Delhi Violence: The BJP’s Scary Vision for ‘New India’

No other frenzy of communal violence has been covered by mass media in such excruciating detail as the one that swept Delhi a few days ago. Right from stone-pelting mobs to policemen loitering on the pavements (or even helping the BJP-led groups in some cases) to armed gangs tearing down mosques and markets and homes burning in the night and the Holocaust that revealed itself when things quietened down. All this wall-to-wall coverage has left a deep imprint on Delhi’s residents and those elsewhere in the country. Except for hardcore fanatics, almost everyone expressed a deep sense of shock and worry. Human beings recoil from wanton bloodshed, the burning of homes, terrified children, and mothers sobbing over dead sons. Delhi too felt the same way.

But as this instinctive response to cruelty and injustice wore down, troubling questions about its details arose. Why did the police or security forces not move in faster? Which politician was where? Who killed whom? Who started it? And the biggest one of them all: What now?

A False Narrative

Carefully calibrated by the same mass media, and managed by the ruling party, a narrative has been cultivated and put in place. Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, was reported to have held a series of meetings after US President Donald Trump left Delhi on the night of February 24. Trump however didn’t have a word of solace for those who suffered in the violence that has since claimed at least 47 lives, in a killing frenzy reminiscent of 1984. Prime Minister Modi tweeted an appeal for “peace and harmony” which was as anodyne as it got. Note that this happened on February 26, the fourth day after violence broke out.

Shah, on his part, spoke about the violence much later – in fact only on February 28 and that too in Odisha, while addressing a rally. He defined the entire narrative by saying that Opposition parties are inciting communal violence on the new citizenship law (CAA) by spreading misinformation. This is far from the truth, as everybody knows. The violence in Delhi was not initiated by either the Congress or Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). And, in any case, CAA was only the proximate cause. It very soon transformed into a full scale attack on Muslim lives and property in the area, with retaliatory violence too taking place.

But, let us follow-up on what Shah said. In the same rally, he also said that the CAA is for giving citizenship to persecuted religious minorities in three neighbouring countries and not for “taking away anyone’s citizenship”. This sleight of hand is not new – it has been the standard BJP response after protests erupted against the law in December and have since continued. The new law will deny citizenship to Muslims as they are not covered by the exemption granted. They will have to traverse an onerous, tougher path.

BJP/RSS Push – Keeping the Pot Boiling

However, that is not the only thing. As with many of these BJP/RSS ideas, legislative or administrative action is a means to create division along religious lines. Abrogation of Article 370 and reducing Kashmir to a dependent Union Territory status was this on display. It was marketed across the rest of the country as a blow against Islamic terrorists and enemies, thereby supposedly “integrating” the state with the rest of the country. Remember, until then, J&K was the only Muslim majority state in India.

The CAA and the proposed population register (NPR) and citizens’ register (NRC) that are to follow, are similar devices. There are not many illegal immigrants or infiltrators in India. But the bogey is a thinly-veiled attempt to create a countrywide division among people on religious lines. In the name of checking citizenship, and given the resistance to it, such divisions will deepen and fester, nourished by the still ongoing barrage of social media campaigns on those called traitors, foreigners, enemies etc.

What happened in Delhi was this, in a capsule. There was an incendiary, poisonous public election campaign calling for violence against Muslims (defined as traitors because they were opposing the CAA/NPR/NRC). This was personally managed by Amit Shah himself. Then, within a couple of weeks, violence broke out.

Is This “New India”?

There is every possibility that this will be repeated across the country using one pretext or another. The immediate target is West Bengal where Assembly elections are looming. After Odisha, Shah addressed a rally in Kolkata on March 1 where chants of the same incendiary slogans were heard. He accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of not caring for refugees (that is, Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh) while protecting infiltrators (that is, Muslim immigrants).

Shah is keeping the CAA/NPR/NRC pot boiling because this is the way that the BJP/RSS can divide and communalise the country. But Delhi has shown the horrendous consequences of this strategy. Dividing people with poison and hate sets free the genie of violence and chaos. Lives are lost, livelihoods destroyed, homes burnt, families uprooted and forced to flee; the flames eat up and destroy all life. And now it can happen anywhere, because the politics of hate is being instilled everywhere.

That is the future if the BJP/RSS continues to rule and push the people towards its vision of ‘New India’. It will be an India of medieval bloodshed and strife, not of prosperity and peace.