After ‘Sadbhavana- fast’, let’s all eat together…

Image Courtesy: http://exitopinionpollsindia.blogspot.com/

Narendra Modi’s ‘Sadbhavana Mission’ has stirred nation-wide debates and many speculations - from his image makeover to candidacy for the post of PM. Different people have different views on it. I am not sure if Modi would succeed with his objective of ending “vote-bank politics” [Tacitly, this means entering into Congress’ strong-holds at national level; and I am sure - he won’t give up easily. He has already done this in Gujarat]. Nonetheless, I definitely want some concrete actions out of this mission to strengthen the social cohesion in Gujarat.                                                                               

The time has healed wounds of many; and many believe Gujarat has moved on. However, we have seen any cohesive efforts which can ensure communal harmony neither by the state nor by the centre. Modi-government states that after 2002, there has not been a single riot. That is great! It means that the law and order situation has improved and the police-force maybe pro-actively tackling threats. But that is a ‘hard’ approach. What about the ‘soft’ approach? What have you done to tackle religious intolerance? What about tackling extremism? How have you controlled hate-mongers and fanatics? Have you conducted studies to measure – ‘how religiously polarized the people are?’ If so, is it increasing or decreasing as time moves on? What about counseling people, establishing community dialogs, and addressing the psychological needs of the masses? Effects of these things may not be observable in the short term, but they have grave adverse implications on the society in the long run.  

After 2002, BJP has won elections on merit bases, and the congress has never recovered. One party hold is a worrying scenario for Gujarat, because BJP is very sluggish in moving to the centrist perspective from the far right. And the weak opposition party (congress) is unable to exert any pressure on the Modi government. Moreover, it seems the congress has still not realized that the majority of people in Gujarat perceive it as sub-servant of the minorities; and this is hurting it the most. In addition, there are no prominent civil society pressure-groups that work for strengthening social-cohesion across the state. Thus, I am extremely concerned about the social cohesion and stability of Gujarat. There are three options that we have:

1.      The Modi government states repeatedly that it does not believe in “vote-bank politics” and the state policies are inclusive.  I think that is a great step forward. However, there are many indicators that point out some fault lines in the social-fabric of Gujarat. Let’s take one example-

·         The areas of our cities (take any city) are more divided by religions than a decade ago.  This means that now we have islands of Muslim-areas in Hindu majority cities, whereas a decade ago, we still had many mixed areas. Is this a sign of a healthy state? The direct inference of this fact is that Hindus prefer Hindu neighbour and Muslims prefer Muslim neighbour increasingly.  The geographical distance between the two communities has increased.  This may be happening in other parts of India as well, but is that a good thing? Sociologists would raise a red flag for sure.

The state government needs to establish a body that is solely devoted to strengthening social-cohesion, and counters all divisive forces.  It would be great to have social scientists researching and implementing large scale state-wide programs for social-cohesion and social stability in Gujarat.

2.      The congress (or any other party) should introduce visionary leaders having high credibility, competency & centrist-views (not over-focused on minorities) at the earliest; and should strengthen itself to provide a serious fight in the next election. At the very least, it should be in position to correct the government as an effective opposition and expose its loopholes.

3.      We, the people of Gujarat, should become pluralists and teach our children pluralist values.

The first two options are out of hands of common Gujaratis. But, the last option is worth implementing. Gujarat has overlooked the unique contribution of its very own son, Mohandas Gandhi, to the field of education. In all of his educational experiments, Gandhi always emphasized on teaching children the basic values of all of the major religions. The reason behind such educational practices was to nurture pluralist values in children, in order to have tolerant citizens who respect diversity. Most of the biases and bigotry have roots in ignorance and lack of empathy towards the other group of people. If an individual is well aware of the way of living, set of beliefs, and the hardships and day to day challenges of the other set of people, s/he will be more likely to see commonalities rather than differences. And these common elements will prevent compartmentalization and segregation and ensure social cohesion.

Today our schools have forgotten the idea of sarva-dharma prarthana (prayer of all religions). In addition, because of the geographical segregation between Hindus and the Muslims, our schools have hardly remained multi-religious in nature. As a consequence, the younger Hindus are losing contact with their Muslim counterparts and vice-versa. This, to me, is a very dangerous scenario. It is like waiting for a failure. Unless we Gujaratis identify this and act accordingly, it would take a small event, attack or accident for anti-social elements to instigate riots and to trap Gujarat in the cycle of violence. [Modi-government boosts prevalence of peace after Akshardham attacks & Ahmedabad blasts. This analogy does not fit well, because in a terrorist strike the masses rationalize enemy as an “outsider”. So, it is unlikely that the mass-anger discharges on fellow citizens, unless politicians, religious-extremists & media establish such rationalization.]   

Lastly, I would like to provide five simple steps for nurturing pluralist values in ourselves as well as in our children:

1. Study your own religion and cultural ethos.

2. Analyze yourself if you are biased against any religious communities.

3. Make friends of different religions (begin with the one you hate the most).

4. Learn about his/her religious literature and rituals, and identify common elements.

5. Stay with your friend (of other religion) for seven consecutive days.

These ordinary steps have an extraordinary empirical value. The choice is ours. Do we want to ignore fault lines and fight internally when there is a friction? Or do we want to create an ironclad social cohesiveness, which is riot-proof? Always remember, a pluralist country is built by pluralist states; and a pluralist state is built by pluralist individuals.

One personal fact: All the Muslims that I have met in Gujarat or from Gujarat strongly believe that they are much better off than Muslims in any other parts of India. In fact, one Muslim religious group that I got opportunity to travel with, said that they have been to most of the Muslims countries and life in Gujarat is far more peaceful for Muslims than anywhere else. 

On Modi’s skull cap controversy:  I would have gladly worn. However, I don’t think people have to pretend to be belonging to every religion in order to be considered socially acceptable Indians. Such discourse on the national media is outright stupid.  It would be highly tragic if we start exerting social-pressure on individuals to adopt practices of other religion. It’s logically same as telling a Muslim – “you have to be at a Kumbh-mela, before going to Hajj”; Or asking a Sikh boy to participate in a Brahmin like Upnayan Sanskar & go bald before admitting to a school; Or asking a Jain to celebrate the Bakra-id with same zeal as Muslims; or asking a Christian to use the word “Allah” instead of “Jesus” in public. Also, here’s another version that the national media completely ignored:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o0pct-CxT4

I welcome your comments....