Haridwar Dharma Sansad (Jan. 17 -19): Call for Genocide and the Modi Regime: Two Very Significant Comments

[Sukla Sen]

Just compare the stony silence of the ruling party at the state and the centre and deliberate inaction of the administration with the frenzied response to subsequent shrill cries of "threat to the life of the Prime Minister", in Ferozepur of Punjab on January 5th - pretty much a concocted one, taking off from, at the most, some sort of "security lapse" concerning a cavalcade of the PM involving agencies under both the concerned state and central governments.

Response just not by the state and the Hindutva Brigade - with the ruling party at its core, but also the godi media - the electronic in particular.

How so very absurd and frightening!

The only silver lining is that the Supreme Court of India, the credibility of which appears to have been partially - even if only partially, restored, after passing through its, obviously, the darkest patch ever - except for the interregnum of the Emergency, under the two immediately preceding CJIs, viz. Justice Gogoi and Bobde, is, now, engaged with both the cases. (Ref.: "'Blame Game Between Centre & Punjab, Questions Can't Be Left To One-Sided Enquiries': Supreme Court On PM Security Lapse" at <https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-pm-narendra-modi-security-lapse-blame-game-between-centre-and-punjab-189335> and "Haridwar Hate Speeches : Supreme Court Issues Notice On PIL Seeking Action; Allows Petitioners To File Complaints Against Other Similar Meetings" at <https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/haridwar-hate-speeches-supreme-court-issues-notice-on-pil-seeking-action-189297>.)

That offers, at least, some room for hope.

I/II.

<<This [Haridwar] event [during 17-19 Dec. last, issuing call for genocide] has been widely reported in the print media, both domestically and internationally. It has been covered in electronic media, and of course, on social media. First information reports have been filed. Petitions have been signed and presented. Nothing else has happened. No one is being held accountable for these calls to violence, to murder, to kill. They are calls to tear apart this country, to destroy India. The government has remained silent.

This is what is most frightening. The leader of the country has remained silent. Silence, in the face of this, is assent. Silence, by the country’s leader, is permission. Silence is agreement. This is not a fringe group with their calls for genocide. This silence says the government is willing, the government of India wills it.>>

(Excerpted from: <https://scroll.in/article/1014076/haridwar-and-after-silences-past-and-present-have-enabled-genocides>.)

II. 

Also highly significant:

<<I have argued elsewhere that the relationship between nationalism and violence is both intimate and two-way. We are accustomed to thinking that nationalism can lead people to kill and die in the name of the nation. When nationalism becomes extreme, its believers also become extreme in their readiness to kill or die for the nation. All nationalism contains the germ of suicide-bombing. And the idea that only Islam spawns jihadis is one of the great lies of our times. Every Hindu, Christian or Jew who is willing to implode or self-immolate in the hope of achieving the status of martyr and soldier together, is part of the inner logic of nationalism, even if an extreme version. A committed army, police force or commando outfit minus the constant trumpet of nationalism is impossible, or toothless. We do not need to say much more about the road from nationalism to violence.

...

It is in and through violence, both official and unofficial, that the sense of the sacredness of the nation is renewed, revived and restored. The recent theatrical displays by Modi and his acolytes in sites such as Varanasi, are also ways of renewing the always finite supply of sacred fuel for the machinery of nationalism. So too is the effort to rebuild central Delhi, to rewrite history in textbooks, social media and official propaganda, and to brutally subordinate subaltern populations, such as those of Kashmir. In all the places in which the Indian armed forces are involved in violence against Indian populations (in the tribal belt, in Maoist areas, in the North-East, in every single border state), violence has a utilitarian function (the imposition of state-sponsored order) but it also has a spectacular or theatrical function, which is to ensure that nationalism is not forced to go on life-support.

...

Modi's India has now entered into the phase of genocidalism, the most advanced stage of nationalism. This stage, however, requires the open fuelling of the genocidal machine, even in the face of critics at home and the likely horror of critics abroad. It reveals the manic workings of the nationalist machinery in India, which can no longer be content with sporadic, spontaneous or localised episodes of violence. It needs systematic bolstering and mobilisation. It requires public policy, either from the state or from those very close to it.>>

(Excerpted from: "Modi’s India Has Now Entered Genocidalism, the Most Advanced Stage of Nationalism" at <https://m.thewire.in/article/politics/narendra-modi-india-genocidalism>.)

[Sukla Sen]

Yet another to add:

<<...The Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai apps are part of a large and ever-growing list of hate crimes that are the spontaneous initiatives of ordinary people. What we are witnessing is nothing less than the successful culmination of a nearly century-long campaign of empowerment. It is only habit that makes us think that this word should be reserved for politically correct things, like the empowerment of women. Whatever else they are or are not, Vishal, Shweta, Mayank and Neeraj are certainly shining examples of empowered youth. They are living evidence of the success of the larger campaign that has shaped the environment in which they came of age, and bequeathed to them the fantasies that they have felt emboldened to enact in real life.

Since it began in the 1920s, the larger Hindutva project of the Sangh Parivar founded on hatred for Muslims (and others) had only been battery-powered, so to speak, requiring the dedicated labour of anonymous activists to keep the batteries charged. The Modi-Shah regime has plugged this project into the power of the state. Today’s spontaneous hate crimes are the bitter harvest of fields cultivated laboriously for a century and fertilised with state power since 2014.>>

(Excerpted from: <https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/hate-crimes-bitter-harvests-fields-cultivated-for-century-7722029/>.)