Is India a Democracy?
The continuing decline of democracy in India was my theme last week and it remains my theme this week. India’s mainline media, fearful and government-dependent, does not highlight it. For understandable reasons, global media too refrains from focusing on democracy’s deterioration in India. After all, democracy is under heavy assault in other nations too. Moreover, every new day witnesses dramatic events in some part of the world or another, to which TV and the papers must give prominence.
Nevertheless, I will continue from time to time to draw attention to India’s grim state. The country holds the world’s largest population; Indian parents gave birth to one out of every six on earth; India influences the world.
From 2014 onwards, Muslims in India have learned not to expect anything like the equal rights assured by the nation’s constitution. Backed by relentless propaganda, vast financial resources, and control over the media, Hindu nationalism, sold as “Hindutva” (= Hindu-ness), insists that the country’s 200-million-plus Muslims “earn” safety and acceptance by bowing to the will of politicians claiming to represent the Hindu majority.
HIDING THE FACT
If India’s Muslims travel anywhere outside the locality where they are known and have friends, they are likely, today, to meet with suspicion and hostility. Their Muslimness is plain. Men reveal it with their beards; the women by how they cover their face or head; all through their names. In recent years, however, some of India’s Muslims (they’re 200-million-plus) have taken to hiding the fact that they are Muslim. Across India, a number of Muslims working in homes, factories, or offices, or selling their wares on the street, have adopted Hindu or Christian names.
For good reason. Bombarded by ceaseless propaganda and steered by ambitious politicians, some of India’s Hindus (80 percent of the population) may picture and perhaps report a Muslim they run into as a terrorist, or as someone who will forcibly convert your son or daughter, or as an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant. A Muslim could easily bump into Hindu vigilantes out to harass or harm people like him.
Bangladesh has a population today of about 175 million, 90 percent of whom are Muslims. Its immediate neighbor, the Indian state of West Bengal, now has 105 million people, of whom 27 million (i.e. slightly more than one-fourth) are Muslims. Along with the Bangladeshis, the people of West Bengal speak the same Bangla (or Bengali) language.
Here is a fresh but typical story from the Indian state of Odisha, which lies just south of West Bengal, taken from Kolkata’s courageous newspaper, The Telegraph.
STORY FROM ODISHA
Rahul Islam, 24, a winter-garment seller from West Bengal’s Murshidabad town, was in Ranipada village in Odisha’s Ganjam district on November 24 to sell woolens, mosquito nets and other stuff.
“Suddenly,” Rahul told The Telegraph, “a man turned up and asked me what I was doing in the village. He abused me, called me a Bangladeshi, and demanded to see my Aadhaar card. When I showed him my Aadhaar card, he called it a fake.”
“Other people gathered at the spot and began abusing me. One of them asked me to chant 'Jai Shri Ram',” Rahul continued.
“Initially, I was reluctant. They punched and kicked me. When they threatened to douse me with petrol and set me on fire, I chanted 'Jai Shri Ram' out of fear for my life. They then let me go with my wares.”
Two of Rahul’s fellow hawkers who had accompanied him to Odisha in October to sell winterwear were also assaulted at different places in Ganjam and Gajapati, another Odisha district, after being labelled Bangladeshis. All three fled Odisha on November 27.
On November 29, Rahul Islam spoke to The Telegraph from his home in Murshidabad. “Is it a crime to come to Odisha for work?” Rahul asked.
Also contacted by The Telegraph, Muhammad Saifuddin Momin, 46, of Mohisasthil in Samserganj, Murshidabad, said: “Is it a crime to grow a beard? Is it a crime to go to Odisha to work? These are the questions I want an answer to.”
Led by Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool (or Grassroots) Congress, a fearless chief minister believing in Hindu-Muslim equality and friendship, West Bengal will face a crucial election by March next year. Modi and the BJP are determined to oust her.
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India’s current state is also conveyed by a story by Purva Chitnis in the online portal The Print. Chitnis reports on the dramatic deterioration in Hindu-Muslim relations in a village called Guha in Maharashtra’s Ahilyanagar district. Until last year, starting with the end of the 15th century, the district and its main city were called Ahmednagar. Ahilya-bai was undoubtedly a brave and remarkable woman, but the renaming was a slap on Muslims more than a tribute to Ahilya.
In her story, Chitnis recalls the district’s earlier history of Hindu-Muslim friendship as also the fact that the father of the much-loved hero Shivaji had been named Shahaji after a Muslim pir of the Ahmednagar.
About Guha village, Chitnis quotes 70-year-old Shaikh Tuolek, “who has lived his entire life in Guha”:
“We used to make around 20-30 litres of Sheer Korma for Eid in our village. Our Hindu brothers and sisters used to come and eat, and stay with us all day during the festival. On Diwali, we used to get ‘Faral (mix of sweet and savoury snacks)’ from their side. But all that has now stopped. Now, we don’t even look at each other.”
Evidently a dispute connected with a dargah in Guha which has also been used as a temple by the village’s Hindus has produced a Hindu-Muslim divide in the village and even a boycott of its Muslims. As a result, some of Guha’s Muslims have left their village. Writes Chitnis:
“Over the past two years, multiple villages in Ahilyanagar, and the city itself, have witnessed an alarming rise in... polarisation. Hate speeches, calls for social and economic boycott of Muslims, and disputes over religious structures are now common in Ahilyanagar, where both communities once lived in harmony.”
BULLDOZING HOMES
A “popular” way of punishing alleged encroachers of land in different parts of India is to bull-doze the homes they have built. It so happens that almost always these alleged encroachers are Muslims.
On November 27, the home in Jammu (a Hindu-majority city in the Muslim-majority union territory of Jammu & Kashmir) of journalist Arfaz Ahmad Daing was suddenly brought down by bulldozers. (In 2019, the state of Jammu & Kashmir was demoted to a union territory, and autonomies enjoyed by the state from 1950 were extinguished.) According to the New Indian Express, Daing has claimed that the demolition of his house was an act of retaliation for his reporting.
Earlier, speaking to The Telegraph, Daing said that teams from the Jammu Development Authority showed up with four bulldozers and nearly 700–800 security personnel to demolish his house. In his view, the scale of the exercise showed that the demolition was driven by motives other than curbing alleged encroachment.
Daing claimed that he was not allowed to make phone calls during the operation and was roughed up when he tried to object. “If you have to destroy [my house], do it, but allow me to do my job as a journalist,” he told reporters.
Video footage showed police preventing him from filming a live commentary as the house was reduced to rubble. “They want to teach journalists and social activists a lesson,” Daing said. “If you are a sycophant, you are safe. If you show the truth, this is what happens.”
Officials, however, maintained that the house was an encroachment and that the demolition was part of a broader anti-encroachment campaign.
Daing disputes this, saying his family had lived on the property for 40 years and had never been served any notice. He called the action “selective,” noting that only his home was targeted. The Hindu quoted him saying: “Earlier, my house in Bathindi was demolished. I put up a brave face and shifted to my parents’ house. Now this house too has been demolished. It existed for more than 40 years. Is my house the only illegal one in the entire Jammu city?”
The move sparked widespread criticism. Civil society members questioned why Daing’s home was singled out while several high-profile politicians accused of occupying state land faced no action.
Although J & K has an elected chief minister, Omar Abdullah, his powers are severely limited. The union territory is essentially run by the Modi-appointed lieutenant-governor. Reacting to the demolition, Abdullah questioned why only one person had been targeted if illegal occupation was the real concern.
Abdullah said he had sought a full list of all lands under alleged illegal occupation across Jammu. “I want to see why this one individual was targeted. Is his religion the reason behind it? It cannot be that only one plot of land is illegally occupied in all of Jammu.”
As of now, fortunately, this story has a happier ending. Soon after the demolition, Arfaz Ahmad Daing’s Hindu neighbor, Kuldip Sharma, gifted five marlas (= about 1,362 square feet) of land to Daing.
The demolition had left Daing’s elderly parents, his wife, and their three children homeless. Moved by the visuals of the demolition and of the family pleading with officials to give them more time, the Hindu neighbour came forward to help the family.
“GIFT TO MY BROTHER”
“I have gifted 5 marlas of land to Arfaz. I have made proper revenue documents for it. I have got it registered,” said Kuldip Sharma. “It is my land, and I am giving it as a gift to my brother so that he does not remain helpless.”
By calling his Muslim neighbor his brother, Sharma was challenging the foundational assumption of Hindu nationalism, which is that India’s Muslims are potential betrayers or enemies; they should be watched and contained, not aided. But Sharma vowed: “I was shaken by the demolition. Whatever happens, his home will be rebuilt.”
Added Sharma: “They demolished his house built on 3 marlas. I have given him 5 marlas. If they demolish this too, I will give 10 marlas of land. Please don’t oppress people. His family and small children are now on the road.”
“We are living in this country and yet we have been made homeless,” he continued. “Our communal harmony will never end. We will support him. There will be more like me,” Sharma affirmed.
His daughter, Tania Sharma, expressed pride in her father’s decision. “The step taken by my father is commendable. I believe people of J&K should come together to support families who lose their homes in these demolition drives,” she said.
The overwhelming community support has brought relief to the Daing family. Arfaz’s father said he felt energized by the solidarity shown by people of Jammu. “I don’t have any tension now because the people of Jammu are with us. We have unity here. Since yesterday, thousands of people have extended support and made efforts to stand with us and help us,” he said.
Sharma’s act produced another unusual response. A 46-year-old Kashmiri businessman from Pampore, a town in the Kashmir half of J & K, who has remained anonymous but who is evidently a Muslim, seems to have donated prime land valued at nearly Rs 10 million to Kuldeep Sharma of Jammu. The businessman said that Sharma’s act of humanity had deeply touched him. “At a time when people fight over caste, creed, colour, and religion, Kuldeep Sharma proved that humanity is still alive.”
Desired by a powerful section, and increasingly enforced, polarization and supremacy are not, we may conclude, the natural wish of the Indian people.
