The Path of Genocide, and How India is Walking on it

Sri City: Genocide is not a mistake; it is a deliberate path taken by the ruling political party, and we

see examples of such in the world today and in history. I can take a leap and claim that this is one of many tools that political powers manipulate. Genocide is described as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The Holocaust is the most famous and heinous act of genocide that most people are aware of. Apart from Germany, Rwanda has seen a massive state-sponsored genocide, in which the majority community committed a rapid and gruesome mass killing of their minorities. 

I recently enrolled in a Politics course called ‘Coping with Diversity and Conflict: A Global Survey of Strategies’, where we were provided with a list of points that are pointed towards what happens before a Genocide - a rough outline of how a genocide is brewed - and through this article I will handhold you to each one of them, to finally show you how we’re living in a country that is on the blink of another genocide but no one is ready to talk about it. India is waving the red flag of possible genocide high in the sky, but no one dares to look up. 

‘Intent’ of the leader draws a line between genocide and provoking the ‘other’ community to either leave or remain silent in the society. My question here arises: is ‘intent’ such a fine line that if crossed, could lead to mass killings? 

Colonial rule is a common trait between countries that are/have gone through genocide. Colonisers have the habit of categorising and dividing the pre-existing union into majority and minority groups, and governing over them. However, when they finally leave, they often partition these groups, or further create a path to a lifelong situation of conflict - mental or physical. Rwanda was under German and Belgian rule until very late into the century, in 1962. These colonial powers further crystallised the categorisations of the two ethnic groups - Hutu and Tutsi, the majority and the minority, respectively. India, very similarly, was ruled by the British Empire until 1947, which divided the pre-existing present ethnic group into Hindus and Muslims and partitioned undivided India into India and Pakistan when they left. Ever since India and Pakistan have been in some form of conflict, and within the doors of India, Muslims have been undoubtedly subjected to various wrongdoings, to say the least. 

In such countries, the political party had a certain drive for supremacy. If we take the case of Israel - the most recent foreign-funded genocide - governed by the Likud party, a far-right political party with Zionism and anti-Palestine as their agenda, led by the very famous Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi), having the supremacist ideology of Jewish domination, or Jewish domination over ‘their’ holy land.

We can see similar instances in India as well, with the current government striving towards the ideology of ‘Hindutva’, a politically charged religious ideology. Most of the initiatives taken by the current BJP government, such as the gharwapsi movement, the shuddhi movement, and even the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), seem to be directed against the ‘other’ and, in a way, lead the country towards a Hindu nationalist path. A supreme ideology? The vishwaguru of the world? The homeland of Hinduism - the birthplace of Ram and Krishna (mythological characters) - and it shall remain as such forever without dispute? 

Another gamble is over the existential anxiety of the entire country or a specific social group, driving this genocide or violence forward. In the Zionist model, the existential anxiety is that Israel is surrounded by Arab countries, which do not endorse the existence of the state of Israel. These countries, at their first opportunity, can and would grab the Israeli land. Palestine is one of them. Their existential anxiety begins from the fact that ‘we need to protect our home, the only place for Jews, at any cost’. In 1948, when Israel and Palestine were created as separate nations, this notion of homeland anxiety, or existential anxiety, makes sense - a newborn nation with enemies on all sides with little to protect itself - but today, when they have the backing of the United States, and they’re a wealthy country, the room for such anxiety should not be there, yet the zionist still play with this propaganda of the Jews not having a home, and label anyone who raises a voice as ‘anti semitist’. India, on the other hand, has a similar existential anxiety that has been brewing ever since BJP leader L.K. Advani's Ram Rath Yatra. The political party have been labelling Hinduism, and the ‘Hinduland’ as something that is being taken away from the ‘outsiders’. The ‘outsiders’ who destroyed our holy shrines and built theirs on top of ‘ours’, the ‘outsiders’ who pose a threat to ‘our’ customs, the ‘outsiders’ who pose a threat to ‘our’. What is the need to protect the customs? Customs - to which its very nature is of change.  

The most demoralising act is also dehumanising the ‘other’; Israel and Hamas have both engaged in multiple dehumanising slurs against each other, and Nazi Germany also dehumanised Jews by calling them rodents or different animals. This psychological act of ‘dehumanising’ creates a mentality of moral exclusion, inferiority and distancing from the 'other' and 'us'. This is not a new psychological tactic for handling ‘outsiders’ while crafting a political narrative. Even in the Indian epics, such as the Ramayana, we frequently see the ‘others’ being denoted as Rakshasas, demonising the ‘others’. Have Indians also not dehumanised people of their own country? Have Hindus not called Muslims by dehumanising names and slurs? 

Triggering events (perhaps the most crucial and important that gives an excuse to the ruling party to legitimise their genocide), Israel got their triggering event on 7th October, 2023, when Hamas members entered Israel through motorbikes and started their military action. What followed that is well known to all of us - complete and full destruction of the Gaza Strip to finish Hamas, funded by the United States. India has come very close to such an event - the Babri Masjid incident, as one example - thankfully not turning it into a major genocidal incident. 

Finally, last but not least by any means, people have the lazy act of herd mentality, lethal in this case. If this is questioned upon, ‘Why did you do it?’ ‘Why do you think so?’ The answer could be as simple and blatant as ‘everyone was doing it.’ This is also where the media can take the side of the political party committing the genocide, and further endorses the ideology behind the genocide, cheerlead the ruling party and lift the guilt of the individuals committing the genocide. 

Are we close to a genocide? Yes, we most definitely are. And so is the United States of America, with the Republicans leading their propaganda against the immigrants, having a superemist ideology of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, the land of the ‘free’, where anyone can be anyone, the country that leads the world, a country without which no other country could survive, the watchdog of the world. Are they just waiting for their triggering moment to crumble into a mass genocide? Is it going against the immigrants? Is it going to be a colour racist genocide? Hopefully, we’ll never know; hopefully, that day never comes, neither for the United States nor for India.