The unanimous suspension of Mumbai’s Byculla MLA Waris Pathan on Wednesday from membership of the Maharashtra Assembly for the remainder of the Budget Session for his refusal to raise the slogan of “Bharat Mata ki Jai (Hail to Mother India)” should be seen as a build-up to corner the minorities, particularly Indian Muslims, at the behest of the Sangh Parivar, which has evidently been overcome by a triumphalist vision since BJP came to power at the Centre with a Lok Sabha majority of his own under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It is a great pity that the Congress and the NCP caved in, with a Muslim Congress legislator saying in the House that Muslims in Maharashtra might be in danger if Mr Pathan was not suitably punished for his refusal to kow-tow to the RSS brand of nationalism, which is but another name for Hindu supremacist thought and has little to do with the Indian nationalism that was forged in the course of the struggle against British colonial rule, from which the Hindu nationalists kept aloof.
As Mr Pathan told journalists afterward, he was a nationalist and a proud Indian, and was ready anytime to raise a toast to India by saying “Jai Hind” or “Jai Bharat”, but found the Hindutva diktat appalling. Only a few days earlier his party’s leader Asaduddin Owaisi had thrown a challenge to the RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat, saying he would not utter “Bharat Mata ki Jai” even if threatened with death.
The Hindutva brigade realises all too well that people of the Islamic faith bow their head only before their God, and the idea of pushing the envelope of the symbolism of “Bharat Mata” (with which the Hindus have no problem) is a way to denigrate India’s Muslims as anti-national and unpatriotic. (In his farewell speech in the Rajya Sabha recently, the eminent film lyricist Javed Akhtar indicated that he had no objection to the slogan “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, but Mr Akhtar is a self-confessed atheist.)
Were the Maharashtra Assembly mood to gain force, and the spirit that led to Mr Pathan being penalised for committing no offence whatever spreads to states where the BJP is strong (as in Maharashtra currently), we would be going astray as a people and be bringing upon ourselves every curse that comes in the wake of the wilful distortion of the historical record.
It is important to re-state that Indian nationalism — unlike the idea that prevailed in, say, Europe — is not bound to a language, religion, or race. Indeed, countless Muslims who found themselves geographically in territories that would become Pakistan were Indian nationalists who had fought for India’s freedom, and not for the creation of Pakistan. Let’s not play political games and belittle our nationalism.
