Daily Times

The verdict of a special court in India, which acquitted all culprits involved in ordering and taking part in the demolition of the Babri Mosque almost three decades ago, proves beyond doubt that all major institutions of India are now firmly in the control of the Hindutva brigade that has taken over the country in the form of Prime Minister Modi’s ruling BJP. Not only could the court not find enough evidence against all the accused, despite TV clippings of them in the act and the fact that they openly boasted about it, it also added insult to injury for no reason at all and went on to state that they were actually trying to stop the crowd.

So complete, then, is the takeover of the Indian establishment by hardliners of the BJP mould. And it’s quite a shame really that Indian civil society has not made much of a fuss about how radically their country is being pushed to the far right. While it was admirable how activists came out to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), that spark was put out rather quickly and the kind of buildup that was expected against such an authoritarian administration never really materialised. One reason could be Modi’s convincing second-term victory. The Hindutva ideology might not be embraced by most of the people in the country but it is strong enough to stand India’s conventional pluralistic values on its head, so perhaps most people consider it wiser to just play along than try to stand against a building tide.

Pakistan has very rightly rejected the acquittal and lamented the erosion of the Indian judiciary’s sovereignty. It is clear that the neighbouring country is bent upon experimenting with letting extremist ideology dictate the course of the state; something that has already caused others in the region to get their fingers burnt. The biggest flaw of such a way of running a country is that it does not take long for all sorts of dissent to completely die down. And without differing opinions and debate, especially about crucial policy matters, any democracy no matter how big will remain hollow. The Babri Mosque verdict has jolted India’s Muslim community, yet the ruling extremists should not take too much comfort in it either. Instead they must pause and reflect because the direction they are pushing the whole country in is alienating a big bulk of the minority, which cannot be good news for anybody. *