22

Jul

U.P.Order on Kanwar route a step to sharpen polarisation

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Dr Satish Misra

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New Delhi | Monday | 22 July 2024

The controversial order of the Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh and the Dhami government in Uttarakhand to display names of the shop owners along the Kanwar route in the two states is unconstitutional as it fundamentally infringes rather than violates the Right to Equality.

 

Though the order appears to be a negation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan of ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas and Sabka Vishwas’ over and above it is a direct assault on the ‘Idea of India’ that emerged out of the freedom struggle prominently led by Mahatma Gandhi and thousands of revolutionaries who were at the forefront at the efforts to strengthen the Hindu-Muslim unity to negate the British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’.     

 

Whether the move is in defiance to the Prime Minister or not, is difficult to ascertain but the possibility cannot be ruled out that the step has been taken with the tacit consent of the central leadership to sharpen the communal polarisation in the two prominent states of the cow belt where the BJP’s performance in the recently held Lok Sabha election was much below the expectations and claims. 

 

The majority of the NDA allies of the BJP have openly come out against the order but the BJP leadership seems to be determined to ignore them believing that they would not withdraw support. The opposition INDIA bloc too has expressed its vehement disagreement with the order. The fact that Madhya Pradesh has passed a similar order for the Mahakal temple in Ujjain hints at it and the silence of Prime Minister Modi further strengthens the suspicion.   

 

 

Article at a Glance
 
The recent order by the Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh and the Dhami government in Uttarakhand to display the names of shop owners along the Kanwar route is unconstitutional and infringes upon the Right to Equality. This move is a direct assault on the "Idea of India" that emerged from the freedom struggle, which emphasized Hindu-Muslim unity. The order appears to be a negation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's slogan of "Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, and Sabka Vishwas".
 
The majority of the NDA allies and the opposition INDIA block have expressed their disagreement with the order, but the BJP leadership seems determined to ignore them. The order is an insult to Lord Shiv, who is revered by people of all faiths, and is a conscious attempt to deepen the divide between Hindus and Muslims.
 
The order will result in a loss of livelihood for millions of citizens, particularly Muslims, living along the Kanwar route. It is a continuation of the RSS-BJP's policies and programs aimed at dividing the two communities through cow vigilantism and Love Jihad. The order is dangerous as it makes minority community members easy targets of the majority community in cases of communal riots.
 
The fight for freedom from colonial masters was successful because of the efforts of leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, and Patel to create a common identity among Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and tribal leaders. The order is a violation of the Right to Equality enshrined in the Constitution, which provides equal treatment to every citizen before the law and prevents discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, or place of birth.

 

To fully comprehend the order, we need to understand the nature and purpose of the Kanwar yatra, Kanwarias, worshippers of Lord Shiv, undertake a journey to Gangotri or Haridwar to fetch holy Ganga water in the auspicious month of Savan to take back to their Shiv temples in their local village or town to please the deity. The pilgrimage, though very old, gained weight and popularity in the wake of the Ram temple movement in the 80s. Lord Shiv, in Sanatan Dharm, is a God who is very ‘Secular’ as he according to the Hindu pantheon is liked and followed by everyone irrespective of being a human, tribal or an animal.  

 

In this perspective, the order is an insult to Lord Shiv.    

 

Kanwar route in the biggest state of Uttar Pradesh is an area populated by Muslims in big numbers along with Hindus. The objective of the controversial order, a police officer said, is to “avoid any confusion” in the minds of pilgrims which in simple words means that Kanwarias, if they so desire, can avoid buying goods including eatables from Muslim shop owners or buy food from hotels and Dhabas owned by Muslims. It will result in a loss of livelihood to millions of citizens living in the area from where Kanwarias would pass through. The order is a conscious attempt to deepen the divide between the two communities.  

 

This particular order, a continuation of the policies and programmes of the RSS-BJP that aims to divide the two communities through cow vigilantism and Love Jihad, strikes at the very root of the shared values and common way of life that the two communities have been living for centuries. They have been sharing the joys and sorrows of each other but the RSS could not have captured power and sustained it without dividing the two.   

 

The order, as it helps in establishing the religious identity of the shop owners, is dangerous as the minority community members would become easy targets of the majority community in cases of a communal riot. In Hitler’s Germany, Jews were made targets by similar orders and policies.               

 

Fight for freedom from the colonial masters would have not borne results if conscious and relentless efforts had not been made by leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad, Subhash Bose, Sardar Bhagat Singh, Ashfaqullah, Bismal and others to create a common identity by bringing Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and scores of tribal leaders on the same platform.

 

Here it would be useful and worthwhile to recollect that in British jails where freedom fighters along with revolutionaries were kept, the jail authorities used to serve ‘Hindu tea and Muslim tea to inmates. Freedom fighters rejected the practice and started mixing the two in one pot and then drank from it. It took decades to create a common identity of an Indian which laid the foundation of the Indian nation.

 

Now after over seven decades of the country’s freedom from the British, a BJP government is again dividing the majority Hindu community and minorities particularly the Muslims on religious lines which is a violation of the Right to Equality enshrined in the Constitution.      

 

The Right to Equality provides equal treatment to every citizen before the law and prevents discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, descent or place of birth.

 

Modi and his party were angry and took serious offence at the opposition's charge that the BJP wanted to change the Constitution during the Lok Sabha election campaign and Union Home Minister Amit Shah saw that a government order was notified on June 25 when the Indira Gandhi government imposed internal emergency on the nation would be observed as ‘Smavidhan Hatya Divas’ and held the Congress an accused.

 

In the light of the controversial order, a question needs to be asked who or which party is murdering the Constitution? The answer is unequivocal. It is the RSS-BJP alone.

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