Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Pointing out the pervasive hate, discrimination and violence against Muslims, a former senior IAS officer and author has said that this growing situation can lead to an existential crisis in the country in the coming years.
In an interview with renowned journalist Karan Thapar at The Wire, leading blogger Avay Shukla expressed his grave concern over the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), hate campaigns, economic exclusion, discrimination against Muslims and the future of the country.
“India is facing an existential crisis, I would say. It may be five years down the line or ten years down the line. But it is the second coming. That’s coming. And I despair. I despair for my children. I despair for my country. I don’t see any ray of hope. Because over time, the system was so calibrated that this party keeps winning elections,” said Shukla while discussing how the BJP waged its election campaign in Maharashtra and Jharkhand targeting Muslims.
Shukla pointed out that India has become such a country where people discuss in their drawing rooms how to hate Muslims. “Forty percent of the population hold this belief as media, government institutions and even the judiciary accept the situation as the new normal. If the present dispensation is given five more years to run the country, it will be too late to bring back the country on track,” he said.
“Yes, we have become a Muslim-hate country to a large extent. The evidence to be found in the way we conduct our external affairs. Look at Palestine. You are not allowed to hold a seminar in a respected institution or think-tank because the ambassadors of those countries are invited or because we find the subject of Palestine too controversial. I mean what is controversial? Mass scale genocide should not be controversial,” he said.
Criticising the election campaign of the BJP, Shukla said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches and the slogan ‘ek hai toh safe hai’, and Yogi Adityanath’s speeches and slogan ‘batenge toh katenge,’ were “not dog whistles but commands to take action along these lines”.
Shukla noted that Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s speeches in Jharkhand, where he spoke about infiltrators marrying tribal women as their second and third wives to take over their property and land, were, in fact, suggesting that Muslims from other parts of India who had gone to Jharkhand for work are infiltrators and this was an attempt to portray them as villains and monsters.
Shukla also slammed the Islamophobic advertisement issued by the BJP to target Muslims in Jharkhand. The Election Commission later ordered the party to take it down; it showed scores of Muslims storming a Hindu home and taking it over.
He said he was filled with “disgust and anger” when he saw the ad. He said this was “not (just) demonising Muslims any more but it’s a call for action against them.”
Shukla flayed the Election Commission’s silence for not taking action against those who made the advertisement. It is “a serious dereliction of duty and non-adherence to the Commission’s constitutional compulsions”. He said he was “disgusted” by the Election Commission’s behaviour and not just disillusioned.
He said the Election Commission had become “a blot on our governance” and also “a blot on our service”. He was here referring to the fact the Election Commissioners are former IAS officers.
Shukla was also sharply critical of the media, which has failed to comment on and criticise speeches by BJP leaders and failed to point out that the Home Minister’s claim that infiltrators from Bangladesh have come to Jharkhand clearly means the government has failed to do its job of stopping them. The media even failed to point out the fact that this was an own-goal.
According to Shukla, the situation can become better only when the BJP stopped winning elections. But he feels that this is not going to happen.
As the Muslims are vilified, demonised and forced to live as second-class citizens, time will come when Muslims will assert themselves and fight back leading to an explosion in the country, he said.Show trimmed content
