In multicultural societies like India, people, in order to preserve their distinct group identities, tend to live in clusters and form a ‘ghetto’ inside a city. In the realm of urban planning and sociology, the evolution of ghettos is often looked down upon, with a reason often cited that the majoritarian inhabitant groups which dominate the cultural ethos are not being accommodative of the newer varieties of either linguistic groups, castes or religions finding their place in the city. However, sometimes it is the ‘other’ groups, which do not wish to amalgamate into the common culture in order to distinguish themselves separately as a group.
While those living in the ‘Parsee colony’ in Mumbai’s Dadar or ‘Chittaranjan Park’ in Delhi celebrate the wearing of the Parsi and Bengali badges on their sleeves, the idea here is to celebrate the individuality while being conscious of being part of a larger metropolitan identity i.e. being a ‘Mumbaikar’ or a ‘Delhiite’. The recent justification for a ghetto as a purely exclusivist sector to be dominated by the majoritarian identity living in the region is brazen and completely uncalled for, in the Indian milieu which has roots in Dharmic pluralism.
When NDTV journalist Sreenivasan Jain wanted to point out that it was the ‘provocative music and slogans’ which incited violence among the Muslim population as Ram Navami Shobhayatra passed through a ‘Muslim area’ in Gujarat’s Himmatnagar, he catapulted two stones of bigotry with a single aisle. Not only did he suggest that there are ‘no-go’ ‘Muslim areas’ which should be left untouched by the ‘kafirs’, he also veneered his argument by overstating the ‘raising of slogans’ as the cause of violence. Jain whitewashed the actual crime, which was stone-pelting and attacks of petrol bombs on the procession by conflating that with the music being played that was ‘problematic’.
The real problem, which has now emerged as a pattern – of stone-pelting on Hindu processions is being secularised, even ignored and justified while the blame is placed upon the victim, for allegedly ‘provoking’ the perpetrators. The rot indeed lies deep. Jain’s NDTV compatriot, Gargi Rawat, minced no words either – while justifying the no-go urban ghettos as ‘Muslim areas’. Rawat’s wordplay starts off with an unapologetic justification of violence by stating that the ‘procession was taken through Muslim areas’ while she ends up blaming the ‘aggressive’ sloganeering for the ‘invariable’ stone-pelting and clashes.
As per Jain and Rawat, Stone-pelting should become invariable and natural if ‘unpalatable’ slogans are raised. It is the words that are more responsible than the actions themselves, more so when the Hindus dare to pass through areas, which are exclusively meant for the Muslim community. One wonders, whether ‘Jai Shree Ram’ will avail a space under the parlance of freedom of speech, which open jokes on burning trains enjoy. Speaking on the Godhra train burnings, it was now time for Islamist Rana Ayyub to sprinkle salt on the 59 Hindu pilgrims burnt alive while travelling from Ayodhya and hold the speeches by ‘VHP and right-wing leaders’ responsible for their carnage instead.
The ecosystem has found new reasons and inventive ways to justify hate crimes against the Hindu population. First, the Hindus are relegated as ‘majoritarian’ in the academic and media discourse. The pattern is later followed by whitewashing crimes of extremists on the streets by Islamist sympathizers online.
This unholy alliance of street power meeting narrative setters has created ‘Muslim areas’ of two kinds. The first one is the physical occupation in the city which often paves way for communal isolation. The second is the intellectual space – where any criticism of Muslim extremism is branded Islamophobic. The space that discourages any discussion on genocides perpetrated by Islamic invaders in Indian history. This is an arena where words are branded as criminal and actions are excused.
If temple halls opening up themselves as spaces for offering namaz is reflective of the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb, then why does the same phenomenon evaporate in the air when Hindu music is played in front of a mosque? And what do the victims get even after passing off all the tests in Bhai-Chara with distinction? At the outset, they get the stones thrown at them if they pass through a restricted area. After this, they get intellectual brickbats for being provocative, if at all their identity on social media is asserted. Certainly, it is not the festival, but the ‘Hindu identity’ itself that is provocative, and hence problematic.
Even if in some cases, the chants given by Hindu extremist groups have had a layer of incitement, the double standards still exist when calling them out. While hate speech needs to be condemned, how can one be expected to believe that a religious chant of ‘Jai Shriram’ or a song calling for the glorification of Hindus is ‘provocative’ of violence? If that were the case, every Azaan from every mosque in India would have been called ‘provocative’ because they announce that ‘Allah is the only God, there is no God other than Allah’ 5 times a day.
It is almost like the ‘Muslim areas’ that our so-called ‘secular-liberals’ mention exist in two parallel dimensions. One is the physical places where Muslims are in majority because our ‘liberals’ have decided that non-Muslims following their religions and celebrating their festivals in those areas are ‘provocative’. The other kind of ‘Muslim area’ exists inside the heads of ‘liberals’, where the crimes committed by Islamists against minorities in those specific areas are whitewashed.
Today, the celebration of the religion on streets of one kind is branded as extremism by our ‘liberals’. Open calls of Azaan and the offering of Namaz on roads are secular, while Ram Navami Shobhayatras have become provocative. Or rather, they have always been. One remembers riots sprawling up in the 1920s undivided India after the Khilafat movement – a similar incident happened in Nagpur when RSS fountainhead young Hedgewar with his friends passed through a Muslim-dominated area during a celebratory rally during Ganesh Utsav. The incident is said to have ignited a fire within Dr K S Hedgewar who went on to form a collective for Hindus, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The multicultural fabric of the Indian society will repel hegemony of any kind – be it physical or of narratives. The assertion of the dharmic identity has proved ‘provocative’ to the secular geniuses, as their ‘secularism’ enfolded not separating the state and the religion, but rather claiming the state and destroying the religion. Hence for them, the ideas of Hindutva are a threat, while actions in Jihad are a given.