Indian society needs to challenge manipulation of religion

Surajit C Mukhopadhyay, Sociologist, Burdwan University, The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta

While the Union finance minister was busy socking the middle class as well as the poor of India and championing the various NRI and foreign interests through his annual budget, his political colleagues were out in the streets "defending national interests" by beginning yet another round of communal trouble. Now everybody knows the faces behind the masks.

After the Babari Masjid demolition, rabble rousing and mayhem in the name of religion is a regular sporting event. While religious zeal is ostensibly the reason behind the riots (are riots to religion what masala is to food?), there is this sneaking suspicion that with losses in four states, especially in Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh, a bit of the old kill-burn-loot formula seems like the best that can be offered to those who felt that religion plus politics is vote in the bank.

The Indian electorate has time and again proved that illiteracy and general "backwardness", with which it is supposedly burdened and which many elite theoreticians say are hindrances to Indian democracy, have not blunted political sagacity.

In 1977 Indira Gandhi was thrown out after she indulged in a bit of autocracy, and her son shown the exit in 1989 when he failed to live up to expectations. On the contrary, Indian democracy has over the years managed to bring to the fore the political face of those who were socially excluded, politically marginalized and economically exploited.

This time, too, to the horror of the elite upper-caste political bosses, the illiterate peasant has in no uncertain terms refused to see a communalized version of religion as an exciting substitute for issues of bread and butter. The subaltern knows only too well that he cannot eat religion. But those who can eat well can thrust religion in your face, talk about purity and pollution, of nation and state, of traitors and patriots. Even as the people refuse to see communalism as an answer to their collective prayer for a better future and as the "emotive" issue of the temple threatens to turn stale, the Indian state yet again betrays the very people it is meant to serve.

From the "riots" of 1984 in which the police participated along with the goons and where the army was held back, to present day Gujarat, it has been the same formula, the same excuses with the same results. The Indian state has time and again proved unfailingly that it is a party to the murder of its own people. Yet year after year the honest taxpayer is made to cough up more and more money for the upgradation of police armory, infrastructure and several other logistics.

In 1951-52, the revenue expenditure incurred by the central and state governments on the police was Rs 58.73 crores. In 1997- 98 the expenditure was as high as Rs 9,899.20 cores. Post WTC the bill is obviously higher. The message that the Indian state is sending out is that the state cannot be counted upon to secure life and limb even though one may keep on paying -- ostensibly for more security.

It is also a matter of regret that the first casualty of "liberalization" is the spirit of being liberal. Ever since the proponents of liberalization and globalization have arrived from distant shores, they have failed to impress upon their cronies in India that "sound" economic policies of "reforms" must be accompanied by guarantees of civility.

This is the bare minimum and one fails to see how claims of being democratic can be squared off with the round hole of state- aided religious fanaticism. The moot question is this -- is the Indian state's pathetic withdrawal a part of the greater agenda of withdrawing from unremunerative businesses on par with its withdrawal from welfare and social responsibilities?

If this is so, the implications are absolutely distressing. Neither the state nor the liberal democrats can be counted upon to be allies in a sustained fight against communalism.

The mainstream Left is in a minority, quartered within the restrictive confines of a few states and -- in the face of this sustained onslaught from the political Right riding piggyback on religion -- confused and distraught.

Alternative sources of resistance to communalism and hate- inspired violence must be found and developed as strategies that would in the short term defuse tensions and make the state more accountable to the public than it is today. For this a campaign of secularism in the abstract must be buttressed with more concrete and local efforts.

Towards this end, a concerted effort from civil society actors in the various institutions is of the utmost necessity. The communalists, whether from the majority community or from the minority, must be isolated morally and exposed thoroughly. It is no good waiting for the state to send in the paramilitary or the army after the deed is done. Unlike the state, which is reactive, civil society institutions should be more proactive and engage with the problem at various levels of society.

The academic community, the media, civil society organizations and others must come together in a dialog on this issue. The dialog must encompass issues of democratic governance, of rights, citizenship and a more equitable access to socio-economic resources.

These are surely aspects that need to be addressed for a long- term solution. We cannot simply afford to leave behind for our children a messy world of religious hatred and intolerance or a world full of sharp inequalities.