People's Democracy

After Babri Masjid: 1992-2002

Nalini Taneja

THIS month, December 2002, marks ten years since the destruction of Babri Masjid in India, and much that has changed throughout South Asia. What remains salvaged faces danger of being eroded, not merely through the agency of right wing religious fundamentalist groups that easily traverse the ground between legal and extra constitutional activity at will—the Sangh Parivar and the like--but also as a consequence of political groups represented directly in parliamentary institutions which espouse religious causes, sanction killings of religious minorities, use religion to browbeat secular expressions in academics and culture, and in the name of tradition threaten to set back the gains of the women’s movements throughout our region. South Asia is at a crucial turn ten years after the event that shocked millions out of complacency that all was well with their world.

 ASSERTION OF THE RIGHT WING FORCES

 What is happening in the countries of South Asia in a sense follows logically out of the particular ‘episode’ that signalled the attack on democracy. Gujarat, starvation deaths in many states of India, many of them non-BJP, the fierce attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, on Christians in Pakistan, and on political dissent in Nepal and Bangladesh, the ethnic-sectarian rigidities in Sri Lanka, the brutalisation of police, paramilitary and armed forces and privatisation and cuts in welfare expenditure across the board, herald an era of utter disregard for human life and well being as never before. It would not be wrong to say that Babri Masjid, despite participation of thousands in its demolition, signified a spectacular show of strength by right wing forces prepared to ride roughshod over the aspirations of the poor, hell bent on turning the deprived into the marginalised as well. The ‘Mandir’ to counter ‘Mandal’ was only one aspect of this strategic decision by the right wing forces in India, and has been followed by similar strategic decisions on the part of ruling classes and political leadership in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal, as one can easily see from the linked upsurge in sectarian conflicts and liberalisation policies in all these countries.

The abandoning of the notions of social democracy and affirmative measures on behalf of the minorities and the poor has been made a political virtue in the name of ‘the nation’ and ‘national development’, and there is no longer any pretence by the ruling classes and dominant political leaderships, even in argument, to grapple with the question whether the nation could move ahead leaving behind its millions to face starvation and illiteracy. Sadly, such questions are not even being posed in classrooms today in universities that pride themselves in being centres of advanced learning.

SECTARIAN VIOLENCE

In a sense Babri Masjid demolition has made possible and even sanctioned Gujarat, if one is to seek meaning in the fact that the BJP rule remains intact through the parliament and ‘secular’ political groups in the NDA refuse to hold the prime minister and the home minister of India responsible for the barbarism, making believe that a Modi could determine decisions on his own, even as the top leadership of the RSS reigns in the Centre. The Babri Masjid demolition has inaugurated an era that sanctions and makes ‘normal’ throughout South Asia sectarian killings as would have rocked political forums ten years ago, and starvation deaths that should have threatened the survival of governments in power even in days when countries did not boast of the ‘development’ and self reliance and surpluses in grain production that they do today.

In Pakistan, the almost universal condemnation of Zia’s military takeover by the secular intelligentsia of that country is today replaced by riders that Musharraf (in gathering all power for himself through self-generated amendments in the constitutional structure) is, after all, keeping the fundamentalist forces at bay. The initiative for critiquing US policies in the region has been surrendered to the right wing religious parties in Pakistan. In Bangladesh, attacks on people’s democratic rights are being accepted as assertions of Bangladeshi identity and a wholesale destruction of the livelihood of the millions of urban poor goes unnoticed, and in Nepal the aftermath of the regicide has left peasants suffering the consequences of the new political regime’s attempts at gaining control and legitimacy through authoritarian means. One could go on with such illustrations.

FASCISM OCCUPIES CENTRE STAGE

In our country, the sangh parivar has virtually brought a sea change in methods of political mobilisation. It conducts itself on the political terrain with impunity, asserting openly that what the government machinery says is of little consequence. Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara no doubt got away with anti-Muslim rhetoric of the worst kind even prior to 1992, but the manner in which Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore and Praveen Togadia hog headlines in newspapers today and are seen on TV screens as part of ‘discussion’ shows on issues of national importance, leaves little room for doubt that this fascist right wing occupies centre stage in the political process and political debate. They have become part of the policy making structure through the BJP government. “Lyngdoh is a modern day Aurangzeb…a Nadir Shah” pronounces VHP leader Acharya Dharmendra Maharaj, attacking the very custodian of the legitimate political process and authority, virtually creating a vision of an enemy through images created through years of communal propaganda. What the Muslims have to hear about themselves day in and day out in reports of these people’s speeches is nothing new. What is new is the acceptability these people enjoy as mainstream political creatures, even amongst sections of society that pride themselves as being part of ‘tolerant’ Hinduism and decent sensibility.

What is also new is that those in government too manage to get away with similar rhetoric. The home minister routinely speaks in his capacity as RSS ideologue through government platforms. The prime minister is not averse to taking such liberties as and when he thinks fit, and Murli Manohar Joshi reminds us every now and then that if any minister has fulfilled the RSS agenda it is he.

The man who originally bridged the gap between the RSS and the world of academics, and translated RSS shakha constructed folklore into ‘research’, Arun Shourie, is today busy facilitating the right wing economic project, guaranteed to win for Hindutva forces the support of such ‘world fighters against terrorism’ as the US; and one must not forget that Chandrababu Naidu, who boasts of Andhra doing today what the rest of the country does tomorrow (by way of liberalising that is) was also the first to cross over from the Third Front to the BJP alliance. About the ‘old socialist’ George Fernandes the less said the better.

Violence today is as much rooted in liberalisation processes as it is in sectarian religious conflicts, and sanction of attacks on labour and the democratic right of protest by labour and other sections of working people, and on welfare measures in the face of starvation deaths and indebtedness of economies in south Asia is unexplainable in terms other than a partnership between globalising forces and communal mercenary armies in the region.

Clearly, if the destruction of Babri Masjid was sanctioned by and effected in a political climate that witnessed, and was ‘used to’ regarding as routine, many other forms of violence, the event of the destruction itself has ushered in a new era that sanctions and even takes pride in eroding what remains of the gains made by people’s struggles against colonialism and in the decades following independence in all the countries of our region.