“A government which denies each person freedom to speak and to communicate what they think, will be a very violent government whereas a state where everyone is conceded this freedom will be moderate.”
Baruch Spinoza wrote these words in 1670 which are still as relevant today as they were centuries ago. No doubt, India’s current situation is worse than past years because of the increase in violation of human rights, crimes against women, hatred against minorities, threats against and killing of journalists, the continuous declining situation of Kashmir, and circulation of fake news.
New political order established in 2014 brought a huge change in the history of the world’s largest democracy, and it can be felt from ordinary citizens to highly qualified intellectuals, artists and mainstream politicians. The politics of fear began against those who wished to question the government or who wished to be a rationalist. After the BJP government came to power in 2014, there was some talk of rising intolerance and attacks on writers and artists.
Many writers and artists returned their awards to the government and registered their demonstration against the government. The assassination of scholars, journalists, activists and artists began, with the murder of rationalist Govind Pansare in February 2015, a left-wing Indian politician of the Communist Party of India (CPI) who wrote a biography of Shivaji. Following the assassination of Govind Pansare, former vice-chancellor of Kannada University, MM Kalburgi was murdered at his residence. Huge protests were organized against the assassination and thirty-nine writers and poets returned their award in protest of rising intolerance in the country. Writer Shashi Deshpande, who left his Sahitya Akademi post, told The Sunday Standard: “There is a sense of intolerance in the country and we are not used to it.”
Before the BJP government came to power, Narendra Dabholkar, social activist and rationalist, was murdered in August 2013. All these three murders contain a common reason that these activists were against the social evils in the Hindu traditions. These men were murdered by Hindu fundamentalists. Gauri Lankesh, the editor of Gauri Lankesh Patrike, too was murdered in September 2017 in Bengaluru at her residence. She was killed because of her strong anti-Hindutva ideology. Mostly all the main figures were killed in this era because they were against the “Hindu Rashtra” ideology and demanded equality irrespective of caste, class, religion and gender.
Now the land of Nehru is a battlefield; on one side, stand artists and intellectuals who want to end social evils and advocate freedom of life, and the other side are the politicians and their blind followers, generally known as andhbhakts, who don’t have a sense of shame. Here being critical of the government is putting yourself in a difficult situation and calling for a label of “anti-national”.
The era of India’s first-generation leaders was one where there was always a healthy democratic debate with tolerance. There were debates between Nehru and Jayaprakash Narayan on parliamentary democracy, between Gandhi and Ambedkar on the abolition of untouchability, between Nehru and C. Rajagopalachari on the economic renewal of India, between Lohia and C. Rajagopalachari on the role of English language in independent India, and between Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore on nationalism and internationalism, and so on. They were not merely politicians, they were original thinkers who wanted to save India from all kinds of oppression.
Now the politicians are only busy giving speeches which are full of hatred and bigotry. There is a system of oppression in place. They are concerned with getting their vote bank at any cost—it can be by abusing democratic institutions and media houses, or making threats to journalists, scholars and artists. In present India, there is a conflict between powerful politicians and liberal Indians who want to save idea of ‘India’. It would be wise to remember what T. R. Holmes said about 1857 Revolt: “a conflict between civilization and barbarianism“. It is, however, another debate about what kind of revolt it was, but it would be perfectly fit in the present-day situation of India.
In mid-2018, Pune police arrested five activists P. Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha; police accused these activists of having links with the banned Maoist group. Pune Police have said that the arrests were part of their probe into an event called Elgar Parishad in Pune on December 31, 2017, when activists and Dalit organisations came together. The next day, on January 1, 2018, the violence broke out at Bhima Koregaon, near Pune, where one man died and others were wounded. This celebration was in the memory of the battle fought between the East India Company and the Marathas. In that battle, the Mahar regiment defeated the Maratha army.
Serious intellectuals and humanitarians have argued that the government is attacking intellectuals and those people who ask questions to the government. Historian and biographer of Gandhi, Ramchandra Guha defended these activists and said, “As a biographer of Gandhi, I have no doubt that if the Mahatma Gandhi was alive today, he would don his lawyer’s robes and defend Sudha Bharadwaj in court; that is assuming the Modi Sarkar had not yet detained and arrested him too.”
A few days back, Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navalakha were arrested by the NIA under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on the occasion of 129th birth anniversary of B. R. Ambedkar. This event is not merely a usual order of bail-arrest drama. It is another chapter in the history of declining Indian democratic system. It is another step towards darkness, and it is another act of authoritarianism.
Anand Teltumbde wrote an open letter to the people of India. In this letter, he mentioned that he fears that he may not be free again. He realises the absolute power of the state, and he sees the bigotry and inhumane faces of media people. He never imagined that he would fall in such difficult time. He is a man of pen and paper who writes and speaks for vulnerable people. He urged the people to speak against the atrocities and injustices: “Well, I am off to NIA custody and do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again. However, I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes.”
The arrest of Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navalakha made a sorrowful impression on all those people who hold the conscience of idea of ‘India’. People of diverse fields, including Romila Thapar, Satish Deshpande, Maja Daruwala and others, wrote a letter to CJI S. A. Bobde, asking for his intervention in the matter. They wrote: “This is especially inhuman and incomprehensible at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening our overcrowded jails. We appeal to you to restore public confidence in our Constitution and the civil liberties that it guarantees to all citizens. The prosecution has already had more than enough time to make its case. The highest court of the land cannot allow the process to become punishment. Under your leadership, the Supreme Court should act decisively to demonstrate that it is indeed the defender of people’s rights and the upholder of the Constitution.”
There is so much drama, or one can say tactic, often used in legal cases. In January 2018, when the so-called Bhima Koregaon case began, it was under the Pune police and at that time both Maharastra and the Centre were ruled by the BJP. But when the BJP lost their rule in Maharastra, Bhima Koregaon case came in the hand of NIA which works under the Central government. Pune police claimed that they found in an email from one of the arrestees in which “Comrade Anand” was allegedly mentioned. This is the basis of his arrest. There could be thousands of Anand and Comrades; how did the Pune police came to the decision that “Comrade Anand” is Anand Teltumbde? Elgar Parishad organiser Kolse Patil told Al Jazeera that these two people had nothing to do with the organisation of Elgar Parishad.
At present when liberal democracies are declining all over the world and some kind of authoritarian governments are coming in force, India needs what Nehru, Maulana Aazad, Rajaji and Ambedkar left behind—their idea of secular democratic India. In this time of political crisis, many people came forward to fight for what India’s founding fathers had hoped. Many intellectuals, writers, historians, filmmakers, actors, lawyers, civil servants and activists are speaking against all kinds of injustices and discrimination, and questioning the government. These people are the real opposition in the country. They are fighting to save the secular and democratic norms of the country.
Ramachandra Guha wrote the history of Indian republic India After Gandhi in 2007 in which he argued that India is a 50-50 democracy. He made a verdict based on free and fair elections, free movement of people one the hand, and political corruption, violence based on caste, gender and religion on the other. He wrote in Washington Post in 2019 that India is now a 40-60 democracy based on increasing fear among religious minorities and attacks on media. But now he argues that India is a 30-70 democracy. Fall of independence of the judiciary and attacks and hatred which came out against the Muslims in Delhi led to the decline of democracy. That amount of hatred and bigotry against the Muslims surely dismantles India’s image as a secular democracy and the most shamful movement is the unwillingness or inability to prevent it by the state.
Arundhati Roy spoke about the sickness of our secular democratic system at Jantar Mantar when north-east Delhi was burning and hatred was waving in the air. “A democracy that is not governed by a Constitution and one whose institutions have all been hollowed out can only ever become a majoritarian state. You can agree or disagree with a Constitution as a whole or in part—but to act as though it does not exist as this government is doing is to completely dismantle democracy. Perhaps this is the aim. This is our version of the coronavirus. We are sick.”
In 1959, French writer Andre Malraux asked Nehru what had his greatest difficulty been since independence? He replied, creating a just society for just means. Look around yourself, look at what is happening around us, look at what our leaders and media are doing and look at how far away we are from what the founding fathers of this great nation thought would be India.