Newspapers devoted enthusiastic front pages to the upcoming occasion, and when I flew to Kolkata, where I used to live, on the eve of the big day, my neighbors there announced their expectations by setting off firecrackers late into the night. Did. The next morning, January 22, loudspeakers and television screens followed me around the city, playing Sanskrit chants and images of temple rituals. Mr. Modi, as always, was at the center of every visual. Friends in Delhi and Bangalore complained of persistent neighbors and strangers knocking on their doors to share their festive sweets. Courts, banks, schools, stock markets, and other institutions were closed in many parts of the country.
The inauguration day appears to have been carefully chosen to highlight Republic Day, January 26, which commemorates India’s adoption of a “socialist, secular and democratic” constitution in 1950. is. These values are in sharp conflict with those brought about by Hindu nationalism. The annual temple inauguration day relegates the republic to second place after Mr. Modi’s Hindu utopia.
Similar efforts are underway to dilute the significance of August 15, which commemorated India’s independence in 1947. In 2021, Mr. Modi mentioned that India was divided into Hindus by blood, and announced that from now on August 14th would be observed as Partition Terror Remembrance Day. – Murderous events for Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike in majority India and independent Muslim Pakistan in 1947.
This was pitched to the Indian public as emphasizing the need for unity, but Hindu nationalists warned that some Muslims were forming an independent state and that the remaining 200 million people in India It was also a reminder that Muslims’ loyalty was in question. Mr. Modi’s weaponization of suffering seems particularly reprehensible, given that the Hindu right-wing participated in massacres, rape, and forced displacement during Partition. I was born into a Hindu family, but my father, a refugee from Partition, never blamed Muslims throughout his life.
There were countless other such schemes against Hindus in power. The Old Parliament Building reflects India’s mixed history, with its design features reflecting a mixed history of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, and last year, the Old Parliament building revealed India’s past with a monochromatic Hinduism. replaced by a new structure that reduces the
