DNA Edit | A conflict within: End the duel between majority and minority

The great Indian flight of progress, innovation and development is facing a headwind — forces trying to slow down its air speed. A ‘manufactured’ duel between the majority and the minority, fuelled by political forces for the sole purpose of garnering votes in elections, is that ‘headwind’. Stoking communal hatred benefits a few political players who have a vision of India that is very different from the one the champions of Indian democracy seeded after the country’s independence.

What hasn’t helped is the appeasement politics of political regimes where members of communities or caste perceived as marginalised or portrayed to be ‘under attack’ have been allowed a huge leeway in social, economic, legal and occupational aspects of life. An old practice  — to appease to the point of bribery — it is still resorted to by many state satraps to perpetuate their hold over regional politics. Rajya Sabha MP and Essel Group Chairman Dr Subhash Chandra recently expressed his apprehensions that bright spots in the India Story face a serious threat posed by the conflict between the majority and the minority.

When the unassailable right of the majority to be treated at par with the minority comes under cloud, then the entire social fabric gets stretched to its limit. One has to understand that if the majority is insecure, then the minority cannot be secure. Unlike earlier riots, where mobilisation of ground cadres was required on a large scale to engineer one, now, thanks to social media and other communication platforms, fake videos and fake news help in radicalising large constituencies without having to bring in foot soldiers of hatred.

The terrible tale unspooling in West Bengal, where minority appeasement was taken to an extreme form by the incumbent government, is a case in point. The supremely confident chief minister of that state is now having to bar Internet services in order to bring back peace to a polarised district in her state. The media too cannot escape some amount of responsibility for this minority versus majority duel. Charging up TV studios with shrill voices, crowding up timelines with columns that create an atmosphere of ‘everything is wrong with this country’ — certain sections of the media are actually playing into the hands of political forces that just want to destabilise the India growth story.

Disruptions like demonetisation and GST, diplomatic outreach programmes like the prime ministerial visit to Israel, and mass participation in social drives like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Jan Dhan Yojana are what we should focus on and pursue. Fighting, lynching, hating, not sharing equally and appeasing some at the cost of others are not what India is about, are not what we are about. So, there is a need to rev up the engines further and break through that headwind, rather than slow down and lose altitude.