{"id":61242,"date":"2020-12-11T10:30:42","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T23:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=61242"},"modified":"2020-12-11T10:11:44","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T23:11:44","slug":"a-dispatch-from-indias-culture-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-dispatch-from-indias-culture-war\/","title":{"rendered":"A dispatch from India\u2019s culture war"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As if the raging Covid-19 pandemic, a spluttering economy, record-high unemployment<\/a> and massive farmers\u2019 protests besieging the country\u2019s capital weren\u2019t enough, India\u2019s ruling Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now incited a new crisis: a culture war.<\/p>\n

In late November, India\u2019s largest state, BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, introduced a new law to combat the largely imaginary crime of \u2018love jihad\u2019\u2014a conspiracy theory claiming that Muslim men seduce Hindu women as a ploy to oblige them to convert to Islam through marriage. The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance stipulates<\/a> that a marriage will be declared \u2018null and void\u2019 if a woman converts to Islam solely for marriage. Women wishing to change their religion after getting married need to apply to the district magistrate for permission, a breathtaking assault on individual liberty that combines misogyny, patriarchy and religious bigotry.<\/p>\n

The measure is the brainchild of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-robed monk whose inflammatory rhetoric has made him one of the BJP\u2019s best-known and most polarising figures. And it takes a sledgehammer to the freedom of worship enjoyed by Indian citizens under the country\u2019s constitution. By the first week of December, state police had arrested and filed charges against seven people<\/a>. Conviction carries a maximum sentence of 10 years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Much of India has long celebrated the intermingling of Hindu and Muslim cultural practices. But the Ganga-Jamni Tehzeeb<\/em>, or \u2018composite culture\u2019, emerging from the interaction of the two faiths\u2019 practitioners is now under assault from officially fomented bigotry. The BJP derives its political strength from campaigning aggressively as the vehicle of an assertive Hindu community, and regards stoking anti-Muslim sentiment as a vote-winner.<\/p>\n

The BJP had previously campaigned successfully to build a Hindu temple on the site of a demolished mosque in Ayodhya<\/a>, criminalise the Muslim divorce practice known as triple talaq<\/em>, dismantle<\/a> the special protections afforded to the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, and enact a law<\/a> that excludes Muslims from the fast-track Indian citizenship available to refugees of other faiths. All of these steps have reinforced the party\u2019s \u2018tough on Muslims\u2019 image, and Uttar Pradesh\u2019s new anti-conversion law fits that pattern.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, other BJP-run states in India\u2019s Hindi-speaking heartland have whipped up hysteria over \u2018love jihad\u2019, reflecting the party\u2019s deeply entrenched Islamophobia. State governments in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana have announced plans to enact laws similar to that of Uttar Pradesh.<\/p>\n

A BJP \u2018youth leader\u2019 in Madhya Pradesh has gone further, persuading the police to file a case against two Netflix executives for allegedly offending Hindu religious sensibilities with a scene in the series A Suitable Boy<\/em> in which a Hindu actress and a Muslim actor kissed briefly in front of a temple. The leader, Gaurav Tiwari, demanded an apology from Netflix and the removal of \u2018objectionable scenes\u2019 that he alleged were also \u2018encouraging love jihad\u2019. Instead of dismissing the case as preposterous, the state\u2019s home minister, Narottam Mishra, ordered an investigation.<\/p>\n

Even reports<\/a> that police in Uttar Pradesh have already dropped, for lack of evidence, eight of the 14 \u2018love jihad\u2019 cases they had opened are highly unlikely to dampen the BJP\u2019s sectarian ardour. A few months ago, the jewellery brand Tanishq, which markets itself as the choice of \u2018modern\u2019 young consumers, was pressured, including by threats of violence, to withdraw a television commercial that portrayed a happy interfaith marriage between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man.<\/p>\n

Although Islam remains its favoured target, the BJP\u2019s Hindu chauvinists have also taken umbrage at the cultural practices of India\u2019s Christian minority. A group of zealots called the Bajrang Dal, one of the BJP-aligned Hindutva<\/em> (\u2018Hinduness\u2019) movement\u2019s many affiliated organisations, recently threatened violence against Hindus who visited churches during Christmas. Whereas Hinduism teaches reverence for other faiths, those who claim to be its doughty warriors admit no such ecumenism.<\/p>\n

Valentine\u2019s Day is another object of Hindutva<\/em> warriors\u2019 fury. Arguing that the occasion is un-Indian because it celebrates romantic love, they have attacked couples holding hands on 14 February, trashed stores selling Valentine\u2019s Day greeting cards, and shouted slogans outside cafes while couples canoodled inside.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the Hindutva<\/em> brigade has no real understanding of Hindu tradition\u2014their idea of Indian values is not only primitive and narrow-minded, but also profoundly ahistorical. India\u2019s culture has always been capacious, expanding to include new and varied influences, from the Greek and Muslim invasions to the British.<\/p>\n

The central battle in Indian civilisation today is between those who acknowledge that, as a result of India\u2019s historical experience, our culture is as diverse as it is vast, and those who have presumptuously taken it upon themselves to define, in ever narrower terms, what and who is \u2018truly\u2019 Indian.<\/p>\n

Modern Hinduism has always prided itself on its tolerance of differences. In fact, the modern era\u2019s most famous Hindu sage, Swami Vivekananda, persuasively taught that the hallmark of Hindu civilization was not just tolerance but acceptance. With their narrow-minded bigotry, today\u2019s Hindu chauvinists are fundamentally betraying their faith, as well as assaulting the constitution.<\/p>\n

The issue is not trivial. If intolerant bullies, now enjoying the blessing of elected BJP governments, are allowed to get away with their acts of intolerance and \u2018lawful\u2019 intimidation, India will suffer violence to an ethos profoundly vital to its survival as a civilisation, and as a liberal democracy.<\/p>\n

Pluralist and democratic India must, by definition, tolerate plural expressions of its many identities. If we permit the self-appointed arbiters of Hindu culture to impose their hypocrisy and double standards on the rest of us, they will define down Indianness until it ceases to be Indian. The BJP-led culture war must be fought in the courts, but it will be won only in the hearts of all Indians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if the raging Covid-19 pandemic, a spluttering economy, record-high unemployment and massive farmers\u2019 protests besieging the country\u2019s capital weren\u2019t enough, India\u2019s ruling Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now incited a new crisis: a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1170,"featured_media":61244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[203,2942,69,1371],"class_list":["post-61242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-culture","tag-hinduism","tag-india","tag-religion"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA dispatch from India\u2019s culture war | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-dispatch-from-indias-culture-war\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A dispatch from India\u2019s culture war | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As if the raging Covid-19 pandemic, a spluttering economy, record-high unemployment and massive farmers\u2019 protests besieging the country\u2019s capital weren\u2019t enough, India\u2019s ruling Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now incited a new crisis: a ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-dispatch-from-indias-culture-war\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-10T23:30:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-10T23:11:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/GettyImages-1229888109.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shashi Tharoor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shashi Tharoor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-dispatch-from-indias-culture-war\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/GettyImages-1229888109.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/GettyImages-1229888109.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"Activists belonging to various human and civil rights organisations hold placards during a demonstration condemning the decision of various Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led state governments in the country for the proposed passing of laws against \\\"Love Jihad\\\" in Bangalore on December 1, 2020. 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