There were many ironies, some rather subtle, in the high-octane events related to the launch of Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book in Mumbai last week. There was the stoic Sudheendra Kulkarni, his face completely doused in black, carrying on with his duties as head of the Observer Research Foundation that was hosting Kasuri. As TV channels splashed his paint-besmirched face endlessly across screens and featured at length his news conference where he vowed the book launch would go on as scheduled despite the Shiv Sena’s loutish behaviour, ingenious messages were being broadcast to the nation and the world.
The most flagrant was that while the Shiv Sena was against freedom of expression, both political and cultural, the ruling BJP was determined to champion such freedoms at all costs. The Shiv Sena was once a close ally of the BJP, and its latest antics are all of a piece with its fiercely anti-Pakistan stance which it has been flaunting since 1991 when it dug up Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium to block Imran Khan’s cricket team. Curiously, Kulkarni, although described as a former BJP member, was sporting the party colours of saffron and green in his clothing. A speechwriter for former Vajpayee and a political strategist for BJP stalwart Advani, Kulkarni’s dignified demeanour helped to take the pressure off the BJP at a time when it is facing opprobrium from writers over its illiberal policies.
As the liberals take heart from this collective outrage of the writers, it is important to see where all this is leading. Modi and the BJP appear unconcerned by the revolt of the literati and shrug off their charge that his regime is fascistic. But in this tussle for the cultural soul of India there appears little understanding of how the country has come to this sorry pass. In the competitive politics of hate-mongering between one-time allies, one of the more amazing ironies was the condemnation of the Shiv Sena by none other than Advani for intolerance.
Advani’s swipe at the Sena got big play in the media but there was nary a comment on the BJP leader’s pioneering role in setting the Hindutva agenda for the country and the communal polarisation that ensued in the wake of his rath yatra in 1990 to galvanise the Hindus to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya. It was this yatra that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, with the active participation of Sena hordes, and resulted in widespread communal bloodletting. But it ensured the arrival of the BJP as a major force.
It is the Advani legacy that the BJP, more so Modi, has built upon assiduously in subsequent decades, polarising the country in such a deeply communal way that it seems unlikely that the genie of religious hatred can ever be put back in the bottle. It was left to Modi to perfect communal mobilisation to a fine art, first by capturing Gujarat in three consecutive elections, starting with the 2002 pogrom against Muslims, and finally storming New Delhi in 2014. As a seasoned RSS pracharak, Modi has set the country on a ruinous trajectory that threatens to alter forever India.
Why is the outlook so daunting? One reason is that RSS has laid the groundwork firmly to achieve its vision of a 100 per cent Hindu nation. All the templates for radicalising Indian society were fixed a long time ago through a vast network of Hindu organisations. The basic foundation was laid by its Saraswati Shishu Mandir schools that dwell on the glory of a imagined Hindu past.
The RSS has also spawned hundreds of Hindu outfits to mobilise every segment of society from housewives to forest dwellers and to avenge insults to Hindu “sentiments”. Each day’s news brings into the limelight hitherto unheard of Hindu organisations, like the Sanatan Sanstha, which was responsible for the murder of writer-activist Govind Pansare and Sanskrit scholar M.M. Kalburgi. The poison thus runs deep.
Yet, political analysts, based on short memories, tends to rely on the naive hope that all will be well since Hindus are whole committed to a pluralistic society. But are the Hindus any safer in the current dispensation than the minorities? What is at stake is not just religious freedom; it is the freedom to think rationally that’s under threat. Modi can be berated roundly by the liberals but this is unlikely to change his ideas. His priorities lie elsewhere. To him, the ultimate certificate comes from the RSS. Last month, Modi and his cabinet subjected themselves to a three-day scrutiny by the RSS. It was these men in khaki shorts who gave his government a thumbs-up. That is what matters to Modi.
The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi
By arrangement with Dawn
