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Comment

Taliban and Hindutva Nationalism

Tavleen Singh is a well known columnist. In a recent column (Religiosity is sick, not Secularism, I.E. 8 December, 2024) writes about the barring the women studying medicine in Afghanistan. She is correctly aghast at this retrograde step in Afghanistan by the ruling Taliban. She thinks the left liberals have an empathetic attitude towards Taliban as not many left liberals have not condemned this step. She is also critical of those who equate the policies and actions of Hindu Nationalists as being similar to those of Taliban.

It is true that the degree of intensity of the policies of these two, Hindu Nationalism and Taliban, are very different but if one digs deep into the issue one can see the basic similarities in these types of politics. The Taliban policies towards women, the attitude of many Gulf countries and Iran are similar but not exactly the same. No two countries express their policies on ditto lines. Still one can discern the similarities at the level of principles. Fundamentalism is an imposition of selected parts of religious traditions on the society through state power. Many times this is done even not by the government which is ruling; but by dominant political tendencies.

These impositions are most conservative, backward looking and oppressive not only to women but also to the other weaker sections of society. Fundamentalism always strengthens itself by creating an internal or external enemy. In most of the Gulf countries it is women which are the main target. At places “Satan” (devil) America is so presented as the main. To this enemy all the ills of society are attributed to. In that way the Fascism which developed in Germany in particular shares this trait with fundamentalism, where Jews were labelled as cause of Germany’s ills and were targeted to the extent of Genocide, to strengthen the power of the leader, who was supreme in the state.

Hindu Nationalists’ most overt attack is on the Muslims (and lately Christians also). People have witnessed horrific communal violence increasing in quality and quantity over the last few decades. Beginning from the ghastly tragedy of demolishing a Mosque in Ayodhya and the consequent violence now questioning the existence of mosque is proliferating like a malignant cancer.

If one analyses the attitude of Hindu nationalist policies, the very notion of love jihad is very much anti -women. A woman professor from Goa who wrote that Mangal Sutra is like a chain for women was hounded badly.

Calling all this as Hindu religiosity as she calls the present offensive of Hindu nationalists is very much off the mark. She herself cites the example of three Muslims being beaten with slippers to shout Jai Shree Ram. Here labelling all this in the category of religiosity hides the commonality of all this as having its similarity with fundamentalism. Calling Muslim fundamentalism as jihadi Islam falls too short and away from the commonalities, which is prevailing in many countries. It prevails in Egypt and many other countries as Muslim Brotherhood. Then there is the Ayatollah regime in Iran.

Hindu religiosity is practised by millions of Hindus, who have been living with people of other religions for centuries, making India a really plural, diverse country. What began as an ideology articulated by Savarkar and Golwalkar is the base on which the present actions and policies of Hindu nationalism stand.

Singh is right in detesting this ‘religiosity’ but she needs to delve deep to understand this is the same pattern which ‘Jihadi Islam’ and Islamic Fundamentalists followed.

[Contributed by Ram Puniyani]

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Vol 57, No. 28, Jan 5 - 11, 2025