Mobocracy, democracy and secularism in India

Sinister undercurrents of majority Hindu fundamentalism have waxed and waned in their hold on the Indian political process through recent history. Democracy, enshrined in the constitution, and dutifully executed as yet another religious ritual in election cycle after election cycle, has sometimes proved dominant over these instincts and sometimes, it has lain supine as communal madness has swept the country. At other times, political fronts and cliques have worked insidiously and assiduously to misuse existing structures, bend them beyond recognition in order to achieve their narrow sectarian aims and in the process reduce democracy to a mere circus.

Majority fundamentalism based on atavistic notions of cultural supremacy is a dangerous component in the political process of a democracy like India. In a recent High Court judgement, such atavistic considerations were laid out as justifications for the court’s decision. I have discussed this issue at some length in other articles. What I intend to do here is discuss how India’s democratic ethos has hemorrhaged from the attacks of communal forces.

Whenever the current constitutional system becomes inconvenient for the right-wing Hindu fascists, they try to involve the mob. Now, on the far left, Maoists also think that the constitutional system cannot solve the problems of the nation, and they also resort to extra-constitutional means and the use of force. That the far right wing and the far left wing both think that the constitution is an inconvenient barrier to realizing the most just society is a well-known fact in India. What is interesting, however, is how the right wingers, who themselves resort to violent means and themselves flout the law for their ideological objectives, waste no time in denouncing the tactics of the Maoists.

Take the demolition of the Babri mosque in the early 1990s, for example. A nationwide yaatra or journey with the aim of energizing the Hindu base resulted in the destruction of the most controversial structure in the country. An utterly careless administration in the state and an utterly irresponsible political formation combined to create a situation where mobs went on a rampage and destroyed the mosque. In typical Indian fashion, the constitutional system responded sluggishly. All the individuals responsible for this drama have yet to be brought to justice.

In another instance, a government led by right-wing elements has looked the other way as mobs went on the rampage in the aftermath of a train-burning incident. What should have been a straightforward law-and-order problem became an exercise in mobocracy. The state where this occurred has been aptly described by some writers as a laboratory of hatred. It is the standard tactic of those trying to impose their views of Hindu supremacy on the public.

The killing of Christians and the burning of Christian homes in India is another instance where the right-wing formations resort to extra-constitutional means to enforce their agendas along lines of cultural supremacy, cultural purity and a parochial interpretation of nationalism.

The right-wing political and ideological formations have succeeded in taking India down a road where the norms of constitutional democracy have been compromised and mobocracy has become an important element, if not the dominant element, in the nation’s affairs. The implications for the country’s future are grave. That the judiciary, in its recent verdict in the Ayodhya case, has put a stamp of approval on the ideologically motivated lawlessness of the past is a legitimization of these mobocratic trends. It is a shot in the arm of those who use these mobocratic methods to their advantage. It is a sign that undercurrents of Hindu fascism have finally manifested themselves in some of the most sacred quarters of the democratic system. How the same judicial system can justify prosecuting violent leftist ideologues is beyond the comprehension of this writer. No democracy can uphold the rule of law when the judiciary buckles under the pressure of mobocratic elements or actively colludes with them. That is what has happened in India. When future historians look back at the history of the first hundred years of independent India, they may well find that India’s journey from the Constituent Assembly to the tumultuous and violent days of the early 1990s represented a brief period of sanity when it tried to make some Western-style methods work in the best interests of all its citizens, irrespective of their group affiliations. The rest may well appear as a steady degeneration towards a mobocratic state of affairs that is ill-suited to India’s pluralistic society.

Democracy and the rule of law are inconvenient things when you want to pursue narrow agendas. You cannot pick and choose. You cannot charge the Maoists with being a danger to the country and at the same time try to impose a de-facto Hindu theocracy in the country by using non-democratic means or by deforming the democratic systems beyond recognition. The laboratory of hatred has now spread its tentacles beyond the streets of Gujarat. It now has a stranglehold on the sanctum-sanctorum of our democratic system, namely the judiciary. The signal is quite clear. The dilution of high democratic standards is likely to be the norm of the future. Mobocracy is here to stay in India.