Being Trolled Because Of Religion And Ethnicity - Is This Indian Modernity Now?

By Peter Ronald deSouza Nov 16, 2024 The stories of discussions taking place in Resident Welfare Association (RWA) chat groups, University Alumni gatherings, the Officer’s mess, and even in IIT WhatsApp groups — where the scientific temper is supposedly pervasive — of members being trolled because of their religion and ethnicity, I only half regarded as serious. These to me were passing moments of toxicity. Essential India with its philosophical openness would re-emerge from such cesspools of prejudice. I have now learnt that I am mistaken. The poison has gone very deep. It has entered the groundwater of our national soul. A few days ago, during an argument, I was told to “go back to Portugal”. Not one to take such abuse without a fight I responded and asked my adversary to “go back to Afghanistan”. He was outraged. “I’m not from Afghanistan,” he roared”. “Well, I’m not from Portugal,” I said. Two things come together in this brief exchange that are worth thinking about. My name and his outrage. For him I was obviously the outsider and, equally obviously, he was the insider. Both for him were self-evidently true. In this exchange, my argumentativeness faced his righteous anger. He said he was confronting me because I was evil. That we went to school together more than half a century ago did not matter. I narrate this story because I must honestly admit I was surprised at the vitriol. There was more abuse directed at me but I ignored it. His educational and professional journey seemed to have had little tempering effect on his views, not just as an adult but as a retired senior. What began as a discussion on an Indian festival, soon descended into a toxic spat watched by others who, in their silence, appeared to endorse his views that it was inadmissible for me to talk about things Indian, especially Indian culture. What did I know? And who was I anyway? An Indian on probation! Now I know what Draupadi must have felt in the assembly when she asked the custodians of dharma her question. They did not answer. They remained silent. It is unclear to me if they looked down in embarrassment, but Sanskrit Pandits tell me that they did not. Which only makes it worse! Bharatiya Sanskruti Curiously, we were both defending the same thing, Bharatiya Sanskruti. He was doing it from a worldview constructed after listening to hours of lectures at Hindutva university. An alternative view comes from analysing the exchanges in the Constituent Assembly. When one reads the interventions of illustrious Indians such as Rajkumari Amrit Kaul, KM Munshi, N Gopalaswami Ayyangar, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Jerome D’Souza, Maulana Azad, S Radhakrishnan, and of course B R Ambedkar, and others, it is clear that in the India they imagined both of us are equally insiders. The word “equally” is crucial here since what was being given to us, when we adopted the Constitution, was equal citizenship. That is under threat today. My story is only a pointer to the challenge ahead. I must admit that in my naivete I was unprepared for the ferocity of the onslaught. The language of “us vs them” has clearly taken root among educated middle-class Indians. As I narrate this story, I’m not sure if it is an admission of defeat. As one who has spent more than 40 years as an educationist believing in the promise that we were building rational minds and a rational public sphere, the experience of both vituperation and silence surprised and saddened me. It was as good a laboratory experiment as one can get in the social sciences, all things being constant. Members who were a part of the group were educated in a public school and later in a public university. They worked in secular organisations both national and international. They held club memberships and played the occasional game of golf. They even enjoyed whiskey on the rocks. But views from Hindutva university had begun to dominate their perception of the world. Building A Nation If my story is unique to me then it need not go any further. But I believe it is symptomatic of the mind-sets that have grown not just across the country but also in families and neighbourhoods. My experience the other day dispelled the illusion that I had harboured, as a political scientist, that this toxicity was only temporary, that India’s fabled hospitality (our welcome to the Parsis and the Jews) was deeper than the surface poison. And this is where my anxiety lies. I firmly believe (or believed) that the only way to build a strong nation is to make it a nation of people, to nurture its diversity, based on the imagination crafted in the Constituent Assembly. It would not be easy. Ambedkar warned us that we would be entering a world of contradictions. Contradictions are good. They enable new resolutions that can lead to exciting new outcomes. Like our cricket team. This will, however, not happen if the more powerful among us impose their viewpoints on others, maligning them as anti-national. I believe that this demonising that is being encouraged is not the way to build a future India. But maybe I’m wrong. I see such “poisonous othering” pervading our opinion-forming institutions. In addition to the media, we find this attitude of constructing the “hostile other” being formulated in NCERT textbooks, university curricula, ICHR research projects, and of course, WhatsApp groups. Minds are being infected. The “other” is being vilified. Although this has been said many times before, I bring it up again not because of my recent experience but because of the silence of the majority who watched the exchanges as if it were a theatre performance. The silent majority will, through their silence, become colluders in this venomous new India. This bothers me as a desi. But what bothers me more is the impossibility of this Hindutva project. India, I believe, cannot be built on the idea of majoritarianism, as Hindu supremacy. Its fundamental diversity will break out of this forced and imposed uniformity. Our civilisational history shows this to be the case. It will not permit such uniformity. Āstika and Nāstika philosophical systems, each with their own warring groups, cannot be reconciled. Nor can the Zaidi school of law in Shia Islam agree with the Hanafi school in Sunni Islam. Even within our small Parsi community, there are grumblings against the rulings of the Parsi panchayat. And even God, I’m told, does not know how many Christian groups there are in India. The Constituent Assembly recognised such diversity and constructed an institutional and legal edifice to accommodate it. We had embarked upon the greatest experiment in human history, of making a plural nation of equal citizens. It was unparalleled in its ambition. But this has been stalled by Hindutva. It is being dismantled. It appears to be succeeding. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe it is possible to build a majoritarian nation even in the face of the challenges of modernity. According to the IMF, we are not doing too badly. Hindutva may be able to build a modern, technological, economically successful, and supremacist nation. They will find ways to dance to Diljit Dosanjh’s hip-hop while also crushing Valentine’s Day celebrations. The majority will be silent. The toxicity has spread. Paraphrasing Ambedkar one thing is certain: The India in which I was born will, sadly, not be the India in which I am going to die. ------ Source: I Was Told To ‘Go Back To Portugal’. Is This Indian Modernity Now? 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