THE true meaning of ‘Amrit Kaal’ is unfolding with the relentless attacks on the Muslim minorities accompanied by hate speech and glorification of Gandhiji’s killer, Godse. 

In Maharashtra, the Shinde-BJP government has gone on a spree of renaming cities which have Muslim names. Aurangabad has become Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Osmanabad is now Dharashiv, Ahmednagar district has been declared to be Ahilyabai Holkar Nagar. These changes were accompanied by majoritarian triumphalism and the demonising of Muslim rulers and historical figures. Prior to this, 50 Hindu Jan Aakrosh Morcha rallies were held over four months all over Maharashtra, which became open displays of Muslim-baiting and Hindu bigotry. 

There has been communal violence in Shevgaon village in Ahmednagar district followed by communal clashes in Kolhapur. Devendra Fadnavis, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, has called out ‘Aurangzeb ki aulad’ as responsible for this situation. That a senior BJP leader who holds the home portfolio can make such a statement shows the brazen adoption of hate politics by those holding official positions.

In BJP-ruled states, putting Muslims in their place and disempowering them economically seems to be a deliberate policy.  In Uttarakhand, where Muslims are a tiny proportion of the population, in Purola, Uttarkashi, Muslim shopkeepers have been asked to vacate their shops. Muslim shops have been marked with a black cross and an ultimatum was given to them to vacate by June 15.  This is consequent to an abduction incident of a minor girl in which, of the two persons involved, one was a Muslim youth. Already some of the shopkeepers have shut down their shops in the market and gone away.  Similar demands asking Muslim traders to leave bazars have been raised in other places too. 

Motivating such Muslim baiting is the politics of hate and bigotry of the BJP-RSS combine.  Recently, the union rural development minister, Giriraj Singh, called Nathuram Godse a ‘sapoot’ of India. He said, “If he was a killer of Gandhi, he was also a sapoot (worthy son) of Bharat Mata”. The glorification of Godse has become a punctual theme for the BJP leadership. Just a few days before Giriraj Singh’s comment, the former chief minister of Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat, said that “Gandhiji was killed, this is a different issue. Godse too was a patriot”. Before that, in 2019, Pragya Singh Thakur, BJP MP from Bhopal and accused in a terrorist case, had called Godse a patriot; Nalin Kumar Kateel, the BJP MP from Karnataka, had justified Godse by saying that he killed only one, while Rajiv Gandhi had killed 17,000 people. So, at all levels of the BJP, Godse-loving is the norm. The veneration of Savarkar, another Gandhi hater, is an accompanying chorus.

A party glorifying Godse and setting out to establish a Hindutva Rashtra is what the New India is all about.

(June 14, 2023)