Two thoughtful contributions by Sri Lankan academics Neil DeVotta and Gehan Gunatilleke show how majoritarianism’s relentless othering is less about the majority’s imagined ideal minority-free state, and more about the satisfaction derived from blaming, punishing and depriving the “others” — the Sinhala Buddhist majority’s first target was the Indian Tamils.
by Nirupama Subramaniam, Indian Express, June 3, 2023
‘Politics of Hate’ is a collection of essays that traces the rise and rise of communalism across four countries in the subcontinent
Edited by Farahnaz Ispahani, these essays explore in depressing detail majoritarianism in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
Last month, a film called The Kerala Story hit the big screens in India. Reviewers called it out for its fake claims on Islamist radicalisation in Kerala and for its attempt to stoke communal fires by othering Muslims. At an event organised by the RSS recently, a minister declared it was hard to find a “tolerant Muslim”, and even those who appear as such are putting on an act to become a governor or a vice-president.
But let us be clear. India’s journey into communal politics began well before Independence. With memories of the communal fires of the 1940s fresh, the first government of free India managed to keep a tight lid on it. But soon enough, the lid came loose through acts of commission and omission, and now it seems to have blown off entirely. Pre-millennial Indians brought up to believe that secularism made their country a moral force in the world, and if nothing else, definitely cooler than Pakistan and its other neighbours, are now being told it was all “minority appeasement” and that majoritarianism is a made-up concept.
Politics of Hate, Religious Majoritarianism in South Asia lays out the land in depressing detail, covering communalised ground across four countries of the region, with Husain Haqqani setting the stage in his introduction. But it is India’s descent into what many describe now as a “mirror image” of Pakistan that is striking. It is sad that a nation that was in many ways a beacon for South Asia as a plural, diverse, inclusive democracy is now three chapters in a book about the communal pathology of the region.
Politics of Hate: Religious Majoritarian-ism in South Asia; Edited by Farahnaz Ispahani; HarperCollins; 336 pages; Rs 599 (Source: Amazon)
“Muslimophobia in India, Reasons and Remedy” by A Faizur Rahman, is perhaps the most complex essay in the volume. A commentator on Islam and secretary-general of the Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought, Rahman traces the long historical arc of anti-Muslim sentiment in India from the mid-19th century to the late 20th century, and the rapid slide into open communalism since then. He describes the response of the Indian Muslim intelligentsia — focussed on condemning acts of violence against Muslims, or making “dispassionate efforts” at educating Muslims about their constitutional rights, or even blaming the Muslims themselves — as inadequate, pushing the community into the arms of Muslim politicians who feed off its fears.
Putting faith in studies showing that most Hindus are not communal-minded, Rahman suggests another way of countering “Muslimophobia” (he suggests that the fear of a Muslim demographic threat is uppermost in the Hindu mind rather than a sentiment against Islam) by countering misinformation and educating Hindus on five bogeys: Muslim demography; “Islamic” rule; conversion; Hindus as “Aryans”; and terrorism — the facts that Rahman puts out on this going against every claim in The Kerala Story. He also calls out the Muslim clergy, demanding a theological recasting and the abandonment of concepts such as blasphemy and Dar-al-Harb.
Rahman is the only one offering hope on India. Niranjan Sahoo writes of the fallouts of the rise of Hindutva on the cultural and social fabric. He draws attention to the rewriting of history, and describes the government’s reading down of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir as its “most decisive step towards a majoritarian state”, and why no other party can dismiss the electoral power of Hindu majoritarian politics.
In her contribution journalist-academic Maya Mirchandani traces the takeover of India’s mainstream media for communal propaganda, analysing the TV coverage of the Tablighi Jamaat episode during the pandemic, which laid the blame for the virus on Muslims. “The distance TV creates between viewer and viewed or a keyboard does between an online abuser and their victim,” writes Mirchandani, “has empowered hate in a way that face-to-face social interaction censures or discourages.
Repetitive and constant exposure to such ill-intentioned news coverage not only erodes an overall ethical standard and the quality of fact-based, constructive, informed journalism, but fuels biases and real violence. Media houses are not just third-party observers but part of the narrative…”
The volume includes two chapters on the rise of Islamists in the “moderate” Islamic republic of Bangladesh. While Ali Riaz’s contribution is a study of the 2013 Shahbag Movement and the (far-right) Hefazat-e-Islam that rose to counter it, C. Christine Fair and Parina Patel, demonstrate the lengthening shadow of radicalism in Bangladesh by means of a survey.
Two thoughtful contributions by Sri Lankan academics Neil DeVotta and Gehan Gunatilleke show how majoritarianism’s relentless othering is less about the majority’s imagined ideal minority-free state, and more about the satisfaction derived from blaming, punishing and depriving the “others” — the Sinhala Buddhist majority’s first target was the Indian Tamils.
Next, it was the Ceylon Tamils, now it is the Muslims. Both point to Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism and Sri Lanka’s “socio-political culture” as creating Islamophobia, a “Saudization of Islam” and Islamist radicalism, all of which contributed to the deadly Easter bombings of 2019.
Mohammed Taqi provides an unputdownable history of the fate of the Shia in Pakistan. He writes how its roots lie in Jinnah playing down his Shia identity, preferring to present himself as a “generic Muslim”, thus paving the way for the dilution of Shia identity even as he gave space to hardline Sunni politicians and clergy in his push for the creation of Pakistan. Ispahani gives a detailed account of how the anti-minority sentiment in Pakistan — against Ahmadi, Christian, Hindu, Sikh — was given a legal sanctity — first through the 1949 Objective Resolution by placing Islam in pole position in the new state, then in the 1973 Constitution, via the second amendment explicitly targeting Ahmadi by defining a Muslim and a non-Muslim, and through laws dealing with blasphemy, and how difficult it is to roll back any of these.
The bleak situation of Pakistan’s minorities is further detailed in a chapter on the country’s Christians by Michael Nazir-Ali, who says “what we need in Pakistan is a change in mindset which recognises all citizens as equal, with equal responsibilities and rights”. That’s a prayer for all the countries that find a place in this book’s majoritarian hall of fame.