Protests Against Exclusion Are Themselves Becoming Exclusionist

Isn’t it true that the protests against CAA are turning into what they are against – exclusion? The rhetoric seems to be, “If you’re with me, you’re good, else you’re a fascist, neo-patriot, Nazi sympathizer, Muslim hater, Islam phobic.”

Most writers had once threatened to withdraw from the Bangalore Lit Fest if Vikram Sampath, who was not vocal enough in his support for their “Award Wapsi” movement, was involved in any capacity. He soon resigned from the organizing committee of the fest and everyone was fine.

Do you see the contradiction – the side that’s protesting against exclusion is also excluding anyone who doesn’t align with their views. So how different are they from what they are protesting against?

There’s a huge number of people (yes, it’s true – in a country with 1.5 billion people a few hundred thousand protesters is not significant), like me, who are not driven by any specific agenda, neither do they believe in the Hindutva rhetoric the current government talks about, but still support the Citizen Amendment Act. It’s very important for the people who are protesting against the act to understand the views of the other side. Dismissing all of them could be very detrimental to very cause of all the protests, and will yield very limited results, other than some moral victory in limited intellectual and liberal forum worldwide.

Unless the side protesting listens to all other voices, they’re doing the same mistake the government is also doing – being exclusionist. If they think everyone with a different view is a fascist and exclude all of them from their crusade, they’re also creating another Frankenstein the present government is creating too, by alienating all that don’t agree to them.

There’s a huge resentment on the other side too and that must also be considered, without calling them names. There’s indeed a growing concern that the persecuted Hindus have often been ignored in the name of equality, as though, showing sympathy to them would tantamount to being communal. What saddens them is an apparent lack of sympathy to the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent, who are among the most persecuted religious minorities in the world after the Jews (2.5 million of them were killed by the Pakistan Army alone in East Pakistan between 1947 and 1971). The plight of the Hindus from East Pakistan have been totally forgotten. Same is the case with the Kashmiri Pandits – everyone condemns the Indian state and the Army for the plight for the Kashmiris but very rarely have we seen any condemnation of what actually caused the problem – the total eviction of the minority Pandits from the valley. Not only that, people are out citing facts to “prove” that the Hindus were never persecuted in Pakistan – isn’t it ridiculous? Whom are we ignoring? What are we trying to prove? What will become of such movements when you exclude one big community who needs the most sympathy?

People who are supporting the CAA have their personal reasons for doing so, from their lived experience. Aren’t they absolutely entitled to that?

Just because one Amit shah or Modi speak in a language not acceptable even to them that are supporting the CAA, the side not supporting the act can’t ignore the emotive context totally, in their angst against the government. But sadly, that’s what is happening.

It’s not that anyone’s support for CAA means she is indifferent of the follies of the current government, like lynching, mob attacks, the allowed devolution of language around Muslims by a certain section of the BJP, the exalting of Hindutva in irrational and often ridiculous ways, the repeated and prolonged internet shutdowns whenever there is dissent, suppressing counter voices critical to the government, among many others. But again, the Abrogation of the Article 370 and the Babri verdict ought to have difference of opinions and multiple but pertinent voices, all of which can’t be bucketed simplistically into communal and secular.

What’s happening is that, the protests seem to be turning anti Modi-Shah, and also alienating a large section of Indian population who have reasons to support the law, or at least the intent behind it, but not necessarily support the government in everything they do.

There are also several dichotomies and contradictions in various things. For example, I personally support the cause of Assam and the NE, and I believe they do have a very valid point – that their demographics is under threat from the Bengali influx. But in the same line of thought, it could be also argued that the demographics of Bengal is changing too, because of the influx of a certain community from Bangladesh, who are of course not persecuted but are being allured by the present ruling government (and also the previous) in Bengal, just to increase their vote bank. There are many districts in Bengal where the Indian Bengalis are in minority, like many in Assam where Assamese are. And the problem wouldn’t have happened if things at the ground level hadn’t been altered. Calcutta has a huge proportion of non-Bengalis but there’s no problem because the ethos of Calcutta is still very much Bengali. But the concern of a considerable section of Hindus in many bordering districts of Bengal is that the natural and traditional ethos is now being altered, forcefully by the last two governments, over the last 40 plus years. So why shouldn’t that be a valid concern? Is ethos just linguistic? Doesn’t ethos also include religion and culture?

Again, mob lynching is horrific. But equally horrific are the political lynching and murders, say in Bengal – statistically the number of political murders are more than lynching – but where’s there an outcry for that? Is political murder less heinous? I don’t see any condemnation of that.

There are many such things which seem very contradictory not only to me, but a large, actually very very large section of people, and alienating all of them or relegating them to bigots or fascists would be quite dangerous. Most of them are not illiterate party cadres that could be allured by a Babri or a shallow Hindutva narrative. When many of them do support the BJP, despite all the follies, it means something else which, unless understood by the other side of the “fence” would never solve the problem they are seeking to solve, through the protests.

Everyone has the right to take his or her side without one being superior or inferior to the other. It’s good that people are voicing their views. But not everyone who’s not on one side is an enemy of the state or for that matter not everyone on one side is saving the state. Any opinion has two or more sides, with all reasons, and unless both/all sides maintain the humility of not demeaning the other, there’s not much that will come out of any initiative from the either. The government will fail and the protests too.

What we are seeing now is just calling names from both sides. This reminds me of a Bengali poem by Annada Shankar Ray, which roughly translates to – The Mukherjee is the king, the Mukherjees are the people. The Mukherjee is the government the Mukherjee is the opposition. The Mukherjee is the protest and the Mukherjee is the cop.

Finally, there’s also a concern about many of the protesters, as very well pointed out in a well-researched article (thankfully written by a Muslim, not a Hindu). The writer pointed out rightly, to tackle the RSS and their politics, the opponents have to get onto the ground and create similar levels of engagements the former have with the people. The real problem is that the opponent, who claim themselves are progressive and the savior of the country, is too elitist and totally disconnected from the masses.