EDITORIAL: Furthering their party’s patently discriminatory anti-Muslim agenda, the BJP-ruled Utter Pradesh and Uttarakhand states directed eateries all along the 230-kilometre route of the Hindu pilgrims Kanwar Yatra to display their owners’ and employees’ names outside their establishments so as to identify their religious affiliation.
After hearing three petitions filed by civil society activists challenging the directive, the Indian Supreme Court on Monday granted an interim stay. During the case proceedings the petitioners counsel, Dr Abhishek Manu Sanghvi, had questioned ‘the rational nexus’ behind the move, emphasising that the situation is worrisome as the police and the authorities had taken upon themselves to create (actually, to ‘enhance’) a religious divide.
“No law gives police commissioner the power to do that”, argued the counsel. The government issued directive is for every hath-gaddi (hand cart) and tea stall, he said, adding that “giving the names of employees and owners does not serve any purpose.” But those responsible for it do have purpose, which is to impose more economic marginalisation on the Muslim community.
It is worth noting that the Kanwar Yatra though a small affair until the recent years, has been going on for a long time without any untoward incident. Yet it was in 2022 that the BJP decided to make a list of all eateries’ owners. Last year, those owned by Muslims were closed down without any written order.
This year, formal instructions were issued to all food vendors and shops to identify their proprietors as well as workers on the pretext of “customer safety”. In that case, the yatrees only needed to know whether or not the food items on the menu were vegetarian.
Why put a name to who prepared or sold them? The objective clearly is to make people suspicious and buy food only from eateries and other outlets run by Hindus, leading to a virtual economic boycott of Muslim-owned ones. The court in its final verdict is likely to quash the government directives in the two BJP-ruled states, but the doubt they have caused in many minds will linger on — a significant achievement for the BJP-RSS combine’s divisive politics.
Meanwhile, in line with their ideology, the government in Delhi on Monday announced lifting of a decades old ban on civil servants becoming card carrying members of the RSS. The ban was imposed in 1966, after the RSS — of which the BJP is a political wing — along with another Hindu militant outfit Jana Sangh, staged a massive anti-cow slaughter protest at the parliament that resulted in many deaths.
The BJP and its Sangh Parivar make no secret of their ambition to make India a Hindu Rashtrya (Hindu state) in which Muslims can live only as second-class citizens. No surprise therefore that the Muslims face increasing economic and political exclusion. Many Indians, like the petitioners in the present case, see that as a blatant negation of the secular values enshrined in the Indian constitution. Theirs is a fight for the essence of the country’s constitution that they cannot afford to lose.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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