India's New Partitions
Published by Aakarsh under India on Wednesday, October 22, 2008Raj at play one more time, with the most malleable and wax-y instrument in our country - Indian Law. Do we have any country in which a political leader not only incites violence frequently, using provocative speeches, but also takes the credit for the vandalism. Raj Thackeray has a problem with everything that is non-Maharashtra. So, he and his people beat all the Non-Maharashtrians there, be it taxi-drivers or shop-keepers or vegetable-sellers. Damn the humanity and brotherhood, a self-respecting Maharashtrian should attack all the non-Maharashtrians and do whatever it takes, be it beating or flogging or killing, to drive them away from the state. And mind you, even film-stars should not be spared.
Divisive politics is something that is as old as Indian democracy (for records sake, lets assume that there is democracy) itself. Perhaps we are familiar with few sides of divisive politics, such as religion based or caste-based politics. For religion based politics, we have BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal who lead the pack, citing a reason - Hindutva. Their vision of paradise in India is not when we have adequate food with no poverty, flourishing economy and peace, but when every single Muslim/Christian etc are driven away from this country. Where to? They have no idea either. I just heard in the news that the VHP WANTS EVERY HINDU TO PERPETUATE HIS RELIGION BY BEGETTING 5 CHILDREN. Reason: The Muslim population is growing a lot and in 90 years, it would overtake Hindu population. So, the 20-30yr olds in VHP cherish the golden dream to seeing more Hindus after 90s, when they are 120yrs old. The Muslims and Christians (not all, but the fanatic sections) have a different view of paradise. They want every Indian to practice Islam/Christianity as God is only Allah/Christ and no one else. It is perfectly justified even if they realize their dream at the cost of few millions of human lives.
In Caste-based politics, i don't think i can take any specific examples as such. Because Indian political system has bred leaders..sorry, ministers and politicians solely by using caste. Apart from Money, Caste is the only backbone of Indian political system. Country's development can wait, after-all, it has been only 61years since we got independence.
A new dimension of disintegration of this country is manifested in the region related divisive politics. AP's telangana issue is an example. Raj Thackeray's issue is slightly different. He is a regional fanatic and He, with his army, don't mind playing with law. Or I should better put it as: Their mind is all about playing with Indian law openly. Where else can you see a politician who OPENLY challenges and threatens the Government, in public meetings and newspapers that Government and People will face dire consequences if they are arrested or stopped in their mission. And that, even after the High Court warns him harshly.
For the last 2 days, several parts of Bombay is burning. The riots and vandalism is against the arrest of Raj Thackeray. He was arrested after his MNS (Maharshtra NavaNirmaan Seva) army attacked/beat Non-Maharashtrians who arrived in Maharashtra to write some Railway recruitment exams. MNS rioters attacked them at the examination centres. The government immediately called for his arrest and Raj Thackeray threatened to set Bombay on fire, if he was arrested. Both happened. But amidst all this ruckus, it is the common man who seems to have suffered the most. A Non-Maharashtrian in Bombay today, shivers to step out of the house probably. He shivers even more to stay in the house, for he doesn't know who might suddenly lock the house and set it on fire. After-all it is indeed the NavaNirmaan of Maharashtra.
After sufficient damage is done (i sometimes wonder if all this is planned, i mean the 'Damage value', be it in money or count of human lives, is probably calculated and they halt the rioting once a certain 'value' is reached, something like a threshold. Indeed, we have lot of threshold), the rioting stops. The activists and supporters are given a break and are asked to attend to specific duties such as transferring bags of money from one house to another. Once that is done, the politician gets the bail and he is let out. It happens the same way with every politician, no matter what crime or in his words - 'cleansing' he commits and it happened the same to Raj Thackeray too. After he threatened the Government and showed a trailer to them, soon after his arrest, the court granted him bail, much to the joy and applause of his supporters, who will now get ready for the next command, next episode and next war. The pages are turned to fresh ones, in the lives of everyone. Politicians, Government, Law, Judiciary, Media and People, for new entertainment to be scripted.
All this game is just for the entertainment of the people in India. Like films. Political Leaders are the script-writers, film-makers and producers. their chamchas and activists are the actors. Innocent people are the villains. Journalists are the cameramen, who don't want to miss a single shot. And pages on which all these are scripted are Democracy, Law, Judiciary etc. All these are collectively entertaining us all, the people of India, by playing with the actors and villains, tearing and raping the pages. We watch the films, get moved by them, have opinions, write blogs and forget. It happens so often now, that it does not matter anymore, or we don't bother anymore, atleast with the same degree of seriousness as we did few years ago. That was new and had shock-value. Now, we Indians are shock-absorbers, of just anything.
Indians don't like anything cohesive. We claim to have fought 'divide and rule' policy and we attach a social stigma to it. But the harsh reality is that we LIKE the divide and rule concept. Indians like to be divided, by religion, then by caste, then by sub-caste, then by sect, then by sub-sect and the moment our brains fail to conceive further divisions beyond these, we pull out another discriminative ideology - Regional Self-Respect and pump up the divisive politics again. So we have a MNS. Then we will soon have a BNS (Bengal) or PNS (Punjab) or even a TNS (Telangaana) by one more power-hungry local politician. On religious politics front, taking the legacy from VHP and Bajrang Dal, India might soon have a HNS (Hindutva NavaNirmaan Seva) or INS (Islam) or CNS (Christian) forming more fire-spewing communities, which go on to contest elections and participate in vandalism simultaneously. But India will never have a BNS (Bharateeya NavaNirmaan Sena).
Now it is Maharashtra and Telangaana, later, India will disintegrate further into more localized groups characterized by region or language or religion or caste of sect or occupation...the list is endless. One partition is already a red blotch in our history. These partitions will script more. The only difference is that we were sensitive to 1947 partition and it might not be the same in future partitions that are to come. These new partitions would be viewed merely as disintegrations. But then, disintegration outside is just a manifestation of the disintegration inside... of an Indian mind, heart and soul.
