India's Future Depends on Federalism | Ruhullah Mehdi

It is necessary to talk about federalism, instead of talking about any one particular identity. Doing politics around Muslim identity. If secular parties do politics around the protection of cultural identities, if they stand up against the Centre's overreach, if they do politics for the protections owed to the states for the sake of the federation — this contains neither Muslim identity nor Hindu identity. Kashmir has its own cultural identity. The south also has its own cultural identity. Bengal also has its own cultural identity. Awadh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar also have their own cultural identity. If all these identities remain constitutionally protected, if a federation is built, if these get a protection mechanism, if that mechanism exists in the spirit of the Constitution but not in its letter as a federation — if secular politics works on all these things instead of doing identity politics for any one Muslim or any one Hindu, then perhaps they will get the answer to a thousand things. There will be clarity. In this, Muslim identity will also remain protected, Hindu identity will also remain protected, and cultural, regional identity and language will also remain protected. And politics will happen around the constitutionality of the country. Politics will happen for the country to be a functional democracy, in which the Muslim will also be protected, the Hindu will also be protected, it will be peaceful — and that is the answer to the right-wing's extremist ideology, against this entire crisis.