Aurangzeb, Dara Shikoh and Misdirected Concerns

by Talha Abdul Rahman

In the past few days, we have come across a number of people, extra-ordinary and otherwise, expressing horror over the spectre of Narendra Modi being elected eventually to become the Prime Minister in 2014. Reasons for such profound expression of horror are dominantly on account of his ‘alleged’ involvement in proliferation of targeted killings of Muslims in 2002 Gujarat riots. Political agents, within the media and outside, have attempted to explain that the concern is actually misplaced because, since 2002, he has won over the confidence of Muslims which is evident from the fact that BJP has won even from Muslim dominated areas (as if elections in India are conclusive of people’s forgiveness), and in any event even the Muslims of Gujarat want to “move on”.

Perhaps, they do want to move on.  Not because they have forgiven Narendra Modi but because they have realized that most of them can no longer afford to sit back and 'crib' and must earn their living by starting from scratch. Perhaps, they have made peace with living in sub-human ghettos. Undeniably, litigating against the State (especially the Chief Minister) can be debilitating especially if one is financially, emotionally, socially and psychologically vulnerable. The merchant in Gujarati Muslims has possibly prevailed upon them to apply ‘economic rationality’ to rights and freedom under the Constitution. Perhaps, they have moved on.

While, the Muslims of Gujarat may have moved on, We as citizens of India should reconsider whether We can permit the rest of the India to move on. While Muslims may have a legitimate fear of persecution should Narendra Modi becomes the Prime Minister, a real possibility of similar persecution cannot be discounted even if any other political party comes to power. The analysis of political leaderships that prevailed at the Center and in the States in 1992 (Ayodhya) is itself sufficient to dislodge any misapprehensions about the professed ability of a government to provide physical security to the country’s minority. It is practically a “Hand-in-(Saffron) Glove” situation. In fact, some have even suggested that recent ‘regret’ of remarks on ‘Saffron’ Terror despite their correctness coupled with Afzal Guru’s hanging is a subtle attempt to send out a message that the Government is more saffronised than even the deepest shade of saffron.

By using the word “saffronized” here, I allude to an ideology and not to any religion. Therefore, the call actually is to reconsider whether We can allow a system of saffron principles that are incompatible with the Constitutional values to take charge.

Dr. Ambedkar in his speech in the Constituent Assembly on 4^th November, 1948 had cautioned us that:

“… it is perfectly possible to pervert the Constitution, without changing its form by merely changing the form of the administration and to make it inconsistent and opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. It follows that it is only where people are saturated with Constitutional morality such as the one described by Grote the historian that one can take the risk of omitting from the Constitution details of administration and leaving it for the Legislature to prescribe them. The question is, can we presume such a diffusion of Constitutional morality? Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realize that our people have yet to learn it.”

We certainly are yet to learn it.

While I do have reservations about a person accused of genocide occupying the highest executive chair in the country, what concerns me more is that the debate concerning Narendra Modi’s possible success (or failure) in 2014 election has been reduced to being a debate about Muslims. Narendra Modi has been projected as  a “Muslim problem”; which he is not.  He, as a face of an ideology, is as much a problem of a Muslim as he is of any other citizen. This is because the concerns that Muslims have raised today are tomorrow’s reality. We can, for convenience, call the fear of persecution amongst minority (and not just Muslims) as an “Early Warning Alarm”. This argument is best summarized in the words of  Martin Niemöller 

“First they came for the communists, 
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists, 
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. 

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me."

The choice between Narendra Modi or any other person is being consciously  constructed in a manner that it would almost be deemed that only Muslims will not vote for Narendra Modi. Well, yes, even George Bush told the world that in his war on terror, “You’re either with us, or against us”. Thus, by implication, all non-Muslims are being obliged by the rhetoric that Narendra Modi is a ‘Muslim problem’ to vote for him and his ideology.

Consistently, the development scholars have argued that development is not to be measured by economic indices alone. Perhaps in the context of Gujarat and speculatively in the context of India, one could apply the test of “Freedom from” and “Freedoms of”. The question that then stares us is whether in India, where the Government is guided by fascist and saffronized ideology, would the people have, for instance true freedom of speech and expression, freedom from living in ghettos, freedom from not having a religious-identity-neutral name, freedom from being discriminated on the ground of religious identity, and the like.

Fortunately, unlike the 17^th Century India, today, we do have the legal right to choose between Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh; misfortune, however is that we know that Narendra Modi is Aurangzeb* but India does not seem to have a Dara Shikoh we could vote for.

(*with sincere apologies to Aurangzeb for the comparison, who despite being intolerant to other religions was after all an honest man who survived only on the money he earned by making caps and writing calligraphy)