The coming back of the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) government at the centre in India has unusually altered the balances of power. The transition for the BJP from protest to power and that too with a thumping majority has engendered a certain kind of eccentricity in the party, and has also emboldened them to do whatever they wish to. And perhaps therefore a party that was fiercely articulate in the days of campaigning, has gone back into the den of silence.
However, there is more to the silence of the BJP – the efforts of creating majoritarianism and spreading the dominance of Hindutva ideology. And for this, the Modi regime seems to be operating through remaining in the background, condemning one statement, separating itself from the other and sometimes passing the buck. But some MPs of the BJP, and even ministers in the government, are openly floating the ideas of Hindutva and majoritarianism. When Giriraj Singh during the electoral campaign of the party threatened to send the opponents of BJP to Pakistan, this was not perceived as an augury that will later become a pattern and the leaders of BJP and a cluster of other organisations, such as RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena and other Hindutva forces, will follow the manner of Giriraj Singh, to make the threat manifold for other communities of India except Hindus.
To comprehend the real transformation of events, however, we should go back to the days when Modi took oath as India’s prime minster. In his first speech, Modi insisted on proceeding by the constitution and talked about strengthening the democracy. On the independence-day speech, he propounded putting a 10-year moratorium on communal violence. At the same time, he also took a Ganga promise and bent down at the parliament, giving a bit of an indication that Hinduism has come back in the government.
On the other side, Modi’s party-men and ministers are expressing smuts in a way that force to believe that they have been handed over a script to follow. Also, they being frequently foul-mouthed is one thing and the prime minister not sternly condemning them is another. For example, Sushma Swaraj, foreign minister in the government, urged the centre to declare Bhagwad Gita a national holy book. And this was not an isolated incident. A continuous effort is on to rewrite history and saffronise it. Circumstances are this that Dinanath Batra while insisting on producing new history text-books to include more “Hindu” nationalists seems more powerful and confident than the various organisations dealing with deciding the syllabus of schools.
And this brings us back to a fundamental question. Is the prime minister sanctioning those “anti-national” and communal views in which explicit language of abhorrence against the minorities is being expressed? If not, why was Giriraj Singh included in the government and made a minister? Why was Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti not dropped off after her execrable statement? And why was Yogi Adityanath not sacked after his hate speech in the parliament and the flaring up of the video that showed him saying hateful words for a particular community?
While the short-term aim of the BJP is probably to strengthen its political base by riding on the polarising point of Hindutva by which it aims to polarise the electorates, the party also subtly appears to be working on the goals set by its masters in the RSS, who crave for eradicating the inherent diversity from India and making it a homogenous state by turning the country into a unified Hindu nation through diluting the identities of minorities, crushing dissent and reshaping the contours of Indian culture. And now this is no secret. The RSS is also emerging as an authoritative force, the chief of which gets his full speech broadcast on the government-owned TV channel, which had never happened in the history of Indian television. The same RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, “declares” India a Hindu nation and Hindutva as the religion of Hindus, bringing all Indians into the fold of Hindutva, projecting the Hindu religion in an entirely new form. A religion that thrived on its diversity and never underlined anything supreme is being shrivelled to underpin the wild ideas of a few in favour of majoritarianism.
The problem with the current government is that it is allowing the external bodies, who claim to be “cultural” and “religious” organisations, influence its policies. The direct interfering of them in the daily affairs of the government has significantly increased. And the government seems pathetically decrepit before them. This is why it was hurriedly determined that Sanskrit should be a mandatory read as the third language. The immature attempt to popularise or rather “give another life” to a dead language is preposterous. And nobody is contending making the language an optional subject for students to choose from. However, imposing an “almost-dead” and irrelevant language, in context of the present world setting and advances in technology, on them is like pushing them into old, dark ages. This attempt is also inspired by the “logic” of bringing a language which is considered entirely Hindu. Plausibly, it is another endeavour not only to inflict Hindutva on the country, but also to marginalise the minorities in a roundabout way.
However, there is a very important factor here. For the BJP, it has become remarkably easy to proceed with the Hindutva ideology because a large part of India responds positively to that. The people seething in anger for a while hoping to wipe out the ideas of “secularism” or the so-called “pseudo secularism,” as they like to call it, have now come into the open to scream their frenzied ideas of India with utmost confidence. The self-confidence of fanatics is on a high level because of the emerging feeling that they can get away with giving statements that are in violation of even the constitution of the country.
The venom spewing by the BJP leaders has, in reality, become a pattern now. A deviation here and there is the norm for a party that comes to power after remaining in opposition for a long time, and that too mainly on the promises of development and governance, since the exuberance of obtaining power rarely cares about customs and rules. Instead, that beaming mood tries to create new ones, by propagating new rituals, invoking the failures of the previous governments and riding on the existing support wave. It echoes lofty slogans for people to believe which, when scrutinised, lack substance. And amidst all these, the party tries achieving its agenda.
Though, there should be a word of caution here – one must not hurriedly reach to conclusions. However, a lot of recent unfortunate incidents do compel to nurture doubts and concerns about the working style and the priorities of the new government. And more so when the prime minister himself has set the standards at a very high level. The prime minister talks about accountability all the time, and appears to be in favour of accountability for all: from MPs to village leaders and from civil servants to the common people. However, considering his government’s performance in maintaining a milieu of communal harmony, a sense of security for the minorities of the country and providing a secular and modern democracy, he has a lot to answer for.
The government, the BJP and the RSS and its allied organisations need to understand that undermining the rights of minorities and separating them in a multi-religious country can never create a thriving and modern democracy. Their involvement in encouraging and practising orthodoxy and politics of hate will only damage the country. Partisan and “contaminated” politics lead to a weak, tainted democracy.