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Nitish Kumar in an obvious reference
to opposition to Modi’s possible projection as the
Prime-ministerial candidate of NDA, in the next parliamentary
elections said that NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate should be
one with secular credentials. His aide went on to say that
Vajpayee had the intention of sacking in the wake of Gujarat
carnage and the NDA lost 2004 Parliamentary elections due to the
Gujarat carnage and role of Modi in the same (June 19, 2012). In
response Lalu Yadav questioned Nitish as to how he Nitish
continued to be part of NDA after Gujarat happened? The BJP
spokesmen talked at various levels. One of them said that
ideologically Vajpayee, Advani and Modi are all the same. Another
one said that Hindutva is truly secular and liberal so why Modi
cannot be the PM candidate. RSS Supremo Bhagwat buttressed the
point by saying as to why the nation cannot have a Hindutvawadi
prime minister?
With this the ever continuing debate about secularism and the
nature of Hindutva is in the social space once again. One concedes
that Kumar is no secular angel. When BJP came to become the
largest single party in Lok Sabha in 1996, no one dared to ally
with it that time as it’s communal face was starkly obvious due to
its role in Babri demolition and consequent violence, which was
too fresh in people’s memory. By 1998 in a similar situation many
parities including Kumar’s JD (U) could not resist the temptation
of power and struck some minimum common program to share power
with the BJP. Though his JD (U) had a common minimum understanding
with BJP, right under Kumar’s nose BJP during NDA regime
communalized the polity to no end. Saffronization of text books
was done and introduction of courses like Paurihitya and Hindu
Rituals in the Universities being just few examples of the
Hindutva agenda, were starkly visible. When the carnage broke out
in 2002, Kumar was the minister for railways and in that capacity
he ignored the investigation of Godhra train burning, which was
mandatory as per the rules. Due to this Modi’s concoction that
train burning was a preplanned act by Muslims went unchallenged
for a long time. Kumar could have called Modi’s bluff that the
train burning was a planned act by Muslims.
Nitish was part of the cabinet. What did he tell Vajpayee at that
time one does not know, but as a secular person, his threat of
pulling out from the Government would have set the house in order
to a great extent. Even today, right under his nose his ally; the
BJP of Bihar, is communalizing the polity. Communalism is not just
communal violence. Communal violence is just the superficially
visible part of the process of communalization, which aims to
abolish secular space and liberal values.
Some of the statements of BJP spoke-persons are partly true also.
The claim that Vajpayee, Advani, and Modi (one can add even people
like Praveen Togadia, Promod Mutallik, Vinay Katiyar and the
likes) are similar, is true to a great extent. They are all
ideologically committed swaymsevaks, (RSS trained Cadres) working
for the agenda of Hindu Rashta, the goal of RSS politics. There
are dissimilarities amongst them also; there is a division of
labor amongst them also. Since BJP is not hoping for coming to
majority on its own strength, it has to keep a liberal façade.
Precisely for this reason Vajpayee was the prime Minister, while
prime mover of the chariot of communalism through Ram Temple
campaign, Advani, was forced to play the second fiddle. When
Vajpayee withdrew from the scene, Advani decided for the image
change over and he suddenly realized the secular worth of Jinnah.
It is another matter that he overplayed the game and their
patriarch, RSS, decided to clip his wings and demote him. All the
top brass of BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and many
other RSS outfits are primarily the RSS swayamasevaks, which is
too well known by now.
When the previous avatar of BJP, Jan Sangh, merged in Janata Party
in the wake of lifting of emergency, the other components of
Janata party, socialists in particular, demanded that the Jan
Sangh members should give up their membership-affiliation with RSS.
For Jan Sanghis breaking link with RSS was unthinkable and they
decided to pull out from Janata Party and then they regrouped as
Bharatiya Janata Party, as it is known at present. Vajpayee, in
his famous address to NRI Indians in Staten Island, US, asserted
that he is Swayamsevak first and anything else, PM, later.
In that sense they are on the same ideological wavelength but
playing different roles at any point of time. They are communal to
the core, with the agenda to work for religion based nationalism.
To say that Hindutva is secular and liberal is like putting the
reality on its head. Hindutva is not Hinduism. Hinduism is an
umbrella of various religious streams, which flowered and existed
in this part of the world. Hindutva as a concept and political
ideology started emerging during colonial period and was later
popularized by Savarkar. He defined it as ‘Whole of Hinduness’, a
combination of Aryan race, culture and language. In particular
Hindutva is based on the Brahmanical stream of Hinduism, subtly
promoting caste and gender hierarchy, reviving the feudal
hierarchical system in the modern idioms.
When the whole nation was coming together on the principles of
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the upholders of Hindutva,
coming from the sections of Rajas, Jamindars and section of upper
caste Hindus kept aloof from the struggle against British. They
came together as Hindu Mahasabha and later founded and supported
RSS. Their politics was parallel and opposite of the politics of
Muslim League, which was arguing on the similar line for an
Islamic state, Pakistan. Muslim League also had base amongst the
landed aristocracy, Nawabas, Jagirdars and later joined by
educated elite. Hindutva stream, Hindu Mahasabha-RSS projected the
glorious Hindu past and asserted we are a Hindu Nation from times
immemorial. Muslim League identified with the rule of Muslim kings
and traced their lineage to the first invasion of Muslim King in
this part of the world. The National movement under Gandhi was for
throwing away the yoke of colonial rule and for social change of
caste and gender relations. It articulated that we are a Nation in
the making.
Here one can see the instrumentalist use of religion by a section
of society, elite, who wanted to preserve their privileges in the
changing social dynamics. The sharpest articulation of Hindutva
politics came from M.S. Golwalkar, who in his ‘We or our
Nationhood Defined’, eulogized fascism and asked for a second
class citizenship for Muslims and Christians. Today the RSS cadres
unable to swallow the blunt formulation of their politics by
Golwalkar deny the existence of this book. The dilemma of RSS and
its progeny is to keep the democratic face till they come to a
majority when they can unleash their full scale agenda. Currently
also their trained swayamsevaks are infiltrating in different
wings of the state, media and education apart from forming the
organizations like BJP etc. So who is secular in BJP? They claim
that they believe in justice for all and appeasement of none. This
is a very cleverly worded sentence to hide their intention of
continuing the discrimination of those suffering in the present
scheme of things.
How does one understand the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva? One has to take recourse to the example of the ‘father
of the nation’ to avoid the heavy academic debates. Gandhi was a
Hindu but not a follower of Hindutva. Godse and the RSS tribe are
the practitioners of ‘Hindutva politics’. For this politics a
Hindu like Gandhi is unacceptable ideologically as he could reach
the zenith of secular ethos while being the best of the Hindus! We
do realize that while the statement by Nitish Kumar is a symbol of
shadow boxing it also presents one of the aspects of the political
reality being witnessed by the nation.
The abbreviated
version of this article appeared in Hindustan Times, June 25 2012,
titled, What Lies behind the Mask
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