Modi has materialised Ambedkar’s fear of diehard fanaticism against minorities, but what can be done?

More than seventy years ago, Dr B.R. Ambedkar described people like the incumbent Prime Minister of India as "diehards" who had "developed a kind of fanaticism against minority protection". Is there a way to escape such oppressive dogmatism?

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DURING the drafting of the Constitution, certain members were opposed to the safeguards provided to minorities. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, while replying to the discussion on the draft on November 4, 1948 in the Constituent Assembly described such people as "diehards" who had "developed a kind of fanaticism against minority protection".

Ambedkar urged them to be mindful of two things. One, that "minorities are an explosive force which, if it erupts, can blow up the whole fabric of the State". He pleaded that they peek into the history of Europe, which bore "ample and appalling testimony to this fact".

The other, that unlike in Europe "the minorities in India have agreed to place their existence in the hands of the majority", and "they have loyally accepted the rule of the majority which is basically a communal majority and not a political majority".

The majority must not discriminate against minorities

"It is for the majority," Ambedkar sharply reminded the assembly, "to realise its duty not to discriminate against minorities".

"The moment the majority loses the habit of discriminating against the minority," he asserted, "the minorities can have no ground to exist. They will vanish".

Modi targets Muslims for a "communal majority"

These profound utterances of one of India's greatest minds and leaders, when juxtaposed against incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi's highly venomous content targeting Muslims and vilifying them in his election campaign speeches, unravel the true meaning of a "diehard who has developed a kind of fanaticism against minority protection".

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In many of his election speeches, Modi has described Muslims as infiltrators and wrongly alleged that the election manifesto of the Indian National Congress contained a provision that some portions of the reservation quota of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes would be snatched and given to Muslims.

He has gone to the extent of saying that after doing an x-ray of the properties of people and locating them, the Indian National Congress would take away a portion of them and hand them over to Muslims.

By spewing such poison against Muslims and his principal political opponent, the Indian National Congress, Modi is stoking an intense polarisation process to get votes of the majority, which Ambedkar presciently described as "a communal majority".

In fact, Modi wants to win elections by communalising the electorate in a country in which, according to a recent survey of CSDS and Lokniti, 79 percent of the people consider India as a country not just of Hindus but of all people professing diverse faiths.

Modi, in trying to vilify Muslims as infiltrators and eyeing the resources of the country as the first claimant, is acting contrary to the vision of India that it belongs to all regardless of the religious creed any citizen follows.

Modi's utterances negate his 2014 election campaign speech in which he visualised that Muslims of India should hold the Quran in one hand and a computer in another.

After ten years in power, he is making a deplorable statement that Muslims are infiltrators and produce more children with the intent to tarnish them and devalue their status as equal citizens.

No prime minister in the electoral history of India during the post-independence period ever appealed to the baser communal sentiments by employing religion in violation of the Model Code of Conduct and the Representation of People Act, 1951, which prohibit attempts to garner votes on a communal basis.

Partisan role of the ECI

Tragically, Modi has the unenviable distinction of becoming the first prime minister to communalise elections in this fashion and the Election Commission of India (ECI) is silent on such flagrant violations on the part of the incumbent prime minister.

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On November 24, 2022, a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice K.M. Joseph, while hearing pleas challenging the constitutionality of the present appointment process of the Chief Election Commissioner and other election commissioners, contended that appointments were being done as per the whims of the executive and said "the country needs election commissioners who would not shirk from even taking on the Prime Minister if required, and not just weak-kneed yes-men."

So far, the ECI has issued notice to the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and not Prime Minister Modi on complaints of opposition leaders that the prime minister has invoked religion while seeking votes during his election campaign.

By not issuing a notice to Prime Minister Modi directly, the ECI, in the words of the Supreme Court, has acted as "weak-kneed yes-men."

Using religion for votes a corrupt practice

Asking votes of the electorate in the name of religionamounts to a "corrupt practice" according to the 2017 Supreme Court judgment in Abhiram Singh versus C.D. Commachen (DEAD) by Legal Representatives and others.

In that case, the Supreme Court held that for the purpose of maintaining the purity of the electoral process, a broad and purposive interpretation should be given to Section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 so that any appeal made to an elector by a candidate or his agent or by any other person with the consent of the candidate or his election agent, to vote or refrain from voting, inter alia, on the grounds of religion and caste, would constitute a corrupt practice.

The Supreme Court, in the Anoop Baranwal versus Union of India, observed, "The Model Code of Conduct, the views of this court about appeal to religion, being a corrupt practice, and 215 paragraph-16A of the Symbols Order, empowering the Election Commission of India to act in the face of defiance, constitute a powerful weapon in the hands of an independent and impartial Election Commission."

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In spite of such clear status of the ECI as a highly empowered institution to act against even a Prime Minister for using religion to target a particular community and asking for votes, Modi is repeating his utterances against that community and the Election Commission is doing nothing.

No wonder that in the CSDS–Lok Niti survey 58 percent of those surveyed expressed distrust in the ECI. This is a sad spectacle of the ECI fast losing its credibility to deal with the infractions of law by the high and mighty while campaigning during elections.

No wonder that Ambedkar had apprehended in the Constituent Assembly on May 16 1949 that in the absence of any law to appoint unworthy people as election commissioners, they might "come under the thumb of the executive".

While the Election Commission and even the highest courts in the land have not been able to stop Modi's communal juggernaut, the people's court, which is in session in the form of the general elections, will write its own verdict.