Culture & Nationalism

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/new-hinduism-acceptance-prejudice-majoritarian-power-contempt-glorification-of-violence-7879227/ Apr 26, 2022
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: The new Hinduism is about widespread acceptance of vile prejudice, alignment of state with majoritarian power, contempt for rights, glorification of violence

Extract:

 All the arguments that we used about majoritarian communalism in India no longer hold. Its logic is no longer merely instrumental (as if that is not bad enough), that will pass with election cycles. It is no longer episodic where we can take reassurance that it will somehow pass of its own accord. It is not local in nature, but has taken on a national character. The orgies of hate and prejudice are not aberrations. They are now the norm. They are the norm because the highest levels of political authority, including the prime minister, by silences or dog whistles, condone it. They are the norm because elites openly spout it, without shame. They are the norm because being communal in some ways has become almost a necessary condition of political advancement and is fast becoming the default common sense of civil society.

But what is more ominous is this. Think of what might happen to a society whose dominant religious sensibility literally inverts everything of value. Religion has often been misused and put to grossly perverse and violent uses. But can you think of another occasion in the history of modern Hinduism where everything sacred has become ominous, forms of worship have become fearsome, singing and text weapons, acts of public piety menacing, a sense of community murderous, and any talk of decency or civilisation constraining? That is the fearsome image the organised mobs that masquerade as religious processions now evoke. Let us be very clear. This new form of Hinduism you are seeing unfolding is not an expression of genuine pride and piety. It is meant to be a raw assertion of power and violence to intimidate minorities. It is meant to literally extract reaction (even one photograph will do), that can be used as a pretext to construe all minorities as a threat. The number of seemingly well- meaning people for whom stone-throwing on threatening processions can become a vindication of the deepest prejudices against minorities is truly alarming. It is the one factoid they are looking for to sustain their insidious lie that Hinduism will not be safe unless minorities are shown their place if not erased. This was the mission and the aggressive processions accomplished that. It sustains the insidious lie that the murderous perversion of modern Hinduism, now sustained by state power, is entirely reactive; a belated self-assertion against a minority that dominates us, rather than what it is: Increasingly a drive to violence and cruelty.>>

Comment: SS: in foil-l

 many "radicals" are still unable to adequately grasp and digest;   to spew out right, left and centre the favourite epithet "fascist"...We're right now both witness to and also actors in that unfolding sordid drama.  The worst is yet to come. (And that's one of the ways how it's very different from the Emergency.)

Of course we'll have to do all the sensible things that we can think of. But, without being aided by a providential intervention - like in the form of some radical shift in the global/regional relations, chances of success are rather slim. But, that's all the more reason to try our utmost.