Iolence in and as democracy
ack in 1989, Thomas Blom Hansen met RSS workers who talked about shedding blood. will show them their e,” they said. In 1993, a Musfriend took him around bai and to a wall sprayed “Babur ke auladon bhago stan aur Kabristan (Chilof Babur, leave… go to Pakor the graveyard)”. In 2018, et Dalits in Bhima Koreafter the massacre and violence has always played a role in Indian political life.
I recently watched Repentance, a brilliant allegory on Russian dictatorship by Soviet director Tengiz Abuladze. When the mayor explaining the need for the artist’s arrest tells him, “It’s my duty to take the position of the majority, for the majority decides”, the artist responds, “One man of reason outweighs a thousand idiots.”
Hansen does take us through a gallery of such “idiots”, but there is not much evidence of reasonable women and men.
Hindu nation.”
This succinct observation is at the crux of Indian polity today, although Gandhi’s nonviolence too was based on the religious idea of ahimsa and its failure was persistent even while it was being practised. Gandhi seems to be the author’s favourite metaphor and he believes the “rhetoric of sacrifice and martyrdom remain essential to Indian political life”. It is this against others can glorify it as sacrifice. Hansen observes that the Hindu response earlier was one of reaction against injustices at the hands of Muslims, but is now more assertive about taking over. The upsurge of Hindu revivalism has little to do with injustices of colonialists. Their attempts at making Muslims answerable for history is part of “politics karna” – which the author believes is what Indians do instead of rajniti – and not a righteous war. today Muslims are the sacrificial victims of the majority.
He provides us with several reports of such experiences. During the bomb blasts between 2002 and 2008, it was customary for the police to round up Muslim men as suspects as a “security precaution”.
Another anecdote is about an AIMIM corporator who refused to stand during the singing of Vande Mataram at a meeting. The Shiv Sena attacked him. He was suspended and arrested. But he was confident that he might have the support of all Muslims. He wasn’t tried. But, ironically, he was expelled by his own party that was trying to project a “respectable” image.
Although there is no allusion to it, the title and content mirror