The Hindu : Carving a path to Hindu rashtra

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 13, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Carving a path to Hindu rashtra

By Achin Vanaik

The next Lok Sabha elections could well be the key turning point in the struggle pertaining to the future of Indian democracy — whether it has one or not.

SOME OF the wider strategic implications of the Gujarat pogrom and the latest bout of war-mongering (including nuclear brinkmanship by both India and Pakistan) over cross-border terrorism are now becoming clear. The moderate mask has been dropped and the Sangh has decided that an unequivocal Hindutva posture is its preferred route to achieving greater power and influence in the future. But this still leaves key issues open. First, we have to be clear not only about the immense danger that the Sangh represents to Indian democracy's future but also about the path it is most likely to take in order to fulfil its ambition of establishing a Hindu Rashtra. Then, we can try and assess the obstacles and difficulties facing it, explore what tactics the Sangh might adopt, so that forethought and challenge can stymie its effort at advancement.

Though Hindutva ideologues often try and confuse matters by claiming that India is already a Hindu Rashtra, which in English translation means a "Hindu nation", they know that their model of Indian society, if it is to come about, requires the prior establishment of a Hindu state comfortably under Sangh control, which in coordination with the RSS, can then carry out the dramatic re-shaping of Indian society/polity demanded by a proper Hindu Rashtra. But there are only two routes to achieving or attempting to achieve such sufficiently strong state power — the electoral one of securing an absolute or near-absolute majority for the BJP in Parliament; or bypassing altogether the constitutional-electoral route and carrying out an authoritarian coup either of a military-police kind, or a civilian unconstitutional coup of the Emergency-type.

Fascism in Germany and Italy combined the electoral and unconstitutional processes. A dominant but minority party comes to power in a coalition through elections but then overthrows all democratic-electoral restraints and establishes its authoritarian state. For a number of reasons, the BJP cannot do this (as evidenced by its period in power at the Centre since 1998), not least because of the profound regionalisation of Indian politics. Nor does it seem likely or possible for the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to repeat the Emergency-type coup as a minority party though dominant in a ruling coalition. The Congress, it should be remembered, was in 1975 already the majority party in the Lok Sabha when it took that measure. Moreover, once bitten twice shy. There is no way that the other parties or the Indian public would quietly accept a repeat of the imposition of Emergency-type rule.

The only realistic route for the Sangh, therefore, is in trying to secure an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha elections or as close to it as possible. Here it is faced with an obvious dilemma. Given its static performances in the last two elections and the enduring strength of regional parties, there seems to be no escape from coalition rule whether it is led by the Congress or by the BJP at the Centre. The earlier strategic perspective of the Sangh (before Gujarat) seemed to be a more patient and longer term one. It was a kind of two-stage approach. For sometime to come, coalition rule at the Centre would be the norm and the Sangh should make sure the BJP remained at the hub of successive coalition Governments. This would help make it the "normal" party of national-level governance enhancing its credibility in ever widening circles of the electorate as well as giving it time to pursue a differentiated geographical strategy aimed at weakening all its rivals. So, a somewhat more aggressive Hindutva could be pursued in places where it was strong but a more cautious approach would be adopted, e.g., in the South, where it had yet to achieve a strong enough implantation. But Gujarat has shown that the dominant sections within the Sangh no longer have patience for such a strategy, one that is also uncertain and provides no guarantees for delivering the final desired outcome. The next Lok Sabha elections could well be the key turning point in the struggle pertaining to the future of Indian democracy — whether it has one or not. Obviously, the Sangh would like to get a sense of where it stands, and of its wider prospects, after the Gujarat Assembly elections which some believe can be called this October. If it retains power or does not fare badly then this will be read as a strong endorsement of the value of pursuing an aggressive Hindutva stance. But even were the BJP to fare badly, aggressive Hindutva is almost certainly still going to be seen as the only viable or preferable option for it to pursue elsewhere in the country.

After all, so far nothing else has worked, with the BJP's inept record of State-level governance leading to today's situation where it is ruling only in Goa, Jharkhand and Gujarat. Thus, the key tactical tasks of the Sangh are what steps or measures it must take to create the circumstances that can polarise the next general elections into a referendum on the ideology of the Sangh and help it obtain enough support!

Two approaches are likely to be combined. One could be to instigate communal violence and riots in other States. Furthermore, in the ideology of the Sangh, being anti-Muslim, anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan are all linked together. In fact, the constituency that can be tapped through anti-Pakistan sentiments is much wider than the constituencies available for the first two. Relations today between India and Pakistan are at a nadir. And the BJP has noted how its principal political opponent, the Congress, was effectively outflanked by the Government's resort to `coercive diplomacy' over the issue of cross-border terrorism, and how it successfully brought around an otherwise secular constituency which in a time-honoured manner convinces itself that in regard to external `security matters' the Government's policies somehow stand above the narrower party-ideological considerations of the BJP. Hence, the enduring political attraction of pushing anti-Pakistan jingoism through the creation of wartime or near-wartime tensions.

True, the U.S. presence in the region does act as a dampener against waging a war or enacting the kind of `limited' incursion as a response to a future act of cross-border terrorism that could then escalate into a military exchange between the two official armed forces. But it is not a guarantee that such an outbreak cannot happen in the future despite the current receding of war clouds.

While winding down tensions between India and Pakistan is clearly a current priority, one must not allow the deeper meaning of what has happened in Gujarat to recede from public discourse and attention. It is not Pakistan or cross-border terrorism inspired by Islamist fundamentalist groups or the dilemmas in Kashmir (despite their seriousness) that poses the greatest danger. It is our home-grown version of religious-political fanaticism striving for ever greater power that poses the greatest threat to our very existence as a secular and democratic polity and society.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

Stories in this Section

New links but old shadows

The tuberculosis time bomb

Dialogue, state and utopia

Carving a path to Hindu rashtra

Kalam as President

People's choice

Right for him?

Election or selection