South Asia Citizens Web

With the death of Ashis Bose, India’s foremost demographer, the academic community has lost one of its shining members who not only taught well and researched well but also talked to the powers that be: An inalienable quality of an intellectual.

Without questioning the validity of India’s democratic election process, it is crucial to remember the role played by the Modi government in the horrifying events that took place in Gujarat in 2002. The Muslim minority were overwhelmingly the victims of pillage, murder and terror, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,000 men, women and children. Women, in particular, were subjected to brutal acts of violence and were left largely unprotected by the security forces. Although some members of Narendra Modi’s government are now facing trial, Modi himself repeatedly refuses to accept any responsibility or to render an apology. Such a failure of moral character and political ethics on the part of Modi is incompatible with India’s secular constitution, which, in advance of many constitutions across the world, is founded on pluralist principles and seeks fair and full representation for minorities. Were he to be elected prime minister, it would bode ill for India’s future as a country that cherishes the ideals of inclusion and protection for all its peoples and communities.

“If the wave has become a tsunami, why is the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate playing safe by polarising voters along communal lines?”

CSDS Rajni Kothari Lecture by Shahid Amin, 6 February 2013
Difference is seen today not as impeding the development of the democratic process, but rather as a key characteristic of the Indian polity. Problems generally arise when we try to narrate the conflicts of the past as anything other than the life histories of segregated groupings. This is specially the case with the ’fact’ and ’memory’ of the Turkic conquest of Northern India, epitomized most notably in the figure of Mahmud of Ghazni. The lecture takes up the career of a ’fictional’ nephew of the Sultan to illustrate the process of difference-based community formation (of devotes) across denominational divides over the past seven centuries.