BJP's claims over line of thought

Chinas unilateral decision to alter the status quo on the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh has distressed all Indians Our distress arises from the realisation that China displaying the arrogance typical of a superpower believes it can prevail over India regarding its claim over the LACHumans are distressed every time a superior power whether at the village or the international level refuses to adhere to the rules of the game This it does because the superior power seeks to have its domination accepted the proof of which is to refashion an existing order in accordance with its own imagination Our distress over Ladakh is a subliminal recognition of this factOur distress should however also have us introspect In India there has always existed a line of thought a line marking the boundaries between different ideologies However over the last six years the Bharatiya Janata Party has deployed state power to push the line of thought farther and farther and claim as much of Indias diverse ideological terrain as the sole monopoly of Hindutva All other ideologies beyond the line of thought controlled by Hindutva are given the epithet antinationalThis trend is manifest in the states hounding of those dubbed as Urban Naxals a term coined by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri in an essay he penned for Swarajya magazine in May 2017 Urban naxals are the invisible enemies of India wrote Agnihotri His reference was to the urban intelligentsia engaged in mounting pressure on the state to respect the rights of people and address their grievances These activities according to Agnihotri are merely a faccedilade for achieving the clandestine goal of establishing Maoist rule in IndiaAgnihotris imagination was turned into reality in just a year Five human rights activists were arrested in June 2018 in connection with the caste violence in Bhima Koregaon a village close to Pune on January 1 2018 another four a few months later They have been accused of spreading the ideology of the Maoists waging war against the nation and for plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi to destabilise democracyIndias line of thought was pushed even farther in April when scholar Anand Teltumbde and human rights activist Gautam Navlakha were taken into custody over their alleged role in the Bhima Koregaon violence Navlakhas application in the Supreme Court for anticipatory bail vividly illustrates the superior powers tendency to turn claims into realityFor instance Navlakha was not questioned even once by the investigating agency in the two years between multiple charge sheets being filed in the Bhima Koregaon case and his eventual arrest The application also cited a Maoist report describing Navlakha as a government collaborator and that the state had requisitioned his services to secure the release of police officers abducted by Maoists Could he be an Urban Naxal thenThe past of Navlakha and those of the other 10 incarcerated activists have been swept aside to establish the legitimacy of the BJPs claims in much the same manner the Chinese alter the status quo on borders that they expect their neighbours to accept as fait accompli As it is with China so is it with the BJP the quest to foist manufactured reality on others is a function of power they have acquiredTake the February riots in Delhi The BJP will have us believe that the violence was fomented by Muslim and Leftliberal groups in the hope of building international opinion against the Modi governments citizenship policies even at the expense of sullying Indias image This constitutes the substance of at least two charge sheets filed by the Delhi Police which claim that youth leader Umar Khalid United Against Hate founder Khalid Saifi and Aam Aadmi Party Councillor Tahir Hussain met on January 8 to orchestrate mass violence during American President Donald Trumps visit to India in FebruaryThe Quint website has however shown that the news of Trumps visit became public only on January 13 Trump and Modi did have a telephonic chat on January 7 but the Ministry of External Affairs in a press release only said they had exchanged New Years greetings and discussed the deepening of strategic relationship between their countries The Quints story raises the question How could Khalid and company have come to know about Trumps visit five days before it became known to the nation mdash and just a day after the TrumpModi conversationIt seems the police have bungled in their enthusiasm to echo those BJP leaders who claim the riots were a Muslim conspiracy and the role of Hindus was merely retaliatory This is an incredible assertion given that the losses Muslim suffered were infinitely higher than what the Hindus didThe initial response to unilateral claims regarding the Line of Actual Control or the line of thought is incredulity which is often followed by distress Ultimately though the arrogance of the superior power is countered mdash through the pooling of resources by nations in the international arena and by political parties at homeThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news