
thousands of American citizens of Japanese origin. That past appears to be
returning, not as a haunting nightmare as it should be, but heralded as the
promised glorious future. What makes Hindu majoritarianism more effective is
its doctrinaire legacy, supported by texts and enforced by a quasi-military
cadre.
varghese.g@thehindu.co.in
Source: thehindu
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