India: Between Religious Murder and Secularism

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The nationalism that is been promoted today and the nationalism that was prevalent during our freedom movement has a vast difference.

One universal dream of we Indians back then, during the British regime was Nation building. Moving forward with hope of freedom from the Britishers was the main aim for us.

And as for the nationalists today the promotion of hatred is one of the many aims they try to impose on the young minds. And they have succeeded to a great extend in promoting that. When we look at the present situation here, tension and hatred against each other has visibly grown up in recent years.

India’s National Movement was truly Indian in the respect that it was world’s first struggle for freedom based on truth and non-violence and its foundations was laid by the socio-religious reform movement of the 19th century.

As of the present scenario, religious hatred is on the rise in India, with many politicians inciting violence and hate to win power. As a society, India must admit that religious extremism and hatred are deeply entrenched in its socio-cultural body politic.

On December 6, 2017, a muslim migrant laborer Mohammed Afrazul, was hacked to death and set on fire by an unemployed Hindu fanatic Shambhu Lal in a small, sleepy Indian town of Rajsamand. Afterward, he posted a video of the brutal murder online, in which he claimed to have murdered Afrazul to avenge the so-called “love jihad” (a term used by Hindu nationalists to describe a practice in which Muslim men feign love to draw Hindu women away from their faith).

Whenever India raises a step higher on the global barbarity index following such incidents, the end effect is almost always a polarization of Hindu versus Muslim. Even the lip service of condemning such despicable incidents does not remain an honest exercise. Right-wing political parties and cultural groups start complaining of liberal hypocrisy, of selective outrage, and extol Hindu sentiments, going back a thousand years. Bulk Whatsapp messages appealing to the nationalist-cum-religious sentiments are circulated, resulting in sporadic incidents of violence.

As a society, India must admit that religious extremism and hatred are deeply entrenched in its sociocultural body politic. The roots of religious intolerance are to be found in the collective sub consciousness, which is the product of historical evolution over the last 5,000 years. Any analysis bereft of this understanding of the history, twisted to fit political ends, will serve no purpose except of intellectuals losing credibility.

An objective and independent inquiry will show that religious extremism and intolerance are increasing in India, and it is not confined to just one Hindu community. While analyzing Hindu-Muslim communal tensions in India, any inquiry bereft of its historical background will not give a complete picture. Muslims ruled India for more than 1,000 years, from 712 AD through 1857. The common trend among left-leaning historians is to highlight the phases of communal harmony and bonhomie between the two communities and hide the instances of forced conversions, brutal mass slaughter of Hindus and abduction of Hindu women.

But North Indian folklore is full of such incidents. During the Raj, the existing differences between the two communities were aggravated by the British for political ends. The British policy of appeasement toward Muslim separatism and extremism widened the rift between Hindus and Muslims and ultimately led to the partition of India in 1947, followed by violent communal riots on both sides of the border in which thousands of Hindu and Muslim lives were lost.

Today most Hindus (though not all) are communal, hating Muslims, and most Muslims (though not all) are also communal, hating Hindus. How did this happen?

It has happened because of the power of propaganda. Most People are undoubtedly good, but they are also simpletons. Propaganda can poison their mind and make them hate different communities. And modern technology has made Propaganda an even more powerful weapon in the hands of the tiny, but powerful, wicked minority.

An example of this is what happened in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. The Nazi propaganda against the Jews,blaming them for all the ills in Germany (unemployment, inflation, etc ) was so strong that almost the entire German nation at that time went mad, which led to the Holocaust.





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