With a sharp shift in most states of In­dia to­wards right-wing pol­i­tics and with mi­nori­ties ei­ther si­lenced, as­sim­i­lated or forced to join the ranks in the march to­wards a Hindu Rash­tra, 2019 may be a wa­ter­shed in the sec­u­lar de­sign of In­dia.

Any In­dian re­turn­ing home af­ter a gap of 2 or 3 years can sense the change. The com­mu­nal, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal di­vides are clearly vis­i­ble in every walk of life. It’s pal­pa­ble -on the bill­boards on streets, in the me­dia and on tele­vi­sion -day in and day out. The crit­i­cal ques­tion then is, are we drift­ing to­wards a theo­cratic state like Saudi Ara­bia and Yemen or a law­less coun­try like Rwanda?

No one has any doubts now that the ul­ti­mate am­bi­tion of the right wing in In­dia was al­ways to cre­ate a Hindu Rash­tra. Vig­i­lantes killing peo­ple in the name of cow pro­tec­tion with re­li­gious lead­ers and be­hind the scene or­ga­ni­za­tions have al­ready started their ground­work. Cul­tural ag­gres­sion, in­fus­ing a sense of in­se­cu­rity among mi­nori­ties, vote pol­i­tics based on re­li­gious and caste lines to­gether with con­sti­tu­tional en­gi­neer­ing seem to be their favoured tools. A pli­able main­stream In­dian me­dia is play­ing sec­ond fid­dle.

“The al­ter­nate me­dia is get­ting into a re­source crunch. This gov­ern­ment is not go­ing to al­low its sus­tain­abil­ity. Nei­ther are the en­tre­pre­neurs look­ing into this sec­tor. One can­not be a jour­nal­ist and work in the cor­po­rate or main­stream me­dia, which is a dis­heart­en­ing sit­u­a­tion. We all have grown very scared of the word ‘lib­er­al’.”   Har­tosh Singh Bal, Ed­i­tor, The Car­a­van

Since 2014, when Modi as­cended to power the mi­nori­ties and weaker sec­tions of In­dian so­ci­ety have started to de­velop a sense of in­se­cu­rity. Ut­tar Pradesh is a test­ing lab for their grand de­signs. It started with ‘love ji­had’ al­le­ga­tions against Mus­lim men which proved a hoax and ‘ghar wap­si’ to forcibly re­con­vert lower caste peo­ple who have been un­der brah­mini­cal sub­ju­ga­tion for cen­turies. Then in the name of beef ban, they started killing Mus­lims ac­cused of stor­ing or eat­ing beef.

Mo­hammed Akhlaq’s house in Dadri, UP was raided by the vig­i­lantes claim­ing that beef was found in his fridge and he was beaten to death. No­body both­ered to no­tice in de­tail and sub­se­quent foren­sic lab tests proved that the meat sam­ple was mut­ton and not beef. Art and lit­er­ary fes­ti­vals be­lieved to be against ‘In­dian cul­tural val­ues’ were at­tacked by right-wing goons un­der the very nose of the ad­min­is­tra­tion. Uni­ver­sity cam­puses are con­stantly at­tacked by right wing out­fits and stu­dents op­posed to them get booked on trumped-up charges. In­tel­lec­tu­als and ra­tio­nal­ists op­posed to them have started meet­ing vi­o­lent deaths like Kalburgi and Pansare. While road pro­jects worth mil­lions of ru­pees get stalled be­cause a small tem­ple comes in the way, a Gur­d­wara gets razed to the ground in In­dore, in the name of ‘city beau­ti­fi­ca­tion’. Such news do not even find a bot­tom line men­tion in the main­stream me­dia.

“De­clar­ing In­dia as a Hindu state and abridg­ing mi­nor­ity rights could be the next step in this di­rec­tion. Giv­ing spe­cial sta­tus to Hindu Yo­gis and ma­hants and even abol­ish­ing the name In­dia for Hindu Sthan could fol­low.”

Civil so­ci­ety and al­ter­na­tive me­dia is un­der a con­stant threat from the right wing. As se­nior jour­nal­ist and po­lit­i­cal ed­i­tor of The Car­a­van mag­a­zine, Har­tosh Singh Bal re­cently noted “The al­ter­nate me­dia is get­ting into a re­source crunch. This gov­ern­ment is not go­ing to al­low its sus­tain­abil­ity. Nei­ther are the en­tre­pre­neurs look­ing into this sec­tor. One can­not be a jour­nal­ist and work in the cor­po­rate or main­stream me­dia, which is a dis­heart­en­ing sit­u­a­tion. We all have grown very scared of the word ‘lib­er­al’.”

Most po­lit­i­cal ob­servers be­lieve that a com­plete takeover by the Hin­dutva forces does not nec­es­sar­ily mean com­mu­nal vi­o­lence or by force. It can more likely come through con­sti­tu­tional changes and com­mu­nal vote pol­i­tics. De­clar­ing In­dia as a Hindu state and abridg­ing mi­nor­ity rights could be the next step in this di­rec­tion. Giv­ing spe­cial sta­tus to Hindu Yo­gis and ma­hants and even abol­ish­ing the name In­dia for Hindu Sthan could fol­low.

The op­po­si­tion par­ties are in a state of con­stant bick­er­ing amongst them­selves and are hardly ca­pa­ble to stop this on­slaught. The ju­di­ciary is the only power that might check such au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism but its po­lit­i­cal con­ser­vatism and non-in­ter­ven­tional pol­icy proves oth­er­wise. Re­cent rul­ing in favour of play­ing the na­tional an­them in cin­ema halls where even the phys­i­cally chal­lenged get as­saulted for not stand­ing up or a pri­vate air­line which starts play­ing the na­tional an­them while the plane is in land­ing mode speaks vol­umes about how much the coun­try can bank upon ju­di­ciary for up­hold­ing the fun­da­men­tal rights of its peo­ple.

The next gen­eral elec­tions in 2019 will be piv­otal not be­cause it will be a chal­lenge to Modi or BJP’s Hin­dutva de­signs but be­cause it will be for the first time since in­de­pen­dence when a com­plete right wing takeover of In­dia seems a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­ity.

You have been warned!