Fanaticism Undoing Gandhi's Legacy

The situation in India is analyzed by Vittorio E. Parsi, professor of international politics at the Catholic University of Milan.

ROMA (Chiesa) - The largest democracy in the world. This is the definition that is usually associated with India. It would be ungenerous and mistaken to forget this now, or to question it at its core. But it does seem necessary to question the quality of this democracy, and the direction that it is taking.

The Indian Union has the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, a genuine multiparty system, and a free press. But at the same time, widespread corruption and the crony-client political system in the individual states, together with the substantial impunity granted to the violent actions of extremist groups, risk emptying of meaning the concrete significance of India's democracy.

The alarm is being raised in a particular way by the growth of sectarian violence, which is especially targeting the Christians - responsible for helping the Dalits, the outcastes, the slave foundation of the pyramidal system according to which Hindu society was traditionally organized - but also Muslims and Buddhists.

What is happening in India with worrying frequency and intensity shows the dark side of the independence achieved under the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent action. The story of his life itself, with its tragic conclusion, contains in symbolic form all of the contradictions of this extraordinary country: from the rediscovery of traditional culture and the village economy, to the decision to live as the least of the least, to the attempt to preserve the unity and religious pluralism of the old British Raj, to his violent death at the hand of a Hindu extremist.

More than 60 years after the country's independence, it is precisely the position that India should be solely and exclusively Hindu that is continually making new proselytes. Movements like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are the expression of a Nazi-like culture, which preaches through violence the false idea that being Indian means being Hindu, in spite of the fact that there are more Muslims living in in India than in many Muslim countries. Of course, there has always been Hindu hegemony in the political system, but it was mitigated to a certain extent by the fact that the early leaders of the republic, from Nehru to Indira Gandhi, all members of the Congress Party, acted on the basis of an essentially secular view of politics, blocking the most devastating consequences of such a contradiction.

It is likely that the sneering modern "spirit of the times" in which fundamentalism and the political abuse of religion seem to be re-emerging, on top of the radical tendencies of neighboring Pakistan, have contributed to the success of movements like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and of the Bharatiya Janata party. But - as Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran has correctly observed - in Hinduism as well there is a growing push toward intolerance and fanaticism, which is all the more grave in that it is understood too little, and too often denied.

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Beside the political contradiction is the economic contradiction. India is the "office" of the world, at least to the same extent that China is its "factory." It is a society that produces tens of thousands of English-speaking engineers each year, but still lives in the Gandhian myth of the village economy, that ossified structure which deprives the "least" of any hope, for this and any other life, and fosters the caste system with its aftermath of commonplace violence. It is the Christians who are held responsible for offering hope to the "least," for this and any other life. And they have accepted the burden of this responsibility, to the point of martyrdom, as has taken place in Orissa.

One last point of reflection. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are considered, together with South Africa, the leading countries that should balance the excessive power of the West and make the governing of the world more multilateral. One must begin to reflect on the fact that, with the exception of Brazil, none of these countries seems to have begun to reduce its heavy deficit of internal democracy, and on the consequences that this implies for international "governance."

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Chiesa is a wonderful source on all things Catholic in Europe. It is skillfully edited by Sandro Magister. SANDRO MAGISTER was born on the feast of the Guardian Angels in 1943, in the town of Busto Arsizio in the archdiocese of Milan. The following day he was baptized into the Catholic Church. His wife’s name is Anna, and he has two daughters, Sara and Marta. He lives in Rome.