One of the major positive steps taken by the current UPA Govt. (Feb.-March 2005) is its constitution of National Integration Council (NIC). This significant and major step is appreciable, more so due to the fact that the previous BJP led NDA did not bother to constitute it during its tenure. NIC was first constituted in the wake of 1961 Jabalpur communal riots. Coming in the aftermath of massive communal violence which took place due to the partition tragedy, the Jabalpur riots came as an eye opener that all is not well on the front of National integration and special efforts need to be put in to see the Nation, Indian nation, comes up as a Fraternity, (community), the essential part of the trio of democratic Nation states, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the slogan of French revolution, which became the core of democratic values and movements all over.

That a nation state in modern times is based on a community, national community, needs a deeper understanding more so in the times when the religion based nationalism is rearing its head not only in different post colonial states but the streaks of it can be discerned in the older democracies like the one of US itself. It is ironical that one has to talk about national community at a time when World is shrinking into a global village and the process of globalization is integrating the world community as never before. Ideally one should take the various identities of community as the ideal to celebrate. One can have communities on different mutually supplementary grounds.

Most of these communities do overlap and bring in a mosaic, which is the ground for celebration in plural societies. These pluralities are also not rigid and do keep intermixing, unless of course vested political interests put spanners in the process and reverse this by perpetuating violence and cause fractures in the concepts of intercommunity amity.

India has been a plural society from times immemorial. These pluralities have added richness to its life in all arenas of its life, be it food, music, attires, architecture, literature and to cap it all, the very arena of spirituality itself. One recalls that Dara Shikoh, the Prince who was killed by his brother Aurnagzeb, in the game of power, not unusual in the court of kings, wrote a beautiful book, Majma Ul Baharyn, which celebrated the interaction of Hindus and Muslims in all aspects of their lives.The British sowed the seeds of communalism, as understood today, to use the religious identity for political mobilization of the elite. This communal politics creates the hysteria around religious symbolisms and that is the vehicle for the vested interests to wrest the power. The integrating identities started getting setbacks due to British machinations, well supported by the declining sections of society, landlords and clergy of both the religions. It is the British policy of divide and rule, which promoted the Hindu and Muslims communalisms, Muslim League and Hindu Mahsabha, RSS. Different ideologues did come up to provide the ideological base for a Muslim state or a Hindu nation. Of the two concepts of Nation hood, the first was the one based on geographical boundaries and the notion of equal citizenship for all, the concept of composite nationalism, one nation theory.The second one asserted that being a part of a nation was due to one’s religion, and people belonging to one religion constitute on nation, two nation theory followed by Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha, RSS. During freedom struggle, the Indian people kept away from these elite political streams, which were backed up by the British policies. These streams started pouring poison against the ‘other’, and this ‘Hate other’ went into take recourse of distorted presentation of History and most other facets of life to create animosity amongst people on the grounds of religion.

These two kept clashing and finally the referee, the British did the goal for the religion based nationalisms and the partition tragedy drowned the subcontinent in the rivers of blood. The memories of this trauma, which was to become the part of the conscience of the country kept haunting in a menacing way. The victims of the violence resulting during that period, often started blaming the ‘other’ community’ for a phenomenon which essentially was engineered by the vested interests. The progressing Indian nation carried its march and the process of building of the modern nation state did oppose the communalization of the society to some extent.

The understanding that communal ideologies will die their natural death proved to be wrong many times over. Hate does transform in to violence and the violence breaks the intercommunity bonds. The teachings in schools did not help the matters much. The British mischief introduced through education continued and was duly supplemented by the propaganda of communal organizations. The dynamite lay on the streets; the lighting of this was easy enough. That’s what began with Jabalpur and kept going on. There were periods when it appeared as if it is reduced in intensity. After a lapse of time communal organizations started becoming assertive and powerful. Many an opportunist politicians used it for their narrow goals. Programmatic communalism of Sangh combine got indirect support from the opportunist pragmatic communalists. The overall result has been to create a gulf between religious communities, which now is assuming dangerous proportions. Anti Sikh riots were another sore point in this painful trajectory, which has also left indelible scar on the body politic of the nation.

National integration council did try some measures to assuage this pain, but seems it was not adequate enough. In a way the coming to power of BJP led coalition itself symbolized inadequacy and failure of the efforts of NIC in the times immediately preceding this. There was no question of BJP constituting the NIC as NIC stands for Indian Nation and BJP, this political child of RSS is striving for Hindu nation, which according to their ideology, has been polluted by the invasion of Muslims and Christians. These two have been regarded as foreigners. So the task of BJP was to purify the Nation for Hindus, to sanitize the country! The aim of this politics of Hindu nation has been to Indianize the Muslims, to co-opt them, for the project of Hindu nation where the position of those who are not Hindus, will be at best that of second-class citizens, where they will have to keep passing the loyalty test on regular basis.

In a way the failures to promote the values of Indian nationhood at deep level is what has been the real cause of communal violence, violence using the identity of minority religions as the objects of hate and than their intimidation and extermination. Gujarat should not have been a surprise. If so much hatred is sowed, what do we expect out of that? If the volunteers called swaymasevaks are spreading the Hate ideology through the word of mouth, Ekal schools, and Saraswati Shishu mandirs and through the helpful section of media, what else can be the outcome? Gujarat in that sense cannot be called as an exception. All over the country there are numerous places where Gujarat is waiting to happen. Violence begins from the mind. Rumor Spreading Society is relentless in its work, supplemented by other mechanisms. Today the only lesson Gujarat has taught us is that in its logical trajectory, the hate ideology will lead to total physical and emotional separation of communities. The ‘Mini Pakistan’s’, ‘borders’. ‘Gaza strips’ are mushrooming. In a cosmopolitan place like Mamba while the global IT is ruling the roost, a Muslim cannot buy a property in a ‘Hindu housing colonies’, getting a house on rent for the people belonging to ‘wrong religion’ is out of question. Situation is much worse in Gujarat and not much different in different parts of the country The six year rule of BJP at center made the matters worse, but what is being done to rectify the broader emotional secessionism, what is being done to end the mentality which creates mini Pakistan’s? Will a mere attempt to bring sanity to a section of textbooks will do? The question requires broader response and NIC has to take the bull by the horns.

What is the attitude of large sections of our civil servants in such situations? To sit back and side with the perpetrators of violence, keeping the rulebooks in the freezers? What is the section of teaching community doing? Is it aware that some times consciously sometimes unconsciously it is aggravating the divide by sowing the wrong seeds in young minds? The author of these lines was pained to note that even in one place which talks of Dalit empowerment the Muslims participants of a harmony workshop had to be lodged in rooms which were sufficiently distant from the rooms of women participants! And what about a section of our media? What does it keep dishing out as regular fare, the hashed up myths and stereotypes, which boost the already prevalent community divides.

It is not enough that the NIC has  been constituted. It has to address the issue in a holistic manner. All the facets, which have a potential of discord need to be taken up in right earnest and the holes sealed to ensure not just that the communal riots do not take place, but to ensure that a national community in the global context comes up. Diversity becomes the point of celebration, and mostly the  mosaic of pluralism gives birth to norms, which do not recognize the religious boundaries. Already one has been hearing about NIC being constituted, the need is that it announces its program of building of an 'Indian' Nation, taking care of all the nuisances, which have been resulting in Anti Sikh program, Gujarat carnages and the likes. Only an Indian nation can surge forward to give social, economic and gender justice, the goal close to the aspirations of the suffering masses.