Name: Hindu Fundamentalist
Age: Not a factor
Nationality: Indian
Claim to fame: Communal frenzy

THE recent flare-up in communal frenzy in major parts of India is yet another reminder of the validity of the Two-Nation Theory, and the decisions that were taken under its influence. It has also broken through the secular fagade that the government of India had so deliberately erected over the years. What secularism, what moderation, what coexistence? The Hindu is as hardcore fundamentalist as any other religious lunatic on the face of earth.

In what has now become a routine annual affair, Ayodhya becomes a flashpoint each year in December when Hindu fundamentalist organizations celebrate Vijay diwas (victory day), while the Muslims observe a Black Day. When the incident had first taken place in 1992, more than 3,000 had lost their lives. Over ten per cent of it have done it this year, and the count has not stopped yet.

Mosques, in particular, seem to be a target of the anti-Muslim sentiment propagated by extremist elements, including those in the BJP, the ruling Hindu nationalist party. This is being used to whip up anti-Muslim sentiments in the country. Unless steps are urgently taken to protect the rights of the Muslim minority with respect to these mosques, there is likely to be additional violence and loss of life. But the Indian hierarchy has a lackadaisical attitude towards what is happening on the ground. Fire tenders reach the troubled spots hours after they should. Police is playing the role of a semi-interested onlooker. Indeed, a recent television footage showed two India policemen smoking less than hundred metres away from the scene of a hand-to-hand clash in Ahmedabad.

The Indian government fails to understand that such actions strengthen Western stereotypes of India as a land forever mired in ancient mysticism and irrationality, and therefore doomed to remain forever impoverished and on the brink of starvation and pestilence.

History aside and externalities notwithstanding, many of the problems of India are endemic and endogenous, sustained and nurtured within. The bonds holding this ancient edifice together are eroding and corroding with each successive decade. India may not be breaking up, but it is suffering from raging internal conflicts between its unrelenting medieval value system and the irresistible demands and aspirations of the 21st century. The dimensions of this tug-of-war call into question the ability to hold the country together of the constitutional formula that made sense earlier. It is acceptable now to ask if India really is a single nation or just a conglomerate of not-necessarily-complementary entities having little in common but geographic affinity and patches of shared history. The Hindu fundamentalist is largely responsible for this state of affairs.