My impressions on reading the New Yorker magazine article about Hinduisation of India and the influence of Narendra Modi

I first came to know about the journalist, Rana Ayyub from a New Yorker magazine article. The article is about a covert visit to Kashmir undertaken by her and a New York Times correspondent, immediately after the repealing of article 370 by Indian government with declaration of Jammu and Kashmir state as two union territories. The interview with her (available on YouTube) details her impressions, generally on the marginalization of the real humanitarian narrative in Kashmir by the largely "pro-Hindutva", "pro-Modi" national media, and how the strict clampdowns on human movement, complete restrictions of freedom of expression, ban on any form of political protests and suppression of the basic human rights were portrayed as necessary evils to fight against separatism and anti national sentiment. The comment section of that YouTube video was full of hate speech against her, and how she is portraying the Kashmir issue with an "anti national" angle to foreign media. 

The comment section criticism is all BS as per me. The motivation of Ms. Ayyub is genuine, she is as true Indian as any one and she is someone out of her life experience of alienation based on religion has taken the path of journalism to fight the issue at the root. I found out that Rana Ayyub is an award winning and exceptionally courageous journalist who grew up in a Muslim family in a largely Hindu dominated locality in Mumbai. Her family experienced religion based discrimination during the Babri Masjid issue related riots in 1992 when Mumbai witnessed one of the most devastating religious riots where thousands of people lost lives. Her life was displaced from a comfortable middle class existence, as the daughter of a journalist living a peaceful life in city, to a shanty suburban town comprised largely of displaced Muslims living in fear and in dire economic conditions, feeling out of place and getting rejected in the face of the evolving story of India as a largely Hindu Rashtra. Ms. Ayyub chose journalism as career of choice (no surprises) and rose to be a star investigative journalist at Tehalka (a once famous weekly, well known for journlistic sting operations), leading their sting operations exposing complicity of Mr. Amit Shah in extra judicial killings (a crime for which he was jailed for 10 months). She also spearheaded another sting operation with quite elaborate planning, where her aim was to expose the complicity of Gujarat state (and indirectly then chief minister Narendra Modi) in abetting the violence against Muslims post the burning of a train in Godhra. 

I agree that religion is a necessary evil as not all people are rational and think altruistically, but it is useful in keeping people finding a purpose in life and achieve success to be a part of a cohesive and functioning society. In this regard, religion should not come in the way of  respecting the differences, forming basic human connections, friendships irrespective of religious background. But religion when used to divide people is a fertile ground for political gains and is a potent poison brew to improve chances of victory in elections. We also note that the related aspects of differences as regionalism, language, caste are all ideas that are milked mostly for election victories and a means to grab power for a ruling class. The ruled class who in the first place were the sounding boards for the divisive ideas of discrimination based on religion, caste, creed, state, language gain almost nothing in return, and loses the sense of security and social harmony that are crucial for them to lead a happy life. Their life will be mired in rancor, ill will against other, closing off mind against other ideas or thoughts, staying in an intellectual and news bubble of information that they like, finally becoming the kind of single minded fanatics as they once thought the 'other' to be. This transformation of a group of perfectly fine people to a group of fanatics, united in the hatred of differences, suppression of free exchange of ideas, debate and easy labeling of dissenting voices to anti nationals or anti cultural brigade, spells misfortune for the functioning of society.

The New Yorker article, in my opinion, faithfully describes the key events that led to the rise of BJP and Hindutva brand of politics in India. The article is not judgmental as for the trajectory of the rise Narendra Modi, but the description of the manner in which the dissenting voices are suppressed, killed or jailed makes one wonder the legitimacy of the whole movement. I come from the state of Kerala, which for historical reasons have enjoyed religious harmony and peace and was never a fertile ground for Hindutva brand of politics. Keralites are known to be well informed about politics and have quite modern mind set and opinions that resonate well with progressives in any modern democracies. Coming from this background and having lived only a few years in Northern India without ever getting in touch with the underbelly of the society, I can only imagine the cultural baggage of Hinduism as a metaphor for Northern Indians that lead them to embrace cow vigilantism, religious vandalism, killings in the name of religion and easy exclusion of a group of people, whom they may have grown together with, for being a Muslim. This shows the Hinduism they profess to follow is not the Hinduism that I follow.