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After the 2002 state government supported pogroms against Muslims in Gujarat, India has been remarkably free of large-scale civil violence. Instead, we have witnessed the eruption of small but equally insidious violence. Attacks on tribal Christian communities in Orissa; outrages against ethnic groups in Maharashtra; Maoist terror in central India; insurgencies in Kashmir and the north-east; and now, planned assaults on urban youth in Karnataka.
The rise of local fascist groups is a disturbing development. Their protest is not political, or against secularism (the BJP/RSS agenda), or against the middle and upper classes (the communist agenda). Their bugbear is modernisation, a phenomenon which embraces lifestyles, art and entertainment. The core of their dogma is feudal; a revolt against lifestyle practices such as intermingling of the sexes, ‘western’ style dressing and entertainment, freedom of expression and non-hierarchical behaviour.
Fringe fascist groups don’t subscribe to any ideology, they are defined by what they oppose. Therefore there’s no consistency and their targets are wholly arbitrary. Their only concession to modernity is the media; they always take care to inform the press and television channels before they assault innocents. In reality, their members are ridiculous and pathetic, and could easily be contained by small police forces backed by political will. These groups comprise maladjusted individuals, who quickly transform into dangerous mobs.
A few days ago, I was in Goa, where we attended the first show of the film Slumdog Millionaire in Panjim’s impressive Maquinez Palace Plaza. We arrived there early to find a television crew present. Soon, a bunch of sorry-looking youth showed up and unfurled a banner protesting that the movie depicted the Hindu mythological god Rama in a bad light. They claimed they represented the Hindu Janjagran Manch, a formation promoted to unite Hindus against foreign influences.
Many of us argued with the demonstrators, asking why they were protesting, especially when they could not have seen the film since this was the first show. I remonstrated with their leader, who seemed completely unaware that India is governed by law. He maintained that the movie was an insult to Lord Rama and must be banned. I reasoned with him that there is no such provision in the Constitution of India. He looked confused because he was clearly ignorant about existence of the Constitution.
In the event, we entered the cinema hall to see the film. It was a slap-in-the-face experience. In my youth in 1963, I had seen a movie about urban slum dwellers directed by the leftist ideologue K.A. Abbas, titled Shehar aur sapna (‘City dreams’). It was a naïve treatise that combined populist Marxism with romantic anti-industrialism. It flopped at the box office but won the Union government’s National Film Award in 1964, because it was in sync with prevalent socialist ideology. It was a depressing, nihilist film that I saw as a teenager because like all kids growing up then, I was vaguely leftist.
Unlike Abbas’s film, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is uplifting. Interviews with slum kids who saw the movie reveal they relate to it, because it gives them hope that they can escape the filth and poverty of India’s proliferating slums. The Abbas film, on the other hand, was an indictment of the system. His anger was directed against industrial development and the displacement and anomie that accompany it. Sadly, even today, such archaic attitudes are prevalent within large sections of the privilegentsia. They seem unaware that in an era of rapid urbanisation and explosive middle class growth, the old battles of caste and class identity have to be replaced by issues of governance.
The Boyle film challenges the hopeless and bleak picture of urban poverty and rural feudalism painted by books written by Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance) and Arvind Adiga (The White Tiger). It’s also a love story and that sweetens the film’s relentless portrayal of slum life in today’s India, especially for Muslims. The moral is simple: you can escape poverty through dint of individual effort. It’s an important message to deliver, especially to politicians who build poverty vote banks. Their political system has failed to deliver the basic minima of primary education and public healthcare.
Emerging from the multiplex after viewing Slumdog Millionaire, we were shocked to find that hoodlums of the Shiv Sena, who destroyed posters and threatened mayhem, had displaced the peaceful protesters of the Hindu Janjagran Manch. Luckily, the police came and took them away before serious damage was done.
It’s worrying that the mainstream political system is still fighting the old battles of religion, caste and class. Instead of uniting resolutely against aggressive local fascist groups, mainstream politicians have been equivocal in their response. Thus, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot felt compelled to condemn the rise of “pub culture”, as did several other politicians. They are blind to the incipient evolution of fascist groups that target not only Muslims and Dalits, but also those who represent the emerging culture of achievement and optimism.
(Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist)