The Creeping Communalism of the Bengali (and Indian) Middle Class
Communalism has been part of our existence for thousands of
years. For those who associate communalism with the advent of Muslims in India
(and forget that they came to India by sea to Kerala in the 8th
century, not with the Ghazni invaders), should remember that we had violent
communal clashes in the seventh century when Brahmanism took over ground from
the Buddhists and when the Saivites in Tamil Nadu fought the followers of
Vishnu.
However when we talk communalism, we mean what we used to
earlier say in hushed terms, and now in louder voices, the “ Muslim question”.
We are we, and they are Muslims and occasionally Christians and, not to forget,
in the 1980s, the Sikhs. But let us take the Muslim question which, of course,
is what seems to drive the discourse among the Bengali Middle class today.
When we were young, our parents had seen the communal riots
during independence, but mainly as children.
The Partition and its aftermath had coloured the visions of their
parents, but in the fifties with the India project taking off and the changes
in the political and economic landscape post-independence, communalism was not
fashionable. That is not to say that at private conversations people did not talk
about communal, dirty, anti-national Muslims, and finally with a twinge of
envy, “they can have 4 wives.” I am sure that in Muslim families, such
conversations centered on the unreliability, untruthfulness and alleged
cowardice of Hindus (and god knows what else). But it was not fashionable to
say it out aloud and most educated persons did not articulate such sentiments in
polite society.
Part of the credit must go the ubiquity of the communist
influence in Bengali middle class society. They were able to divert the
understandable resentment against the Muslims of East Pakistan to economic
issues for the refugees from the east. For all their faults, the communists in
those days were definitely non communal in their outlook. In fact, they
nurtured a discourse that absolutely excluded the community from all
discussion. It was because of the economic agenda and the stature of Bidhan Roy
that the Hindu Mahasabha died a natural death in Bengal.
However the atmosphere changed about two decades ago. It
became fashionable to be openly communal in the nineties with the so called Ram
Janmabhoomi movement. I can speak of my friends and relatives who, in the
Marxist Calcutta of that time, suddenly became acutely conscious of their Hindu
and often Brahman identity. Conversations were rife about the number of temples
that Muslims had broken over the centuries, and how the destruction of the
Babri masjid would transform India. Very few seemed to see the humour of an entire
poverty stricken country deciding that the principal agenda of development was
a Ram temple. However the Babri Masjid went, but Indian remained where it was;
the changes came from the transformations brought about by the now much
maligned Manmohan Singh who, together with Narashima Rao, actually changed the
face of India.
Then the communal fervor seemed to die down again. But in
the run up to the last general elections, the Bengali middle class went
ballistic with their communal agenda. Aided now with the ubiquitous social
media, it became possible now to peddle half-truths, plain lies and simply
silly propaganda at lightning speed. But that was not the issue. The issue was
that it all found fertile soil. The Bengali middle class appeared to be ready
now for full scale communalism. And today the pages of Facebook, Twitter and so
on are rife with comments that would have been though unthinkable in the
seventies and eighties. Young men, mainly, thankfully women seem to be a little
backward in this respect, are publishing opinions and comments which are openly
communal and seem to be designed to spread hatred against the Muslim community.
No doubt, similar sentiments are also rife among the Muslim community. I just
don’t get to see most of it. Soon, it
will no doubt, spread to target other communities as well. The antics of the
great Hindu warrior Dara in Orissa seem to have been forgotten; more is the
pity. The sad part of all this is that educated people, specialist doctors, and
men of business who, one would think would have a more open outlook and would
be better read and have a more mature understanding all seem to agree that
getting rid of the Muslims would be the salvation of India.
Another dangerous trend is the appropriation of national
symbols for the purpose of furthering the cause of communalism. Patel and
Rajendra Prasad have already been appropriated to the communal pantheon. This
is only possible for those totally devoid of a sense of history. While Patel
and Prasad were critical of many of Nehru’s policies (and history has proved
them right in many ways), anybody who has any knowledge of their politics and
work would find it inconceivable that they would approve of Gujrat riots as a
just retribution to Muslim threats. Patel was, incidentally, the man who banned
the RSS after the assassination of Gandhi, and Prasad was Gandhi’s front man to
stop the riots in Bihar that preceded Independence. Reading the perorations of
the communal cyberwarriors , one would think that they were card carrying members
of the Hindutwit brigade, which is a grave insult
to these great men.
A large part of the blame must be shouldered by the past
political dispensation that ruled India or at least their activities during the
last 3 years of their rule. Led by a man who does not show any obvious
( or even hidden) leadership qualities, they allowed the communal
agenda to set the stage and to allow the communalists to appropriate the
development agenda as well.
No matter what the Marxian analysis may say, all successful
countries, and in the Indian context, states, succeed because of their middle
class. If India is to rise and really make this century India’s, the middle
class must shed the communal mindset. This mindset is primitive and should
never be allowed to dominate the agenda in the twenty first century. We have,
for the most part been able to overcome the regionalism which was the bane of
the early days of the Republic. Now we must stop this creeping communalism. The
communalism of Bengal and India must stop.
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