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The communally motivated ban on SIMI

THE BAN by the Central Government on the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a rabidly communal organization without any mass influence, has surprised none. Broad indications were there from the BJP establishment to this effect for some time prior to the ban. Thanks to the present international situation of the socalled “war against terrorism” by the “international community” led by the US, they hastened to impose a ban on SIMI, so as to escape the charge of being partisan or sectarian. Two main considerations seem to have propelled the Vajpayee Government to declare SIMI as a terrorist organization and ban it at this juncture. First, it was designed to send a strong signal to the USA that India could be a more trustworthy partner in the global fight against terrorism than Pakistan, and was more than willing to join the USled international coalition against international (read Islamic) terrorism. It needs to be emphasized that the haste (and the most humiliating and shameless manner) with which the Vajpayee Government prostrated before the US, offering unconditional support, including ground facilities, to the U.S. troops, was meant not only to isolate Pakistan, or to win the confidence of the US, but essentially to create the atmosphere of war in the country (if not turning the entire South Asia into a theatre of war), giving the imagery that a ‘Hindu’ India in league with the U.S. is fighting ‘Muslim’ terrorism in Kashmir, aided and abetted by Muslim Pakistan. Imagine! Prime Minister Vajpayee even went to the extent of addressing the nation to get ready for war. After all, the orchestrated Kargil war did help the BJP in coming to power. Indeed, such a scenario would have helped the BJP leadership to consolidate at national level and also to reap the electoral benefits in forthcoming U.P. Assembly election.

Second and more important, it was aimed at intensifying communal polarization, ensuring thereby the survival of the BJP government in the forthcoming UP elections, scheduled for March 2002. Two points need to be emphasized here. One, the logic of communal polarization has been the time-tested political strategy for the RSS to expand and consolidate its social base and also to retain state power. In other words, sharper the Muslim reaction greater would be the consolidation of Hindu vote-bank. In addition to it, the move to ban SIMI also contains an indirect threat to the political assertion of Muslim community, particularly during the election period. There are reports that the names of many Muslims are missing in the new voters’ list in several districts of U.P. Two, the centrality of UP in the country’s politics. Given the dismal performance of the BJP Government in UP over the last five years, there are little chances for the BJP to win on the basis of any of its own positive programmes. And there is no doubt that the defeat of BJP in UP election will start ringing the deathknell for the NDA government. Hence, every move of the Central and UP governments, besides the RSS and its various affiliates, during the last one year – ranging from the RSS national convention in Agra, Advani’s visit and participation in an RSS programme in Lucknow, Vajpayee frequently being seen in the company of RSS leaders, the targeting of madrassas in the name of terrorism, the raking up of Ayodhya issue time and again by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, the change of leadership in some states, the forging of opportunist alliances, devising of new caste reservations and, finally, the ban on SIMI – were essentially meant to ensure its survival in UP elections.

In a nutshell, the ban on SIMI is a reflection of all-round failure of the BJP government (a local version of the “failed state”?) and a growing Talibanisation of the saffron regime. A failed government cannot be expected to secure a mandate on a positive agenda but to resort to negative planks such as terrorizing and targeting minorities, their institutions and symbols, dividing the people on communal lines, championing the majoritarian nationalism, creating the bogey of insecurity and an atmosphere of war etc. in order to continue at the helm of state power.

The ban on SIMI poses several questions. The first and foremost is the blatant display of selective (mis)use of law and partisan behavior by the Indian state, just to secure a few petty political gains for the party in power. Such a partisan act will not only erode and undermine the very “democratic principle” of governance but will further alienate the minority community from the political system. The minorities, particularly the Muslim community, have already been pushed to the margins of society thanks to the majoritarian outlook of the Indian state and, more recently, due to open hate campaigns generated by the RSS and hundreds of its sociocultural and political affiliates. Any further marginalization will result in total alienation of minority communities. And, it is this condition of insecurity and isolation, which creates a ghetto mentality among minorities – a fertile sociopsychological ground for the growth of fanatic communal-religious organizations, which degenerate into terrorism.

Secondly, worse is the case of Prime Minister’s defense of the police firing on protesters in Lucknow in the wake of the ban, which claimed 5 lives. While the Opposition has criticized the partisan attitude of the Central government and called for a similar ban on Bajrang Dal, the lumpen youth brigade of the RSS, nobody has condemned the police action, nor raised the question of civil liberties and human fights in this instance. This will further erode the minority’s confidence. The Opposition, including the CPI and the CPI(M), accused the Central Government for its partisan behavior and demanded a similar clampdown on VHP and Bajrang Dal. The implied premise was that the ban on SIMI was okay except that it was not impartial. SIMI is a communal organization alright. But jurists like Krisha Iyer have questioned whether that alone qualified it for a ban. Despite raids on SIMI offices all over the country, including unfortunately in West Bengal, not a single weapon was seized. No court has convicted any of the SIMI activists in the 14 mysterious bomb blast cases, all of which took place in UP.

Moreover, to treat, on a practical political plane, both the majoritarian and minority communal organizations on equal basis simply because both share the same vision of retrogressive and repressive society, unmindful of the concrete context and gameplan of the saffron rulers, would amount to walking into a trap. The majoritarian communal organizations are not just fascist in character, they wield central power, pose a concrete danger to political liberty, democracy and the nation itself and create insecure conditions for the minorities within which minority communal organizations flourish. The ban, seen in the context of promulgation of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO), has revived fearsome memories among the minority community of the brutal witch-hunt during the TADA days, which saw tens of thousands of Muslims, especially youth, languishing in jails after being dubbed as “anti-national terrorists”. Thanks to TADA, the country was witness to the strange spectacle of having nearly a lakh “terrorists” behind the bars without the administration in different states being unable to conjure up even a dozen “terrorist acts”. It clearly showed what a draconian act like TADA in the hands of a communalized and authoritarian administration could lead to. The absurdity of the inexplicable situation made TADA unjustifiable and unsustainable. Under social pressure and criticism from the democratic opinion, TADA was scrapped. But pressure was mounting for bringing it back and Advani started preparing the grounds in a systematic way. In this sense, the ban was to create some justification for bringing back TADA in a new form. Craving for arbitrary and sweeping powers, the opposition-ruled states were also demanding a ‘stringent’ anti-terrorist act. The Congress had also in principle taken a stand in favour of such an act. However, fearing pressures for any dilution in the proposed act due to opposition pressure in the Rajya Sabha, where the NDA lacks a majority, the Vajpayee Government has hastily rushed through this ordinance. To create some justification and silence some critics, all that the government had to do was to dub some communal outfit terrorist and anti-national. Many “secularists” who concurred with the ban seem to have missed this essential point and Advani’s gameplan. In fact, in response to the opposition demand for banning the Bajrang Dal, Mr. Rajnath Singh completely ruled it out on the plea that the organisation might be termed communal by a few but is not anti-national. The meaning of this statement is that while minority communalism is necessarily antinational in its outlook, the same is not true about majoritarian communalism. It is this dangerous formulation that will further fragment the nation in the long run.

–Anwar Alam

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