HVK Archives: Appealing to Hindus - Minimum compromises
Appealing to Hindus - Minimum compromises - Indian Express
Ram Swarup
()
24 June 1996
Title : Appealing to Hindus - Minimum compromises
Author : Ram Swarup
Publication : Indian Express
Date : June 24, 1996
THE recent elections marked the end of an era and the
beginning of another. The post Independence governments
and the ruling ideology of different political parties,
left or right, were anti-Hindu. The victory of the BJP
has dealt a blow to those forces, though they were still
strong enough and cunning enough to stage a coup - which
is what has actually happened and any future government
of the so-called United Front is to be a product of
political intrigues and behind the scene buying and
selling without any stable basis.
The change is important for another reason. From the
beginning, it was clear that the BJP even if invited to
form a government could not last. But the important thing
was not the BJP Government but the election results
themselves. They conveyed an unmistakable message: that
the so-called "minority" votes are the arbiter- a belief
sedulously cultivated by secular ideologues - and that
the Hindu votes also matter if they are rightly placed.
All recent elections were a pointer in the same direc-
tion. The Congress did badly not because it was losing
the Muslim confidence but because it was losing the
confidence of the Hindus. This conclusion, however, was
resisted by secular ideologues and mediamen. After the
Congress debacle in Gujarat in the last election, only
Chhabildas Mehta, ex-Chief Minister, tried to alert his
party to this reality but he was ridiculed. A favourite
theory could not be sacrificed to inconvenient facts.
What has happened to the Congress is happening to other
parties wooing Muslims for votes. The Janata Dal is
almost wiped out. It is now only a small party made up of
still smaller groups controlled by local chiefs. Its
politicians have proved to be most corrupt and power
hungry.
It is clear that in the next election wooing "minorities"
would not do and something will have tobe done about the
Hindus too. New elections, if they take place at all,
would never be on the same old basis again. Hindus are
coming together with an increased feeling that they
should not be represented by people who have such a
negative view of Hindus and Hinduism. They are also
learning to vote "tactically". Parties which wait on
Shahi Imams and Ali Mians would automatically lose many
Hindu votes.
This new situation has created a near panic in
traditional anti-Hindu circles. Hitherto their strategy
has been to depend on minority votes, and such chunks of
Hindu votes as they organised on caste and regional
basis. This politics is already yielding diminishing
returns but these parties know no other. Therefore they
would continue to play the same old game even more
desperately. We can expect that in the near future caste
and regional politics would acquire still more importance
and services of those who could divide the Hindu votes
would be very much in demand. The Marxists have been the
high priests of this politics and they are always at hand
to give it a radical look.
We can anticipate another connected development. As
anti--Hindu and anti-democratic forces realise that their
old game is up and they can no longer keep down Hindus
through electoral process, they are likely to subvert
democracy itself. A coup along these lines is quite on
the cards. The parties concerned are desperate; they have
also the necessary international connections and
resources. Some of their leaders have already spoken
along these lines in Parliament though in their arcane
language which hides as much as it reveals. They said
that contrary to what the election results apparently
indicate, they have the real mandate to rule for they
represent the true will of the people - and people of
their definition exclude Hindus altogether and include
only the "minorities", the "poor", the "dalits" and the
"tribals". Not that the tribals and the dalits have voted
for them in any appreciable manner or number, but they
argue that for their sake it is their duty and historic
right to stay at the top. It is another version of the
discredited doctrine of "dictatorship of the
proletariat", and it emanates from the same sources and
the same mind. It is the language of fascist-communist
ideologues.
Many were intrigued when they saw parties which were at
each other's throat only a day earlier coming together
with such alacrity in a new camaraderie to keep the BJP
out. The mindset behind this development was not new; it
had been long in the making and it conformed to forces
that have been at work in our history for many
centuries. During several centuries of foreign rule,
Hindus were under tremendous psychological and
ideological pressure. They imbibed the opinion of the
rulers about their religion and themselves. The rulers
also created a class of intellectual compradores, a class
Indian in blood but anti-Hindu in sentiment and
orientation. During this period anti-Hinduism became a
great force and anti-Hindu Hindus became very
important.'There has always existed an ideological axis
between the members of this class - Maculates, Marxists,
Muslim Leaguers, casteists and regional politicians.
The BJP Government had to resign but that was not the
last word with its present strength the party cannot
simply be written off. It is quite possible that the
party will have a share in the governance of the country
during the next few years. The BJP is still the largest
single party in a Parliament which has the largest number
of singled-parties - several of them one-man one party
units. The "United Front" will prove unstable. These
parties are a medley of discordant elements, each a law
unto itself, each ambitious beyond its electoral
strength, each prone to split further. Nothing can keep
them together except lure of power. In this situation,
after various combinations and permutations have been
tried and governments formed and reformed, it is likely
that Parliament would face the threat of dissolution - a
threat which the MPs dread the most and which is no
blessing to the country either. This may cool their
ideological ardor and produce a sense of realism and they
may agree to work together on an agreed minimum
programme. The BJP has already offered.to do it without
even being approached.
>From the way the ideological wind is blowing now, it
seems that any agreed programme, call it minimum or
maximum, would exclude all that smacks of "Hindu
communalism". And what is there which cannot be called
Hindu communalism? Even to raise the question of more
than 10 million infiltrators from Bangladesh is Hindu
communalism! The programme would certainly exclude
Ayodhya, Article 370, a Common Civil Code. The BJP has
already done it and dropped these clauses without much
ceremony. no agreed programme, however, would not save it
from constant attacks on its Hindu identity - a label
forcibly pasted on it which it reluctantly bears
labouring hard all the time to prove that it is not what
its opponents say and it is as good as they are. I
believe that in practice,a minimum programme would go
along with a maximum ideological attack against Hinduism
by many parties belonging to the agreement. This is the
price the BJP would pay for having a common minimum
programme, and it seems it is prepared to do it. How it
would help Hindutva now or in future is yet to be seen.
But it would be argued, not without cogency and practical
logic, that the first duty of the first viable Hindu
party is to last.
If there is really to be some stability in the
Government, there will have to be some kind of
understanding between the BJP and the Congress, at least
for the time being, and the rump parties kept out. But
whether it happens at all is another matter. The Congress
has lost its old character; it has forgotten the history
of India's struggle for Independence which was rooted in
Hindu renaissance. Post-Independence India came to be
dominated by "Nehruvian" politics - what was strongly
anti-Hindutva.
The BJP too has shown no better appreciation of the
problem. Living for a long time marginally and as an
opposition, it developed what may be called "opposition
patriotism". It felt closer to the opposition parties
than to the congress. In the new situation,
it has to realise that anti-Congressism is not enough,
that the most rabid and-Hindutva forces are in the
"opposition" parties. It should become aware another
Congress which does not share this antipathy of its
avant-garde; it should open up channels of communication
with traditional Congressmen if they still exist.
Ram Swarup's most recent work is `Hindu View of
Christianity and Isam'
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