Chapter Six. Post-independence India on the Basis of Hinduism

Transcription

1 Chapter Six Post-independence India on the Basis of Hinduism 183

2 In the previous chapters, the researcher discussed how India has always been a multicultural country. Despite the separation of Pakistan with a large population of Muslim, this diversity with a big Muslim minority has been continuing up to now. Because of the existence of a traditional society, the role of religion in politics has lasted until now. In this chapter and next one, the political functions of Hinduism and Islam during the post independence period are examined. This country is one of the biggest countries with the second highest population in the world. In 2013, the population of India was 1.27 billion. 1 Now, India has 29 states and 6 Union Territories. Each state also has different demography, culture and nature of politics. 2 Though over four-fifth of Indian population is Hindu, there are sizeable numbers of other religious groups: Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and other religions. Hindus are spread out all over the country with declining or negligible concentration at the-southern, northeastern and northwestern parts of the country. Sikhs are concentrated in Punjab; Muslims have majority in the northwestern Kashmir and Lakshadweep; Buddhists compose over 50% population in Western Kashmir, immediately south of it and Sikkim; mixed religious areas are in the northeastern and southwestern tip of the country. 3 This population composition has approximately been continuing up to now. The table No. 3 (see: p. 185) shows this composition in The recent census indicate the Hindu and Muslim population of India to be approximately over 80 and about percent of the total respectively. 4 India has the fourth largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh counting over 130 million people. 5 Despite the further integrity created by Hinduism, the political forces in this period also used the religious cleavages. The terrible experience of the partition riots convinced the post independence Indian elite to minimize the role of religion in politics, but as Shakir mentions the deviation from the British approach to religion and politics that viewed the Indian people in terms of their religion, was difficult. Except for the abolition of separate electorates, the ruling class in independent India faithfully followed the British policy. Secularism is not viewed as 1 Population of India, accessed, 10 Jul 2013, at: 2 Arora, Dutt and Davgun, Dasgupta, 2007, 77; Chakraborty, 2013, Kinnvall and Svensson, 2010; Arora,

3 separation of religion from politics but giving equal status to all religions. 1 The various parties including ruling ones have followed divide and rule politics by different policies like reservation, electoral, educational. The politics of Forward Caste versus Backward Caste, or Hindu versus Muslim have succeeded not only in dividing the society, it has legitimized the idea of politics for the sake of power alone. 2 In next parts of these two last chapters, these politics and impacts of religion are explained. Table 3: Religious Population in India; According to 2001 Population Census Religion Population (%) Hindus 827,578, Muslims 138,188, Christians 24,080, Sikhs 19,215, Buddhists 7,955, Jains 4,225, Other Religions & Persuasions 6,639, Religion not Stated 727, Total 1,028,610, Source: A) India Based on Hinduism India after independence faced regional and linguistic disaffection but a confident leadership, with well-organized political machine, succeeded in pacifying the voices of discontent. 3 In this process beside secular politics, Hindu majority and Hinduism as an umbrella that has covered most of the Indian population, manifestly and latently, provided a secure ground to reinforce national unity. Although the violence between religious groups especially Hindu and Muslim discredited the ideologies of both Hindu nationalism and Muslim separatism for several decades and secularism was made as a religious politics of state (already mentioned in chapter 3), the only possible basis for the modern Indian state, but Hinduism in Indian nationalism was used for national unity and overcome linguistic, ethnic and caste cleavages. Without this unified factor every sect, language, ethnicity or caste has the potential to disintegration. Indeed, the Indian notion of secularism relies upon a number of religious legacies manifest in a Gandhian notion of 1 Shakir, 1986b, C. P. Bhambhri, The Indian State and Political Process (Delhi: Shipra Publications, 2007), Brasted and Khan, 2007,

4 what constitutes religious and political communities. 1 So, although such legacies have been used by Hindu nationalists to enforce exclusionary practices through establishing certain hegemonic structures of rigid religious boundaries and practices with the aim of maintaining antagonistic movements within Hinduism, but Hinduism through Gandhian secularism also has played a positive role in Indian nation-building. 2 The Indian state, after 1947, was not obliged to completely demarcate between the spheres of religion and politics. Religion was regarded as one of the 'spiritual' presuppositions on which the democratic state exists. Although the state may appear to be 'free' from religion, but it permitted an overwhelming majority of the people to be religious in private. 3 In the Constituent Assembly, the "conservatives considered Hinduism as a fundamental element in the field of politics and the new India in terms of the glories of ancient Hindu kingdoms and led opposition to measures like the Hindu Code Bill. 4 In this regard, A.R. Desai pointed out that the rulers of Independent India: Renamed India as Bharat in tune with the old Hindu tradition, made efforts to evolve Hindi as an all India language, with an emphasis on Sanskritisation, even to the extent of eliminating any trace of Muslim culture; selected national symbols (Dharma Chakra and other); and desired to resurrect certain cultural values of pre-muslim past; popularised religious and superstition-ridden festivals (Ramlila and others) and other programmes; organized Sadhu Samaj and thereby made use of the most orthodox and most consciously conservative section of society as an agent of moral and social transformation and that too under active guidance of the top most leaders of the Congress; exhorted people to introduce teaching of religion in educational institutions; to inculcate school education with superstition, broadcast Bhajans and devotional songs in the early morning programme of the Radio generating helpless moods of depending on mystical power; and propagated 'back to Vedas and Gita'; even Nehru advocated a basic approach to India's problems on Vedantic lines. 5 Beside the Gandhian notion of secularism, the religious nationalism emanating out of the activities of the Hindu right is a constitutive part of nation-building in India. Although there has been tragic violence with other communities, but Hinduism still, does contribute to the demarcation and cohesion of being Indian. The religious nationalism does so by appealing to the mythical unity of the Hindu community, invoking a historical version of a glorious Hindu past and providing an imagined Hindu national identity. They used the concept of Hindutva to construct religious boundaries around national identity at home and abroad. 6 Indeed as mentioned when on the basis of two-nation theory Pakistan was separated, Hinduism was the 1 Kinnvall and Svensson, Ibid. 3 Shakir, 1986a, Ibid, Quoted by: Shakir, 1986a, Kinnvall and Svensson,

5 main basis of nation-building in India. Indian nationalism like Pakistani nationalism is roughly tied with Hindu nationalism. Indeed, a Hindu nationalistic ideology evolved around the 20th century when India s independence was foreseeable. A section of the Hindu community believed that freedom from the British alone would not mean real independence; it should result in the formation of a nation where the majority community would have the dominance. 1 Therefore, an argument has been extended to the National Movement of India and it has been maintained that religion was central to most forms of Indian nationalism. 2 Accordingly, Hindu religious nationalism has also been regarded especially at the social level. It created grounds for a rapid increase in communalism. In this situation, Muslims and other minority communities felt insecure. The secular principles of the state were threatened by increasingly invoking the religious principle of Hinduism. It was incompatible with democratic secularism, although the Indian state gradually moved toward regarding multi-religious and equality of all religions to be practiced as private affaire of individuals. For controlling religious fanaticism, the government-controlled media acknowledged religious leaders, and considerable coverage on TV was given to routine religious practices. But it indirectly was also opening the way to create the common Hindu climate that covered most of the country with various divisions. At the other level of politics especially political parties, political use of religion continued. The inability of the Congress government to clearly denounce the communal riots after Indira Gandhi death provided a significant encouragement to the forces of Hindu communalism. 3 The vast network of Hindu nationalist organizations has been a vital component in the establishment and promotion of a sense of cohesion and immanence. The primary effect of this has been the cementing of primordial articulations of identity and the pitting of these against each other. 4 This new Hindu revivalism or militant Hindu nationalism has persisted up to the present and has manifested itself in various political organizations and movements include: RSS, a Hindu cultural organization organized into cells, whose members practice martial arts, and 1 Arora, Bhambhri, 2007, Sudipta Kaviraj, A Critique of the Passive Revolution, in State and Politics in India, ed. Partha Chatterjee (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), Kinnvall & Svensson,

6 which promotes also an exclusively Hindu definition of the Indian nation; the Jana Sangh, originally the main political party offshoot of RSS, with quite extreme anti-muslim supporters of Hindu nationalism; BJP, the more broadly based descendant of the original Jana Sangh; and such other organizations as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) 1, which led a campaign to liberate alleged Hindu religious sites from their occupation by Muslim mosque built on top of them with a focus especially on the Babri mosque at Ayodhya. 2 However, resurgence of the politics of Hindutva leading to the use of primordial religious identities eclipses its constant reshaping of tradition and integration of dissidence in search of new definitions of religio-political community. 3 The attempt to create an all-india Hindutva community soon came up against regional and caste divisions. 4 So, revivalism or militant Hinduism remained with a pervasive and politically important presence in contemporary Indian politics. The tendency among militant nationalist organizations such as the RSS and the JS/BJP to insist that Hindu and Indian are virtually interchangeable categories has spread beyond the organizational confines of these two organizations. 5 The RSS had never agreed with the democratic, republican, federal, pluralism and secular Constitution of India of Because the ideologues of religion -based identity of Hindutva had never accepted language-based pluralism of India related to the governmental decision in Not only this, Linguistic pluralism is considered a 'divisive force' by the believers of homogeneous and hegemonic Hindu state. 6 The believers of Hindutva had not accepted any of the basic premises of the Indian Constitution. They have propagated the ideology of "One people, 1 Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Council of Hindus founded by RRS in Its goals were not confined to Ayodhya. Its leaders prepared a list of numerous mosques in India allegedly built upon former Hindu temples, of which the most prominent were, in addition to the one in Ayodhya, the mosque in Mathora alleged to be built upon Krishna's birthplace and Kashi Vishwanath in Banaras. This movement clearly sought to build Hindu unity by emphasizing "the antagonism between Hindu and Muslims" (Brass, 1994, 241; Jaffrelot, 2007b, 19). 2 Brass, 1994, Ramanujan, Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, Party System and Electoral Politics in the Indian States : From Hegemony to Convergence, in India s Political Parties, eds. Peter Ronald Desouza and E. Sridharan (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2006), Brass, 1994, Bhambhri, 2007,

7 one culture, one nation" and believed India should move toward 'One Country, one State, one Legislature and one Executive'. 1 Because of this, the leaders of the BJP are firmly committed to the Unitarian doctrine for the governance of Hindu India as propagated by Guru Golwalkar and the Vajpayee government has appointed an eleven member Constitution Review Commission in They wanted to redefine the Constitution for a 'Unitary Hind or India' as desired by the RSS founding fathers. 2 Although no party or movement in Indian history, including the Congress, has been able to create a lasting integral nationalism, the BJP strived to build a united Indian nation. It has sought to overcome the heterogeneity and caste divisiveness of Indian society by consolidating a sense of Hindu nationalism around symbols common to all who claim to be Hindu. 3 Although Hindutva (including Hinduism), as an ideology was created and used by the BJP, it was not confined to this party alone and had an important role in the integrity of India. Instead of being xenophobic, Hindutva also defends the cultural ethos by seemingly integrating the best in Indian past with what it needs to team from others. Three strategies, according to Chakrabarty, on which Hindutva has drawn are those centred on 'places, areas and routes of synergy'. These strategies remain most effective in charging Hindus emotionally since they draw on the sacred sites, loyalties to religion, defined in a particular way, processions and pilgrimages. 4 Hindutva has had homogenizing design, although it has also been seen as the negative aspect of it. According to Chakrabarty, Hindutva does not seem to be designed to recreate a social coalition of diverse groups, but rather an aspiration to homogenize and construct a unity by submerging diversity. Indian civilization has drawn on various sources, including Hinduism. 5 In the course of its rise, Hindutva destroyed the Gandhian symbolism of non- violence, reinterpreted cultural symbols to become political signs and prepared the ground for communal violence. After independence in a large degree, Gandhi s politics was condemned as secularist, anti-hindu and as an obstacle to violent politics. Secularists and the religious out-group, Muslims, were targeted as enemies. During the resulting Hindu ethnic dominance, religion was converted from a faith into an ideology. The sequence of events in the development of this 1 Bhambhri, 2007, Ibid., 204 & Brass, 1994, Chakrabarty, 2008, Ibid. 189

8 movement repeats the common scheme of a religious fundamentalist movement that serves the nationalist goals of political leaders. 1 In this period, the Hindu organizations have had important role in integrating Indian people with different languages and ethnicities. For instance, in south India, the RSS has pursued some strategies that Gillan cites as following: Engaging in social and educational activities; and mobilizing locally in the event of communal controversies or conflicts. They have organized and promote innovative ethno-religious festivals that are invested with all of the trappings of 'tradition' and that often have strong pan-indian and communal overtones. The Hindu Munnani (a religious and cultural organization in Tamil Nadu ), with its extensive organizational network in south India, has successfully promoted a Ganesha (Vinayaka Chaturthi) festival in Tamil Nadu that it invests with majoritarian symbolism. In many other regions, Sangh Parivar organizations have also intervened in existing regional religious festivals. For instance in West Bengal, the RSS and VHP have made extensive, if not entirely successful, efforts to interpose themselves in important events such as the Ganga Sagar pilgrimage and the Durga Puja festival. 2 Hence, Hinduism through Gandhi s secularism and Hindu nationalism affected Indian politics and helped national integrity. There is also a presumed existence of a Hindu Vote in India which can be mobilized for the sake of national unity against the secessionist or otherwise excessive demands of minorities such as Sikhs and Muslims. It has been noted that in the 1984 parliamentary elections, held in the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards, the issue of national unity was communalized and made into the central issue in Rajiv Gandhi s landslide election victory. 3 It, also, can be interpreted as the electoral function of religion that in next parts will be regarded. B) Religion-Based Political Parties in Post-Independence India The creating of the political parties, as mentioned in the previous chapter, around religious affiliations has a long history in India. There are many religion-based registered and recognized (by the Election Commission of India) parties, such as the Muslim League in Kerala, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in Andhra Pradesh, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD, a Sikh party) and its breakaway SAD-S (led by Simranjit Singh Mann) in Punjab, and so on. However, 1 Sen and Wagner, Michael Gillan, Assessing the National Expansion of Hindu Nationalism, the BJP in Southern and Eastern India, , in Hindu Nationalism and Governance, eds. John McGuire and Ian Copland (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007), Brass, 1994,

9 most of these religion-based parties have a negligible number of representatives in the parliament or state assemblies. 1 The table N. 4 shows the position of some Hindu and Muslim parties in Lok Sabha, lower house of India. The researcher would like to briefly talk about some of the parties. Lok Sabha \ parties Table 4: The position of some religious-based parties in Lok Sabha ( ) Hindu Mahasabha Ram Rajya Parishad Jana sangh BJP Shiv Sena Muslim League J&K National Conference Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslemeen 1st (1952-6) nd( ) 2 4 3rd (1962-7) th (1967-9) th ( ) th ( ) 2 3 7th (1980-5) th (1985-9) th ( ) th ( ) th ( ) th ( ) th ( ) th ( ) th (2009) ) Hindu Parties Sources: Ashraf, 2010, ; Butler, Labiri and Roy, 1998, 154; Shakir, 1986a, A major political tradition in modern India that carried forward into the post-independence period had drawn its central ideas and symbols from Hindu traditions and culture. According to the believers of Hinduism, the society of India has been fertile for the growth of Hindutva, and a religion-based party has natural advantage over other secular parties because Hindu cultural symbols can be politically manipulated and appropriated by the party of Hindus. These parties followed Hindu nationalism and its motto, 'Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan'. This ideology assumed that India's national identity is summarized in Hinduism, the dominant creed. Indian culture was to be defined as Hindu culture, and the minorities were to be assimilated by their paying allegiance to the symbols and mainstays of the majority as those of the nation. 2 Here some of these parties especially the most important one, the BJP, are examined. 1 Arora, Bhambhri, 2007,

10 a) Ram Rajya Parishad One of the first Hindu traditional parties after independence was the Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad (RRP) or 'All India Council of Rama's Kingdom.' It was founded in 1948 and sought support on a platform of Hindu revivalism, unsuccessfully. 1 They believed to permeate the entire universe as followers of dharma. Therefore, they did not generally accept the western concept of a "nation-state. For them there was a clear demarcation in Hinduism between nation and the state. Like Hindutva, RRP wanted a common civil code in India, based on Hinduism as the first creed. The party turned inactive and was one of the many parties to merge to form the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The RRP won three Lok Sabha seats in the 1952 elections and two in the1962 elections. In 1952, 1957 and 1962, it won several dozen Vidhan Sabha seats, all in the Hindi belt, mostly in Rajasthan. 2 b) Bharatiya Jana Sangh The Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) stemmed from the RSS and much of its organizational impetus came from it. After independence and the weakening of the Mahasbaha party, RSS, which was founded in 1925 as a paramilitary organization and concerned with the regeneration of India as a Hindu nation, had been banned after a Hindu assassinated Gandhi in When the ban was lifted, the RSS leadership decided to enter active politics. A group of RSS activists and the RSS leaders felt that they should develop interest in politics in order to save their organization. Therefore, the idea of forming a new party was outlined with Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the head of the RSS, and was promised support in the form of new workers who could assist in laying the groundwork for state and local units. With their help, in 1951, a prominent Bengali politician and former Mahasabha leader, S.P. Mukherjee, built up the new party and as a result, the BJS was officially created. 3 The BJS was considered as a Hindu communal party. Its dominant leadership generally came from the elite castes, particularly Brahmans. They were militant nationalists which drew Hindus 1 Weiner, 2006, Craig Baxter, The Jana Sangha, a Biography of an Indian Political Party (Delhi: Oxford University Press. Baxter, 1971). 3 Bruce D. Graham, The Challenge of Hindu Nationalism: The Bharatiya Janata Party in Contemporary Indian Politics, in India s Political Parties, eds. Peter Ronald Desouza and E. Sridharan (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2006), 156. And, Kumar, 1990: 23 & 330; Weiner, 2006:

11 symbols of nationalism from the predominantly Hindu traditions of the country. 1 It did not recognize the concepts of majority and minority in respect of Indians. It had faith in one nationhood with a single culture. It was the worldview of the Jana Sangh that the Hindu society and nation are identical. 2 Their aim was to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra (state). It emphasized chiefly on Hindu Culture, religion and other similar obscurantist notions. 3 So, the party's basic philosophy was derived from the Hindu nationalist writings of the 1920s and 1930s. It claimed that Indian nationalism was essentially Hindu in character. Party manifestoes emphasized the maintenance of traditional Hindu institutions of family, caste structure, and law. They demanded the displacement of English by Hindi as the sole official language of India. They opposed concessions to the Muslim minority on matters of language and education. As one with religious and cultural overtones, it supported proposals to abolish cow slaughter and, advocacy of a more powerful defense with nuclear capability. For outside India, it treated the tension between India and Pakistan and believed that this country would one day become part of united India. 4 According to a resolution passed in 1952, the ideological content of its programme was Indianisation. 5 The party's election manifesto of 1957, also, spoke inclusively of 'nationalising' the country's non-hindu minorities by inculcating in them the ideas of Bharatiya culture. 6 But, as Jaffrelot mentions: what the party meant by Indianization was in fact Hinduizatioin. 7 To achieve one nation with one culture they proposed some lines on Hinduism, although they had mentioned it should be irrespective to religion for example: 1. Education should be based on national culture and tradition. Knowledge about Upanishads, Bhagvad Geeta, Ramayana, Mahabharata and the literature and literary figures of the modern Indian languages who have contributed towards revival and preservation of Indian cultural traditions be disseminated and efforts should be made to bring that day nearer when knowledge about this common cultural stream will be considered essential by people of all parts of the country; 2. The major festivals of the country like Holi, Diwali, Raksha Bandhan and Vijay Dashmi be treated as national festivals and celebrated as such; 3. Sanskrit language should be revived and its knowledge be made compulsory for all votaries of higher learning. At the same time Devnagri script should be popularised and accepted as the common script for all the Indian languages. 8 1 Brass, 1994, Kumar, 1990, Shakir, 1986a, Grahan, 2006, 156; Brass, 1994, Jaffrelot, 2007a, Copland, 2007, Jaffrelot, 2007b, Jaffrelot, 2007a,

12 BJS, as an offshoot of the RSS and the political arm of Hindutva movement, sought to construct a Hindu constituency by capitalizing on the anti-muslim sentiment among the upper castes. 1 It aspired to become a national party and it did succeed in winning significant representation in the Lok Sabha in several elections. And, as one national party had shown steady growth in the parliamentary elections. The party won three seats in Parliament with 3.1 per cent of the national vote in It garnered 5.9 per cent in 1957, 6.4 percent in 1962, and 9.4 percent in 1967 (reaching a peak of thirty-five seats in Parliament and recognizing as the third largest party). Its votes dropped to 7.4 percent of the national vote in the Lok Sabha elections of It obtained 8.56 percent of votes in the State Assembly elections of The Jana Sangh did not stand as a separate political party in 1977 and 1980 and it had been absorbed into the Janata Party, but in both these elections, candidates of the party pulled a sizable vote. Its support always came from the north Indian Hindi-speaking states of U. P., Bihar, M. P., Rajasthan, and Haryana. It participated in non-congress governments in these states. 2 The Jana Sangh played an important role in forming the Janata Party in It remained within the Janata after the party split in 1979, but after the 1980 elections, the Jana Sangh members withdrew to form their own party once again, and renamed it as the Bharatiya Janata Party. As mentioned, much of the organizational strength of the Jana Sangh derived from its close affiliation to the RSS and it always provided the most vigorous canvassers at election time. When its opponents within the Janata party demanded that the Jana Sangh break its ties with the RSS, its leaders refused, recognizing that without the RSS ties they would be organizationally weakened. 3 c) Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Indian People's Party is a direct descendant of the BJS. It is also known as a religious nationalist or right-wing religious party. 4 It is a high caste Hindudominated political party based on a cadre of workers provided by the RSS. In 1977, as 1 Yadav and Palshikar, 2006, Brass, 1994, 84; Weiner, 2006, 127&135; Bhambhri, 2007, 183. And, M. M. Sankhdher, Reflections on Indian Politics (New Delhi: Sikkson s Press, 1973), Weiner, 2006, 139 & Tariq Thachil, Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral Strategy in India, World Politics, 63 (2011). And, Pradeep Chhibber, Who Voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party? British Journal of Political Science, 27 (1997). 194

13 mentioned, the Jana Sangh joined with a number of other parties like Congress (O), the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), the Socialist Party to form the large and amorphous Janata Party, which took power at the Centre and in a number of states. In 1980, the Janata Party's Central Parliamentary Board adopted the principle that no legislator or office bearers of the party should take part in the daily activities of the RSS, a decision later endorsed by the party's National Executive. So, the Jana Sangh group and its supporters held a convention in Delhi in same year and decided to establish Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). As the BJS, the BJP developed close relatin with the RSS. 1 For about thirty-five years, Hindu communalists have been striving to make a dent in Indian politics, but the successes of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh were confined to a few northern States and the electoral appeal of them did not go beyond the trading communities and the lower levels of the bureaucracy, and they didn t have enough influence among the minority communities, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes which always voted for secular political parties during the elections. 2 So, the BJP leaders decided to separate themselves from the Jana Sangh's position and produce an entirely new set of policy documents. The most fundamental of these was a text known as Our Five Commitments, with five basic principles which were intended to produce a national consensus. The first was specified as nationalism and national integration, and presented the theme of Hindu nationalism in careful but unmistakable terms: India is one nation and Indians are one people, constituting and mutually accommodating plurality of religious faiths, ideologies, languages and interests etc. BJP believes that people of different faiths and different ideologies should be able to coexist in peace and harmony with one another. National Consensus will be possible when the development of one social group leads to the development of other social groups. Those who have external or extra territorial loyalties or are engaged in anti social activities cannot be by definition expected to contribute to national consensus and therefore will have to be kept out. 3 The second principle was a commitment to democracy and fundamental rights. The third was 'positive secularism', involving an acceptance of the need to protect fully the life and property of minorities. The fourth was 'Gandhian Socialism', entailing the replacement of both capitalism and Statism 'by the principles of cooperative system and trusteeship in all fields of economic activity.' And the fifth was 'value based politics', which meant a rejection of poverty and exploitation and an acceptance that social and political life should be guided by a set of norms and values. By this text, the BJP was presented as a progressive party with liberal and 1 Graham, 2006, Bhambhri, 2007, Graham, 2006,

14 humanitarian concerns, and a further move to the social and political ideal which Nehru s Congress Party had proclaimed in the 1950s. While the BJP was prepared to accept a Hindu nationalist orientation, and therefore to be associated with the RSS, as far as social and economic policies are concerned it was aiming at capturing what it took to be the central ground of the Indian opinion. 1 However, Hindu nationalists offer a different definition of secularism. The BJP would redefine secularism to eliminate safeguards of minority rights- if not to eliminate minorities themselves- and to identify the state with the interests of the Hindu majority. The BJP frequently invokes the mantle of nationalism to legitimize its actions, implying that it has assumed the role that Congress abdicated after independence. It was thereby suggested that Muslims must be expelled for the nationalist project to be completed. If there is no place for Muslims in this formulation of national identity, it also renders other minorities invisible. 2 According to Arora: What the BJP means by secularism can be ascertained by a BJP president Rajnath Singh s recent argument over the translation of the word secular in Hindi language. The word, Singh said, actually means panthnirpeksh, meaning neutrality to different religious sects, but it was publicized as dharmanirpeksh, which means neutrality to religion per se. Panth or sect symbolizes devotion towards any specific belief, specific way of prayer and specific form of God, but Dharma symbolizes absolute and eternal values, which can never change like laws of nature, he maintained. Most importantly, he opposed the idea of separation of religion and State while linking India s past to its Hindu traditions and Hindu religiosity. Besides, while talking about different religious sects in India, he made no mention of Christians and Muslims. 3 Moreover, Hindu nationalists claim they are the true secularists because Hinduism ignores theocracy. According to them, religious minorities benefit from this traditional tolerance in a Hindu-dominated polity. This line of thought is disputed on the ground that if Hinduism ignores orthodoxy, it relies on strict orthopraxy through the caste system, which implies that religious minorities should pay allegiance to the value system of Brahmins; besides, Hindu nationalism has always assumed that religious minorities may practice their rituals freely in the private sphere but should respect Hindu customs in the public sphere. 4 1 Graham, 2006, Amrita Basu, Mass Movement or Elite Conspiracy? The Puzzle of Hindu Nationalism, in Making India Hindu, ed. David Ludden (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), Arora, Jaffrelot, 2007a,

15 Because of the RSS has always been active in Hindu-Muslim riots, the BJP has therefore tried to conceal the face of Hindu communalism. While, for example, in Assam or Meerut the BJP was actively involved in promoting communal hatred and division. The explanation for its basic communal role lies in its internal organization, its ideology, and its perspective of Hindu society and its history. In Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP plays an openly communal role against both the National Conference and the Congress (I). 1 Indeed, the BJP leadership has had no separate existence from the RSS. The total organization is controlled by the RSS activists. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Keshubhai Patel and every luminary of the BJP is trained by the RSS and once the RSS certifies their strong Hindu credentials, leaders can rise in the hierarchy of Hindu organizations. RSS certificate is essential for the survival of any leader in the Sangh Parivar. The Kalyan Singh of Uttar Pradesh and Shankar Singh Vaghela of Gujarat came to grief because the Sangh leadership expelled them from its ranks. Every minister or Chief Minister or Prime Minister has to be given a testimonial of legitimacy by the RSS by certifying that they are our 'social - torchbearers' and only then they are inducted in the Council of Ministers. 2 In this regard also Bhambhri mentions as following: During the cabinet formations of 1998 and 1999, the BJP team of Council of Ministers was cleared and approved by the RSS leadership. BJP is the political wing of the RSS and it is not without reason that during Janata Party rule of , the BJS nominees in the government were Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani, the two important members of the RSS. The same story was repeated when the BJP formed a coalition government at the centre in 1998 and Anderson and Dante observe that: "However, the RSS - the major socialising agency for the cadre in the Jana Sangh and the BJP (as well as for other RSS affiliates) - has exerted influence over both policy and personnel selection without abandoning its apolitical orientation. Full-time RSS workers (i.e. the pracharaks) delegated to the affiliates maintain effective control by determining who will be recruited and advanced up the ranks BJP s Ideology: Hindutva The BJP claims, as Van Der Veer cites, that it is a people s party but the people for them means majority of people or Hindus. The demand of the BJP for Rama-raj (the concept used by Mahatma Gandhi first time) is a demand for rule by what is called the Hindu majority. It is opposed to alleged privileges given to minorities and specifically against pampering the Muslims. Rama-raj certainly also has a utopian aspect, a demand for clean, uncorrupted politics, 1 Bhambhri, 2007, Ibid., Ibid.,

16 jobs, and prosperity for every Hindu. Both the secular state, as controlled by the Congress Party, and the Muslims are seen as foreign to Hindu India. 1 At the national level, the BJP has emphatically proclaimed its commitment to Hindu interests and to the formation of a Hindu state to differentiate itself from other political parties. According to Basu, in the beginning by describing the central elements that constitute the BJP as a party at the national level, it emphasized three dimensions: its conflation of a strong state with a Hindu state, its highly centralized party apparatus, and its links with the RSS and affiliated organizations. The BJP s long-term vision is best expressed in the concept of Hindu Rashtra (nation-state), a term its leadership has constantly used at best defining negatively as the antithesis of the pseudo-secularism of the Congress party. 2 Although the BJP diluted the original ideology of the Jana Sangh in order to become more acceptable in the Indian party system and to find allies in this arena, 3 but it continued the Hidutva ideology. Hindutva or 'Hindu-ness' has been a central plank of the BJP's platform since its inception. It wanted to remodel India into a truly Hindu state in the image of the mythic kingdom of the God-ruler Rama, as the epitome of 'nationalism' for the BJP. They believed that only by adopting Hindutva, India can achieve its full potential; it will become a truly integrated society, and nation building has successfully been undertaken. 4 So, the BJP cannot be understood without its ideology of Hindutva, a religio-cultural ideology, which is carried forward by the activists of multiple organizations of the joint family of Hindus. Hindutva of the BJP and the Hindu 'joint family' is best expressed by Savarkar s opinion that in previous chapters was mentioned. In Bhambhri s word Hindutva is constructed on the ideology of 'we' and the others' and Hindu cultural symbols are appropriated for mobilization and in this logic the liberation of temples of Ayodhya, Varanasi or Kashi, and Mathura is a sacred task of the Hindus. 5 After the collapse of the hegemony of the Nehruvian consensus and the ensuing ideological and political vacuum, Hindutva emerged as an outcome of political struggles launched around identities and competitions of identity politics to gain political support from the masses. Since 1 Van Der Veer, 2006, Basu, 2006, Jaffrelot, 2007a, Copland, 2007, Bhambhri, 2007,

17 India is a multi-identity country, this ideology is divisive and based on violence and coercion because it is fundamentally opposite to the reality of India as a 'unity' exists 'among diversities. Politics of identity is always based on the concept of the 'other' and for the Sangh fraternity the 'other' was Muslim and Christian and also Hindu caste system. So, the Hindu organizations were involved in the manipulation of Hindu identity for maintaining the inner unity of Hindus by focusing on their 'other'. Hindutva has been an instrument in the hands of Sangh Parivar (Hindu Joint Family) to capture political power and gain political legitimacy in a democratic political system. Hindutva constitutes the content of the BJP. 1 The construction of all-india Hindu identity which transcended fragmented caste identities assumed great significance for the BJP, and the Sangh Parivar rallied Hindus on the slogan of Hindu unity against Muslims and Christians. Hindu religion-based politics with a goal to establish a powerful Hindu identity has been the dominant politics in the 1990s. The Sangh Parivar has provided a religion-based slogan for mass mobilization during the elections. The dream of great and powerful Hindu India has been effectively and successfully sold by the Sangh Parivar to the upcoming runt and urban middle and upper middle classes who on the one hand have global aspirations and on the other they aggressively identify themselves with Hindu rituals, temples, and other religious symbols. Hinduism has been offered to the lumpen and unemployed poor who are mobilized to target the Muslim and Christian minorities. Sangh Parivar has given a common social goal to different strata of Hindu society and it has succeeded in rallying Hindu groups for the protection and promotion of Hinduism in India. 2 Indeed, deeper social transformations especially the intermediate castes and upward cultural mobility had fertilized the ground for certain kinds of cultural-religious activities and identifications that could benefit the Sangh combine. A wider Hindu identity as one such upward cultural mobility was reflected in the great appeal of a series of processual religious cultural events and activities that took place through the late 1970s and early 1980s. After the failure, the control and influence of the RSS over the party strengthened, naturally pushing it towards a more communal politics. The replacement of A.B. Vajpayee by L.K. Advani, who was closer to the RSS, in the 1984, meant a reassertion of tighter control by the RSS over the party and a rejection of 'Gandhian Socialism' for traditional Sangh ideology, propagated and pursued 1 Bhambhri, 2007, & Ibid.,

18 much more aggressively than ever before. It would now seek to extend its social and political base by moving right, actively pursuing the politics of polarization on the issue of secularism and the cultural self-definition of the Indian nation and state. 1 So, in this ideological and political vacuum, the BJP has benefited from Hindu communalism as a coherent political and ideological alternative to the Congress. They possess the most ideologically coherent, organized and disciplined cadre force in the country in the shape of the RSS. The RSS, moreover, has steadily burrowed its way into the pores of civil society in many parts of the country. The BJP and the Sangh ideology had some degree of legitimacy and continuity from the cluster of ideological values that guided and informed the national movement. 2 Although BJP is not regarded as a mere "fundamentalist" religious party, Hindu religious beliefs and symbols serve this party for creating a national identity as it was formed on the basis of Hinduism and the role of Hindu Organizations. The BJP s drive for national power is based upon an explicit appeal to Hindu nationalism. Its leading slogans are that India is a Hindu country and that Hindus have a right to be proud of their history and culture and to draw the central symbols of national identity from them. In their opinion, the large Muslim minority destroyed the country's unity. They favor a strong hand to repress secessionist movements in Punjabi Kashmir, and the northeast. 3 In Chakrabarty s words, the BJP put all the contentious pro-hindu and anti-muslim agenda under the carpet for political expediency. 4 As senior BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra put it in 1996: Hindutva and Indian nationhood are synonymous terms. All those living in the country are Bharatiyas or Hindus. There is no contradiction between the two. 5 The fundamental premise of Sangh ideology is that Indian resurgence/ salvation can only be brought about by the selfconscious of Hindus as a religious cultural unit. To unite Hindus given the peculiar character of Hinduism, there were two ways and both have been pursued: the internal and external coherence and unification to Hinduism. In first approach, they tried to make Brahminism looser and more 1 Achin Vanaik, Communalization of the Indian Polity, in India s Political Parties, eds. Peter Ronald Desouza and E. Sridharan (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2006), Ibid., Brass, 1994, Chakrabarty, 2008, Copland, 2007,

19 accommodating. The other approach was central to the Sangh combine's task of constructing the desired Hindu unity. Hindus can now hopefully be united not by what they are supposed to share but what they oppose, even to the point of hostility. Indeed, the more strongly emotional the common opposition to the external 'Other' or 'enemy, the stronger is the desired unity likely to be. 1 Because of the coalition politics, the BJP changed its traditional, aggressive approach to Hindu nationalism. But this change is merely characterized by moderation in the use of terminology. Hindu nationalism has now become cultural nationalism, a pro-hindu stand is now referred to as true secularism, and anti-muslim stand is now camouflaged as emphasis on internal security. 2 In a resolution adopted on 21 June 2009, it was stated that the underpinning ideology, Hindutva, is not to be understood or construed as narrowly confined to religious practices or expressed in extreme forms. It is related to the culture and ethos of the people a way of life and, therefore, inclusive. 3 Nevertheless, the party remained firmly associated with the Hindu nationalist movement and its core ideas. 2- BJP s Politics and its Performance In the line of its ideology and with following political pragmatism, the BJP sought to capitalize on a number of issues. Apart from the Ayodhya 4 campaign as important one, the Ram Janmabhumi campaigns relating to what the VHP perceived as the case for destroying the Babri mosque (will be mentioned), given the strong negative sentiments about religious conversion in Hindu society, the BJP found convenient constituents to politically represent in the public space. 1 Vanaik, 2006, Arora, Quoted by: Kinnvall and Svensson, Ayodhya is a small town in District Faisabad of Uttar Pradesh. It is believed to be birthplace of Lord Rama, one of the major gods of Hindus. Ramayana the great epic of Hindi is based on the story of Rama born at Ayodhya (Jindal, 1995: ix; Van Der Veer, 2006: 253). Ayodhya came to the awareness of Nation, on 1 February 1986, locks of disputed structure in question were ordered open by a court order. Rather Ayodhya had been a cause for the fall or defeat of many governments and political leaders (Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Mulayam Singh, Kalyan Singh and others). Disputed structure at Ayodhya had also been a cause for the kilings of thousands of people, since more than one hundered years at Ayodhya, and till recently in different parts of India. Dispute is about Ayodhya's Babri Masjid which latter on had been called Ram Janam Bhoomi-Babri Masjid structure or by other names. On 6 Dec. 1992, this structure was demolished by Kar Sevaks and now remaining is disputed site with a make shift temple of Hindus (Jindal, 1995: ix). Ayodhya is of special significance to Hindus. For Hindus, Rama is almost equal to, what Prophet Mohammad is to Muslims. There is vast difference, as far as significance of Ayodhya is concerned, for two communities. For Hindus it is a matter of emotions and for Muslims it is a matter of legal justice (ibid: 127). 201

20 It began organized campaigns to resist religious conversion and to support the VHP move to reconvert the Dalits to the Hindu faith. Issues such as Muslim personal law involving the question of a uniform civil code, and secessionist insurgency in Kashmir offered opportunities for Hindu vote consolidation. In this regard, BJP increased eloquent about Article 370 in Kashmir. It called for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). It tried to make political capital about the issue of illegal Muslim Bangladeshi migrants in the eastern and northeastern parts of India. In addition, reflexive anti-muslim phobia affected BJP and remained frozen in cultural tableaux of religious unilateralism. Even as the BJP seeks to construct a monster sized Hindu vote bank, it has cried itself hoarse over minority especially Muslim vote banks and 'appeasement. Organized campaigns to pursue these issues demonstrated converging movements of the BJP, VHP, RSS, and other allied organizations. The combined support for a political party and sub-political organizations prodding, serving, and profiting from it offered strong competition to the Congress as well as an umbrella for fragmented opposition forces of secular persuasion in the 1980s and the following decade. Operating under the competing pressure of the RSS family and their political allies, it attempted to display the swagger of confidence that was its hallmark in 2000, but appeared effete and weak in The party did well in the state assembly elections in mid-1980 with 30.3 percent in Madhya Pradesh and 18.6 percent in Rajasthan and again in 1982, emerged as the second-largest party in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh. The party has been consistently strong in six states of the Hindi region: Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. 2 In Hasan s words: In the 1980s BJP used the alarm over the conversion to Islam of a group of low-caste Hindu for reactivating communal sentiment. The VHP and the BJP organized numerous meetings and demonstrations in major cities to highlight the dangers of conversions to Islam. BJP members walked out the assembly to protest what they alleged to be the indifference of the government to conversion to Islam in eastern Uttar Pradesh. During this period the Hindi- Urdu controversy was once again revived in response to the government s halfhearted proposal to make Urdu the second language of the state. Much of communal politics centered around these two issues. 3 1 Dasgupta, 2007, 102-3; Vanaik, 2006, 188. And, Bhawani Singh and Vibhuti Singh Shekhawat, Silent Tsunami in Rajasthan: BJP Bastion Busted in 2009, in India s 2009 Elections: Coalition Politics, Party Competition and Congress Continuity, eds. Paul Wallace and Ramashray Roy (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2011), Weiner, 2006, 135 & Hasan, 2006,