The State Must Not Organise Religious Festivals

Ram Puniyani

After staging the Yoga spectacle on 21st June 2015 on Rajpath, Delhi, the Modi government now plans to celebrate Rakhi, Raksha Bandhan on a grand scale in late August. This plan has full approval of its parent organization, the RSS. Now a Hindu religious festival will be given the status of a national festival. It surely is indicative of the deeper agenda of narrow nationalism this Government has in mind. 

As such this festival Raksha Bandhan stands for ‘bond of protection’ and is amongst the very popular festivals, primarily celebrated by Hindus, Jains and some Sikhs. There are legends which point to the innovative use of this festival for goals which are beyond the religious identity so to say. There is a tale of Rani Karnavati of Chittor sending a Rakhi to emperor Humayun when she was faced with the attack by Bahadur Shah (1535), the Sultan of Gujarat. Touched by the gesture of the Hindu queen the emperor set off to defend her, but it was too late to defend Chittor by the time he reached there. This Rajasthani narration is doubted by many historians. Whatever be the truth this tale does reflect Hindu-Muslim amity in medieval times, it does reflect the Ganga Jumani tehzeeb (syncretic culture) which was the kernel of the sub continent. 

Another legend is the invocation of Rakhi by Guru Rabindranath Tagore in the aftermath of the partition of Bengal by the British (1905) on communal lines. To register the protest against British policy and to cement the bonds between the two major religious communities, the poet laureate gave the call of celebrating Raksha bandhan as a bond of unity between Hindus and Muslims. This was also a time when the communal forces had begun articulating the sectarian mindset, trying to promote aversion for the ‘other’ community. While the communalists from both the communities went on articulating hatred against ‘other’ community, this type of incidents show the deeper bonds which prevailed amongst Hindus and Muslims during the freedom movement, these were the bonds which reflected Indian nationalism at the social levels. 

There are multiple other instances where Rakhi has acted as a symbol of love and unity cutting across social groups, kingdoms and clans. While all this is in place, the fact is that primarily Rakhi is a reflection of patriarchal relations. Here the sister is tying the thread on the wrist of her brother wishing for his well being. The brother in turn is pledging to protect her all her life. 

While recognizing the other lovely narrations, like ‘Rakhi brother’ (one who is not a biological brother but becomes brother after Rakhi is tied) etc. the core of the festival does remain structured around gender equations of prevalent from feudal times. Its meaning and tenor has not changed so far despite the development of industrial-democratic society and despite the concept of equality of women to coming to fore. It is unnecessary to judge the past society by the values of the present times, but it all the same calls for revision in the symbols and rituals in the direction in which we aspire to go. The overdue just demand for gender equality is what we need. Today the deeper meaning of Rakhi needs to be understood before carrying on with it in the same form. 

Many Hindutva ideologues are harping on the point that this festival empowers the woman to choose her brother, who is not a biological one. Brother in present equations stands for protection along with control as well while what women want is parity, the freedom to choose their way of life and their life partner. The intriguing fact of the rise of Khap Panchayats with the rise of communal politics needs to be underlined. Such social groups are intimidating and attacking the couples who make their own choices in matters of selection of life partners. A promotion of this festival with inherent gender hierarchy means reinforcing curbs on freedom of women. 

Primarily festivals of this type are social. Holi, Diwali, Eid, Christmas are social events of joy, celebration. Many politicians and organization celebrate it at social-community level. Social festivals are family-community events. Two major questions which the decision of the Modi Sarkar raises are, one why a Hindu festival is being presented as a national festival, and why the Government should come forward to promote social festivals? National festivals have to be restricted to the one’s which are related to freedom movement, a phenomenon, which built us as an Indian nation. 

In a plural society one religion cannot be singled out to become the national religion and a secular state does not go in for organizing the celebration of religious festivals, majority or minority. Government should not come in the arena of social festivals; communities are already doing that. It seems this government wants to give a subtle message of the deeper gender related agenda; that of the subordination of women as well through this festival. All narrow nationalisms and ideologies which take recourse to the label of religion or race have this agenda inherent in them. Be it Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism or Hindu Fundamentalism, they all take recourse to some or the other pretext from the past or present to restrict the freedom, equality of women. 

In a society where Khap Panchayats are becoming more visible, what is needed is the program to empower women for economic self sufficiency and the promotion of an emotional build up which looks at both the genders on par. What should be promoted is the tendency for mutual help and coordination amongst siblings where they support each other on par in building their lives around their free choices. The deeper agenda of RSS, upholding patriarchal mind set is very well reflected in the celebration of this festival. Perpetuation of patriarchal norms is inherent in the very nomenclature of RSS. The term Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is masculine (Swayam, self) in contrast to its women’s organization which is Rashtra Sevika Samiti, sans the swayam, the ‘being’. Women’s being is missing in this scheme of things and that’s what is aimed to be strengthened by such festivals being organized at national level. The apparently innocuous is certainly not so.

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One Year of Modi Sarkar: Hate Speech Galore

Ram Puniyani


The coming to power of Narendra Modi in a way gave an open license to all the affiliates of RSS combine to indulge in open hate speech against the religious minorities. The current agenda behind the hate speech is to consolidate the communal polarization of the society along lines of religion. The well known case of MIM’s Akarbar Uddudin Owaisis’ hate speech has been despicable and very rightly Akbarudin Owaisi had to be in jail for some time. The case against him should be pursued and the legal course of action must befollowed.  At the same time what about the hate speech indulged in by the likes of Pravin Togadia, Subramaniam Swami, Giriraj Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sadhvi Prachi, Sakshi Mahraraj, Yogi Adityanth, Sanjay Raut and company?

Apart from these associates of Hindu right wing patriarch, RSS, who are reported in the media, there are many more indulging in the divisive speech and worsening the communal situation. During this year they have started feeling emboldened as they know it is ‘their’ Government and they can get away with it. Day in and day out they are becoming more aggressive and vicious in their language. The hate speech against religious minorities has been stepped up.

One recalls even before Modi Sarkar assumed the seat of power the divisive activities of ‘BJP associates’ in the form of propaganda of love jihad and Ghar Vapasi were on, and they continued without any respite during this year. Soon after this Government came to power in Pune, Mohsin Sheikh, a person working in IT was hacked to death by activists of Hindu Jagran Sena, in the aftermath of morphed pictures of Bal Thackeray and Shivaji being posted on the social media. The attack on Churches was very glaring and the process which was dominant in Delhi and Haryana was also witnessed in places like Panvel near Mumbai, Agra in UP amongst other places.

Sakshi Maharaj not only said that Godse was a patriot; he also went on to say that Hindu women should produce four children, as Muslims are overtaking the population. Sadhvi Prachi went to prescribe eight children for Hindu women. She also gave a call that the Muslim film actors, Aamir Khan, Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan should be boycotted. Pravin Togadia has been the leading person in making hate speeches; he has the highest number of cases regarding hate speech against him. Yogi Adityanath, BJP’s MP keeps making very derogatory remarks, He said that in ‘love jihad’ if one Hindu girl is converted then 100 Muslim girls should be converted to Hinduism. The propaganda around love jihad keeps simmering and various small and big leaders keep using it to divide the society. Same Yogi went on to say that Mosques should be converted into den of pigs and that Muslims should not be allowed to come to Hindu holy places.

Two central ministers of Modi Sarkar, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Giriaj Singh made very insulting and humiliating remarks about non Hindus and the color of skin of UPA chief Sonia Gandhi. Niranjan Jyoti stated that all those who are non Hindus are illegitimate, Haramzade. Giriraj Singh had earlier said that those not voting for Modi should go to Pakistan. Interestingly he said this before the elections and despite such a record he was elevated to the level of minister in the Modi sarkar. He made racial comments about Sonia Gandhi recently. Sakshi Mahraj also held Godse as a patriot, while his another party colleague from Kerala, one Gopal Krishnan wrote in RSS mouth piece Keasri that Godse chose a wrong target in killing Gandhi, he should have killed Nehru instead. Subramaniam Swamy, one of the very senior leaders of BJP, said that God lives in temples alone, not in mosques and Churches, The hidden implication of this statement is fraught with danger. These are few of the samples from what all has been stated during this year. Its impact in increasing the sense of fear amongst religious minorities is more than obvious. BJP ally Shiv Sena’s MP Sanjay Raut went to the extent of demanding that the voting rights of Muslims should be revoked.

As such one realizes that ‘Hate speech’ is the outcome of the politics of divisiveness, it is the concentrated expression of the ‘social common sense’ prevailing in the society, it is the forth right and blunt way of putting things, which communal parties propagate anyway. It is not out of the blue that these formulations suddenly crop up, their infrastructure, the base of these has already been made by a section of political outfits.

Also ‘Hate Speech’ in case of India is an accompaniment of the politics in the name of religion and language, and also many times it precedes the violence or helps in polarization of communities for electoral benefits. While BJP was on the upswing during Ram Temple campaign; one recalls that Sadhvi Ritambhara, was propped up for pravachans (religious discourses) by RSS combine. She was bluntly talking anti minority things, duly endorsed by communal political organizations. This took place around the Babri demolition period.

One has been hearing similar things from many a sadhus of VHP, small and sundry members of communal gang, some Muslim communalists and the ilk of Togadia. There has been a more sophisticated presentation of the similar formulations by many others. Modi, in his initial rise to power talked divisive language, but kept changing the form in a very subtle way to suit the needs of his political strategy. When he said that post Gujarat refugee camps should be shut down as they have become factories of production of children, he was reinforcing the propaganda about Muslims having more number of children.

In the wake of Mumbai riots Bal Thackeray had indulged in Hate speech, inciting his Shiv Sainiks to undertake violence. He also got away with it due to clever way of putting his vitriol and due to the lack of adequate laws which can distinguish the Hate speech from freedom of expression, which can distinguish between one’s political opinion and painting the ‘other’ community in a negative light. Incidentally it is important to distinguish between criticizing a community and criticizing a political organization. While political organizations can and must be criticized, communities should not be humiliated or insulted. Also no political organization can be synonymous with the religious community, whatever its claims.

It is not only disturbing but totally against the values of our democratic society that such ‘hate other’ ideology and speeches have become the weapon in the hands of a type of politics, which thrives on exclusion, which identifies a particular religious community as synonymous with the nation state. Again this ‘hate speech’ is the language of a section of those who thrive on identity politics far away from the real issues of the society.

As such Hate speech in India entered the political arena with the rise of communal streams in politics, like Muslim League on one side and Hindu Mahasabha and RSS on the other. These streams believed in the nation based on one religious community. These streams came from the sections of earlier rulers, landlords, Nawabas and Rajas etc. The ideology of religion based nationalism is narrow and it excludes ‘other’ from its notion of nationhood. These beliefs then get converted into Hate other, and later turn in to ‘Hate speech’. This did form the basis of many a communal violence in pre independence era and also during the last two decades. Varun Gandhi, allegedly said ‘he will cut the hands’, is a BJP MP.

In this atmosphere once a while the BJP spokespersons will say that the view expressed by the particular leader are ‘personal’ and stop at that. For BJP another escape clause is that its associated organizations like VHP, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Bajrang Dal are formally different organizations though they are also part of RSS controlled Sangh Parivar. They all are working in tandem with BJP for actualization of agenda of Hindu Rashtra. So while BJP is not directly responsible for their actions, the direction of the actions is the same. Many a people call these organizations as fringe elements, while as a matter of fact there is a division of labor between these organizations. These have become more aggressive during this time. And surely after the Modi Sarkar coming to power their vitriol has become more intense

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Transplanting Elephant Head on Human Body - The Magic of Mythological Fiction

Ram Puniyani

One of the best parts of childhood for me was to enjoy the mythological tales and become aware of the world where Lord Hanuman could fly, as the emergency herbal treatment is to be delivered to his master’s brother; Laxman. Lord Ram travelling by Pushpak Viman (aero plane), Lord Ganesha being planted with the head of elephant as his human head was chopped off by his father, all this was uncritically digested. Karna is born from the ear of his mother; Kauravas are born from the mass delivered by Gandhari, the mass being divided into 100 pieces and being preserved. Such fanciful imaginations were so engrossing that questioning them never came to my mind. With growing up years, some exposure to science and then rigorous training for close to decade in a medical school forced one to revisit the childhood fantasies built around mythological fictions. Realization gradually dawned as to how to distinguish between fact and fiction, history and mythology. The beauty of imagination; fiction of the pre-Historic times, does still remain etched somewhere but is not a guiding principle for understanding of social phenomenon and processes.

 

While going through the tough medical discipline, one came to see the complexity of human body, histopathology, immune systems, blood groups, bio-compatibility and what have you. A mere thought that Lord Ganesha could carry an elephant head if taken logically will lead you to so many questions. If the head is severed from the body; for how many minutes one can survive? The head houses the brain with higher centers for control of breathing and heart pumping amongst others, so how long can one remain alive to be a recipient for other’s organs, and that too the head of an elephant? What is the difference in the immune system of human body and elephant? Even while transplanting kidney to one human being to another there are battery of tests carried on meticulously to assess the compatibility between recipient and the donor. So there was all this paraphernalia, if Mr. Modi is to be believed?

A mass delivered from uterus; can it be divided into 100 pieces? What type of micro surgery is required for splitting the fertilized ovum? Can uterus be located near ear? I am sure all these questions must have cropped up in the minds of the doctors, who had the privilege of listening to their Prime Minister in person when he was inaugurating their hospital. They heard, “We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time. We all read about Karna in Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realize that Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb… We worship Lord Ganesh. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time, which got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery”.

Hope the hospital he inaugurated is not planning to undertake such miraculous surgeries and splitting of the ovum in to hundred pieces! Many in the country surely must be feeling happy that their PM has given glory to ‘our’ past achievements! By all accounts it was a pastoral society or might have been the beginning of agricultural times, with hunting stage still lurking somewhere. The facts are very different from the utterances of the PM.

The practical impossibility of these fictional tales being true cannot be overemphasized. As understood with great pain and scientific enterprise the fictions of mythology of Mahabharata or Ramayana do not stand even a chance of being actualized. All this requires a huge infrastructure, body of scientific knowledge of human body, physics, astronomy, and myriad other components of knowledge which have been growing from the past but have taken definitive contours in last few centuries only. With all this progress in scientific enterprise today none of these ‘glorious achievements’ can even be dreamt of even today. The World of science has taken giant strides and built up on the cumulative knowledge of human society as a whole. Surely there are many contributions which came up in ancient India, and they need to be underlined, and their wisdom and logical method highlighted. Some of these are the ones related to Charak Samhita (Medical science), Sushrut (Surgical techniques); contributions of Aryabhatt in astronomy and discovery of zero. What is important is to build a method of thinking and logic which can take us to the next step of the knowledge, ultimately leading to techniques and applications, which in turn can be used to enhance and enrich existing scientific knowledge.

It’s not that it’s only in our country that such mythological fantasies developed. All old civilizations have such interesting myths. In Egypt, in prehistoric times the tales of Cleopatra tell us that she had belief, like probably many other Egyptians, in the supreme power of many gods who had animal’s heads, like Baboon God head Hedj-Wer and Annubis the jackal headed God. Had the likes of Modi known about this Egyptian belief, the claim of ‘export of our knowledge’ claim would have been registered by now. What a coincidence with our own Lord Ganesh? Is it again a case of plastic surgery or flight of imagination? In Greek mythology, Chinese mythology and many other traditions such fictional characters do merrily abound.

The hope and prayer is that in order to prove the point, those in seats of power do not divert and waste social funds for investigations of these fantasies. While an average person can believe in Lord Ram’s travel in Pushpak Viman or someone else travelling on a flying mat, if those in power believe in these things; the danger of public money and state funds being diverted for ‘research’ in these fantasies is very frightening. One recalls that during Zia Ul Haq’s regime in one of the conferences was on ‘how to solve the power shortage’. Encouraged by the atmosphere where it is supposed that all knowledge is already there in our holy books, one ‘scientist’ presented a ‘research paper’ which argued that jinns are an infinite source of energy and that should be harnessed to solve the power crisis in Pakistan! Mercifully, one hopes that state did not allocate funds for such a research! Any way science is a universal knowledge not owing allegiance to any country or religion. There cannot be anything like a Hindu science or a Muslim science!

While individuals can harbor the reality of mythology, the matters will be difficult if the chief of state has belief in these fictions being part of History. That will be a big set back to the progress of scientific, rational thinking and enterprise. This combination of mythology, religion and politics will make the matters worse. Many competing mythologies will be struggling with each other for their acceptance and being encouraged by such utterances. And the fantasies of power of jinn’s and plastic surgery for Lord Ganesha will a have field day.

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Modi Sarkar: Politics through Culture

Ram Puniyani

The change in the ruling dispensation (May 2014) has more than one aspect which is likely to affect the very social-cultural-political map of India. Narendra Modi won the last elections with an electoral success, 282 seats for BJP, with 31% of votes polled, which is a landmark for a party. There was a meticulous planning to come to power and there were many factors bringing them to power. One was the communal polarization carried forward from the Gujarat carnage of 2002, to the one witnessed in Muzzafarnagar in 2013. The unrestrained support of Corporate World was another, as Modi had given all the facilities to the Corporate World. Corporate in 2007 declared that they will like to see Modi as the future Prime Minister of India. The backbone of the campaign was seven lakh RSS volunteers, who acted as the steel frame of the campaign. The projected factors helping BJP win was the myth of Gujarat’s development. The media management and the discrediting of the ruling Congress was the effective tool for swinging the votes in BJP’s favor. RSS-BJP-Modi want to bring in Hindu nation trampling upon the values of Indian Constitution., which have laid the foundation of democratic ethos, which have provided the ground for social transformation of caste-gender.

Pattern of Power

The previous time, 1999, BJP came to power at the head of a NDA it did not have the simple majority so it suspended its “Hindutva’ agenda. Hindutva agenda stands for abolition of article 370, Uniform Civil Codes and building of Ram Temple on the site where Babri Masjid stood. Now with the majority in parliament, the march towards this Hindutva agenda has been unleashed. Modi has already instilled the authoritarian streak in the new Government. Secretaries of different departments have been asked to directly report to him, and he has not permitted the meeting of the Cabinet in his absence, which was the norm with previous Governments. Though there is a Cabinet, the major power is being centralized around the prime minister.

Acche Din

The major plank of winning the elections was the slogan of Acche din (Good Times). The people at large, who are victims of the rising prices and inflation, were sold the dream of better days in the offing with victory of Modi. The relentless rise of prices despite Modi coming to power has created a sense of disillusion amongst the people, as high hopes were created through propaganda. Some say it is a bit too early to comment on this, as it is a honeymoon period, while others point to the pattern of policies, which do not give a hopeful picture for times to come. FDA in retail has been raised from 26% to 49% in a single swoop. While in opposition; BJP was opposing it. This is an opportunist turn around. The fear of privatization of public sector is very much there in the air. The amendments to Land Acquisition bill are going to affect the interests of the farmers in a very adverse way. What is being proposed is to dilute the consent of majority of the farmers for acquiring land.

Changed Dispensation: Sectarian mindset

Many times we express more by keeping silence than by speaking, so to say. The Pune techie Mohsin Sheikh’s murder allegedly by the Hindu Jagran Sena was part of the well designed communalization process. The violence in Saharanpur, Rampur and other parts of UP and some parts of MP are part of the process to communalize the assembly areas, which are going to face the polls soon. The silence of Prime Minister on these issues is more than eloquent. Rather it gives signal of sorts, which are not very healthy. There are scattered incidents which give us the glimpse of the Modi Sarkar. The shrewdest part of the new Government is that it has solid backing of vast Sangh Parivar to speak in different languages; these different tongues make the whole picture of their agenda. In case of the tennis star Sania Mirza being appointed as the brand ambassador of the newly formed Telangana state, the BJP leaders on TV openly opposed this saying that she is the daughter-in-law of Pakistan, while the top level functionary of the Government said that she is pride of the nation. 

Education

All said and done the major problem of the present rule is going to be the changes in education, which will alter the thinking pattern of the coming generations. The goal is to instill a pattern in consonance with the Brahminical norms, to promote orthodox medieval mind set and to undermine the scientific temper. One recalls that in the previous BJP led NDA regime apart from other things, its major impact was the changes in the history and social science books, where the divisive history taught in the RSS shakhas, the communal history, the history where the kings are looked at through the prism of religion, was introduced. One knows that the communal historiography introduced by British was their main tool in implementing the ‘divide and rule’ policy which formed the ideology of the communal streams of Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha-RSS. This type of history; by focusing on the glories of ‘our’ kings also promotes the feudal values of caste and gender hierarchy. Mercifully the BJP led NDA lost in 2004 and the rational, national historiography was brought back.

Now already there are signs that RSS volunteers are out to change the total education system and the content of history, social science and other books. Even before this Government came to power, with the rise of Modi on political firmament, with the perception that he is likely to come to power, the Right wing organizations intensified their offensive against genuine scholarship. Dinanath Batra, by now is a well known name, he has been heading the RSS outfits, Shiksha Bachao Abhiyan Samiti and RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas (SSUN) from many decades. He succeeded in pressuring Penguin, the World’s largest publisher, to pulp Wendy Doniger's scholarly book ‘The Hindus: An Alternate History’. This book brings out through the interpretation of mythology the need to understand the caste and gender aspects in a sensitive manner. The history she has focused on goes against the hierarchical mind set of RSS combine and so pressure was put to pulp it. Now Mr. Batra emerges as a writer himself and a set of nine books written by him have been translated in to Gujarati and introduced in 42000 schools in Gujarat. This may be a trial run before doing similar things at larger scale.  Former BJP president and present union minister M Venkaiah Naidu explicitly stated as early as last year (June 23, 2013) that “it (the BJP) will change textbook syllabi, if it returns to power”. Batra is also quoted as saying that a nationalistic education system has to be developed to address the requirements and through this we have to develop a young generation that is committed to Hindutva and nationalism”. 

The sampling of Batra’s books gives a good idea of what is in store for us. A quote from one of the set of books, ‘Tejonmaya Bharat’, (Radiant Bharat) tells us “America wants to take the credit for invention of stem cell research, but the truth is that India’s Dr Balkrishna Ganpat Matapurkar has already got a patent for regenerating body parts…You would be surprised to know that this research is not new and that Dr Matapurkar was inspired by the Mahabharata. Kunti had a bright son like the Sun itself. When Gandhari, who had not been able to conceive for two years, learnt of this, she underwent an abortion. From her womb a huge mass of flesh came out. (Rishi) Dwaipayan Vyas was called. He observed this hard mass of flesh and then he preserved it in a cold tank with specific medicines. He then divided the mass of flesh into 100 parts and kept them separately in 100 tanks full of ghee for two years. After two years, 100 Kauravas were born of it. On reading this, he (Matapurkar) realized that stem cell was not his invention. This was found in India thousands of years ago. (Page 92-93)

Indian rishis using their yog vidya would attain divya drishti (divine vision). There is no doubt that the invention of television goes back to this… In Mahabharata, Sanjaya sitting inside a palace in Hastinapur and using his divya shakti would give a live telecast of the battle of Mahabharata… to the blind Dhritarashtra. (Page 64)  What we know today as the motorcar existed during the Vedic period. It was called anashva rath. Usually a rath (chariot) is pulled by horses but an anashva rath means the one that runs without horses or yantra-rath, what is today a motorcar. The Rig Veda refers to this. (Page 60)

RSS has already set up a consultative body called Bharatiya Shiksha Niti Ayog (BSNA) to put pressure on Modi’s government to “correct or Indianize” the national education system. In the new syllabus “The passages in the textbooks which pointed out to any unsavory aspect of the Hindu faith like the oppressive caste system in ancient Hindu society, untouchability of the low-caste people and consumption of beef during Vedic ages were scrapped, and anyone who resisted or opposed the changes was dubbed as 'anti-national'.(1)

Caste and Gender

While these changes in the text books give us a full idea of the agenda of this Government, which will have to follow the guidelines set by its parent organization, its already manifest in the appointment of Prof Y.Sudarshan Rao as the chief of ICHR. This national body guides the research into the Indian history. Prof Rao is not much known in the circles of Academic history, as he has hardly written any academic, peer reviewed papers or books. He has been engaged with writing few blogs on his understanding of history, which is more of a fiction suiting the agenda of Hindu Rashtra, reinstating the caste system in particular. In one of his blogs he emphasis that caste system served the society very well and there are no complaints against it. As per him “Most of the questionable social customs in the Indian society as pointed out by the English educated Indian intellectuals and the Western scholars could be traced to this period of Muslim rule in north India spanning over seven centuries.” He argues that “The (caste) system was working well in ancient times and we do not find any complaint from any quarters against it.” This is a distortion. The customs related to caste oppression were integral to the so called Hindu scriptures Vedas (Rig Veda, Purush Sukta) Upanishad, (2) the scriptures which were written in the Pre Historic BC period. Even in Manu smiriti the caste division is well articulated. Manu Smriti was written around 1-2 and Century AD. Contrary to this Prof Rao states that distortion in caste system came with the coming of Muslim Kings. He had so far been working on proving the historicity of our mythological Mahabharat as a part of History. Interestingly RSS combine presents only one version of Ramayan but there are nearly 400 versions of Ramayan. The scholarly essay by A.K.Ramanujam on the diversity of Ramayan telling again was withdrawn from Delhi University curriculum, and the publisher forced to withdraw the book. 

With the coming of this Government the peripheral elements have started talking about making these scriptures as a part of our curriculum. Justice Dave talks of bringing in Gita and others are talking of Ramayana. Both these holy tomes have heavy projections of caste. In Gita, Lord talks of taking birth whenever Dharma is in danger. And this Dharma is Varnashram Dharma (Varna system). In Ramayan Lord Ram kills Shambuk, as Shambuk a Shudra is doing penance and this is something not permitted by Caste system.

Fringe Elements or Division of Labor

VHP supremo and RSS member Ashok Singhal has also called Modi “an ideal swayamsevak” and emphatically declared that Muslims must respect the sentiments of the Hindu culture, threatening that “they cannot survive for long by opposing Hindus”. He has also asked Muslims to give up their claims on Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi. The idea is to reduce Muslims to second class citizens with no privileges and rights. Another firebrand VHP leader Pravin Togadia, known for his ‘hate speeches’, has endorsed these views by issuing a warning to the Muslims, saying they may have forgotten the 2002 Gujarat riots but would remember the Muzaffarnagar riots of last year. (3) 

Goa's deputy chief minister Francis D'Souza apologized for his comment that India was already a Hindu nation. This was a tactical retreat. He was the one who said that all Indians are Hindus. Christians are Christian Hindus for example. Deepak Dhavalikar another BJP member stated that under Modi India will become a Hindu Rashtra. This is what the deeper part of RSS-BJP-Modi agenda, to see that the religious minorities adopt the Brahminical Hindu norms. That’s why they want that to use terms like Christian Hindus or Ahmadiya Hindus. Gradually, the assertion will be that since you are a Hindu you must practice Hindu norms. 

On the long term agenda of RSS-BJP-Modi one needs to see the statement of RSS worker Joshi,   “During a question-and-answer session, a volunteer asked Yadavrao Joshi, then the head of Sangh workers across all of south India, “We say RSS is a Hindu organisation. We say we are a Hindu nation, India belongs to Hindus. We also say in the same breath that Muslims and Christians are welcome to follow their faith and that they are welcome to remain as they are so long as they love this country. Why do we have to give this concession? Why don’t we be very clear that they have no place if we are a Hindu country?” Joshi replied “As of now, RSS and Hindu society are not strong enough to say clearly to Muslims and Christians that if you want to live in India, convert to Hinduism. Either convert or perish. But when the Hindu society and RSS will become strong enough we will tell them that if you want to live in India and if you love this country, you accept that some generations earlier you were Hindus and come back to the Hindu fold.”  (4) 

So where are we heading to becomes clear in the last few weeks of Modi Sarkar. The government will be trying to stick to the language which will be subtle while undertaking steps in Hinduization. Its associates, VHP-RSS will tell us bluntly about their agenda. Needless to repeat that this agenda, being unfolded is that of Hindu nation, where religious minorities will be relegated to secondary position  and the Chaturvarnya system will be slipped in a subtle manner.

References

1.       (http://www.onislam.net/english/news/asia-pacific/475865-india-set-to-saffronize-school-curriculum.html)
2.       http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani300714.htm
3.      (Modi and Hindutva footprints - Editorial, Kashmir Times Kashmir Times - Monday, July 28, 2014)

4.      http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/rss-30#sthash.GmBGCZLQ.dpuf

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The Modi Sarkar: Initial Symptoms

Ram Puniyani

It is already over two months that Narendra Modi has taken over as the prime minister of the country. While some may call it as a ‘honey moon period’ others will say that its actions during last few months are an indication enough of shape of things to come. It goes without saying that Modi is the Pracharak of RSS, which is aiming at converting the secular democratic India into a Hindu Rashtra. Modi came to power with many planks, many factors went into his victory, one of that was the catchy phrase’ “Acche Din Aane Wale hain”  For the people, who have been restless  due to rising prices and inflation, there has been no respite and many of them have started feeling the regret of being taken in by the propaganda of Acche din… As such this was a major propaganda point so a large section of people are disgruntled.

This Government did begin with a major initiative in the area of relationship with the South Asian neighbors. It invited all the heads of South Asian countries for swearing in ceremony. People had their eyes on the invitation for the Pakistani Prime Minister Navaz Sharif as the BJP’s longest ally Shiv sena was opposed to it. Overruling objections from Shiv Sena, Modi went ahead in getting Sharif to visit to India. This may open the path of peaceful relations with the neighbors, Pakistan in particular. One knows that a peaceful neighborhood is more conducive for growth and development and India has to gain a lot in terms of trade, education and medical facilities being opened up for these countries and making a good deal of revenue. At another level the Government showed its shift away from India’s West Asia policy as Sushma Swaraj, the Foreign minister went on to equate Palestine, the victim with the oppressor Israel, who has violated most of the UN resolutions. The vote on this matter did follow the Indian policy so far, and that is a matter of great relief. Modi as Prime minister is wearing his religion on his sleeve. Be it participation in Ganga Aarti in Varanasi or participating in Puja in Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal, he has no qualms about doing the same as the head of a theoretically secular state.

The formation of the Government gave a signal that doubtful elements like Sanjeev Balyaan, who is widely seen as having a major hand in Muzzafarnagar violence, as a reward for his role in the communalization of the polity and this is something which needs discouragement if we want to preserve the integrity of the nation.

The case of Gopal Subramanian, an outstanding advocate, came as a shock to many as he is known to be competent and upright. He was denied the nomination as the judge on Supreme Court bench. One recalls that as Amicus curie of the Court Mr. Subramaiam had brought forth the links of Sohrabuddin fake encounter and the present BJP President Amit  Shah, it is suspected that to be the reason for this denial. Subramaniam Swamy the top leader of BJP showed his discomfort with Gopal Subramaniam as according to Mr. Swami, Gopal had hurt the feelings of Hindus in the case of Ram Setu issue.

On other fronts there are symptoms which are ominous so to say. Right in the beginning, a confidential report was deliberately leaked that the major foreign funded NGOs, like Green Peace are retarding the country’s growth. We know that this foreign funding is regulated by the home ministry and there are enough checks and balances to prevent adverse use of funds. This leaking of the report and the utterances of the top Govt officials has sent the message down the line where by the harassment of these NGOs has come up retarding their work. Surely these NGOs are also the ones who have been fighting for the cause of environment, problems related to poverty and other issues related to peoples’ empowerment. As such these dissenting voices should be an integral part of a caring democracy.

While MHRD minister has not stated clearly but Mr. Dinanath Batra of Shiksha Bachao Abhiyan Samiti has stated that he met the HRD minister who has promised him to change the school syllabus to make it in tune with the ideology of RSS, which is parochial and sectarian. Similar changes were brought in during the NDA regime 1999. A sample of this was to introduce courses like Jyotish Shatra (Astrology) and Paurohitya (Performance of religious rituals) in our universities. The government instruction to celebrate the Sanskrit week was seriously opposed by many states, Tamil Nadu in particular. The appointment of Prof Y.Sudrashan Rao tells the tale as to in which direction our research is going to be directed. Prof Rao has been working on the project to prove the historicity of Mahabharat. He has also come forward in the defense of caste system on the grounds that it worked and that nobody had complained about it.

During this period the affiliated wings of RSS have become bolder. In particular the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders like Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia have given speeches which are very frightening to the religious minorities. In a way such elements are openly threatening the Muslims. Singhal claimed that Modi's victory was a blow to Muslim politics because it showed elections could be won without Muslim support. He also claimed that Modi is an "ideal" RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) volunteer who would implement the Hindutva agenda

It is no coincidence that the Goa’s BJP’s deputy Chief Minister went on to say that he is a Hindu Christian, this deliberate confusion being the earlier use of Hindu as a geographical category to the presently used religious category in a way is the violation of the religious freedom of the minorities in India. Another BJP MLA opposed Sania Mirza being appointed as the brand ambassador of Telangana, on the ground that she is ‘daughter-in-law’ of Pakistan. This statement goes against our Constitution and has not been strongly opposed by the top leadership, who has soft peddled the issue giving a wrong signal.

The so called Hindutva agenda is being brought into operation slowly. The minorities affairs minister Nazma Heptullah stated that Muslims are not a minority, while Parsis are. Parsis are a comparatively better off community while Sachar Committeee tells us the plight of Muslim community and need to initiate affirmative action for them. The Article 370, which was brought in due to peculiar circumstances and is a bridge between Indian and Kashmir, is being questioned. The Uniform civil code is being bandied without going into the subtle nuances of social reform and the need for grounding of such a law in the concept of Gender Justice. These topics have been debated endlessly and need to be handled taking along the opinions of people of Kashmir on ones hand and women from minority community on the other.

The need is to ensure that interests of the country’s people are kept uppermost, the way invitation to Nawaz Sharif shows, should be appreciated. The other measures show that there is an attempt to undermine the diverse nature of our polity, there is an attempt to bring in RSS agenda through education and culture, which are dangerous and need to be opposed.

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Hate Crimes and Communal Polarization

Ram Puniyani

The Modi Sarkar has been installed in power from last three weeks or so (May 16, 2014). While there is lots of hope from this government by sections of society, there are other types of fears which have started getting actualized and the consequences of that are being felt with great amount of horror. After the morphed images of Bal Thackeray and Shivaji were uploaded on social sites a well planned attack on Muslim minorities was orchestrated in Pune. In this attack the rampaging mobs not only paralyzed the city, they also attacked mosques and torched at least 200 public and private vehicles. The culmination of this was the public lynching of an IT professional, Mohsin Shiekh, an IT manager from Sholapur, a resident of Pune. He was brutally killed by a mob of Hindu Rashtra Sena, led by Dhanajay Desai. This is ‘Hate crime’ of worst order.

While this act has shaken the minority community and civic society groups have condemned it, the Prime Minister of the country has chosen to keep mum on the issue for a long time. Maharashtra Government is treating it as a law-and order problem, which defies all the logic. The overall observation is that a large section of the minority community is feeling terrorized ever since the Modi Sarkar has come to power. In Pune region, from last two weeks or so the minority homes and prayer halls are being vandalized and a section of supporters of the ideology of ruling party is feeling emboldened to no end. It is in this backdrop that murder of the Pune techie, who was wearing the Muslim identity has come as a warning signal for those who want to strive for communal harmony, national integration and the affirmation of the rights of religious minorities to live with equal honor and dignity. This incident has intensified ripples of fear leading to many from the minority community shaving off their beards.

In some ways this seems to be repeating the experiment in communal divide brought in by communal forces in UP, Muzzafarnagar. One recalls that a fracas of road accident was given the expression of ‘violation of the honor of our girls’, ‘love jihad’ and a video clip was uploaded by BJP MLA. This led to the horrific violence and the consequent polarization of communities along religious lines and a massive victory of BJP in UP. Amit Shah has been credited with the victory in UP and now in the wake of forthcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra on one side the state BJP unit wants same Amit Shah to come here to Maharashtra and on the other the forces like Hindu Rashtra Sena have unleashed the anti minority programs like the heinous crime against the Muslim techie in Pune.

Communal violence and crimes have been the real polarizing factors in our society. Even in the preceding Lok Sabha elections, while apparently it seems that the agenda of development has given the victory to Mr. Modi, the fact is that communal polarization was working in the background. That’s how Modi brought forward the issue of article 370, Bangladeshi immigrants and the pink revolution. How much role this polarization played in the general elections is a matter of conjecture. All said and done communal polarization has been a major tool in the hands of communal parties. In Gujarat we saw the polarization brought around the Godhra train burning leading to Gujarat violence in which over 80% of those who got killed were the one’s from minority community. This violence brought in the polarization and the BJP government which was tottering till then became firmly planted in the seat of power.

It’s true that the issues which lead to communal violence-polarization keep changing over a period of time, while some of these continue to haunt in an ongoing fashion. In colonial India the major issues related to taking a procession with music band in front of a mosque, the issue of pork being thrown in mosque and beef in the temple were the other major ones. In Godhra, it was a accidental burning of a train propagated as terrorist attack, in Mumbai it was the victory celebration over Babri demolition. While some of these issues are kept in the forefront, the others issues’ related to temple destructions in the past, alleged cruelty of Muslim kings, the jazia, the myth of ‘spread of Islam’ by force provide the backdrop. The issues like conservatism of a threatened community, the Uniform civil code (polygamy), Article 370, misrepresentation of increasing Muslim population have been firmly planted in the ‘social common sense’. The attempt of historians and social activists to prove and propagate that all these are not correct, the truth lies somewhere else, remains on the margins of society, accepted by only few critical people and those giving a deeper thought to social issues. The well oiled machinery of RSS has ensured that the myths and distorted version of history and lop-sided version of Muslim community today; continue to be the part of main stream thinking. What Noam Chomsky said, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, was in the context of state, here the ‘social common sense’ manufactured by an organization of religious (Hindu)-nationalism is made the core part of ‘social common sense’, which in turn forms the basis of communal violence and thereby the polarization of communities along religious lines.

To add up to the existing armory of communal forces, the social media has come in handy as its reach has gone far and wide. In Muzzafarnagar, the video clipping from Pakistan where a mob wearing Muslim identity is mercilessly beating two thieves, was used. The communal forces presented it as if the Muslim mob is beating Hindu boys. Similarly Bajrang Dal activists in the past were caught while putting beef in temples in Hyderabad and hoisting Pakistan flag in Karnataka. With social media coming in handy now the outfits like Hindu Rashtra Sena are taking advantage of that and are trying to create the divisive atmosphere.

One notes painfully that with Modi coming to power the overall aggression of outfits like Hindu Rashtra Sena and authorities as such has worsened. In Kerala a college student and his associates were booked for putting Modi’s picture along with Hitler and Osama bin Laden. In Goa one person was interrogated for hours for a Facebook post which was critical of Modi.

Even before elections the ‘Book Police’ of RSS, in the form of Dinanath Batra succeeded in getting pulped the scholarly work of Wendy Doniger by Penguin. Now Orient Blackswan on its own has decided to withdraw the book by Megha Kumar ‘Communalism and Sexual Violence: Ahmadabad Since 1969’, and the History classic, ‘From Plassey to Partition: History of India’ by Sekhar Bandopadhyay. In all these violations of the freedom of expression, and the brutal Hate Crime by Hindu Rashtra Sena, the way the Prime Minister casually referred to this issue volumes about the shape of things to come.

While in Maharashtra the Assembly elections are forthcoming, such acts will definitely be feeding in to the electoral calculations of communal forces. It is mandatory that state Government has to rise above its opportunist inactivity to take the divisive forces head on. This needs to be supplemented by the proactive work to promote amity amongst religious communities. The peace march (15^th June) taken out in Pune by social groups is a very positive step to bridge the communal divides. What is also needed is to weed out the misconceptions, myths and biases about minority community; what is needed is to respect the diversity and plural nature of our country. It is time that such repressive atmosphere created by the electoral victory of BJP is combated against by all social movements and elements committed to plural, democratic, Liberal India.

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Can Modi be compared to Hitler?

Ram Puniyani

With Modi coming to power in the 2014 elections various analysts have been arguing about the shape of things to come in very diverse ways. Modi himself is being compared to the likes of Nixon, Margret Thatcher, Reagan on one side and Hitler on the other. His being compared to Hitler has met with severe criticism by many other commentators (‘Comparing Hitler’s Germany with India 2014 is odious’, Marcus Pindur and Padma Rao Sunderji, HT 23^rd may 2014) have strongly come out saying that Modi is no Hitler and India of 2014 is very different from Germany of 1930s. The authors argue that after the defeat of Germany in the First World War, Germany was going through a rough patch which was worsened by the great depression of late 1920s and this created a situation of the rise of Hitler and his genocidal politics. The second factor which they assert is about the weakness of German Democracy where the Nazi’s with just 30% of the votes could come to power.

It’s true that no two political situations are exactly alike. What is also true is that despite the superficial differences there are deeply embedded trends which have similarity in more ways than one. While India has not seen the type of post First World War ignominy which Germans suffered, it is also true that during last few years, beginning with Anna Hazare movement and later through Arvind Kejrivals’ AAP party a serious sense of mistrust in the ruling party and the political system was carefully orchestrated. The moving force of Anna movement was Modi’s parent organization RSS. Through a vicious propaganda and spectacle of mass programs Anna movement practically constructed a severe mistrust in the present system; parliament and the ruling Party. Kejrival, by taking along a large section of civic society groups; took this discrediting of the ruling party to further limits.

As far as the democracy in India is concerned it is a process of evolution. Some steps forward: some steps back! On one hand we see that the democratic awareness is spreading far and wide, the keenness to participate in the electoral process is increasing by the day, which is a very positive trend. At the same time there is the Westminster model of electoral politics, which totally undermines the representative character of Indian democracy. In Germany Nazis could come to power with 30% of votes. Here in 2014 India, BJP with 31% of votes has emerged as the party with the simple majority! The other process undermining the character of Indian democracy is the prevalence of caste and gender hierarchy. This graded hierarchy prevalent in the society due to which women and dalits both are subject to the injustices, which are there but not perceived and projected so easily in the society. Yet another factor undermining Indian democracy is the communalization of state apparatus due to which religious minorities are not only subjected to regular repeated violence but are also deprived of justice. Many a youth have been recklessly arrested in the wake of bomb blasts, their social lives and careers ruined before the courts exonerated them on the ground as the evidence against them was totally fabricated one. Meanwhile the demonization of this minority goes up and they are relegated to the status of ‘second class citizenship’ at places.

While Hitler may have been an overt hater of Jews, Parliamentary democracy, Modi is deeply rooted in the ideology of ‘Hindu nationalism’, which regards Hindus alone to be the ones’ deserving to be the citizens of this country. The people of ‘foreign religions’ Muslims and Christians are regarded as the threat to Hindu nation. Golwalkar, the RSS ideologue outlined this in his book Bunch of Thoughts. Modi’s ideological foundations are in this ideology which again goes on to model itself on the lines of Hitler. Appreciating Hitler’s genocide against Jews. Modi’s ideological mentor, Golwalkar writes, “…To keep up the purity of nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of Semitic races-The Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how neigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by. (We or Our nationhood Defined P. 27, 1938)

  

Modi has shown this in practice in Gujarat, where nearly two thousand people were done to death by brutal methods and then large section of the Muslim community has been reduced to live the life of humiliation and deprivation, concentrated in the ghettoes. To think that Supreme Court has exonerated Modi of this carnage is again one of the biggest propaganda exercises of current times. The SIT was formed by Supreme Court. An Amicus Curie was appointed by the same court. SIT says that there is no ground to prosecute Modi but based on the same SIT report the Supreme Court appointed Amicus Curie says that there is enough evidence in the report to prosecute Modi.

When a German delegation visited Gujarat (April 2010), one of the members of the delegation pointed out that he was shocked by parallels between Germany under Hitler and Gujarat under Modi. Incidentally in Gujarat school books Hitler has been glorified as a great nationalist. ( http://deshgujarat.com/2010/04/10/german-mps-mind-your-own-business/). The similarities with Hitler don’t end here. Like Hitler, Modi enjoys the solid support from the corporate World. Like Hitler Modi has deep hatred for religious minorities and he believes in Hindu nationalism, as per his own admission. His attitude to religious minorities and his own persona was best described the psychoanalyst Ashish Nandy, who interviewed him much before he presided over the Gujarat when the carnage was on, he wrote “…I had the privilege of interviewing (Modi)…it left me in no doubt that here was a classic, clinical case of a fascist. I never use the term ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse; to me it is a diagnostic category comprising not only one’s ideological posture but also the personality traits and motivational patterns contextualizing the ideology.”
(http://such.forumotion.com/t17216-ashis-nandy-narendra-modi-is-a-classical-clinical-case-of-a-fascist )

While Germany of 1930 and India of 2014 are different there are many similarities also. The context of Hitler and Modi is different but the underlying politics (sectarian nationalism) is similar, demonization of the ‘other’ is similar, charisma created around them is similar. The fate of the ‘largest democracy’ is in doldrums, the only thing which can help it is the rule of law, morality laced justice, revival of movements for democratic and human rights, to work for the platform of social movements which is inclusive and stands for the values of Liberty, Equality and fraternity in a substantive way.

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Modi Wins 2014 Elections: Victory of Development or Divisiveness

Ram Puniyani

The results of Parliamentary Elections are very interesting. With 31% vote share BJP-Modi won 282 Parliament seats, Congress with 19% vote share got 44 seats, BSP polled 4.1 percent of votes and drew a total blank, the Trinamool Congress won 3.8 percent of vote share with 34 seats, Samajwadi Party won 3.4 percent with five MPs, AIADMK with 3.3 got 37 seats, Mamta with 3.8% of vote share got 32 seats while CPIM with 3.3 percent of vote share got nine seats. We should note that this time around Congress’s 19.3% votes translated into 44 seats while during last general elections of 2009 BJP's 18.5% had fetched it 116 seats. That’s a tale by itself, the crying need for electoral reforms which has been pending despite such glaring disparities which weaken the representative character of our Parliament. Many social activists have been asking for these reforms but in vain.

Modi has been of course the flavor of the season and this time around it is being said that it was his plank of ‘development’ which attracted the voters to him, cutting across the caste and religious equations. How far is that true? Keeping aside the fact that Modi was backed to the hilt by Corporate, money flowed like water and all this was further aided by the steel frame of lakhs of RSS workers who managed the ground level electoral work for BJP. Thus Modi stood on two solid pillars, Corporate on one side and RSS on the other. He asserted that though he could not die for independence he will live for Independent India. This is again amongst the many falsehoods, which he has concocted to project his image in the public eye. One knows that he belongs to a political ideology and political stream of RSS-Hindutva, which was never a part of freedom struggle. RSS-BJP-Hindutva nationalism is different from the nationalism of freedom movement. Gandhi, freedom movement’s nationalism is Indian Nationalism while Modi parivar’s Nationalism is Hindu nationalism, a religious nationalism similar and parallel to Muslim nationalism of Jinnah: Muslim League. From the sidelines, RSS and its clones kept criticizing the freedom movement as it was for inclusive Indian nationalism, while Modi’ ideological school, RSS is for Hindu nationalism. So there no question of people like him or his predecessors dying for freedom of the country.

 

Courtesy: Wikipedia

There are multiple other factors which helped him to be first past the pole, his aggressive style, his success in banking upon weaknesses of Congress, his ability to communicate with masses supplemented by the lackluster campaign of Congress and the Presidential style of electioneering added weight to Modi’s success. Congress, of course, has collected the baggage of corruption and weak governance. The out of proportion discrediting of Congress begun by Anna movement, backed by RSS, and then taken forward by Kejriwal contributed immensely knocking Congress out of reckoning for victory. Kejrival in particular woke up to BJP’s corruption a wee bit too late and with lots of reluctance for reasons beyond the comprehension. Anna, who at one time was being called the ‘second Gandhi’ eclipsed in to non-being after playing the crucial role for some time. Kejriwal pursuing his impressive looking agenda against corruption went on to transform the social movement into a political party and in the process raing lots of question on the nature and potentials of social movements. Kejrival’s AAP, definitely split the anti Modi votes with great ‘success’. AAP put more than 400 candidates and most of them have lost their deposits. Many of these candidates have excellent reputation and contribution to social issues and for engaging challenges related to social transformation. After this experience of electoral battlefield how much will they be able to go back to their agenda of social change-transformation through agitations and campaigns will remain to be seen.

Many commentators-leaders, after anointing Anna as the ‘Second Gandhi’ are now abusing Gandhi’s name yet again by comparing the likes of Ramdeo and Modi to Mahatma Gandhi. One Modi acolyte went on to say Modi is better than Gandhi! What a shame to appropriate the name of Gandhi, the great unifier of the nation with those whose foundations are on the divisive ideology of sectarian nationalism.

Coming to the ‘development’ agenda, it is true that after playing his role in Gujarat carnage, Modi quickly took up the task of propagating the ‘development’ of Gujarat. This ‘make believe’ myth of Gujarat’s development as such was state government’s generous attitude towards the Corporate, who in turn started clamoring for ‘Modi as PM’ right from 2007. While the religious minorities started being relegated to the second class citizenship in Gujarat, the myth of Gujarat development started becoming the part of folk lore, for long unchallenged by other parties and scholars studying the development. When the data from Gujarat started being analyzed critically the hoax of development lay exposed, but by that time it was too late for the truth of development to be communicated to the people far and wide.  On the surface it appears as if this was the only agenda around which Modi campaigned. That’s far from true. Modi as such used communal and caste card time and over again. This was done with great amount of ease and shrewdness. He did criticize the export of beef labeling it Pink revolution, subtly hinting the link of meat-beef to Muslim minorities. This converted an economic issue into a communal one. Modi spoke regularly against Bangla speaking Muslims by saying that the Assam Government is doing away with Rhinos for accommodating the Bangla infiltrators. He further added that they should be ready to pack their bags on 16^th May when he will take over as the Prime Minister of the country. The communal message was loud and clear. BJP spokesmen have already stated that these Bangla speaking Hindus are refugees while the Muslim is infiltrators. 

If one examines the overall scatter of the areas where BJP has won a very disturbing fact comes to one’s mind. While at surface the plank of development ruled the roost there is definitely the subtle role played by communal polarization. BJP has mostly succeeded in areas where already communal polarization has been brought in through communal or violence or terrorist violence. Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP, MP, Bihar, Assam all these have seen massive communal violence in the past. While the states which have not come under the sway of BJP-Modi are the one’s which have been relatively free from communal violence: Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Kerala in particular. Orissa is a bit of an exception, where despite the Kandhmal violence, Navin Patnaik’s party is managing to be in power. The socio political interpretation of the deeper relations between acts of violence and victory of RSS-BJP-Modi needs to be grasped at depth; the polarizing role of communal-terrorist violence needs a deeper look. While on surface the development myth has won over large section of electorate, it has taken place in areas which have in past seen the bouts of violence. Most of the inquiry commission reports do attribute violence to the machinations of communal organization.

While overtly the caste was not used, Modi did exploit the word Neech Rajniti (Low level Politics) used by Priyanka Gandhi and converted it in to Neech Jati (low caste), flaunting his caste. At other occasions also he projected his caste, Ghanchi to polarize along caste lines.

What signal has been given by Modi’s victory? The message of Mumbai, Gujarat, Muzzafrnagar and hoards of other such acts has created a deep sense of insecurity amongst sections of our population. Despite Modi’s brave denials and the struggles of social activists, justice delivery seems to be very slow, if at all, and it is eluding the victims. The culprits are claiming they are innocents and that they have got a ‘clean chit’. While there are many firsts in Modi coming to power, one first which is not highlighted is that, this is the first time a person accused of being part of the carnage process is going to have all the levers of power under his control. So what are the future prospects for the India of Gandhi and Nehru, what are the prospects of the values of India’s Constitution? Can Modi give up his core agenda of Hindu Nationalism, which has been the underlying ideology of his politics, or will he deliver a Hindu nation to his mentors? No prizes for guessing!

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