India is changing and India has changed a lot.
The new generation is on different line. The society is more polarised and "think more in communal sentiment".
I know of friends and cousins and worse their children - that is younger generation - who are now touchy about mundane things like employing Muslim laborers to work in their garden.
“We should not employ Muslims," says one.
This was unthinkable in communist-ruled Bengal till the nineties,” Shanyal added.
Aug 5 (2020) :::: PM Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat performing mandatory religious rituals to launch the construction of the grand Ram temple in Ayodhya
The refrain is not being apologetic.
In contrast the refrain is - what happened in Bangladesh is worse.
Aug 5th, 2024 --- Sheikh Hasina had to flee and worse Hindus continue to suffer there.
It may be recalled that six years before - that is Aug 5, 2019, the constitutional amendment was initiated by the Narendra Modi government to abrogate Article 370 and thus 'take away' the functional autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir.
In fact, India’s only Muslim-majority state was bifurcated and J&K and Ladakh regions are today New Delhi-administered Union Territories. J&K has a legislature and a Chief Minister in Omar Abdullah but the 'real power' is not with him. It is with Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, a handpicked leader of the centre.
In other words, this 'transition' has pitchforked a new elite who are basically provincial, pro-Hindu and pro-Hindi.
They may detest English and prefer the Hindi language, and proclaim their Hindu identity unhesitatingly.
The end result has been the rise of an unapologetic Hindu. He refuses to be called a fanatic. He sees himself as being an assertive indivdual.
Is this a new socio-political order ?
Some would argue -- we may not see any major upheaval or social destabilization. But in the name of anti-elitism - there is anti-Left liberal intellectualism.
It's the Sanatan spirit.
This year just on the eve of Aug 5th -- came the verdict of a special court acquitting Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Purohit. Another testimony of the 'victory' of the Hindu right wing Sanghparivar.
This could also mean opening a room for a probe order or a new commission to find out who all had conspired to defame the entire Hindu society and the RSS and more particularly why and how Pragya Thakur was pressurised to name Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.
Param Bir Singh probed the Malegaon blast case as an assistant commissioner of Maharashtra ATS.
The case was projected by the Congress led establishments (2008 in Maharashtra and the centre) as a case of "Hindu terror".
Now, in 2025 all the accused have been let off.
Not just Malegaon, from the Antilia bomb scare case to the Rs 100-crore extortion racket in Mumbai, the now-retired IPS officer Singh has remained the king of controversies.
A day after the verdict was announced, retired ATS officer Mehboob Mujawar told India Today TV that Singh, then Assistant Commissioner of Police, had ordered the arrest of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in connection with the case.
Another explosive detail emerged when one of the 39 witnesses, Milind Joshirao, told the court that Singh, who was then an ACP, and Deputy Commissioner Shrirao had threatened him with torture and coerced him into naming Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and other RSS functionaries.
Jubilant scenes unfolded at Shantisheela Housing Society on Law College Road at Pune on Saturday as Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit returned home for the first time after being acquitted in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.
Come to think of it; Ramakanto Shanyal in West Bengal says:
"South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement or the Vietnam War are no more part of intellectual debates among students and media persons in Delhi or Kolkata. The Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan ideology will be more heard off.... On the other hand there is another extreme --- all fault lie with Modi and Rahul Gandhi is virtuous".
In southern state Kerala or even in Tripura in northeast; what people generally discuss these days revolve around the logic that the diminishing communist influence in Indian politics could have led to the rise of fundamentalism.
Nehruvian is on decline: Blogger
In Tripura, once a left-wing bastion, the BJP is in power since March 2018.
In West Bengal, not a single communist legislator or parliamentarian has been elected since 2019.
Indian youth is turning neo-nationalist and discarding the leftists.
India is now more of a Bharat. It is delighted and proud to kept its tryst with the "Hindutva moment".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi more often participate in religious ceremonies both in India and also in countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh.
For India's Hindu majority, the grand Ram temple is a symbol of Hindu assertion.
It has successfully undone the five-century-old humiliation Hindus suffered after Muslim invader Babar had destroyed a temple and built a mosque in 1528 in Ayodhya town, where Lord Ram was born.
The Ram temple in Ayodhya has an idol of Ram Lalla or the infant Ram.
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| Ayodhya : Temple city - New Pilgrim Hub |
In 2020 after laying the foundation of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, PM Modi had said - "We have to join stones for the construction of a Ram temple with mutual love and brotherhood."
But there is also another way of looking at 'new India'.
The country is actally witnessing the fusion of multiple layers of power. There is state authority/power led by Modi and Yogi. There is also the power of BJP as a political party and much importantly there is a confident Hindu on the street.
Analysts often take it as 'religious authority' of being Hindus.
Bharat as a civilisation has also witnessed a celebration of the spiritual values of God Ram and God Shiva.
In east, a pro-Muslim Mamata Banerjee has to depend on the 'power' of God Jagannath as she got a new temple constructed in her state.
ends
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