1984, Hindutva and the Politics of Nationalism

Because Sikhs also face huge amount of violence, and for them it was a big shock because Sikhs saw themselves as integrated to the idea of the Indian nation. The Sikhs were large numbers in the army. They were, you know, in any such nationalist mobilization, Sikhs would also be in good numbers, etc. A lot of amongst the Sikhs themselves, a section of them is also in the RSS and all that. So, for them it was a shock, when Sikhs came to be targeted, seeing themselves as disloyal to the nation, or seeing them as secessionists, and also that label terrorist at one point of time was stuck to the Sikhs. But the Sikh case was, in that sense, short-lived. Extremely bad experience, went through the horror of huge violence, as I say. But again, 4-5 years, and then it definitely was not something which was perpetually present. Hindutva politics, for example, cannot organize itself to the same way and extent by targeting Sikhs as it can with the Muslims. So, in that way, in one of the statements, I think Mr. Mohan Bhagwat, who is the RSS chief, I don't know, I'm going to imagine, cuz the Hindus without the Muslims, he's right. Because in their politics is centered around, from the beginning, of, you know, ha Muslims in every way, seeing an ordinary Muslim as lecherous, lascivious, ordinary Muslim as one who is a jihadi, if not this jihadi, that jihadi, love jihadi, land jihadi, some jihadi he is. You know, history select a key present up. That is not what any other community as such has faced. The Muslim case is also, because I would say that it is something was ingrained in the Indian nationalism, in the Indian national ideology also. And so it, if Hindutva concretized it, it made it a project with a singular focus. But it isn't that it was completely absent.