By Asrarul Haque Jeelani for TwoCircles.net
On Wednesday, a BJP MP Vinay Katiyar said that Muslims should not live in India and they should either go to the Pakistan or Bangladesh. This was not the first time someone has said ‘Go to Pakistan’ to the Indian Muslims and given the current political climate in the country, it is unlikely to be the last. All these statements have one thing in common: ‘Go to Pakistan’ might have been said in the context of political scenario and contemporary burning issues. The statement has been different, but the meaning has similar grounds. The phrase ‘Go to Pakistan’ does not signify that the Muslims should go to Pakistan in reality. The main agenda of such statements is the creation of Mini Pakistan (Ghettos) within India. For instance, the Mumbai riots aftermath of Babri Masjid demolition in 1992-1993 and the Gujarat riot in 2002 created Mumbra-Kausa and Juhapura respectively. Many such examples of the creation of ghettos have been seen and there has been an influx of Muslim to the ghettos.
The incidents in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh around Republic Day is a recent example of communal violence where the Muslim-dominated area was targeted with the slogan of Pakistan Murdabad as if that area is a part of Pakistan and Muslims are Pakistan-loving. From this incident, it is clear that the Muslim-dominated area has been seen as Mini Pakistan in right-wing ideology and it would be easy to ignite the communal violence by the tool of slogans, rumours or nationalism (Hindu Rashtra). Who created Pakistan: Jinnah, Gandhi, Nehru, Muslim League or the right-wing ideologues? The answer is not perfectly clear and has a different version of theory but the reason of creation of a mini-Pakistan within different cities of the country is not other than the right wing with the tool of communal violence, hatred, the culture of suspicion and creation of pushing factors to ghettos. But the question is why they want Mini Pakistan?
The segregated Jewish settlement from the rest of the population in the western world was called as Ghettos but in modern time every city has segregated informal settlements where poor and most backward community reside. Louis Wirth, a 20th-century American sociologist writes, “It may be regarded as a form of accommodation through which a minority has effectually been subordinated to a dominant group. The ghetto exhibits at least one historical form of dealing with a dissenting minority within a larger population, and as such has served as an instrument of control.”
The creation of ghettos of a particular community means the invention of the instrument of control, easy to subordinate and keep surveillance on the whole community. The pull factors of safety, security, similar feelings, homogenous culture along with push factors of social, political, legal pressure and systematic discrimination concentrated the minority in a small portion of land. In case of India, densely populated Muslim locality, pale of settlement has been seen in almost every city. Most of them are unauthorised, denied basic amenities and most importantly labelled as Mini Pakistan.
‘Go to Pakistan’ is a push factor of creating Ghettos within cities where minorities are denied of basic amenities and left to live in inhuman condition, inadequate spaces which further lead to exclusion and give them a second-grade citizen status of the country as it is the right wing’s prime objective. The process of othering, segregation, and isolation of one community is to understand them as second citizens and to deny the rights. Historically the persecution of one community has not been done with scattered population but to concentrated minority community thus the creation of ghetto is one step ahead towards the inhuman killings.
Go to Pakistan also means to push them to their spaces to purify the regions dominated by Hindu as Muslims are impure, beef eater and Malechh. The term Malechh denotes unclean and dirty. Yogi Aditya Nath has done Sudhi Karan before taking the chair of CM in U. P. In a recent incident, the members of Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha have sprinkled cow urine on the stage where actor Prakash Raj has spoken. The concept of purity and impurity has prevailed in our society, enshrined into our hierarchal society, unequal social stratification. The concept of purity and impurity has changed its forms but has not been eradicated from our social mentality. The consideration of purity and impurity is also a tool to control and push someone from the shared spaces.
‘Go to Pakistan’ is not only a slogan. It is an attempt to create a conducive environment where hatred and fear can prevail which further leads to the push factor for the minority community. The final result is to create Mini Pakistan (ghetto) within India and to alienate one community from another.
The author is a student of M.Phil at the Jawaharlal University, Delhi