People's Democracy

Naazish Abbas

IT is indeed very interesting that each and every matter that the present government seems to want to pick up these days, centres precisely around those issues that are NOT in the National Democratic Alliance’s National Agenda for Governance. Except the uniform civil code (and even that was at least tangentially up for debate during the changes that were recently being proposed in Christian personal law) the entire country seems to be embroiled in debates around either Ayodhya or Kashmir, the two other (supposedly) sticky issues standing between the BJP and its allies. If there were any doubts about the government’s intentions about Ayodhya and Kashmir being made to appear as two sides of the same coin, the prime minister’s blessed "musings" from Kumarakom, mentioning both in the same breath, have certainly helped clarify matters.

In the past few months, those of us watching governmental (and more specifically) prime ministerial utterances on "matters of national importance" have been feeling vaguely unsettled. It certainly is no one’s case that one should expect any better from a government that has strong and committed roots in the politics of exclusion. But actually watching attempts at changing the nature of the state (over even such a short period) and of new attitudes being injected into public debate by regular reinforcements is a completely different ball game. It is not about mere policy statements or jottings on a dusty file that one is talking about. This is all about attitudes, which are causing unsettlement.

Take Kashmir first. What started out with just a feeling of uneasiness when the PM and the home ministry trumpeted the view that it was only the jihad and the jihadis that were the problem, actually left a lot of us completely out in the cold. A lot of us born with names or even surnames with hints of Persian (read "Muslim names"), born well after the dust raised by partition had settled and certainly well after it was second nature to cheer for the Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath, suddenly seemed to get a bit of a shock. It was again time to issue apologies about one’s "difference," recite the odd shloka we had picked up more self-consciously than ever before, and shout much louder than necessary when Kumble grabbed his ten wickets. Suddenly, it seemed like it was the right time for Hindu-Muslim Bhai Bhai, and the usual "Some of my best friends are……"

It isn’t as if it is anyone’s case that there aren’t a few of those gun- toting jihadis in the fray. Not at all. But is it just a problem of faiths/cultures/civilisations; like what Samuel Huntington has tried to potray in his Clash Of Civilisations ? Are all problems to be reduced to one "cultural type" battling another? The tolerant Hindu host to the obnoxious and ungrateful Muslim invader? Are there no real problems in Kashmir? No developmental issues, no job insecurity or anything else that may be affecting the Kashmiri pandits as much as the Muslims in the area? What is the problem is not the fact that we have no answers to these questions, but the fact that there is a government in office that does not even wish to pose questions in that way.

Now consider Ayodhya. What was not just shocking but simply appalling was the prime minister calmly positing the highly divisive and emotive issue of the mandir as a "national sentiment." He went on to assert that he was a reasonable man and was, like all reasonable men, open to a "dialogue." But between whom? On what? And within what parameters? Would those who have long since pretended to be sole proprietors of the "minority community" sit down and negotiate with representatives of the VHP? Where would those of us, who have just the slight whiff of Persian in our names and a habit of cheering Tendulkar, go? Where do we stand in this business of "dialogue" that the prime minister suddenly wants to engage in? But if he is only talking about talking to unwilling masked jihadis in Kashmir and equally jihadi recalcitrant maulanas of the Babri Masjid Reconstruction Committee in the case of Ayodhya, why should that worry me? But it does. Because the message is not lost on anybody.

And if it had missed some of us who are hard of hearing the first time around, a refreshed Kerala-returned Vajpayee has just reminded everybody. In his historical and societal paradigm, it all hangs together. Ayodhya, the hundred year dispute, and Kashmir, the other big problem facing India. This is being termed by some in the media as the great political document that will outline the terms that the BJP would wish to go to the polls in the future on. But what this suggests is much more than just a political document for the future being prepared. This is the outline of the great, reasonable Hindu state. Needing a sense of the `other,’ and more than that, the hated `other’ to survive. Needing the fuel of certain emotions to propel it. Emotions that momentarily make sure that no one mentions performance, or asks for bridges or roads or even just water and food in a calm, calculated manner. This prime minister is expressing his wish to `talk,’ engage in a dialogue with the unreasonables, with those who don’t listen, the ungrateful and the essentially, the other.

By such venerable gestures like pretending to talk (but on his calling and terms) the state that Vajpayee envisages, wants to bring all of India on the line. And divided into two. The definition and the outlining of the two problems that he has chosen is bad enough. But what these extremely dangerous "musings" and other statements over the past few months do is clearly lay it out on the table for all to see. This is the vision of India that they wish to take in the next millennium. These are their priorities and this is their framework, and it has never so clear before.

And after all, as far as we are concerned, there are only two teams that play the World Cup. India and Pakistan. And yes, our prime minister is talking about the Pakistan his associates have referred to earlier, that is, their conviction about the Pakistan within India. And if you have a surname that sounds vaguely `foreign,’ it doesn’t matter if you cheer for Sachin Tendulkar or for Moin Khan. This government has it all sorted. It is a brand New Millennium and a Happy New Year.