The minorities and Dalits across the country are grappling with a new breed of politicians who lend their religious or caste name to mask the Hindutva face of political opportunism.
The minorities and Dalits across the country are grappling with a new breed of politicians who lend their religious or caste name to mask the Hindutva face of political opportunism. Recently, a Minority Affairs Minister in Bihar invited automatic expulsion from Islam by the Patna Imarat Shariah for chanting ‘Jai Sri Ram’ in the State Assembly. The minister went on to defend his brand as the real Islam of worshipping Ram and Rahim and displayed the red Hindu sacred thread ‘kalawa’ or ‘Mouli’ on his wrist. In Goa too, a video of a Catholic MLA performing pooja at a temple continues to do the rounds in the social media and invokes reactions ranging from disgust to laughter. There are Catholic MLAs who have no reservations in ridiculing the Catholic Church for its opinions which may not conform to the government’s position on some issues or policies. In defending the BJP government, these politicians are often seen as flaunting their Christian identity and claiming that they are as much Christian as the church authorities.
The BJP’s former Catholic Deputy CM also courted controversy to defend his party against the accusation of its hand in polarizing the medium of instruction issue when he publicly proclaimed that the Hindu identity comes before his Christian faith making him the centre for jokes in social media circles. It is also not uncommon to see a dalit or minority face of the BJP on TV shows playing down the anti-dalit or anti-minority atrocities. While Christian and Muslim politicians appending a Hindu identity to their faith may be extolled by conservative Hindus as a mark of true secularism, we are yet to see a Hindu politician in the BJP who would tag along a Muslim and Christian identity with his/her Hindu faith like Mahatma Gandhi who said, “I am a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Jew".
The increasing duality, which is very much part of BJP’s hindutva strategy, is also being seen among minority politicians who use their minority status when it comes justifying the communal overtones of their Hindutva political party. This duality or duplicity assumes significance with the increased thrust of the hindutva forces, of which BJP is very much a part, for establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ by 2023. The various government policies and laws stink of covert attempts to strangulate and suffocate the minority institutions and curtail certain social freedom of these communities. The unleashing of goons to beat up minorities who do not conform to the Hindu way of life coupled with the hate rhetoric against minorities from a section of the law makers tilted towards hindutva brings into question the moral responsibility of these politicians from the minority communities who associate with such fanatic ideological organisations.
In Goa, it is the minority MLAs, ‘the ‘Lucky Seven’’, who help mask the duality of the BJP’s secular while in action forwarding the Hindutva agenda. Whether such political association of the Catholic fringe with the hindutva BJP has helped promote the universal values and principles of social justice in governance policies which is an integral part of their catholic faith needs to become the measure to understand the actual religion of such politicians. Or, could it also be that the lucky seven are happy lending their Christian names as decoration to conceal BJP’s larger political agenda of exclusion and despotism as long as their selfish ambitions are met and irrespective of the fallouts on the religious communities?
The one fact which stands out glaringly is that these Catholic MLAs with the BJP have not been known to outrightly condemn the lynchings and hate rhetoric against the minorities by the hindutva fringe elements. Instead, we see an effort by these MLAs to play down the recent spate of desecrations of religious symbols as being the work of the opposition to embarrass the BJP. While the recent call to violence and terror against minorities by a Sadhvi at a Hindu conclave in Goa received widespread condemnation from across communities, the Lucky Seven has either remained mum or evasive in its response.
In this current political context, the BJP should stop fooling the minorities in Goa and the rest of the country by flashing the names of their Lucky Seven minority MLAs. A name alone cannot be the sole sign of a politician’s religion. It is the actions which ultimately speak of their religion. We may be aware of the fact that hindutva trolls also assume christian and muslim names in social media to hide their Hindu identity.
The plight of the Catholic BJP MLAs in Goa looks no better than that of the Lucky Seven casino stranded at Miramar beach. Till such time that they do not clearly define their mind they will remain a mask of deception on a Hindutva face which subscribes to M.S. Golwalkar’s idea that, “The non-Hindu people of Hindustan must either adopt Hindu culture and language, must learn and respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture ... In a word they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizens' rights.”
https://www.heraldgoa.in/Review/Voice-Of-Opinion/That-Minority-Mask-to-a-Hindutva-Face/118564.html
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