India seems to be entering the stage of pogroms now as indicated by the sudden upsurge in incidents of anti-Muslim violence all across the country. The present cycle of bloodshed is very different from the previous ones in that the state has abandoned neutrality and in fact is complicit in its acts of omission and commission. The PM and everyone are maintaining silence because they believe and exult in this bigoted ideology. Moreover, India is not worried about criticism from the west because the sense is that the western economy needs India’s huge market more than India needs the west. The state has willy nilly become an enabler of the atrocities against the minorities, smug in its belief that no one can take action against it including the judiciary which has been reduced to being a handmaiden of the executive. With the mediocre educational standing of the general public, the Sanghis find no difficulty in whipping up communal passions to target the ‘others’ and divert attention from actual problems like unemployment, a tanking economy, poverty, shrinking earnings etc. The ruling party’s deafening silence on the calls for genocide of Muslims and threats to rape their women in the so-called ‘dharam sansads’ shows that the Centre has virtually acquiesced to pogroms of the minority community. India is already on genocide watch by UN bodies and independent think tanks abroad, but do we care. We have reached a state of no return as a secular nation now, it has become a race to the bottom for what was once a vibrant democracy. Cry my beloved country, for the good old days of peace and amity are never going to return.
