Based on what their loyalists on Twitter are clamouring for.
You see 2019 has been a year that saw sweeping changes in India. It has been pretty bad on the economic front but it did have all the ingredients to keep right-wing loyalists fixated with the BJP.
Article 370 which granted special privileges to India’s only Muslim majority state Jammu & Kashmir has been abolished, the supreme court gave a verdict that made way for the construction of a Ram Temple in place of where the historic Babri Masjid once stood (also demolished by right-wing loyalists) and of course, there was the Citizenship Amendment Act that sought to give nationality to immigrants based on religion — Muslims, of course, were left out of it.
These were just a few of the headline-grabbing changes that happened in India, clearly not what you’d expect of a country that should be in the news for its economic and tech progress.
With a clear cut majority in the parliamentary assembly following 2019’s general elections; the BJP seems to be on track to dismantle the pluralistic foundations that India’s founding fathers laid out for it. Why they are doing it is a whole different story that I’ll try to cover in a later post.
Right now what you need to know is what they’ll come up with next.
The first is the Uniform Civil Code. This is a thing that has been announced by the BJP in their manifesto as well. The new rule will basically abolish all laws that are based on religious scriptures and customs of each of the major religious community in India. They will be replaced by a common set of rules and laws to govern every citizen. Indian Muslims see this as an attack on their rights that were guaranteed by the constitution.
Next, a conversion ban. A lot of right-wing Twitter influencers I follow have been clamouring for this. Conversion of Hindus to other non-dharmic religions is seen as unacceptable to them. While there is no nationwide record of how many conversions are taking place, the right-wing believes this to be a conspiracy by other hostile foreign powers.
Third, the declaration of Hinduism as a state religion. There may possibly to include other Dharmic religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism into the fray. This is what several bigshots of the ruling BJP party have announced time and time again. Some have claimed that the declaration will take place in one year, others have claimed that it will take place before the next general elections. Whenever it may be the word “secular” that sits in the preamble of the Indian constitution may not be so relevant to India anymore once this happens.
The only thing that sort of put the brakes on the BJP’s plans temporarily are the unexpected protests that are taking place against the contentious citizenship amendment act (CAA) around the country. Even several Bollywood stars (who command a sizeable influence on Bollywood crazed India) who have been relatively silent have broken their silence and posted on social media against the act and the subsequent brutal police crackdowns on protests. This may have slowed things down a bit, but, yes the BJP isn’t going to stop. It is clearly not delivering on the economic front (unemployment is at its highest in 45 years and GDP growth rate has slowed down to 4.5%) so it is looking for ways to divert people’s attention and keep its loyalists happy.
Mirza Ahmed is a freelance journalist
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