New Study Examines parallel between Hindu nationalism and Jim Crow era in United States
New study draws the uncanny parallel between the Narendra Modi led India, which is allegedly neck-deep in Hindu nationalism and the Jim Crow era of United States, which was a reign of racism (approximately during 1880 to 1965). Journal of Democracy shows the study done by Ashuthosh Varshney and Connor Staggs of the Brown University, on the parallel between political and social dynamics of Hindu nationalism in India under Narendra Modi and the policies of racial segregation of the Jim Crow in America.
The study says that, “if Jim Crow was about the severe marginalization of black Americans on the ground of their race, then Hindu nationalism under Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is about the attempted marginalization of a minority, namely Muslim Indians, on the ground of their religion”. It said that the White Supremacy and Hindu Supremacy are twins in a sense that, while Jim Crow sought to make the blacks a second class citizens, “the Hindu nationalist seek to diminish the constitutionally guaranteed equal citizenship of Muslims and turn them into marginalized” citizens.
Even the methods deployed by the Hindutva government seems to be in line with the Jim Crow mode of racist ruling, “exclusionary laws, segregation, and vigilant violence”. The study further went on to carve out the picture of how legislative powers and extralegal methods are used by both “democratic government”. When Jim Crow aimed to annihilate the equality that was promised to the blacks after the Civil War, Hindu nationalists are aiming to abolish the equality that was granted to the Indian Muslims by the 1950 constitution.
Ashuthosh Varshney and Connor Staggs said that unlike Jim Crow era which lasted for a century, Hindu nationalism is still in its early stage and can still be forestalled. They said, “before a Jim Crow – style Hindu-nationalist order is institutionalised via political and legislative processes”, India can still squeeze its way out of it if the voters can remove the BJP from power at the polls. If don’t, the similarities will only grow, as the “parallels are already disturbingly evidence”.
The idea of blacks holding equal rights and yielding same level of political authority was abhorrent to the white supremacist, and what black, or their ‘race’ was to Jim Crow, Hindu nationalism share the same feeling when it comes to Muslims or ‘religion’.
The change in the legal status of the Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir and the introduction of change in the 1955 Citizenship Acts, which is called as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) appear to be a close relative of Jim Crow laws. The surge in the figure of mob lynching in India, after Narendra Modi came to power is reportedly and instance for the similarities.
What make Modi’s rule in India and Jim Crow reign of US comparable is the idea that an electorally legitimated majoritarianism can be an effective tool in creating an ensemble of laws which seek to deprive a “disfavoured group of its rights, subject it to extralegal violence, and reduce it to second-class citizenship”.
It is said that when the Jim Crow took years to fully establish itself, and the political order of the Hindu nationalism has only taken its first step, India still have hopes, if the voters decide to stop Hindu nationalism, and added that it will be unwise to wait for the judiciary to salvage the situation, as the judiciary system is at snail’s pace in recognising the violation of constitution, same way as in Jim Crow era.
