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This December, Babri demolition act
completed its 19years. On the occasion many a Muslim groups
demanded the reconstruction of the masjid. This demand is just but
is mired in many a complex legalities and is trapped in the
politics in which there are many diverse players. One again needs
to clarify that Hindutva is not a religion of Hindus. Religion of
Hindus is Hinduism. Hindutva is the politics of RSS; it is a
politics with sectarian vision. This is the vision of affluent
upper caste- elite aiming to abolish democracy. Hindutva aims to
bring a nation in the name of Hindu religion where the upper crust
of society can rule as per the norms prevalent in feudal society.
The trick involved here is that these norms of feudal society, the
birth based hierarchy, is presented as a glorious tradition and in
given the modern language and form.
Demolition of Babri Masjid was a demolition of a national
monument; it was also the beginning of a phase of politics where
the communal undercurrents of Indian politics menacingly came to
the surface. It was a signal for the violence against minorities
at a higher pitch. It was a blatant insult of whatever Indian
Constitution stands for. It was also the first major step for
communal parties to come to occupy the seats of power in the
Centre.
After the initial sacking of the BJP Governments in the states
where it was ruling, the polarization caused by demolition and
post demolition violence went to frightening level and the
communal party, BJP, which was at the margins of political
structure, came to the fore as the major opposition party. Its
parent organization, the real controller of Hindutva politics, RSS,
started becoming more respectable and the social thinking was
further vitiated with the biases against minorities. In due course
the other minority the Christians were also brought under the
firing range of the communalists leading to the ghastly burning of
Pastor Graham Stains and later scattered attacks on Christian
missionaries working in Adivasi areas, leading to massive Kandhmal
carnage were witnessed.
For the first time BJP, the party inherently committed to the anti
democratic notion of Hindu Rashtra, grabbed the power at the
Centre in 1996, when all other parties correctly refused to ally
with it to share the spoils of power. But that changed soon enough
and other political parties, obsessed with power opportunistically
started sharing power with those accused of Babri demolition,
those whose affiliates incited not only the demolition but also
the violence against minorities in different guises. The coming to
power of BJP at centre opened the floodgates of the political
space that goes with power, and the task of RSS progeny, VHP,
Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram got facilitated. The state apparatus, police
bureaucracy got more communalized. The education was communalized
more openly with a tinge of promoting faith based knowledge at the
cost of the scientific temper and rational thought.
This also paved the way for further victories for BJP. The success
of RSS propaganda is not merely that it targets the minorities;
its bigger success is that it instils the fear in the mind of
majority about the ‘threat’ of minority. There is a ripple effect
of this process and then a section of ‘middle of the road
elements’ also start turning over to support the Hindutva parties.
Karnataka opened the floodgates of BJP for its entry into South.
The political ideology of BJP and its group is gaining ascendance.
The Babri demolition led to multiple processes, denial of justice
to victims of violence became structural, and the minorities
started being relegated to second class citizenship. The
demonization of minorities has by now gone to extreme levels.
Christians are also being meted out the same treatment,
particularly in Adivasi areas. This process of demonization of
Muslim minorities later started being created around the issue
related to terrorism. US propaganda after the 9/11, in which US
created monster of Al Qaeda was the central force, brought immense
disrepute to Islam and Muslims. US media coined the word Islamic
terrorism, and the politics for control over oil resources was
taken to absurd ideological manipulation and a religion and a
religious community were subjected to immense targeting. In India
also the propaganda against Muslims was taken to much worse levels
with the global phenomenon of terror, falsely and cleverly
attributed to teachings of Islam and Muslims.
Now the RSS-BJP politics is entering the new phase. Having reached
the acme of anti minority polarization, it has found the Anna
Hazare movement as the new vehicle for its politics of undermining
democratic institutions to bring in a parallel authoritarian
structure where the Lok Pal plays the big brother. Though this
sounds innocuous and is presented as a step to solve the problems,
this is likely to create a new institution, beyond the control of
democratic norms. Few people and groups who are calling the shots
and asserting that they are ‘The People’, ‘Anna is above
Parliament’, will rule through proxies of various types. This Anna
movement has polarized the social layers according to those who
look at either identity issues (Ram Temple) or symptomatic issues
(Corruption) as the major issues while undermining the problems of
dalits, minorities and other deprived sections of society.
Identity issues or issues focused around symptoms, which are meant
to preserve the status quo of political dynamics, and that’s what
politics in the name of religion is all about. That’s what
Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism or Hindutva,
wants.
Now since Ram Temple appeal is fading away, those for
social-political ‘status quo’ have jumped to the bandwagon of
Anti-corruption. This is a shrewd move. Marginalized sections do
feel left out from such ‘I am Anna’, ‘We are the People’ type of
assertions, the message is that only the ‘shining India’ will have
the say in the shaping of the nation, while the deprived India,
will be permanently on the margins.
In a sense the RSS-Hindutva politics is constantly changing its
strategies to communalize, polarize the society and to distract
social attention from core issues. While initially the Rath Yatras
and communal violence have played their role in polarizing the
nation along religious lines, now the social issue, corruption, is
being used to further strengthen the hold of politics aimed at
retaining social inequalities.
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