-SANJOG MAHESHWARI.
Only because the Constitution of India does not give any precise, concise and clear-cut definition of ‘minority’ or for that matter ‘minority community’- either intentionally or by design or just inadvertently (what?) nobody knows for sure- every now and then, one or the other section of citizens, tears itself off its original Hindu fold and stakes its claims to the minority status, which is more than readily, rather greedily, accepted by the ruling combine for the sake of inflating its vote-bank comprising of thus obligated section(s). In turn, these sections of citizens, who arrogate to themselves the minority status in connivance with the ruling political class, enjoy: ever inflating kitty particularly of quota /reservation benefits in government jobs and services, and establishing and running educational institutions of their choice, and other favours and privileges generously doled out to them, as quid-pro-quo, by the ruling political combine at the cost of larger national interests.
The latest group to be so admitted as minority is the Jain community. “Maheshwaris” , reportedly next in the queue, are trying desperately to fit in the loose and lousy ‘minority frame’ in terms of Article 29 of the Constitution. They argue that they have a distinct language- ‘Marwari’ with a distinct script ‘Mudia’ as also a distinct culture ‘Shaivait’ – the one and the only one quite distinct and distinguished community claiming to be descendants from Lord Shiva. The bonanza, however, is generally orchestrated in the run-up of the general elections, for the obvious reasons.
WHAT IS HINDUISM?
Hinduism arguably is a way of life and living, and not a religion, in the strict sense in which the term ‘religion’ is generally understood and accepted world over. While all the so-called world religions have a distinct identity with their closed, compartmentalized pre-structured formulation, Hinduism is a value-based cultural bouquet adorned by many religious beliefs and practices- all flowers blooming in their individual identity, fragrance and glory. Thus we see there have been (some still are) the sects/religions like Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Shaivas, Veerashaivas, Aryasamajis, Brahmosamajis, and numerous others coexisting, within a broad all embracing framework without the least calling for a compromise with what their own distinct faith, religious practices, rituals, ways of worship, beliefs, legends cherish or ordain. Thus they coexisted in the Hindu fold in the millieu of perennial fraternal love for each other since ages.. Thus Hinduism can be defined and described as a cultural ‘Federation of National Religions& Faiths’.
STRENGTH WEAKNESSES OPPORTUNITIES & THREATS – SWOT ANALYSIS OF HINDUISM
While this liberal and elastic arrangement should be looked up to as the strength of Hinduism due to its potent power of assimilation and inclusiveness, sadly turns out to be its weakness; thanks only to the existing political dispensation that encourages divisive politics of ‘vote-bank and identity.’ In the quest for power via the ‘vote-banks’, almost every political outfit vies with each other to divide and subdivide the nation in various targeted identifiable independent groups on the basis of religion, community, caste, region, language, culture, backward, dalit, non-dalit and every other conceivable or non-conceivable formulation. This policy of the politicos and political classes relentlessly pursued all through the last more than six decades is further solidly backed and reinforced by ‘quota/ reservation’ plans for the targeted, identified classes and so-called minorities. Thus this cultural steel structure and the framework called Hinduism which have been bonding the civic society of India since Aryan days is now increasingly getting venerable to the repeated planned attacks on it to weaken, and if possible, dismantle it altogether. United States of America, which once was inhabited by the people of more than a dozen nationalities, several different races, followers of various religious faiths and beliefs, soon became one solid nation, thanks only to their loose federal structure which, at best, is a political replication of our own more than 5000 years old cultural federation, recently came to be known as “Hinduism.” The proud Aryan legacy which our own political class is bent upon weakening, instead of taking full advantage of it in the larger national interests. As of now, it is surely and systematically being dismantled by the entrenched vested self-interests of politicos and political outfits. Brick by brick the framework is being pulled apart.
The Hindu population is thinning vis-a-vis the Muslim population which is increasing in geometrical progression as against the Hindu increasing in arithmetical progression only, but at the same time, also decreasing with the big chunks of it furiously breaking-off from the parent body to form minority communities. They do so just to get an edge over other communities and gain numerous other benefits and advantages, which come along with the minority status.
HINDUS BREAKING UP
All Hindu communities crave for the minority, backward or dalit and scheduled caste or scheduled tribe status. And why should they not, if it is politically, socially and economically expedient to do so. For the ruling political class the newly formed vote-banks promise rich dividends in elections? If such a divisive politics is detrimental to the larger national interests, and inhibits national integration, who cares?
ABUSES OF THE BIGGEST MINORITY (READ MUSLIM) VOTE BANK
Indian Muslims allow themselves to be used as a solid vote bank- a floorboard from which to demand limitless concessions in exchange of votes from the much-too-willing political outfits. For very obvious reasons, while the Congress party won’t ever admit that their Muslim-vote bank only had won most of the elections for them so far ever since independence and every time the identity politics yielded rich dividends for the party, the stinking fact stinks sky-high. The related issues of minority, minority institutions and reservation ( proposed 15% reservation for Muslims in jobs, seats in educational institutions etc. could be seen as the reward proposed to be given to the community in recognition of its king-size contribution in the victory of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha elections and, also in substantially improving the party’s presence in the states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh etc. leading it to winning the Assembly elections as well in the later two), need to be revisited, reviewed and redefined in the context of larger national interests. The provisions of the Article 29 & 30 of the Constitution have already been put to much abuse in cultivating and promoting the identity and vote-bank politics to the detriment of larger national interests. While any religion-based reservation in an educational institution aided by the State is ultra vireos constitutional provisions, these Articles are constantly misinterpreted by the pseudo-secularists to promote their own entrenched vested interests. The devious minority (read Muslim) vote-bank and identity politics that is inimical to the larger national interests is relentlessly pursued to gain political mileage over the rivals and win elections.
ARTICLES 29 & 30 OF THE CONSTITUTION
Enough of the divisive politics and balkanization of the nation on communal lines in the guise of safeguarding minority (read Muslim) interests. It is high time now that we rubbished and scrapped Articles 29 & 30 being detrimental to the national integration. They seriously offend larger national interests in more than one way. In fact the “Secularism” as enshrined in the Preamble of our Constitution, slams down such a suggestion of dividing nation on communal lines. There is no room for exclusiveness in our colourful cosmopolitan composite culture. Let all political parties contest elections on their own merit instead of resorting to the identity politics to win them.
VOTE-BANK & IDENTITY POLITICS-MOCKERY OF THE CONSTITUTION
Unfortunately, the vested interests, in an all out effort to appease the so called minority, are hell bent to make a mockery of the Constitution, its secular ideals and circumventing the successive judicial orders and decisions also. Ours seem to be a deeply flawed democracy. While the challenge before the nation is to combat and liquidate Minoritism as it is an antithesis to our secular ideals and stimulates fissiparous tendencies, politicians and political parties vie with each other for gaining maximum political mileage by practicing the vote-bank and identity politics, which has since been fine-tuned and perfected as an art and science of winning elections. They nurse, promote and consolidate the minority(read Muslim) vote bank to win elections and having won the elections, don’t have the moral strength to interfere with the community’s population-boosting programmes, even when the burgeoning population of the country has been posing the biggest and the greatest challenge ( mother of most of our national problems and maladies of all the times), before the nation as it results in a huge surge of scramble for the severely limited national resources resulting in hunger, poverty, mal-nutrition, suicides etc. for more than 37% of the population below the poverty line and a miserable existence for the next 50%. Thus, as of now, the whole country is fit for living only for the remaining less than 13% rich, mighty and powerful.
Patting on one's own back in endless self-congratulatory motions, and shouting from every house top about the marginally increased growth rate only in the Industrial sector, and that too ,entirely at the cost of farm sector in a predominantly agricultural economy like India, would look cruelly ironical , illogical, totally irrelevant and meaningless to the teeming millions of this country. Why do they talk only in muted whispers about growth, if any, in the Agricultural sector which only has any meaning and substance in a predominantly agricultural economy? Are they so naive as to not know that the prices of all the essential commodities have been going through the roof only because of the criminal neglect of the farm sector all through the last several years, in fact, ever since independence? Sizable population of Hindus who depended on farming and farm based industries for centuries for their livelihood had to rush to urban conglomerations and cities in search of work; the exodus remains unabated.
Polarization of communities into religion-based “majority” and “minority” serves only the political designs of the wily politicos, divides the nation on communal lines, encourages the Minority (read Muslims) to increase its number through rapid senseless reproduction only for gaining undue advantages and concessions for the community from the all too-willing political outfits in exchange of their votes. Who bothers if it leads to the cut-throat scramble for severely limited National resources, so long as the compromise helps win the elections (which it invariably does)? In the process the relations between the various communities are also get stressed and threatened.
It would be interesting to recall that some time ago, questioned about doing something for the Minority (read Muslims) in Gujarat, the C.M. Narendra Modi aptly observed, “In my Gujarat there is only one community, and it is called ‘Gujarati’. So where is the question of doing something for anything which does not exist at all?” That is the secularism manifested in its truest form, glory and spirit. Muslims of Gujarat were quick to recognize it and again voted Modi to power, who brought prosperity to Gujarat benefiting all sections of Gujaratis- Muslims of the state included.
DIVISIVE POLITICS
In all the elections so far, the Congress Party’s trajectory to the winning post went via the expressed or implied “Muslims having the first right to the National Resources” theory of the party. This divisive approach has been replicated by other players in different forms as well- In several U.P. Assembly elections, Mr.Mulayam Singh experimented with: Muslims +OBC, and Ms. Mayawati with: Muslims + SC/ST combination of the vote-bank with resounding success. Earlier, late V.P. Singh, then the wiliest cat of the U.P’s. Political jungle, showed the path to his minor aficionados by catapulting himself to the top post on the strength of the formidable vote-bank comprising of Muslims + SC/ST +OBC votes. Thus in many cases,- U.P and Bihar Assembly elections, in particular,- the Congress Party was forced to kiss the dust by its one time rivals using the very weapon, it had earlier invented and used to the hilt, to win elections. In the process, the loser all the way has been the nation as a whole, and the all-time gainer: the identified community, getting politically stronger by the day, simply by increasing its numerical strength through rapid reproduction. Even the short-term winner- the pro-tempore winning political party, to its great chagrin, may find, but never admit, that all those were it’s spurious victories at the cost of larger national interests-unity and solidarity of the nation.
In situations like these, where means justify the end, the ‘foul’ becomes ‘fair’ and the only thing that counts is the success; who cares for the ‘principled approach and secularism in its truest form as enshrined in our Constitution? The long term and far bigger National Interests are sacrificed at the altar of pseudo-secularism.
The unfortunate culture of divisive politics does not end here. It goes on to spread its poisonous tentacles in yet another vicious manner and form: Demand for bifurcation and trifurcation of the existing states into smaller units, and that too in the name of development. The local out-of- the- job politicians weave dreams of becoming C.Ms of the smaller units-more the merrier. After all, a C.M. or a M.L.A of a Lilliputian state enjoys all power, pelf, perks, pay, pension, govt. mansion etc. all at par with his counterpart of a big state. The only loser is the nation and the people. The former gets divided and fragmented, and the later having to foot hugely vulgar bills to keep the augmented armies of the politicians and the bureaucrats of the new states, good humoured.
While many, if not the most, politicians keep engaged in dividing the country on caste, community, region and religion lines and that too in the name of secularism, Mr. Modi seems to beckon Indians to be more circumspect and consider themselves as Indians first and last. It is not for nothing that the people of India regard Mr.Modi as made of the stuff the P.Ms are made-secular to the core and unambiguously assertive about it.
If the very concept of minority is completely obliterated from the psyche of our polity and the society and in its place secularism-as distinct from pseudo-secularism- is ingrained therein then as sure as the day follows the night we will achieve full national integration – perhaps, we can do without a full-fledged Ministry of Minority Affairs at the Centre and/or at the State level and put the money so saved to some better use. By all means let us junk this identity politics and our minority-fixation. It is fraught with serious dangers to the political and economic health of the nation. But the demagogues, across the board, dread the change. For if concepts of minoritism and identity politics are given the go-by, all those who can’t rely on their own merit to get to the winning post, will get marginalized and lose their lucrative jobs. This malady, however, will continue to play havoc with the long term national interests, till we replaced this deeply flawed Westminster type of Parliamentary democracy by the Presidential model of democratic governance- a Hindu prototype of federal political order- dreaded by both Communists and Communalists alike. See, who bells the cat?
-SANJOG MAHESHWARI
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