Mere Juta hai Germani - Dil Hai Pakistani

Radhakanta Barik

“Mere juta hai japani ---- phir bi dil hai hindustani" a wonderful song of Raj Kapoor in his film 420 which is applicable to our ruling elite after Independence. This film is the reflection of political mood of 1950s which gets articulated in the film. In the song there is a reference to lal topi which stands for Russian socialism. Film makers are a part of the political mapping of India. Raj Kapoor as a part of the nationalist theatre of his Prithivi Raj Kapoor went on tour to move around India and shows their plays which were against the British imperialism. During the national movement they have gone to Patna where there got a great reception and there was a heavy rush to see the play. This tradition built Gandhi, Nehru Subhash continued till 1970s through various facets of ideology. This has got transformed to Modi Shah regime that mere juta hai Germany, (Boots of Hitler’s SS crushed many rebels and killed many progressives like Rosa Luxemberg.) these pants are American (Jeans pants sysmbolises cow boy culture of American capitalism.)  on my head is an Israeli cap, (As the present regime follows the footsteps of Zionist regime of Israel.) nonetheless my heart is Pakistani. (Hindustani heart is an open to all and welcomes all as Vivekananda speaks in Chicago) Meera dil hai Pakistani which wants to create a Hindu Pakistan State after the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019. First time in India two nation theory supported by Savarkar in the Ahmedabad annual conference of Hindu Mahasabha and taken up by Jinnah after two years on whose ideology Pakistan founded. The RSS people are ready to fulfill the dreams of Savarkar – Jinnah by creating the Hindu rashtra.  In the film song as it is choreographed a poisonous snake came to the street and created fear in the minds of Raj Kapoor.  Hindutva led by the RSS is the most poisonous snake in the world. Political democracy has not softened their venom. It has increased its venomous attack on political democracy. Their attack on secularism has created cracks on the pyramid of democracy. CAB (Citizenship Amendment Bill) which is moving on the road has diverted its path and reached at Ajodhya where they are going to build Ram mandir.

This CAB has got attacks from our lazy intelligentsia including lawyers, journalists and academia. For the first time they are active on their Internet and produced something special in giving a reply to the attacks of the Hindutva. Nobel Laurent like Ramakrishnan and Abhijit Banerjee and hundreds of leading intellectuals have come out in opposition to the CAB.  If they keep their intellectual activities at this height the Hindutva venom can be controlled and a strong anti-venom injection can be inoculated to body polity. Modi- Shah and Mohan Bhagwat can be controlled if creativities of progressives are getting articulated everywhere. Our intelligentsia should learn from the old proverb and alertness is the best security for Indian democracy.

On Amendment to Indian citizenship act there has been a high quality debates on the floor of the both the houses. But it is interesting to note here that the leaders of opposition are raising critical points regarding the bill. There are some epistemological points of view regarding the citizenship as it is derived from the preamble of Indian constitution where diverse social groups came into a contract with the Indian state regarding their rights. This is a contractual state cannot be reduced to a theocratic state by the present regime. Such a good debate has not influenced the ruling party leaders as they lack that intellectual depth. Morally and intellectually the opposition parties have won the battle on intellectual plane. Let us see that the ruling party lose their moral support which is a critical input in political democracy.

Gandhi developed the concept of territorial nationalism in his book Hindi Swaraj which is an inclusive one. Art 5 Indian Constitution talks of citizenship by birth either yourself or your parents or naturalization process which are the simplest things in the world fit into a country where the majority of people in those days did not know how to read or write. This is against the philosophy of colonial state based on written evidences.

The Modi Shah Regime has learnt a lesson that by showing the evidences they can torture masses. They have learnt a lesson from Chanakya that by troubling only a ruler creates fear in the minds of people. After implementing the NRC, they succeeded to keep about twenty lakhs of people as stateless people as they could not prove their citizenship as they lack their records. It is ironical that PM and Former Education Minister Irani could not have their academic records to prove their qualification but ordinary citizen has to prove their citizenship.

Manufacturing industry of Delhi caught fire and killed workers belonging to minorities. The mid night fire burnt the constitutional pyramid of India standing on Citizenship Act of 1955 which does not discriminate anybody on religious ground. Here the Muslims have debarred under the present amendment to the Act of 1955. Industry provides supporting pillar to constitutional democracy as brings working class who support the political democracy. Modi government could not provide safety from fire hazard which killed forty-five people. Modi government is lukewarm to industrial growth which is going to affect constitutional democracy. An agrarian society cannot sustain constitutional democracy. This happened in the case of Pakistan where industrial economy could not grow which resulted in Islamic State. In India Modi Shah are ready to push towards an agrarian society which cannot sustain constitutional democracy. The Indian Parliament caught fire yesterday in midnight like the factory in Delhi caught fire in midnight.

Indian National Congress during the national movement took up the rights of each section of a society. They showed their commitment to rights of each section including working class and minorities. This is a mile stone in history of national movement. The RSS and Hindu Mahasabha later known as the BJP do not have history. They do not have idea of struggles and they live in ignorance. They used to support the British Imperialism to achieve their end of the Hindurashtra but they are desperate to achieve this which is impossible. They want to introduce the most divisive agenda of Amendment to Citizenship Act for dividing people of India. They have already failed on economic front as economic growth has come down and down. The unemployment is the highest in the last forty-five years. People are coming to the street for demanding their rights.

The BJP is in a desperate mood and they could not control the economic recession which will remove the chair from them. They cannot believe it that just six months back they won two third majority and today they stand as a lonely furrow. Because of desperation they want to introduce the amendment to Citizenship Act which is divisive and diabolical and they prove to be devilish in their approach to Indian politics. Let us join together to oppose this devilish design of people in power.

Citizenship helps in construction of political community which is partly a moral and ethical issue as each citizen feels towards their public institutions based on a degree of neutrality and impartiality. Justice can be avail with a certain degree of certainty. This gives a moral strength to a community to confront the hostile countries or foreign aggression. It is an imagined community where there is an element of spontaneity in an individual towards its own imagined community. They share certain responsibilities towards each other.

This gives a chance to nominate their political representatives with a certain degree of acceptance by all. That any political group or party forms the government meant for whole territory without any discrimination to social group or religious group. This brings the question of difference between state and government. Government has a colour but state does not have which is supposed to work for all. Government is formed on the basis of universal adult suffrage which is having the same value for each without any discrimination on the basis of gender, caste or religious community or ethnicity. This brings out the truth regarding the society. Diversity is the strength of a society rather than weakness as each social cultural group maintains an autonomy to manage its cultural and religious affairs without affecting public peace and tranquility.

A political community can handle its public affairs with a certain distance from cultural pluralism. It does not create distraction or disturbance in a society while a political community gets engaged with public affairs. This is possible as a written constitution based on equality and liberty and justice which does not discriminate a citizen. This creates a sense of certainty of each individual, group and community within the political community. It turns into a real and social imaginary. Citizenship brings the issue of social and economic rights such as they negotiate with the state to get those welfare benefits.

Common schooling turns to be the foundation for strengthening a political community. Education gives an emphasis of civic and political text which guides each citizen to handle its own affairs. Awareness of basic rights with the civic and political text makes a citizen keep engaged with the state. State turns into a concrete organization by establishing its relationship with an ordinary person as he or she is a citizen.

Citizenship tries to break the obstacles created by family, community in terms of gender and caste hierarchy. It allows citizen to confront these issues without affecting its presence as a part of political community. On the contrary more one confronts the obstructions created by social structure more one involves in a political community. His or her intellectual involvement in political community gets further solidifies. A political community gets moral strength for enlargement of rights such as social and economic rights extending to childhood to old age social security coverage.

This brings the question of confrontation with the state and society at the same time. It creates an anguished feeling regarding his or her demands getting ignored. At the same time confrontation with structure of family, religious community or caste community goes on without inhibition. This two-way engagement with the society and polity goes on. It is a continuous activity without any break. These continuous political activities are possible because of the nature of political democracy and complexities of a society. At the societal level engaging with diverse social groups creates a civil society engulfing each and all without losing specific identity. Individual identity turns into plural identities at the civil society level. This has given rise to nourishment to political community. A political community gets engaged with each and every group and individual without naming anybody. It gives anonymity to each for being an active member of a political community. This anonymity is the strength of a political community as individual identity is not disclosed as he or she confronts the state. Everybody turns into a citizen while getting engaged with a political community.  This shows vibrancy of our democracy as it provides space for maturing a political community.

At such a moment of political history, differential citizenship has come as the present government has brought the Constitutional amendment bill by restricting refugees on the basis of religion to be a citizen. This is an anathema to political community and their political imagination. This is trying to fracture political mirror which may look hazy and blurred. But it gives an issue for a political community to confront. This brings the question of negotiation with public mind at various levels. Various institutions specifically here judiciary and media and academia are going to play a decisive role. Furthermore, it brings the masses to streets because of the strength of political imagination. Two ways a political community is confronting a political executive which remains as an intellectual margin. Here the struggle of the margin to come to the center or stay at the level of margin as used it to be.

Here a political community negotiates with its own history that history of political struggles teaches them to select some methods to confront the political executive. Street politics will have a logic. That it will remain in nonviolent struggles as the trajectory of history teaches us. History of national movement provides clues to negotiate with the rapacious political executive. That peaceful nonviolent struggles will continue on the streets, university campus. National movement has provided tasted means to achieve the target.

The political community has a breadth and depth of political imagination to realize those by defeating the agenda of differential citizenship.

Back to Home Page

Frontier
Dec 18, 2019