Demolition Of Minority Houses At Prayagraj Is Totally Illegal

By Krishna Jha

Why the state needs to crush a section of innocent people? Perhaps to set an example to show that any violation, even those imagined, cannot be taken without any reassertion of unbounded power and create fear. Bulldozer, a huge, faceless machine that can run uninterrupted, turning people’s settlements into debris has its own significance that makes everything else insignificant.

Javed Muhammad, a local leader of Welfare Party of India, has been incarcerated. He was an easy prey, had all the merits for that. A propagator of peace, he believed that the Act brought in 1991 by the Parliament, in the backdrop of turmoil caused by Babri masjid-Ram Janmabhumi controversy, that no places of worship should be interfered with, was an apostle for love and homogeneity among the communities. But soon came December 6, 1992, when Babri masjid was turned into debris, not by a bulldozer as its versatile merits were yet to be discovered, it was simple, brutal strength of the power drunk human hands that the beautiful dome was in minutes touching the ground. Guru Golwalkar’s dream project was completed by his followers. Guruji had wished that minorities must be stripped off their citizenship rights. It was the central theme of his book, ‘We or our Nationhood Defined’, in which Golwalkar had come out without any qualms when he compared Sangh’s Hindu Rashtra project with Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitism that contained total assimilation or ethnic subjugation of minorities.

“To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races – the Jews,” Golwalkar wrote in his 1939 book. “Germany has also shown how well-neigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan [India] to learn and profit by.”

With Nazi experiment of cleansing of Jews in mind, Golwalkar – having declared non-Hindus as foreign races – prescribes a similar solution to minority problem in India. “From this standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, that is, of the Hindu nation and must lose their existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privilege, far less any preferential treatment – not even citizen’s rights,” he wrote.

In later years, Golwalkar and his organisation distanced themselves from the book. But the separation, it seems, had been artificial and the RSS has patiently continued working on the book’s socio-political project.

The developments in Prayagraj were one example. On June 10, after the prayers, there were protests in Prayagraj that were also staged in other parts of the state against former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma over her remarks on prophet Muhammad. On June 12, the double story house of Parween Fatima, the wife of Javed, was bulldozed and she petitioned to the Allahabad high court against Prayagraj Development Authority (PDA). The shop owners in the vicinity started moving their shops away as they were apprehensive of the demolition spree.

But Bulldozer does not stop here. When unveiled, everything turns into a blueprint of horror. Prices are rising. Even the essentials are beyond the reach for the masses. Unemployment is another horror, followed by hunger. Migration has become a general rule which adds further deprivation. The tragedy of being alive in such conditions of penury haunts sections that are getting larger every day. Poverty haunts all communities, that is now our new unity in multiplicity, a gift of saffron rule. But there is another side also of the coin.

Our billionaires continue in an unprecedented way to grow their wealth which is rare even in world economy. Recession has taken over the centre stage at its worst, while billionaires got richer even during COVID-19 lockdown period. All the national resources are taken over by the Finance Capital with the help of government at the centre. Constitution was one restraining authority, but there are attempts to rewrite it. There is no debate in the Parliament. Democratic values are in danger. Disagreement has no space.

There is no recognition to rural issues. The winter session of the Parliament could not take place on the plea of Coronavirus outbreak. There are no agrarian policies, and the reforms suggested are formulated in such a way that farmers are unable to swallow them. Food security stands ruined. The life itself for the rural population stands at a verge of destruction. Small and marginal farmers are perishing. Meanwhile the government is busy in formulating its market policy and corporatisation of agriculture. Large corporations are preparing to take over the agri-section.

The decentralisation process is not unplanned and at every step, it is the reactionary policies that rule the roost. Powers are wrenched out of the hands of state. None of these initiatives are unplanned. The target is to establish Brahminical rule, opening all opportunities for the higher caste to consolidate itself. In fact Hindutva has been coined to serve the monopolies, that is as an economic project to misgovern India and lead it towards a disastrous direction. (IPA Service)