The last temptation of Kenan Malik

Should we compare poor countries with rich countries? No. We should compare like with like. Furthermore, we should only compare things on which we are accurately informed. Otherwise, we are bound to write nonsense. As a case in point, look at this opinion piece by Kenan Malik, who is of Muslim subcontinental origin, which has been published in the Guardian-

It’s the largest democracy in the world. It’s also one of the most fragile, one in which dissent has often been curtailed and communal divisions inflamed.

Indian democracy is not fragile. It is anti-fragile. That is why it exists. One reason for this is because the Muslim majority areas were split off from India. Only the Kashmir Valley and the Lakshadweep islands have Muslim majorities. The former ethnically cleansed its Hindus in the Nineties and is now held down by force. The latter has always been peaceful because there are no indigenous Kaffirs who require killing.

At no time have the vulnerabilities of India’s democracy seemed more exposed than they are now.

Rubbish! A Democracy reveals itself to be vulnerable when the administration is paralyzed by deep political divisions. Britain's democracy seemed vulnerable after the Brexit Referendum. There was much doom and gloom about the fate of the Union. Northern Ireland might be effectively broken off as the price of a Trade deal with Brussels. The Scots might get a second Referendum and break away. But, perhaps the Highlands and Islands too would want to be independent. Wales might follow suit. Perhaps there would be a 'Northern League' and a second War of the Roses or Game of Thrones.

India did see unstable coalitions in the Nineties. Even the first NDA and first UPA coalitions had their internal fissures. However, under Modi, you have stable Government, increased State Capacity and confidence in the Executive. Gone are the days when indecisive politicians would kick the can down the road till the Supreme Court lost patience and stepped in.

The return to power last year of the Hindu nationalist BJP, under the leadership of prime minister, Narendra Modi, has polarised politics.

Utterly mad! Polarization peaked in the mid Nineties. But Vajpayee showed that the BJP was good at governance. Modi was a great success as C.M of Gujarat. He won big in 2014 and, despite a worsening economy, returned to power with a convincing majority. Instead of polarization, we now have consensus. Rahul Baba is a cretin. The Left is useless. By contrast, the Shiv Sena is cool. Congress is a junior partner in its administration in Maharashtra.

Modi clearly now feels empowered to pursue unyieldingly reactionary policies.

Modi is making good on his party's long standing manifesto promises. Malik may feel a progressive policy would involve restoring the Nizam and giving second class status to Kaffirs. But there are some Muslims in Britain who demand that the country impose Sharia Law so as to catch up with the Islamic State.

The revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and the military lockdown of the state,

It was the Supreme Court which, in 2016, said that J&K had no vestige of autonomy. Its 'special status' meant a lesser status- its residents had fewer rights than Indians elsewhere.

the passing of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which openly discriminates against Muslims,

How? It is a fact that Islamic Republics ethnically cleanse non-Muslims. This means there is an asymmetry such that only non Muslim immigrants are prima facie refugees. This does not mean they get automatic citizenship. However they can apply for expedited naturalization. Some Muslims may be genuine refugees. But they have always been able to apply for settlement. However, the reason they are refugees is because other Muslims want to kill them. So, like Taslima Nasrin, they are chased out of India- not given asylum.

and the unleashing of thugs on to streets and campuses to intimidate dissenters all bear witness to this agenda.

What is Mamta Bannerjee doing in West Bengal? Her goons have been beating the shit out of the Communists with such vim and vigor that many Leftists now vote for the BJP. Consider what happened at the Jadavpur University campus in 2014. Some TMC goons grabbed a girl and dragged her into the hostel they controlled. The students launched a long agitation. But they were beaten by the police and by TMC goons till they stopped. Now they obediently bleat whoever the TMC tells them to bleat.

By contrast, the BJP has a grown-up image. Still, it is showing it can lay on the hurt same as the other guys.

At the same time, opponents of the BJP have discovered a new voice in recent weeks, millions taking to the streets in protest, defying the violence, official and unofficial.

This is the same old voice. The trouble is everyone now thinks it is the whining of losers. The BJP calculates that the protests are consolidating the Hindu vote.

It’s easy to see this turmoil as the product primarily of local politics.

As opposed to what? Global jihad?

Some root causes are unique to India, but many have wider resonance. The electoral success of the BJP has been smoothed by trends familiar across the globe: resentment of a liberal elite, the implosion of the old order (represented in India by the Congress party), anger at the impact of globalisation and inequality, the rise of radical nationalism and the exploitation of sectarian divides.

Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi represented muscular Hinduism. The BJP was seen as the party of petty traders and provincials. It only began its electoral rise after Rajiv's death left a vacuum in Indian politics- one which the Left, for ideological reasons, refused to fill.

In the decades after independence in 1947, the Congress party, which had led the struggle for liberation from British rule, governed India almost as the family fiefdom of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

It represented muscular Hinduism. Muslims lost all the special protections they had been given between 1916 and 1935. It was because Jinnah could read the writing on the wall that he insisted on Partition.

Until the 1990s, popular disaffection found no national voice.

Quite false. There were two separate 'Janata Morchas'- the first in the Seventies which took power in '77 and the second led by V.P. Singh- Rajiv's former Finance Minister- which focused on the staggering corruption of the dynasty.

It was the sectarian BJP, rooted in the philosophy of Hindutva, or Hindu chauvinism, which eventually became the vehicle of anti-Congress rage.

Congress was almost wholly Hindu. However, at one time, it had a Socialist wing. Otherwise it was based on conservative Hindu values. The BJP was less orthodox- being anti caste- than Congress. However its meritocratic ethos gave it the edge- more particularly when the people rebelled against corruption and demanded the creation of 'Lokpals' (ombudsmen) to bring the guilty to book.

Liberalisation of economic policy from the 1990s led to increased growth. More than 270 million Indians moved out of poverty between 2005 and 2015. But the fruits of growth have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. In the 1980s, India’s richest 1% took 6% of national income; today, it purloins 22%. That 1% now owns more than half the country’s wealth; the poorer half of India scrambles for a mere 4.1% of national wealth.

These numbers are meaningless. It was common knowledge that only one man in India accurately reported his Income and Wealth. That man was J.R.D Tata. He had to sell some assets every year in order to pay his tax bill. Most wealth and income in the country was 'black'.

The BJP has seized upon anger at such disparities, presenting itself as the champion of the ordinary citizen against the cosmopolitan elite while swaddling that anger in chauvinist hatred.

This is true of the Aam Aadmi Party which grew out of the Lokpal agitation. Ordinary Indians don't know what a 'cosmopolitan elite' is. As for 'chauvinist hatred'- that has always existed.  It is the reason Partition was irreversible.

Long before the BJP came to power, the Congress party had shown itself willing to exploit sectarian politics for electoral gain.

Congress was a Hindu party. It is only under Sonia that it pivoted to becoming a Liberal technocratic party. Sadly, Rahul Baba proved to be a moon calf. So it is collapsing.

A turning point, as the historian Dilip Simeon observes, was 1984, the year that prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards, angered by the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Nonsense! The turning point, for Punjab, was Indira's decision to back Zail Singh and Buta Singh's decision to build up Bhrindinwale to split the Jat Sikhs. This was pure casteist politics. The idea was that lower caste Sikhs would benefit if the dominant caste splintered on religious issues. I would say that it was the blatantly discriminatory treatment meted out by the Haryana police to Sikhs travelling to Rajiv's Asian Games which opened people's eyes to what must inevitably follow.

Gandhi’s assassination led to pogroms against Sikhs, many fomented by Congress politicians. At least 3,000 Sikhs were killed. The violence, Simeon notes, “set a new standard for the normalisation of brutality and lawlessness in the Indian polity” and acted as a “force multiplier” for the BJP.

This is nonsense. The BJP was pulverized in the subsequent elections. Incidentally, the Nellie massacre in Assam probably claimed 10,000 Muslim lives. It was triggered by Indira's decision to give the vote to 4 million Bangladeshi immigrants. The Government promised to evict illegal immigrants after compiling a Nationality Register. But successive administrations dragged their feet when it came to implementing the Assam accord. Ultimately, the Supreme Court lost patience and took over the process. However, when the results were published, nobody was happy. That is what has precipitated the current C.A.A controversy.

Three decades on, many Congress politicians continue to pursue what one MP, Shashi Tharoor, denounces as “Hindutva-lite”policies.

But Tharoor himself does so. In Kerala, he and his party oppose female entry into the Sabarimala temple. In Delhi, they were for it. But since Rahul can only get elected in Kerala, the party as a whole has to support the orthodox position. Now, in Maharashtra, they are a junior ally of the Shiv Sena. Rahul fought the last election as a sacred-thread wearing Brahman. His sister is now spending a lot of time visiting temples and, like her Grandmother, taking 'darshan' of Hindu Sadhus. Thus Congress is returning to its roots as the High Caste Hindu party which gives short shrift to minorities.

Far from shoring up Congress’s support, it has only helped strengthen the BJP. Who needs Hindutva-lite when you can have Hindutva-strong?

Malik, being Muslim, does not know that the answer is 'Brahmans prefer Congress because it has traditionally been the High Caste party which affirms hereditary rights and kills minorities if they wag their tails. Lower castes and Nationalists prefer the BJP because it promotes people on merit.'

If the turmoil in India raises questions about democracy at home, it also holds lessons for political battles elsewhere.

Nonsense! India has a hereditary caste system of a type unknown elsewhere.

The key question today, it reminds us, is about who gives shape to popular disaffection.

Rubbish! All that matters is the economy. India's economy is faltering. Young people face diminishing life-chances. Some States- e.g. in the South- have experienced demographic transition. They resent having to pay so much to the center and get so little back.

Alienation from the old political order is a global phenomenon, whether that order is expressed in corrupted liberation movements, as in India and South Africa, or through faltering conservative and social democratic parties, as in Europe.

Nonsense! Where is the 'alienation' in China? Their economy is doing well. That is all that matters.

Opposition movements giving voice to disaffection are often sectarian in form – a sectarianism that may be rooted in religious or ethnic identity, as in India or Turkey, or expressed in hostility to migrants and Muslims, as in much of the west.

This is very foolish. All political movements will reflect the indigenous identity. It is not the case that Nigerian politicians speak Swedish or dress in kilts and play the bagpipes.
There is hostility to migrants wherever there is wage competition and increased pressure on congestible resources. Islam, currently, does not have a good image anywhere because young people have been attracted to an extremist ideology. Some have become terrorists.

Everywhere, there is a hole where a national progressive movement should be.

Nonsense! Which country has politicians who say 'our movement is anti-national. We don't want progress. We want backwardness.'?

Which is why the nationwide popular opposition in India to the CAA, and to the violence meted out by BJP thugs, is so heartening.

How is it heartening? Are the people of West Bengal saying 'our future is bright because TMC goons are beating up Leftists and BJP supporters'? Consider what is happening in Delhi- where elections are due in a few weeks. Kejriwal is trying to steer clear of the anti-CAA protests. It remains to be seen whether his ambiguity on this issue will cost him votes. My guess is that he will be rewarded for concentrating on bread and butter issues. This agitation will collapse soon enough.

The turmoil in India should also be a warning against any attempt to win back support from reactionary populists by stealing their illiberal clothes.

Who is Malik addressing? Does he himself have any political power? Was it his previous practice to prowl around the backstreets of England stealing illiberal clothes? Did he discover that wearing a top hat and tailcoat and screwing a monocle into his eye was a faulty strategy?

What has really challenged the BJP is not the appeasement of sectarian sentiment but nationwide protests against bigoted laws and chauvinist violence.

Malik may object to non-Muslim refugees from Islamic persecution gaining citizenship. But this happens even in England.  Asylum is more likely to be granted to a guy who says- 'I'm Christian. If you send me back, the Muslims will kill me like they killed the rest of my family'. By contrast, a Muslim from the same place can't say 'The Muslims will kill me simply because I am a Muslim'. He will have to show he is Gay or a member of a banned political organization or something of that sort. 

It’s a lesson for those in the west tempted to stem the growth of rightwing populists through harsher rhetoric about migrants or Muslims.

Does Malik read what he himself writes? What is he saying here? There is a lesson for those who are tempted to do x so as to combat the doing of x. But who is stupid enough to need such a lesson? Suppose you went up to Malik and said 'My dear fellow, you must learn to resist the temptation to fart loudly in people's faces so as to combat the growing trend of people farting loudly in people's faces'. Would he get on his knees and thank you with tears in his eyes? Will he say 'all these years I've been farting loudly in people's faces because I believed that this was the best way to combat the spread of this horrible fad. You have shown me the error of my ways. Instead of farting loudly in people's faces I will say 'It is wrong to fart loudly in people's faces. It is a highly repugnant activity. Kindly stop it.'

If we really want to challenge divisive politics, it’s a temptation to resist.

Thus, if you wish to challenge the Nazi party, you should not kill Jews. Nor should you invade Poland. I know it is very tempting to do both these things because obviously, the way to resist a Party is by joining it and doing what it wants you to do. But you must resist this temptation. Write a piece for the Guardian instead. They will publish it coz u iz bleck. White peeps do love exhibiting the imbecility of their duskier brethren. It is a temptation they can't resist.