Paradox Called Angry Indian Is Gaining Ground

There is a huge difference in approach to the kind of Kashmir we want as an integral part of India, But the irony is that suddenly the country seems to turn too intolerant even to debate these angles.

Is India fast turning its creative paradoxes into destructive contradictions? A look across our landscape fills one with fear that this may exactly be what is happening to the most wonderful experiment on earth in human diversity. In political terms, that diversity translates into a secular democracy and to be sure, for all technical, legal and constitutional purposes, we remain a strong secular democracy. But are we? The answer to this question is no longer easy. There was a time among the worst of times — like 1984 for example – when the country fell into a communal cauldron only to recover its sanity soon. And that party that salvaged India’s reputation as a tolerant democracy was – hold your breath! — the BJP. The way this party defied Congress attempts to turn the country into a playground for dangerous “Hindu Backlash” in the penultimate decade of the 20th century stands in the dock today for doing a Congress on India in the second decade of the 21st century.

India, it seems, is no longer apologetic about being called a Hindu majority nation. Voices among the Hindus themselves which have generally remained strong against such indigenous Talibanisation of the country are sounding weaker and weaker and the stridently aggressive Indian in colours of saffron appears to have grabbed the entire national stage. Nowhere is this Talibanisation more pronounced than in our approach to Kashmir. No one in this country has any doubts about the shared destiny of Kashmir and also there are no two opinions about where our national interests lie. But there is a huge difference in approach to the kind of Kashmir we want as an integral part of the country. And that because there is an equally huge difference about what truly constitutes India’s strength.