Skip to footer

Politics of hate loses a key vote in India

Voters in the nation’s capital sent a message to the ruling party that anti-Muslim policies go against India’s secular tradition.

|
AP
People wait to vote in a Feb. 8 local election in New Delhi. The polling station is close to an ongoing mass protest against a new Indian citizenship law.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

The Muslim minority in the world’s two most populous countries, China and India, have lately felt very much under siege. Since 2017, China has shut mosques and rounded up its Uyghur Muslims for mass “reeducation.” In December, India passed a new citizenship law for migrants that purposely excludes Muslims. It was the first time that religion has been used to grant nationality despite India’s secular constitution. In other moves, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has signaled it seeks a Hindu-centric nation.

In each country, the anti-Muslim discrimination differs in scope and intensity. Yet one other difference stands out.

In India, which is the world’s largest democracy, both Muslims and non-Muslims have held sustained protests for two months against the new citizenship law, the largest demonstrations in decades. Even more important, voters appear to be in revolt. On Feb. 8, the BJP suffered a massive defeat in local elections in New Delhi, despite intense campaigning by the party’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

With 20 million people, the nation’s capital is a microcosm of the country. The BJP won only 8 of 70 seats in the city’s assembly while the other seats went to the local Aam Aadmi Party (Common Man’s Party, or AAP). Its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, is a well-known anti-corruption activist who, as Delhi’s chief minister since 2013, has implemented popular anti-poverty projects. He opposes any fear-mongering against Muslims.

One of the AAP’s top leaders, Sanjay Singh, said the election result is a mandate against hate. Mr. Kejriwal says the vote “is a victory for Mother India, for our entire country.” Indeed, the election was seen as a referendum on Mr. Modi’s politics of division and his image as protector of Hindus, who are about 80% of the population.

The resistance against the BJP’s policies could go on. Even though the party won national elections last May, it has lost power in five states since 2018 and may lose more this year. In a democracy, where the principle of equality for all people before the law is sacred, the use of hatred to win votes or to hold power is easily exposed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Politics of hate loses a key vote in India
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2020/0212/Politics-of-hate-loses-a-key-vote-in-India
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe