In India, The Steady Subversion Of Equality

Context: The sharp turns away from democracy seen recently in the country must jolt citizens into stopping the descent.

Significance of equality in India

• Central edifice of a democracy: The central edifice of a democracy, or what makes it a revolutionary idea, is equality, or that it accords equal status to all its people.
• Notion of substantive equality: If any benefit was accorded to smaller groups, religious or linguistic minorities or Dalits, it was in order to achieve substantive equality. This cut across all markers of identity — colour, race, language, faith, caste, region or food.
• Promise of shared and participatory kinship: The Indian nation is one formed on the promise of shared and participatory kinship, which recognised Indian nationalism as being distinct from the faith you practised at home.

Challenges to equality in India: Deviations from the ideals of equality in India.

• Faith as a differentiator: This can be assessed from the analysis of the following points -
  • The basis of citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019, allowing for non­Muslims from three countries to fast­track their citizenship, was the most serious push to introduce religion into citizenship.
  • In terms of marital choices, imaginary fears of a ‘love­jihad’, the basis for new legislations have meant that inter­faith marriages are seen as crimes unless proven otherwise.
• The criminalisation of food: Through stringent laws on cattle ended up penalising those who have a certain diet.
  • IndiaSpend has recorded bovine­related hate violence since 2010 and concluded that 98% of these attacks occurred post­May 2014.
• Forced displacements: The Disturbed Areas Act (in Gujarat) which circumscribes where one can reside. Brought in an atmosphere where there was communal rioting and forced displacement, to ostensibly protect communities from distress sales, forced separation of communities evident.
• Acceptability of violence: Scholars like Thomas Blom Hansen and Paul Brass have un­ hesitatingly pointed to the role of violence that has historically been acceptable in Indian society and politics.
  • Far from discouraging those indulging in hate speech, they are given a place in the party hierarchy.
• Rising sense of exclusive entitlement to Indianhood: There is a growing consensus that the very idea of Ganga­ Jamuni tehzeeb (term used to denote the coming together fusion of Hindu and Muslim cultures in the country), is irrelevant.
• Not a smooth sail towards ethnic democracy: Scholars like Christophe Jaffrelot have pointed out that there will not be a seamless transition to an “ethnic democracy”.
  • There is no smooth path towards a ‘Category two’ or diminished citizenship status for large numbers of people who deviate from a prescribed cultural path.
  • Prioritising any one identity will have disastrous consequences, and history provides enough evidence of this. Rwanda, South Africa or Germany are reminders.

Conclusion: There is a need to acknowledge the distance we have travelled away from the ideals of equality as imagined through our Constitution. That may be the first step to try to wrest the descent into the darkness of an apartheid state.