By Dr. Sawraj Singh
India has evolved as a pluralistic society. Pluralism is more compatible with its natural conditions. The traditional India was a pluralistic society. There were many different states. However, they had a feeling of belonging to one bigger entity. Sang was equivalent to a state where as Maha Sang (Greater state) was that entity in which all these states shared common traditions and values. The Islamic rulers tried to homogenize India. However, they only achieved limited success. By and large, the heterogeneous nature of India was mostly preserved. The British colonialists, who followed them, were more successful in negating the natural diversity of India. The major difference between the Muslim rulers and the British rulers was that while the Muslims rulers became a part of India, the British always remained foreigners. The British rule was always an alien rule, with the sole objective of looting and exploiting India and its people. Not only they failed to show any respect for the natural diversity of India, they tried very hard to violate it for economic gains and administrative convenience. Their parting blow to India was the unnatural division of India. This turned out to be one of the biggest tragedies of the sub continent. Because of this British policy, millions of people suffered tremendously at the beginning and we are still paying the price for the partition. The subcontinent still remains one of the poorest regions of the world. Thanks to the British, we just went down from 130th place to 131st place in the Human Development index. The Congress party never fully opposed the policies of unnaturally dividing India. First, it never wholeheartedly opposed the division of the country. As a matter of fact, it accepted the division as a fait accompli. Even after the independence, the Congress party continued to drag its feet in reorganizing Indian states according to their natural evolution which is based upon accepting them as distinct cultural entities. Language is the foundation of a culture. The Indian constitution upholds the principle that the states have to be reorganized on the linguistic basis. Not only the Congress party faithfully tried to preserve the bureaucratic structure of the British, it continued to resist decentralization of power and refused to accept the states as partners in ruling the country. They were treated merely as the subjects of the rule. People like myself, had high hopes from the BJP that it would bring fundamental changes to the Congress party’s policies which seemed more like the continuation of the colonial policies. The BJP claimed to understand and uphold the Indian traditions and civilization. However, once the BJP came in to power, it seems to have quickly adopted the Congress culture. I called this phenomenon the Congressization of the BJP. When the BJP tries to tread the same course then it poses even a more difficult challenge to the pluralistic nature of India. The Congress party was just a political organization where as the BJP is both a political as well as a religious organization. In the beginning, the BJP was mostly a party of the small business people but now it seems to be hijacked by the big business. The results of the UP assembly elections show how religious sentiments can influence people’s choices. It had become clear that the demonetization would only serve the interests of the big business and the multinationals who control the credit card business. The small businesses were very adversely affected. However, once the BJP was able to portray the SP and the BSP as being soft towards the Muslims, the Hindu majority rallied behind it in spite of the suffering the demonetization brought to it. The BJP has won the election but the Indian secularism which is based upon the principles of pluralism and religious tolerance became the biggest losers. These principles are also the fundamental features of the Hindu religion. All the opposition parties should reconsider their election strategies in the light of the UP results. They should put aside their differences and unite to preserve the pluralistic concept of India. If the BJP is able to win the 2019 Parliamentary elections then it will see that as a mandate to fundamentally change the founding principles of the Indian democracy. The opposition parties have two models to choose from, the Bihar model and the UP model. If the SP and the BSP had followed the Bihar model and united to face the BJP, the outcome of the UP elections could have been different. Let us hope that the opposition parties do not repeat their mistake of UP in the 2019 Parliamentary elections.
Dr. Sawraj Singh, MD F.I.C.S. is the Chairman of the Washington State Network for Human Rights and Chairman of the Central Washington Coalition for Social Justice. He can be reached at [email protected].
