Daily Times

For most Pakistanis, especially those who have never travelled to their neighbouring country, India is a land filled with Hindus who beat up their Muslim brothers at any given moment, and with Modi’s reign, the image of Indians has only tarnished further. “Thank your lucky stars Quaid-e-Azam fought for Pakistan; had it still been Hindustan, we would have been daydreaming about relishing even a plate of beef biryani,” is how our citizens tend to think as they dodge mobile snatchers, the random bomb blast in their own backyard, and battle the mullah within that instantly objects to anything fun and frolic. The good news for ultra-patriotic Pakistanis is that India is on its way to becoming another Pakistan, and the bad news is that it won’t happen anytime soon. For every emerging extremist in India, there is a tolerant person out there who is willing to fight his/her own fellow countrymen to retain the image of a secular India.

The situation indeed in India socially is a complex one with many layers to it, but not everyone in India is a fan of Modi, yet, the ones that are, have turned their fandom into idol worship, and that is good enough to rock the boat. The saffron brigade, the one that advocates the Hindutva ideology, also believes in the concept of an Akhand Bharat (Unified India). They view Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh as the mainland of Hindus, where invaders in the form of Muslim rulers kept coming and changing the demographics of the land one century at a time. They believe mass conversions in the past eventually led to the disintegration of Hindus in their own homeland; hence some Hindu extremists have a dream of making Akhand Bharat a reality once again.

There is also a fear amongst those that support the RSS, which commands the BJP, that Muslims will out populate Hindus in a few decades. So before the general elections in 2014, which brought Narendra Modi to power, there was a social media campaign that encouraged Hindus to have more children; the ‘hum-do-hamare-do’ was detrimental to the future of Hindus lamented some right wingers.

It is safe to assume that the Babri Masjid riots that took place exactly 24 years ago changed India from within. The regular citizen, who may not have taken too much interest in history, began looking at all Mughal structures as palaces of plunderers, often forgetting that almost every Mughal emperor was of a mixed lineage (Rajput and Timurid).

This renewed interest in Mughal history and exclusively viewing it through the prism of Aurangzeb’s hard line views and then finding his ideological lookalikes in mullah-minded Muslims of current times has been damaging to the social fabric of an India that has always been an inviting ground for outsiders. For fans of Modi, Pakistanis and Indian Muslims are one and the same, both groups having sympathy for each other more than usual.

A lot of Indian politics rides on the Pakistan card. No convincing political speech is complete without the neta (politician) issuing Pakistan ‘a strict warning’ of sorts amidst thunderous applause from the audience that considers it as the high point of the event. Modi, unlike Vajpayee, the former prime minister also from the BJP, who was soft on Pakistan, represents the Alpha male to his die-hard supporters. He is seen as someone who will put Pakistan ‘in its place’ time and again.

For the most part, though Indians are a generous set of people, simpler than us in nature and welcoming towards foreigners. Culturally they believe in the Atithi Devo Bhava code of conduct, which roughly translates to ‘Guest is equivalent to God’. I have travelled widely in India even, rented out places for long periods of time as a single Muslim female without too many hiccups. The fact is there is a strong Hindu-Muslim underbelly in their society that can get agitated at any time but remains in check mostly due to a large number of secular-minded folks. For every Modi devotee, you may think there is in India; there would be another educated, mild-minded person who believes that Muslims have equal rights in their country as any other.

It must also be noted that not everyone who voted for Modi is a Muslim hater. Some of them were just tired of the Congress party rule and the corruption that took place during its governance. Sonia Gandhi’s son in law Robert Vadra supposedly became a billionaire almost overnight, exploiting his powerful connections.

However, two years after Narendra Modi’s rule, Indians are sharply and increasingly getting divided over party lines. It’s an ideological war within; the Modi lovers back all his decisions blindly and his haters have a problem with everything he does, and both sides are unwilling to budge.

The writer is a freelance columnist with a degree in Cultural Studies and a passion for social observation, especially all things South Asian. She tweets @chainacoffeemug.