Bigots in Pakistan and India Follow a Similar Template of Hatred

Bigots in India and Pakistan breed in an atmosphere of anxiety, with religion as the solitary hope for the people.

To use hyperbole, no one seems more enamoured of Pakistan than the votaries of Hindutva! Such is the worrisome infatuation of these hotheads, that given the choice, they would gladly turn India into a mirror image of the Islamic nation, albeit a Hindu one.

In a way, they are like conjoined twins that were separated at birth – the religious bigot in Pakistan and his extremist counterpart in India. Both are captive to their toxic ideology; both cite the tyranny of the past for their inability to focus on the present; both are unabashedly unapologetic and unforgiving; both believe in demonising the minorities; both are afflicted with the same malignancy.

Fatal Attraction

And yet both are alien to each other, as if they inhabit two different planets; one has nothing to do with the other; both lie at diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum;  they don't move in tandem, nor can they ever hope to converge at any point in the future.

The fatal attraction is understandable: Pakistan is a socially conservative State with an abominable record of persecuting its minorities, especially the Ahmadis who are even barred from performing azaan (the call to prayer) and from describing their place of worship as mosque. The Indian Right wouldn’t find a more striking role model if it looked for one.

Also, Pakistan’s perception of itself as a nascent nation-state was anchored in the overhyped antagonistic ties between the Muslims and the Hindus. Wittingly or unwittingly, that seems to have become the template of the Hindu Right as well.

Overhyped Antagonism

Again, Pakistan was always an artificial construct – the notion of its identity nebulous and hazy at the time of inception. It was Mohammed Ali Jinnah who wove a spurious national narrative around the perceived Hindu-Muslim hostility, to give the fledgling nation its raison d'être. Later, the narratives changed depending on the nature of the political dispensation.

The Indian Right, in its quest for a Hindu Rashtra, ironically 70 years after Independence, is weaving a similar spurious narrative around Muslim intransigence, not realising that unlike most Pakistanis, we do not suffer from any existential dilemma – neither about our pan-India identity, nor about our destiny as a people.

But come to think of it, if you take this overhyped antagonism away, if you don't allow the past to hold us in thrall, both Muslim bigots and votaries of Hindutva lose their raison d'etre. Both, then, can only clutch at straws in the wind – Kashmir, the creation of Bangladesh, the Babri demolition, the Godhra riots – to keep themselves afloat.

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In the Name of Nationalism

From the outset, the Pak narrative was intended to reinforce 'the notion of domination of the landed aristocracy'. The existing schisms in the society, the sectarian fault lines, the inequities and the injustices, were subsumed in this 'all-encompassing' narrative; every time the discourse became too shrill the political establishment would invoke Islam – the 'great adhesive, the superglue'.

By an uncanny coincidence, the Indian Right is also doing just that – invoking its peculiar variety of heady nationalism to establish its hegemony and dominance over a society which, despite the schisms and cleavages, is trying hard to keep its sanity intact.

After the creation of Bangladesh, the original narrative of Muslim-Hindu antagonism was resurrected; so was Jinnah's precept that Pakistan’s inception was essential to prevent 'Hindu imperialism' from spreading into West Asia.

The modus operandi for spreading  the virulent form of nationalism was simple: Tell lies and half truths about the Indian state and the Hindu majority, spew venom in the classroom, internalise the hate into governance, make it an instrument of State policy.

The Pakistani masses, in turn, were kept off balance, the intellectuals confused, the political class divided and the media in the dark, thereby 'widening the gulf between the conservatives and the liberals.'

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The Indian Right is using similar crutches – that is, invoking  ancestry, religious absolutism, mythology and history – to obtain similar results. It keeps inflicting its falsehoods, keeping the people perpetually confused, turning the points of narcissism into pinpricks of hate and venom.

Intellectual Trap

In Pakistan, the perpetrator of the lies was the State itself; so to doubt the veracity of the assertion that ‘Pakistan has won all wars against India’ was seen as an attempt to question the very premise of the State itself and an affront to Islam!

We can hear almost a similar idiom and  rhetoric in Indian media as well about overriding ‘national security’ considerations, the need to insulate institutions like the Army from criticism and the affront to ‘nationalism’.

Frankly, there is little to choose between the two – the Hindu and the Muslim bigot – both live like mice in a culvert but both try to conjure an image of a grand and mythical past. Both find themselves in the same intellectual trap. We are told, for instance, that the seeds of Pakistan's origin are embedded in the first mosque of India built in Kerala in 629 AD!

Likewise, Pakistan does not tire of masquerading as a quasi-Arab land so that it can negate its common Indian history and composite cultural heritage. All this will surely resonate with the Indian Right and the votaries of Hindutva, who are known to make similar forays into medieval and ancient history.

Pak Bigot vs Hindu Extremist

So, there is little to set apart the bigot in both the countries. Redemption perhaps lies for us in our institutions and in our social/political milieu: India has a secular social fabric, a democratic polity, an independent judiciary, an autonomous election commission, and a civilian regime that is not subservient to the Army.

It is easy for the bigot in Pakistan to find willing accomplices in both the political establishment and the Army but the Hindu extremist will find covert support from only those who do not believe in the innate idea of a pluralistic India. That is indeed heartening!

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(The writer is former editor, Mumbai Free Press Journal. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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