I HAVE never found Indian civil society so much in despair as it is today. It feels insecure as if everything around is falling apart. The real concern is over violence which has spread in the country in one shape or the other. Incidents are not many but they do scare the society which has been living more or less peacefully till some time ago.

Had this been only a law and order problem, the fear would not have been so pervasive. But there is a feeling that those who are at the helm of affairs are not up to the job. This does not mean that they have faith in those in the opposition. Therefore, the future, as the society sees it, has no clear cut path even after parliamentary elections, due in four or five months’ time. The announcement of state elections in November-December in five states—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Mizoram and Delhi—is not expected to clear the air.

Certain trends are available. But if the past is any guide, they do not indicate who or which party would form the government at the centre. Who would put the country back on the track to secular democratic ethos which is at present enveloped in the gloom of communal violence and financial meltdown? The nation is groping for firm guidance and dependable governance.

No doubt, the financial meltdown has evoked fears. They may be exaggerated because, apart from a crash in the share market, the economy is weathering the storm well. No employee has been laid off in any company worth the name. No call centre has been closed. But since America, the highest priest of globalisation, is shaky, the general impression is that it is only a matter of time when Washington’s illness would visit India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance that banks and deposits with them are safe has helped—only a bit.

The reason is that neither Manmohan Singh nor Finance Minister P. Chidambaram nor Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Montek SinghAhluwalia is seen as an answer to the problem. Their erudition in economics is recognised but their mantra of “free economy” which helps the upper half is not popular. People feel that what has saved them is lack of economic reforms, not opening many sectors to foreign investors.

However, the main anxiety is the political scene which is riven with sharp differences over religious identities and political ideologies. What has really shaken the society is the continuing violence against Christians. Embarrassed and uncomfortable as it is over the treatment meted out to Muslims, the society has begun to live with it. But the atrocities against the Christians have put a question mark against India’s secular credentials, particularly when democracies in the West have accepted it as one of them.

Some 18 leading Indian writers, including Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth and Girish Karnad, have expressed anguish at the continuing brutalities visited upon the Christian community and places of worship in Orissa and Karnataka. “Eventually,” the writers say, “such violence does not remain confined to a few clearly targeted victims. Rather, it spreads to engulf and destroy the entire society that spawns it, as is evident in the neighbouring Pakistan and Sri Lanka, for instance.”

On the other hand, the demand for a judicial inquiry into the encounter in the Jamia area in New Delhi has been taken up even by the Congress Muslim leaders. The incident has, in fact, become the community’s joint demand throughout the country. The central government, I believe, is having the reports by different non-Muslim teams examined by a top legal expert because its stand so far has been that any government inquiry would demoralise the police.

Whether this happens or not is a matter of discussion. But the “encounter” in the Jamaia area and the killing of Christians in Orissa and Karnataka will definitely eat into the Congress vote in the forthcoming state elections, if not in parliamentary polls. There is a rash of meetings and seminars in a few big cities to draw the Manmohan Singh government’s attention to the insecurity of minorities.

I expected some consensus to emerge from the last week’s meeting of the National Integration Council, representing all political parties. But they could not even agree on what posed the threat: communalism or terrorism. Ultimately, the common word found was “communal violence.” But there was no togetherness even when the country faced a grave danger from the fissiparous elements.

The BJP is busy stoking fires of division. It is against any inquiry into the incident at the Jamia area and equally adamant over any action against its militant wing, Bajrang Dal, which is responsible for the killing of Christians and burning of churches in Orissa.

In Mumbai, the division has taken the shape of regional chauvinism. A goonda, Raj Thackery, nephew of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackery, has raised the old slogan of “Maharashtra for Maharashtrians.” Not long ago he attacked the Bihari labour working in the city. This week he disrupted the railway board examination centres because some north Indian candidates were appearing. With great reluctance, the Congress-led state government has arrested Raj Thackery who has been lionised by certain elements within the Congress.

Whatever message Raj Thackery’s activities may give, it casts a shadow on governance. The very federal structure which has held the different states together comes to be questioned. The intelligentsia has begun to wonder about the idea of India. The centre looks weak and the states under the thumb of political overlords.

Parochial politics apart, India has always prided itself with occupying a central space. It was neither black nor white, but there was a grey area which people expanded to promote pluralism. That space, the centre, has been eroding for some years. It was Nehruvian in concept but stayed more or less intact even in the BJP’s Atal Behari Vajpayee era till chief minister Narendra Modi came to the scene with his policy of ethnic cleansing.

What the BJP or the new strategists in the Congress do not realise is that secularism, the ideal of “unity in diversity,” is India’s destiny. Tolerance and the spirit of accommodation provide the glue. Let it not get dry. Let the world know that India has not swerved from the path it chose even before independence, not to mix religion with politics.

The spirit of freedom struggle days made the then ruling Congress stay centre and adopt a constitution which was secular in letter and spirit. Mahatma Gandhi’s sacrifice stopped the anti-Muslim torrent which followed in the wake of the partition. Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shstri and even Indira Gandhi refused to be pushed by communal forces. Why is the dithering now?