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Reclaiming India from under shadows of Hindutva

By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal. Dated: 3/26/2017 12:43:51 AM

Hindutva's juggernaut is moving unchecked. It isn't just rolling on with an army of lumpen elements bashing up or hooting down any adversary on streets and public events. Its ideology now finds a currency in the country's mainstream. The smooth take-over of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is clear manifestation. It isn't like 2014, when one could safely presume that an important pillar of the Modi wave that brought him to power was firmly grounded in the disenchantment of the public with other political parties as well as the anti-incumbency factor and yet another pillar stemmed from the propaganda that so cleverly spun the yarn of development, vikas, sabka saath and acche din. The BJP fought its UP assembly election battle, punctuating the development narrative with strong doses of Ram Temple and kabristan politics. There was not a whimper of protest within BJP or the BJP voters when Yogi Adityanath was chosen as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Adityanath is the poster boy of hardcore Hindutva and is known to be the symbol of cow protectionism, a political discourse that hinges on communal hate. Or else, he is known for his hate speeches and for sharing podiums with people who called for digging out graves of Muslim women and raping them. Not many seem to have a problem with that, either in BJP or in Uttar Pradesh, so far. Celebrations followed his anointment.
The Hindutva project is an evolutionary one. It will eventually try to reach its logical conclusion as per the ideology propounded by the RSS. After Narendra Modi's acceptability first within Gujarat and then rest of India, despite his huge baggage of 2002 Gujarat genocides, the next step was to popularise Modi and turn him into an icon of development and efficiency. Yogi Adityanath is the follow-up step where even the pretence of moderation has been shed. Recall, that this experiment actually began much earlier. It met with some success in 1998 when Vajpayee, seen as a moderate face within BJP and with a wider acceptability across the board, rose to become prime minister of the country. His moderate appeal received a setback when all he did to in response to Gujarat genocide in 2002 during his prime ministership was to choose to remind Modi about his 'raj dharma'. It is important to scrutinise this journey from Vajpayee to Adityanath via Modi to understand the larger RSS experiment. For the liberal thinking people who were fooled by the development mantra, this journey could be instructive. Things move in a chronological fashion but they are best understood backwards. Yogi Adityanath, thus, is an important key to understand where this Hindutva project is headed. Modi was not like Vajpayee. Adityanath is not Modi, who still had the Gujarat development story (howsoever false and debatable the narrative) to sell. Adityanath's political mindset is a mass of protoplasma comprising cells of gau raksha, communal hatred and misogyny. But he is a vital link now in understanding the Vajpayee success story and consequent to that the Modi story, revealing the larger picture of introducing icons of 'moderation', altering the definition of moderation further to make the not so moderate acceptable as moderates and so on till liberal values can be openly discarded and demonized. Next stop for RSS: Bengal? Rajya Sabha? President? Constitution? It could begin from anything and it would involve everything, including altering the very bible of Indian democracy and cleverly all this will be done in the name of ultra-nationalism.
The democratic electoral politics has ironically played a major role in this ambitious project of reversing the process of percolating down to the grassroots the benefits of democracy guaranteed through constitutional rights. This paradox brings to mind poet Iqbal's lament on democracy: Jamhooriyat ik tarz-e-hukumut hai jismein bandon ko gina karte hain, tola nahin karte. The RSS project employs social engineering and propaganda as tools in electoral politics to engineer mindsets that begin seeing communalism as a virtue. But liberal thinking leaders and intellectuals need to move beyond understanding the whole rationale of what RSS is doing and how it is operating. Cynicism, grieving, anxiety, disappointment and a dash of sarcasm is the natural fallout of the shockingly swift speed with which the BJP is rolling out its real agenda. But there is need to go beyond that.
The issue is not just the electoral battle alone. It is about reclaiming political space and also about reclaiming the very idea of India that is being challenged. Sadly, it appears, the political formations in opposition to this Hindutva juggernaut have yet to understood this. Whether Samajwadi Party goons go about rampaging villages in Ballia constituency to seek revenge for the unfavourable election result, or the Congress keeps hoping for the right moment to cash in on the eventual decline of the Modi popularity or the ultra-Left in their stupid righteousness blur the lines between secular parties and the BJP, there is no way that this space can be reclaimed. Besides, the need for the secular groups to completely transform their units and reinvent themselves, it has to be a united fight - not simply for capturing power but to protect the core values of democracy that are under grave danger. There has to be a constructive and concrete alternative vision; while each group must have its own committed ideals, there should be a clear understanding on the common minimum vision with the cherished and committed goal to protect the constitution and its core values. This movement must connect with masses. It must also have an open two way channel with intellectual spaces and intellectuals must play their role in creating this movement. It must be strong enough to withstand the pressures of propaganda and street hooliganism. It must begin now or it will be too late. Or else these groups should pack their bags to allow space for newer formations to emerge.