Devouring the state and contorting realities
The ‘secular’ and ‘democratic’ India is the talk of the world these days for the images of violence that flashed in print and electronic media. Angry and hysterical mobs resorted to the blackening of faces and even killing of peaceful citizens in the name of Hindu nationalism. These outbursts of uncontrolled rage were planned, organised and executed to perfection by Shiv Sena, a militant Hindu organisation.
The gory acts of this organisation have shamed the Hindus and blackened the face of the whole of India. One cannot imagine that such inhuman acts can be perpetrated in the world’s ‘largest democracy’, and that too, in the twenty-first century especially in view of the fact that India has carefully crafted her soft image as a modern civilised nation inhabited by peaceful citizens. For many decades, the Indians have talked loudly and proudly about them being the inheritors of the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence and pacifism: an immediate reference being the oft- repeated Gandhian quote which states “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” Now, the children of Gandhi are devouring their fellow Indians just because they happen to be the practitioners of different faiths. While reporting these violent acts of Shiv Sena flashing on our TV screens, the Indian journalists were careful in emphasising that it was a fringe organisation that did not enjoy the support of the majority. This may be true but then this fringe organisation exhibited the potential to hold hostage the whole of India. Moreover, the Indian majority may not be sympathetic to this violence but then it did not have the guts to stop Shiv Sena’s violent acts. So, Shiv Sena cannot be ignored just because it is a minuscule party rather it has the power to set the agenda of the day whenever it wants to and therefore deserves some background check on its history and philosophy. The research conducted by Professors Mary Katzenstein, Uday Mehta and Usha Thakkar on this organisation is quite revealing.
Shiv Sena’s birth in Bombay, the capital of the state of Maharashtra in the mid-1960s was to fill the void created by the weakening hold of the Congress party owing to its misgovernment and corruption. It started by championing the grievances of the Maharashtrians, who were denied due share in the white-collar jobs and deprived of reaping the fruits of growing trade and commerce by the outsiders, particularly the south Indians. Within two years, it was able to win one-third seats in the Bombay’s municipal corporation and by the end of the ‘70s had grabbed the mayorship of the city for four times.
The party went through an ideological make-over in the mid-1980s under its radical chief Bal Thackeray who looked up to Adolf Hitler as his role model, publicly admired Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse and loved watching cowboy films in his youth, stating, “I like action, everything should have action. Yes- John Wayne, Gary Cooper and gun fights. I like gun fights. Perhaps it might have influenced me.” This make-over involved the preaching and practice of militant Hindu nationalism because to him non-violence was weakness, not strength. The thrust of this Hindu nationalism was an aggressive adoption of Hindutva under which the party first declared ‘dharamyuddh’- a religious war- against the Muslim minority and as a second step began to sponsor and celebrate the Hindu religious festivals on a large scale, thus heralding the ‘saffronisation’ of Indian politics and the use of the ‘Hindu Card’.
The entire Muslim community was dubbed traitorous, treacherous and alien that had to be dealt with violently or simply kicked out of the country. This demonisation of Muslims was planned by Shiv Sena with two broad objectives: one, to put the Congress party in a tight spot for its accommodative policies towards the Muslims; and two, to poison the possibility of any improvement in the relations with Pakistan. The pages of ‘Saamna’, the official mouthpiece of Shiv Sena repeatedly questioned Congress for ‘pampering’ and ‘tolerating’ the Muslims ‘loyal’ to Pakistan. In the same publication, the Sena’s chief, Thackeray, branded all the Indian Muslims as loyal Pakistanis: “[Indian Muslims] beat Hindus, demolish temples and attack the police. The government is appeasing these traitors….Now Pakistan need not cross the borders for launching an attack on India. Twenty-five crore Muslims loyal to Pakistan will stage an insurrection.”
A significant proportion of Shiv Sena’s discourse is based on hatred towards all those who do not subscribe to its brand of Hindu nationalism. An equally important aspect of its discourse idealises and romanticises violence. When the world watched in horror the mad march of militant Hindus to destroy the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, the Shiv Sena praised its marching bigots in these unforgettable words in ‘Saamna’: “How does our Shiv Sainik appear as he is marching towards Ayodhya. Like the roaring lion spreading terror, with the gait of an intoxicated elephant, like the assault of a rhino which reduces to powder a rocky mountain, like the manoeuvres of a leopard: Our infinite blessings to these Hindu warriors who are marching towards Ayodhya.”
Though Muslimshave been the main victims of Shiv Sena’s atrocities, other sections of the society that have refused to bow down to its diktats have also not been spared. In the late sixties and seventies, it targeted the communists and the South Indians. Later on, even the newspapers and journalists critical of Shiv Sena were also hounded. The newspaper offices of ‘Mahanagar’ and ‘Lokmat’ were ransacked, their machines destroyed and files burnt. Three thousand books and diaries of Haroon Rashid, a journalist of ‘Blitz’ newspaper were torched. The Buddhists are also perceived a threat and so Thackeray’s message to them on one of the anniversaries of Dr. Ambedkar was: “We won’t be tolerant….If anyone stands against Hindus, we’ll burn them to ashes.”
Over time, this politics of terror has paid great dividends to Shiv Sena. The people of Maharashtra in general and the residents of Bombay in particular have “welcomed” the Sena’s brand of “terror politics” by voting it in large numbers in every electoral contest. Today, it is a coalition partner of Premier Narendra Modi’s government and is the unchallenged master of Maharashtra state. This is an ominous sign for the rest of India. If the Sena can humble the cosmopolitan Bombay, today; it can conquer Delhi, tomorrow. Why a party that resorts to intimidation, extortion and killings has not been taken to task? Why has the Indian state been acting as a helpless witness to this cult of violence? Why has this party been not banned and its leaders not put behind the bars to rethink their venomous philosophy of politics? When the Indian state wanted to establish its writ as was in the cases of the separatist Sikhs in the Punjab and the Naxalites in the north-east; it used the coercive power to the maximum effect. It is not that the Indian state lacks the punitive means to punish Shiv Sena; it just did not show the will to take the bull by the horn. Yesterday, to quote a comment from the Washington Post, Bal Thackeray ruled “Bombay the way Al Capone ruled Chicago: through fear and intimidation;” tomorrow, the Shiv Sena will rule the whole of India the same way.