Calls for genocide, ghar wapsi: ‘Double-engine’ hatred

Such, it seems, are the ‘big dreams’ of the BJP and its Parivar for India

December 2021 saw a clearer manifestation of the BJP’s relentless efforts at parivartan — of transforming our society, promised in their election manifesto. The Karnataka Assembly passed the anti-conversion bill, a ‘Dharma Sansad’ in Haridwar called for genocide of Muslims, and our own promising young MP from Bengaluru exhorted all of Pakistan, too, to be converted to Hinduism through ‘ghar wapsi’, in what can only be described as Munna Bajrangi style.

There was one obvious underlying thread in all these acts or words – pure, unadulterated hatred and malice toward Muslims and Christians. There was also an unseen thread, an invisible hand, a ringmaster telling the BJP ministers and MPs when to introduce a legislation, to act or speak on a particular subject and then withdraw, apologise or repeal Acts or words upon his signal. They were certainly not acting at the behest of those who voted them to power but someone far more powerful — one who controlled and coordinated all the diverse acts in different BJP-ruled states. Is he an elected authority or an extra-constitutional one?

Anti-conversion bill

It’s almost a truism that whenever the BJP comes to power, ‘Hinduism is in danger’. Not because Hindus are dying of poverty, unemployment, destitution, or even Covid. It’s because 14 per cent Muslims and 2 per cent Christians in our land are aggressively converting Hindus to their religion. The foundational premise of the anti-conversion bill is that Hindu population, and thus Hindu religion, is in imminent danger of dying or disappearing from its homeland.

This bogey of the diminishing Hindu race has been around for more than a century. A 1909 pamphlet published by one U N Mukherji was titled ‘Hindus, a dying race’, in which he asserted, allegedly based on the Census, that within 420 years, all Hindus would have disappeared from the face of the earth.

It is now over 111 years since that prognosis, and the Hindu population has trebled from 305 million in the 1950s to 966 million by the time of the 2011 Census. Besides, the share of population of Hindus, Muslims and Christians has remained fairly stable in the last 60 years. What’s more, the fertility gap between Muslim and Hindu women has shrunk from 1.1 to 0.5 children. Obviously, there is no prospect of the Hindu race dying, but the BJP has to keep the pot boiling.

A majority of those who do convert are Dalits and tribal folk. They convert not because they are offered salvation in the next world but because of schools, colleges and hospitals provided here and now by the missionaries. What they seek by converting is social empowerment, equality with fellow human beings, and dignity that is so brazenly denied by the Hindu caste hierarchy of injustice and oppression. What have they got by remaining within the Hindu fold, but disowned by it? And, pray, who is the District Magistrate to judge my faith in any god or ‘son of god’ or prophet? My faith is my business, not the government’s, not the District Magistrate’s, and certainly not that of hate-spewing sadhus.

Adharma Sansad

Much has been written about the ‘Dharma Sansad’ in Haridwar and the venom spewed by so many sadhus and sants, whose links with the Sangh Parivar and BJP too were on display. Among the prominent attendees were the BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay, a past offender on hate-speech, ‘Swami’ Prabhodanand Giri who called for ‘ethnic cleansing of Muslims’, ‘Yati’ Narsinghanand, who wants a ‘Hindu Prabhakaran’ to do the job, and Pooja Shakun Pandey, aka ‘Sadhvi’ Annapurna, who thinks Hindu victory lies in killing 20 lakh Muslims.

Around the same time as the ‘Dharma Sansad’, a gathering of Hindu Yuva Vahini, founded by Yogi Adityanath, met in Delhi to take an oath. Raising their hands in a Nazi-style salute, hundreds of participants chanted “We resolve to make India a Hindu nation and keep it a Hindu-only nation. We will fight and die if required, we will kill as well.”

It must be noted that the hate-speeches of Haridwar were followed up by an action-oriented pledge in Delhi right under the nose of the central government. This is no hush-hush conspiracy. It is an open and manifest intent to commit genocide. The police force, refusing to act, can only be regarded as being complicit.

There is, of course, a political sub-text to all this. Firstly, Yogi Adityanath is nervous about losing the coming UP elections. If the situation gets any worse, communal riots could erupt, as happened in Muzaffarnagar in 2013. Secondly, Yogi is positioning himself, or is being positioned, as the real protector and defender of Hindutva over Modi and is hoping to emerge as a powerful contender for the top job after the 2024 general elections. For that, he has to win the UP Assembly election decisively, and must be seen to have achieved it without help from Modi. Some analysts have speculated that Modi and Shah have set themselves a challenging task – to ensure BJP’s victory, but not a decisive win for Yogi.

Either way, the ‘double-engine government’ seems well disposed to letting the sadhus and sants blow the winds for a communal blaze. The Delhi riots of February 2020 were preceded by a BJP minister’s call for ‘Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maro saalon ko’ against anti-CAA protesters. Imagine what the Haridwar and Delhi calls for genocide of Muslims could lead to.

The MP for ‘ghar wapsi’

As if on cue, the young MP from Bengaluru Tejasvi Surya, too, launched forth on this urgent ‘existential’ question of the Hindu race and its survival. His cheeks red with rage, he asked Hindu seers to fix targets to bring Hindus back into the fold through ‘ghar wapsi’ programmes. Carried away by his own eloquence, he exhorted them to convert even the Muslims of Pakistan to the Hindu fold. Probably, this was the portion he sought to withdraw the next day. Perhaps, the Gambinos in the Parivar got worried over what to do with the likes of Hafiz Sayed and Masood Azhar if they became Hindus!

In any case, dear MP sir, where would you put all those reconverted Muslims, Indian or Pakistani, in our ‘Chatur Varna’ system? Which caste would you fit them in? You may be in a hurry to please your master and become a minister in the Union Cabinet, hence all this venom and posturing. But rabble-rousers are dime a dozen in the party and Parivar now. You have to be and do worse to get what you want. You have a long way to go.

(The writer is a former Cabinet Secretariat official)