Is jungle raj India’s new normal?

The Opposition must point out the ‘jungle raj’ that the BJP has allowed to flourish in states ruled by it in the last 11 years.

When fear starts creeping into your mind every time you step out of your home, what does it signify? When the thought that your everyday interactions in the outside world can result in an ugly, even violent brawl, flashes as a recurring signal, what does it say about the place you belong to?

Both Hindi and Marathi are the lingua franca of India’s financial capital, but speaking in Hindi today to a Marathi-speaking person can be risky, especially if you defend your right to do so.

Viral videos from Mumbai are testimony to how ordinary citizens have been beaten and forced to apologise for standing up for themselves. The long-term trauma such public humiliation must leave on their minds isn’t likely to foster regard either for the ‘Marathi Manus’, in whose name this intimidation is being done, or the language they have been forced to ‘respect’.

But it’s not just Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Shiv Sena (UBT) (which has gone back to its old ways to keep up with the competition) bullies who have been imposing their will on fellow citizens. Ordinary Mumbaikars find themselves assailed in many ways: Ganpati mandals have been allowed to dig footpaths and roads without a care; Jains have been allowed to disregard a high court ban on feeding pigeons in public due to the health risks involved; venerable institutions like St Xavier’s College have cancelled lectures only because the student wing of the ruling party didn’t like the person in whose memory the lecture was to be held.

When those in charge of India’s so-called urbs prima, from the chief minister downwards, are ready to appease lawless groups, what can be expected of the rest of India? Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath never tires of boasting about the way his government has ‘restored’ law and order, but, recently, ordinary residents of UP and also Uttarakhand faced the same possibility of getting beaten for simply going about their lives once they stepped out of their homes. What if they annoyed kanwariyas, who ruled the streets? Some ‘pilgrims’ didn’t even spare cops.

For some of us, even home is not a safe place. If you are a Muslim, lumpen elements can barge into your home and demand to see documentary proof of your citizenship, as happened in Pune with a family with a history of having defended our borders.

Mumbai, Pune, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Kanpur, Hardwar, are all ‘mainstream’ urban centres, routinely in the news. What must it be like in places where the media doesn’t reach? In Guha village, Ahmednagar, a Hindutva group has taken over an 800-year-old dargah and imposed a boycott of Muslims for more than a year.

Muslims who’ve lived there for 40 years have left. In the North-East, which rarely figures in our consciousness, after two years of mob violence, the situation in Manipur remains out of control. Not even the writ of the Centre runs.

However, in the most prominent of the North-Eastern states, Assam, it is the State itself that has turned on its people. Evictions of Bengali-speaking Muslims from lands they have lived on for generations have now become a part of State policy. Not content with this, the chief minister has declared his intention to arm one section of his citizens against fellow citizens who speak Bengali and profess Islam.

Those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, remember being taught ad nauseam about India’s ‘unity in diversity’. School lessons apart, it was a joy to discover that we lived in a country where multiple languages and faiths had co-existed for hundreds of years. India was then a young Republic.

Today, 78 years after Independence, and after 75 years of living under a Constitution that safeguards diversity, it should have been a part of being Indian, not something that even needed mentioning.

However, over the last decade, this diversity seems to have become intolerable for a growing number of Indians, considering the way mobs are turning on their fellow citizens on issues of language, religion, and blind faith. The tragedy is that these mobs are backed by the ruling party, and their feelings of intolerance against those they consider lesser Indians are fuelled by the actions and words of those in power.

The Bihar Assembly campaign will start soon. Former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad’s ‘jungle raj’ will be invoked by the ruling coalition. One hopes the Opposition points out the ‘jungle raj’ that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has allowed to flourish in states ruled by it in the last 11 years.

As we celebrate 78 years of being independent, we too should ask ourselves, how long will we remain mute bystanders to this ‘jungle raj’?

Jyoti Punwani is a senior journalist. 

(X: @jyotipunwani)