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Putting on masks with changing times
are the compulsions of electoral politics for many parties, more
so with a party like Bhartiya Janta Party. BJP so far has been
doing this with great amount of ease, but lately its dilemmas are
increasing in intensity due to its track record in the political
arena during last two decades. One such attempt to change gears or
put on a new mask was attempted by L.K. Advani in the recently
held BJP executive in Delhi (Sept 2012). Mr. Advani in the speech
which was circulated had written about "re-projecting the party's
commitment to secularism" in his valedictory function speech.
While speaking he stumbled as he was face to face with something
which BJP does not like in the real sense, secularism, and so he
skipped this S word in his spoken speech.
To begin with recent things, it is
from last few months that Neetish Kumar has been saying that NDA
should have a leader with a secular image. His hint was to oppose
the claims of Mr. Narendra Modi, who is a strong candidate for the
post of PM, for BJP and thereby of NDA. Neetish Kumar with his own
electoral compulsions has been avoiding Mr. Modi, not touching him
even with a barge pole. Since Kumar and other allies are very
crucial for BJP to come to power, BJP has been in two minds about
projecting Modi as the PM candidate. As such also BJP had a
complex calculation while dealing with the issue of secularism and
Indian state.
BJP is at one level the political
wing of RSS, in which RSS trained swyamsevaks are in the lead with
some non-RSS background leaders also scattered here and there.
Still the primary control of BJP is with the RSS trained
swayamsevaks. In turn BJP’s political directions are controlled by
the patriarch, RSS, which takes most of the crucial decisions
about BJP policies. It is not too far back that Nitin Gadkari was
imposed on BJP as the President, and then making exception to the
rule he was ‘re-elected’ as the President mainly due to the
dictates of RSS. Earlier also there are examples galore about the
RSS determining the direction of BJP in the main. It’s also true
that within the given parameters, BJP does have some autonomy
also, but that relates to mundane affairs not in the major policy
making.
The major brunt of campaigning for BJP is also done by the RSS
volunteers, who are the major bulwark of BJP political electoral
machine. All the top leaders of BJP, from Vajpayee, Advani, Murli
Manohar Joshi, Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitly and Nitin Gadkari are
the swayamsevaks trained in the RSS shakhas. For them, RSS has the
primacy over any other thing and this gets reflected times and
over again. Once Vajpayee, when he was Prime Minister, was
speaking in the gathering of NRIs in Staten Island in US. He
exhibited his primary loyalty to RSS by saying that he may be the
Prime Minister, but more than that he is the swayamsevak of RSS, a
right, which nobody can snatch from him. When Advani in an effort
to make an image changeover from the Babri mosque demolisher to
the potential PM candidate, went on to praise Jinnah and his 11th
August 1947 Speech in Pakistan, RSS immediately put the reins of
control and Advani was immediately marginalized from BJP
leadership, a ground he has been trying to regain by various
means, to no avail. Similarly when the previous avatar of BJP,
Bhartiya Jansangh had dissolved itself to merge in the Janata
Party, in the aftermath of dreaded emergency, its leadership broke
the Janata party and re-emerged as Bhartiya Janata Party. The
issue was that the socialists in Janata party had demanded that
the Jana Sangh faction cannot have duel membership of Janata party
as well as RSS. This faction rather than severing relation with
RSS promptly broke the Janata party and came out.
RSS is primarily committed to the agenda of Hindu Rashtra, Hindu
nation, a concept parallel to the concept of Islamic nation, which
had become the base of Pakistan. Now the paradox for BJP is that
it has to come to power through an electoral process, in a country
with diversity in religion and culture. It does want to impose
Hindu nation but that is not possible without capturing power in
the centre. For capturing power they have to adopt the norms of
electoral politics and play the ‘vote bank ‘politics as other
parties do. The aim has been first to polarise the Hindu votes and
then to appeal to votes of other sections of society. Polarization
of section of Hindu votes has been achieved by BJP through Babri
demolition, Post demolition riots and Gujarat carnage. Having
achieved this, for winning over the dalits and other weaker
sections the strategy is to co-opt them through mechanisms of
social engineering through programs like “Samajik Samrasta
(collaboration between castes) and Hindutvisation of Adivasis
through programs like Ghar vapasi (returning home) for Adivasis,
telling them they are Hindus who had to flee to the forests due to
the intimidation of Muslim kings, so they must return to Hindu
fold. In the same effort for winning over Adivasis, the tribal
areas witnessed anti Christian violence.
As for as Muslim, the biggest religious minority is concerned they
have given mixed signals. Having given the signal to section of
Hindus, the challenge has been to win over the Muslims’ votes as
well, as all Hindus will not vote for BJP at any time. So the
first effort was to project Vajpayee as the leader, as Vajpayee
was a most suitable mask. It was very part of his persona, to the
extent of people went on to say that he is the ‘right man in the
wrong party’. To oppose Congress Advani coined the word pseudo
secularism for the policies of Congress. Surely Congress is no
secular angel, as it has compromised with communal forces and in
the game of vote bank politics, has played the role of
‘opportunist communal’ party. This is in contrast to BJP which is
party programmed for Communalism. After Vajpayee period BJP has
been trying to put on a secular mask. But the job is not easy and
they have to play the role close to that of a trapeze artist. Not
to lose polarised vote bank of Hindus and at the same time to win
over Muslims votes.
It is in this direction that Bangaru Laxaman once said that
Muslims are the ‘blood of our blood and flesh of our flesh’.
Advani tried this by offering secular Jinnah comments and now this
gem from him is again an attempt in that direction. Same Advani in
part of his speech, which he did not read, said, “We should, with
full conviction, reassure our brethren belonging to the minority
communities that we brook no discrimination or injustice in
dealing with different sections of our diverse society.” Who will
believe that except the novice!
Whether such a new mask will cut any ice with the Muslim
community, who by now has realized that irrespective of its
utterances BJP is anti minority to the core, and makes secular
noises just for effect. Even their formulation of secularism
‘justice to all and appeasement of none’, gives a clear message
that Muslims cannot expect any affirmative action, which a
battered community needs for its upliftment.
Today while the communal parties have polarized the communities
along religious lines, what is needed is a principled politics
along secular lines. Those tied to the apron strings of the
organization with the ideology which wants to bring in Hindu
Nation cannot be secular. Their masks are a mechanism to put wool
in people’s eyes. We need to recall the Hindu values of father of
the nation, Gandhi. Despite holding Hinduism as his religion he
never indulged in the politics of Hindu religious identity. BJP
indulges in issues like Babri mosque, holy cow, Ram Setu, Amarnath
Yatra, etc. something which is the basic hallmark of Advani and
company. It is the use of religion’s identity for political goals.
Gandhi followed religion as morality and BJP is using ‘religions’
identity for political goals’, this is what communalism is, and
this is what the hallmark of BJP is.
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