Modi govt is using all its energies to show Muslims their "place", says Guha

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Modi govt is using all its energies to show Muslims their "place", says Guha

In his public statements, he has been careful not to appear outrightly communal - though even here he can slip, Guha wrote

Monday June 8, 2020 7:47 PM, ummid.com News Network

Mumbai: Instead of tackling the falling economy and other issues haunting India, the Narendra Modi government in New Delhi is using all its energies to show Muslims their place, historian Ramachandra Guha said Monday.

"When the energies of Narendra Modi's party and of his government are so substantially taken up with showing Muslims their place, it is scarcely surprising that the economy was in free fall well before COVID-19, that our media was threatened and intimidated, that our public institutions were compromised, that social peace was so fragile. For a politics based on polarization can never be conducive to a nation's progress", Guha wrote in an article published by NDTV.

Analysing why Narendra Modi whom a majority of Indians had looked up as a "reformer" is a disappointment as Prime Minister, Ramachnadra Guha said one of the reasons is that he remains a "sectarian Sanghi at heart" and works accordingly.

"In his public statements, he has been careful not to appear outrightly communal - though even here he can slip, as in his notorious remark that he could identify those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act by the clothes they wore", Guha wrote in the article.

"In any case, his silences have spoken most eloquently in this regard. His silence when his MPs and even a cabinet minister were publicly praising alleged lynchers of innocent Muslims, his silence when his Home Minister was suggesting that Muslims were 'termites', his silence when the BJP IT Cell relentlessly communalized the incident of the Tabilighi Jamaat, and above all, his endorsement of the nakedly discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act all show that he remains committed to the core Hindutva dogma that this is essentially a Hindu country, and that Indian Muslims must forever be proving their loyalty to the Motherland or else risk persecution", Guha wrote.

"Back in 2013-14, when Narendra Modi launched his campaign to become Prime Minister, he was enthusiastically endorsed by many Indians not otherwise inclined to the Hindutva ideology of the Bharatiya Janata Party", Guha wrote.

"Disgusted by the corruption and cronyism of the Congress regime, they saw Modi as a dynamic economic reformer, an Indian Deng Xiaoping, who would unleash the forces of entrepreneurial dynamism", he added.

"They were impressed by his energy, by his being self-made, and, of course, by his oratory. And they took at face value his claim that he had put his RSS past behind him", Guha wrote.

"Tragically, these well-meaning Indians were mistaken in giving Narendra Modi the benefit of doubt", Guha wrote.

"If the Acche Din promised by Narendra Modi in May 2014 still remain elusive a full six years after he became Prime Minister, then the buck must stop with Narendra Modi himself", he wrote.

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