India Dying

India is burning today; it is passing through its worst phase since its independence in 1947.  The current ruling party BJP (Bhartiya Janta Party) has unleashed a war on students, especially Muslim students, entering universities without permission and beating them up.  The most staggering example is the prestigious Jamia Milia Islamiya University in Delhi, where they entered like hooligans, and thrashed students mercilessly who were quietly studying in library, were in their hostel rooms and other places inside the campus.  The pretext was burning of a bus during the protest led by Jamia students against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which is part of the legal instrument to devoid Muslims of their Indian citizenship.  As it turned out after investigations, the bus was not burnt by Jamia students, but probably police themselves, or the BJP goons to escalate violence and create an excuse for police action.  The police did their part by vandalizing parked vehicles, brutalizing students, acting as third-rate goons, pelting stones, and firing at unarmed students.  A similar routine was repeated in Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, where students were made to evacuate the campus at gun point like criminals.  It was the most frightful sight for a democratic country.  As a result of this barbarism Delhi erupted.  As did other parts of the country, and prominent universities all over the country.  All night students all over the country protested in solidarity with the students who were shot, injured and arrested on false premises.  Several students ended up in bad state in hospitals.  All this happened in parallel to the events in north eastern part of India which was already burning with protests against the CAA.  The government instead of any conciliatory move, cracked down further by shutting off internet in several states where the protests happened.  Meanwhile Modi canvassing for elections in the state of Jharkhand responded with an extremely communal statement – “the rioters can be recognized by their clothes;” a clear and direct attack on Muslim community as they dress differently.  As videos surfaced of police vandalizing vehicles and indulging in violence, his statement was actually proven correct in the most perverse way – it was the police wearing brown shirts which was recognizable by its clothes.

This is as brief a summary as can be for the events that unfolded on the night of December 15^th 2019 and continued thereof.  The attacks were pre-planned and were directed against minority universities that enrolled mostly Muslim students.  This unprovoked crack down on students, destroying the sanctity of educational institutions is unprecedented in the history of modern India.  This blatant police atrocity, where it seemed they were ordered to beat students to pulp rings a death knell to Indian democracy.  India today is ruled by fascist thugs whose sole agenda is to create a Hindu Rashtra (nation).  In this fancied Hindu Rashtra, the minorities will either be cleansed or they will have a second class status with no rights.  This is a dystopian dream that this party backed by RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) is pursuing.  They are trying to make the pluralistic and secular idea of India as envisioned by its founding fathers dead.  If the society dies, the nation dies.  The CAA is a step forward in that direction. 

The CAA needs to be seen in combination with NRC (National Register for Citizens), which is another act passed recently by the brute majoritarian force in the parliament.  This is an extremely disturbing, demeaning, reckless act that can fracture Indian society beyond repair.  This act wants every single Indian to prove their citizenship with some kind of documentation.  It is well known that given the poverty and impoverished state of masses of Indians, it is impossible for them to produce a credible document.  In that case, they will be deemed stateless, no matter how long they and their ancestors stayed in India.  The plan is to throw such people in detention camps and eventually strip them off of all rights.  When NRC was implemented in Assam, the BJP/RSS expected that they can filter out Muslims and throw them in detention camps, once they are not able to provide documents.  After a miserable exercise for 5 years that rendered almost 1.9 million Assamese stateless, it turned out that out of those illegal citizens majority were Hindus.  This was unacceptable to BJP/RSS.  To circumvent this situation, they brought in CAA which gives citizenship to any Hindu in India who was here before 2014 without any documents!  There are other religions included in this provision but NOT Muslims.  So, Muslims who are mostly poor if not able to provide proper documents will cease to be Indian citizens.  This is what Modi-Shah want.  Modi, who cannot produce an educational degree of his own wants people to produce all kinds of documents to prove they belong to India.  It is a diabolical game plan put in place under the garb of protecting persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to disenfranchise Muslim population in India.  This law resembles Nuremberg law of Germany in 1935 when people residing in Germany were required to prove they were Germans.  It was the final nail in the coffin, the Muslim population is out on streets led by students against this farce citizenship exercise.  NRC in effect presumes all Indians are non-citizens, and they need to prove their citizenship.  It is an assault on the dignity of not only Muslims, but on Hindus and every citizen of India.  Nobody needs to prove anything to these fascist thugs, the Sanghis, who collaborated with British empire during India’s freedom movement.  The RSS plan of deeply dividing India must be foiled.

The core of RSS ideology is inspired by Nazi Germany, where false racial superiority rules, and calls for ethnic cleansing of all minorities.  RSS is the the Nazi counterpart in India, founded in 1925 by an arch racist and Hindu nationalist MS Golwalkar, who admired ethnic cleansing of Jews by Nazi German.  It has worked its way patiently and persistently for about 100 years towards realization of its goal of creating a Hindu Rashtra.  Its founder Golwalkar openly idolized Nazi Germany and considered genocide of Jews as the highest act in racial pride.  RSS wants to do the same to Muslims in India.  With its political wing, the BJP in brute power now, they are aggressively pushing their agenda.  It started with removal of Article 370 in Kashmir; Kashmir is still under lockdown, with one security personnel every 10 Kashmiris, Kashmir is the most militarized zone in the world; then a completely unjust Supreme Court judgement on Ayodhya case, where all evidence though acknowledged by court was eventually ignored in giving the judgement, and the judgement was given in favor of the perpetrator Hindu party; and now NRC/CAA; this is a frenetic pace in which things have moved.  Since this inept, incompetent, far-right and highly corrupt government has failed on every front, sent economy to dogs, with highest unemployment ever, they have no other way of distracting attention from bread and butter issues other than creating religious divides and fracturing a secular society.  The secular society and constitution are intolerable to ruling RSS thugs.  During the times when constitution was being drafted and finally accepted RSS kept on publishing articles in its mouthpiece Paanchjanya to denounce the constitution as un-India and anglo – it did not fit in their image of Hindu Rashtra.  The fundamental principles of equality and secularism regardless of religion, caste or creed enshrined in the Indian constitution are under direct attack from the current Hindutva regime, which must be resisted.

To achieve Hindu Rashtra Modi needed a thumping majority in elections, which it got by playing foul in the 2019 general elections.  They have seized on this opportunity to push a totalitarian, fascist state in India, which is more and more resembling Nazi Germany.  If the Indian people, especially the majority Hindus, do not choose to learn from history, they are bound to repeat history by enabling the creation of a Hindu state, guided by the exclusionary, intolerant and communal ideology of Hindutva.  Much of it is already in place structurally, as institutions including judiciary have been compromised and saffronized; there are no pillars of democratic institutions left that are untainted, including media.  The mainstream media has been reduced to government’s vicious propaganda machine.  Goebbels would have taken a bow at the condition of Indian mainstream media today.  It has dutifully done government’s bidding, and has done away with any semblance of journalism in their activities – their role has been transformed into that of news hit men; as ordered, they malign and humiliate opposition, spread fake news, distort history, pander false nationalism and incite communal discord.  Today’s Indian mainstream media is comparable to if not worse than Rwandan radio, that cheer led Rwandan genocide. 

With open lynching of Muslims and zero convictions, the RSS goons and mobs have been given a free hand to terrorize Muslim population.  The state has been either complicit or tone-deaf in cases of such brutal killings.  As if the shock of the removal of Article 370 in Kashmir and unjust Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya were not enough, another jolt was served to Indian Muslims with the CAA.  It is laying foundations for ethnic cleansing.  It is not only a grievous attack on Muslim identity and equal place of Muslims in India but is also a direct attack on the very idea of India whose roots are in pluralism, secularism and acceptance.  It is an attack on the finely weaved fabric of Indian society with multiple cultures, faiths, languages, which has allowed different people to coexist and flourish together.  Given all its weaknesses and shortcomings, a diverse nation like India by and large seemed moving forward before 2014.  With the fascist thugs capturing power in 2014, India has been under perpetual decline in all its aspects as a country and a nation.  It is disgraceful and shameful.  If Modi and his thugs are allowed to succeed in their designs, history will remember Hindus and India as Sanghi Hindus and Sanghi India, just like Hitler’s Germany is remembered as Nazi Germany; it will not matter which side one was.  Therefore, it is more the onus of Hindus, the majority population of India to defeat this Sanghi regime and restore the soul of India.  Nothing less would work; it is another freedom struggle for India unfolding through student protests.