Category: Indian subcontinent

Written by Mara Malagodi.

India and Nepal are the only two countries in the world where the overwhelming majority of the population are followers of Hinduism. In India, according to the 2011 Census, 79.8 per cent of the total population is Hindu, while in Nepal the 2011 Census records 81.3 per cent. Both countries, however, present also a startling level of socio-cultural diversity in terms of religion, caste, ethnicity, language, region, etc. As a result, the position of Hinduism as the majority religion in the constitutional frameworks of India and Nepal and its relation to competing visions of the nation have been the object of intense political and legal struggle for decades in both countries. However, the electoral success of the Hindu Right at the centre in India in the 2014 general elections together with a disquieting rise in communal violence, and the promulgation of Nepal’s long-awaited but extremely embattled new Constitution in September 2015 have reignited debates about the place of Hinduism in their constitutional systems. The recent waves of Hindu revivalism in India and Nepal call for profound reflections on the intimate relationship between the role of religion in constitutional documents and the treatment of minorities in both jurisdictions. In this respect, the thorny issue of cow protection is a useful prism to analyse legal responses to the surge in ethno-cultural majoritarian demands in both jurisdictions and increasingly violent attempts to erase difference.

Written by Sajeda Momin.

When I returned to India at the beginning of October after my last visit to London, two very dear friends asked me why I had come back when I had the option to live abroad. “If I could live anywhere but here, like you, I would leave right away,” said one friend who was totally disgusted with the way the Narendra Modi-led, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was trying to change the India she so clearly loved. The other was just as disappointed and said “we had expected in May 2014 when Modi won that the Hindu-right will try to implement its Hindu Nationalist or Hindutva agenda, but we didn’t expect it to happen so quickly and so nastily”. Neither want me to identify them because of the barrage of abuse from BJP trolls or as writer Salman Rushdie calls them “Modi’s toadies” , that they will receive, describing the sense of fear and oppression they feel.

Written by Gurpreet Mahajan.

India has never been a completely neutral state. So what has changed in the last 18 months? The BJP led NDA government insists that nothing has changed. However, neither its supporters nor its detractors accept this. The opposition, and sections of the intelligentsia, maintain that a culture of intolerance is growing; others, supporting the BJP, proclaim that pseudo-secularism and minority appeasement have ended. Both sides miss the wood for the trees. They fail to note the currents that are pushing for a shift – from the politics of ambiguous accommodation to the politics of unambiguous majoritarianism.

Congress governments were not, contrary to what the BJP claims and what they themselves project, anti-majority. Shortly after independence, several Congress governments legislated to ban cow slaughter; others placed restrictions upon conversions. By enacting the Freedom of Religion Act, they subjected conversions to the scrutiny of the District Magistrate. These were all concessions to the majority sentiment.

Written by Bhaskar Vira.

An election in the Indian state of Bihar, has delivered a resounding and unambiguous verdict on prime minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. And it’s not a positive one.

The electorate in the eastern state has supported a grand alliance of political parties, which coalesced against the ruling National Democratic Alliance (BJP-NDA) – led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party.

The alliance is led by chief minister Nitish Kumar, who has already served two terms as head of Bihar’s state government. Made up of three parties – Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Indian Congress Party – it has now delivered a massive mandate for him to remain. Together, the coalition has secured 178 seats in the 243-member local assembly. Modi’s BJP-NDA has just 58.