Congress’s dilemma

What will be the ultimate peak of extremism and craziness in India? What are the potential damages to be inflicted in the country as well as in the region? In order to figure it out, the horrifying question will have to be explored in the context that it is the second time consecutively that the Muslim community, the second biggest minority living in India, will be not represented by the ruling parliamentary party in India. This signifies that the system has been bedevilled by Hindu radicalised elements living in India.

Here a point needs to be clarified that Hindu fanaticism has nothing to do with those patriotic Hindu communities living in Pakistan. The situation being confronted currently has long historical roots. The Indian freedom movement against British colonialism would falter often because both nations (Hindus and Muslims) used to fail to reach a consensus on constitutional modalities.

The reason for dissent was not the Muslims leaders; instead, it was impossible for Congress to decide connotation of the constitution against the will of Hindu Mahasabha and its leader Sevakar. Hindu leaders had drawn a line already that Hindus had the ultimate superior claim to rule India. They reckoned none but Hindu is a person who respects Bahrat (India) at the core of his heart, since it is Hindus who consider India as a sacred motherland. And this narrative forms the basis of Hinduism. Best interpretation of this narrative has been made by Indian Constitution architect Dr Ambedkar. The definition of Hindu has been inscribed meticulously in a bid to achieve two objectives. One goal was to exclude Muslims, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians by setting a yardstick of being Hindu as the sole community who accepts India as sacred land. The second goal was to include Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains into the national fold exempting them from the religious doctrine of Hinduism (Though it is a separate issue that later India, claiming to be a secular state, desecrated Sikhs’ sacred temples through bloody state violence) This radicalised and authoritarian ideology, coupled with the superiority complex of being the sole ruler of India, was embedded well before partition.

Though Indian constitutional architect Dr Ambedkar had kept warning for dire consequences of this rooted narrative, all went in vain. The sham secularism, once promoted as the linchpin of democracy at the time of freedom, has been losing its shine day by day. Now successors of Sevakar have come into power with full might. Leveraging their supreme rule and popularity among the masses, they are so bold to praise overtly Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Gandhi, founder of independent India. Does anybody expect from those who are admirers of the killer of their “Bapoo”, can have good relations with other communities living in India and their neighbours? Can a single expectation be attached with such orthodox groups in trying to solve the Kashmir issue and preventing any tension between two nuclear states?

The BJB victory anchored on specific mind-making and peculiar ideological lines and it would never afford to hurt these bases. Now the question arises as to why Congress and its allied parties could not perform well in the elections despite the fact that “Modi Sarkar” failed to achieve his economic targets during his first term, with visible blunders made by the BJP government. The Modi government did nothing but fuel religious sentiments just to cover up their economic failure. It also made mistakes in local politics. Anyhow after seeing the popularity that populism fanned by the BJP government received, such parties also had to propagate Hindu radicalised tenets.

In order to get in on the hate train, Congress awarded fewer than usual tickets to Muslim candidates. So much so in some constituencies, Muslims candidates were not issued party tickets. For instance, Shakil Ahmed won elections on Congress tickets from Behar two times. He has remained a junior minister. Even his father and grandfather remained members of Behar assembly. But this time he was denied the party ticket on the base of being a Muslim. Congress leaders from Dehli including Shoaib Iqbal, Hassan Ahmed, and Asif Khan wrote a letter to Rahul Gandhi requesting that at least there should be one candidate from Dehli but their proposal could not gain the status of acceptability in spite of strong support by the majority of Congress Muslims. In a situation in which one group had been fostering Hindu doctrine openly and the other group had been covertly propagating the same, voters had no choice but to go with the flow. Next time, if Congress wants to win the elections, it has to restore its original philosophy and political design. It is highly predicted that this time again Modi Sarkar would fall short of his economic targets and again his last resort will be to rely on religious extremism.

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