First it was the Uttar Pradesh government delisting the Taj Mahal as the official tourist attraction. The monument was excluded from an Uttar Pradesh tourism booklet earlier this month. The UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the Taj does not reflect Indian culture. And now the BJPs riot accused law maker Sangeet Som has said that the Taj was built by the traitors and was a blot on Indian culture. Distorting the history, he said that the Taj was built by a man who imprisoned his father and that he wanted to massacre Hindus. But the fact is that Shahjahan who built Taj was himself imprisoned by his son emperor Aurangzeb. However, the distortion of the history is least of the concerns here. What is disturbing is that Indias political discourse now accommodates and largely sanctions such actions and the statements by its politicians. More horrifying is the fact that virtually anything that has to do with the Muslims can be fair game for a physical or a political assault. Rohingyas, the worlds most persecuted minority, are suspect for the self-same reason. The union government has called for their forcible eviction for a fantasy charge of terrorism.
There is one more aspect to the unfolding state of affairs: it is the growing political consensus in India against Muslims, something that has made even the secular political parties scared to speak in favour of Muslims. And the parties like the BJP and its larger parivar who are the most vitriolic against Muslims stand to gain electorally.
Modi has ushered in a new political sensibility and a new ruling intelligence explicitly informed by the resolve to reclaim India for Hindus. Hence without restrained by any secular inhibition his government sees itself as the defender of the interests of the majority community against the secular appeasement of the minorities. And as for the state of the countrys secularism is concerned, less said the better. The truth is that the secularism is a conundrum in India that is yet to be resolved. The parties like to talk tangentially about it but refuse to grapple with its import.
India may be constitutionally and electorally secular but institutionally the situation is one of indifference to the idea. Now with the rise to absolute power of a Hindu revivalist leader confronting Indias secularism with its most serious existential crisis and also exposing its hypocrisy, the situation is no longer what it was in Congress time. India is no longer at a fork in the road as it was during the Narendra Modis 2014 campaign for the prime ministership. We have an India now where the BJP creed has acquired a much wider resonance, forcing the other parties to fall in line. What is more, there is no secular fightback, even in its hypocritical avatar in even the distant sight .
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