India: Multiple offensives of the Hindu Right - social, cultural fronts

From: Frontline, 11 February 2012

COVER STORY

War by other means

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN

In a shift in strategy, the Sangh Parivar resorts to multiple offensives on the social and cultural fronts.

KIRAN BAKALE

RSS volunteers ata three-day camp, Hindu Shakti Sangam, from January 27 to 29 at Tarihal near Hubli in north Karnataka.

THE design of the array of political, social and religious outfits in the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)-led Sangh Parivar is such that they can jointly and severally advance their collective ideological and organisational objectives using diverse tactics and stratagems. Multi-speak is an important component of the strategies employed by the Hindutva combine. At times these organisations adopt seemingly contradictory views on a variety of issues.

Sometimes they even put their fundamentalist slogans on the back burner in the interest of political or organisational expediency. But, even while doing so, the Parivar affiliates take forward the various facets of the central ideological theme of Hindutva, particularly at the social and cultural levels.

This aspect of the right wing has once again come to the fore through a number of initiatives taken by a clutch of Hindutva organisations, particularly the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political arm of the Sangh Parivar, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), its self-professed ideological sword arm.

Central to this new focus on the social and cultural manoeuvres by the Hindutva combine is the passage of a number of amendments to strengthen the Madhya Pradesh Gauvansh Pratishedh Adhiniyam (Madhya Pradesh Bovine Prohibition Act, 2004). The amendments passed by the Shivraj Singh Chauhan-led BJP government have added a new dimension to the cow protection laws existing in many States. The amendments have clauses that make even the consumption of beef illegal. It also stipulates that a person found guilty of cow slaughter will be liable to face up to seven years of imprisonment instead of the earlier provision of three years.

This renewed aggressive pursuit of the long-standing Hindutva agenda of cow protection has assumed significance at various levels. The slogan has been a key component of the pan-Hindu identity politics that the proponents of Hindutva have sought to advance for over eight decades. Since its inception in 1925, the RSS has formed a widespread network of Gau Raksha Samitis (cow protection societies) that maintain gaushalas (cowsheds), particularly in north India. These societies have a history of instigating riots over the issue of cow protection. They had apparently played a divisive role even during the freedom struggle. At the political level, cow protection has been a key theme of the BJP since the 1950s when it went by the name of Jan Sangh. The slogans on this issue promoted a divisive agenda. One oft-repeated slogan of the cow protection societies is: “Cow is holy for Hindus, Muslims eat it to insult the Hindu faith.” The Chauhan government's preparations for introducing the Gau-Vansh Vadh Pratishedh (Sanshodhan) Vidheyak, 2010 (Prohibition of Slaughter of Cow Progeny (Amendment) Bill), were apparently triggered by a massive signature campaign undertaken by the VHP through its Vishwa Mangala Gou Grama Yatra, which travelled through different parts of the country in early 2010.

It is also significant that the aggressive revival of the cow protection agenda comes at a time when the BJP has apparently put its core ideological agenda, consisting of the construction of a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, abrogation of Article 370, and the imposition of a uniform civil code, on the back burner. The BJP has not launched any aggressive campaign on these three issues for more than half a decade, since the shock defeat it suffered in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Clearly, political expediency has dictated this withdrawal because many of the BJP's allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), such as the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), have expressed reservations about advancing these issues. This context has also led to some debate within the BJP, with sections arguing that the Hindutva element of the party needs to be diluted and replaced with a laissez faire, free market-oriented political thrust.

However, the Chauhan government's move shows that while the BJP and its central leadership may not be as vocal as they used to be on the three proclaimed core ideological issues and may even discuss alternative ideas in pursuing right-wing politics, the party's State units would continue to advance Hindutva causes, which have pronounced anti-minority dimensions, in manifold ways. It is not Madhya Pradesh alone that has traversed this path. All the States that have come under the political and organisational influence of the Sangh Parivar have shown this tendency in varying degrees. Before Chauhan's cow protection initiative, Gujarat had come up with amendments to an Act that dealt with the prohibition of transfer of immovable property and stipulated provisions for the protection of tenants from eviction from premises in disturbed areas. The amendment gave the government the right to decide how the transaction of property in disturbed areas should take place. Given Gujarat's track record of the past 10 years, as also the prevailing administrative climate in the State, this was obviously heavily loaded against the Muslim minority. The Chhattisgarh government's anti-conversion Bill of 2006 had similar characteristics.

CRUCIAL TOOL

A closer look at this phenomenon has revealed that the trend of promoting Hindutva-oriented legislative and administrative action as well as the discrimination of minorities is all the more pronounced in States where the BJP had been in power for relatively long periods. A look at the functioning of the BJP-ruled governments underscores the point that numerous aspects of governance, including the drafting of legislation, policy orientation, issuance of executive orders, maintenance of law and order and routine day-to-day administrative functioning, are exploited for this purpose (see separate stories). Almost all BJP-ruled States have, at some point or the other, witnessed attempts to promote the Hindutva world view through revision of textbooks. This is in tune with the view of the Sangh Parivar leadership that education is a crucial tool in promoting its visions about society and the world. In Madhya Pradesh, even the nomenclature of teachers has been revised as part of this exercise. The Chauhan government's preferred title for teachers is rishi.

A variety of Sangh Parivar constituents such as the Bajrang Dal, the VHP and the Seva Bharati supplement this Hindutva thrust using methods ranging from social service to propaganda to threats to downright oppression. While the Seva Bharati and Ekal Vidyalayas have a record of sustained work in the realm of education and promotion of literacy, outfits such as the Bajrang Dal seek to dominate local communities by imposing Hindutva-oriented social mores and religious practices. The efforts in education and social sectors are facilitated in numerous ways by a number of Hindutva organisations, including those based abroad. Here too, there is a range of outfits that the Sangh Parivar can choose from at different times for different tasks. The VHP of America openly embraces Hindutva while organisations such as the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) are camouflaged under the constitutional format of a charity group. The IDRF has provided huge financial support (running into millions of dollars) to organisations in the education sector.

The social impact of these manoeuvres is undoubtedly far-reaching. Reports from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP has been in power since 1998 and 2003 respectively, point to increasing ghettoisation of minority communities, particularly the Muslim community. These reports also underscore the systematic attempts to subvert the secular character of the education system (see separate story). The Independent People's Tribunal on Communalism, which consisted of eminent citizens like the historian K.N. Panikkar, Justice S.N. Bhargava, the sociologist Dr Asghar Ali Engineer, and Planning Commission member Syeeda Hameed, studied issues relating to this in detail five years ago by getting depositions from people in 16 States, including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.

VIJAY VERMA /PTI

BJP LEADER L.K. ADVANI receives Ganga jal from Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri (not in picture) during his Jan Chetna Yatra, in Haridwar on November 18.

The tribunal pointed out methodical attempts to marginalise the minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians. Specifically, it also noted that there were attempts at systematic clearing or dispossession of lands belonging to members of minority communities. The subtle and not-so-subtle communalisation of the bureaucracy, especially lower-level officials, the police and the district administration, facilitated these discriminatory processes. The tribunal noted that “the criminal justice system in several States appears to be under the influence of Hindutva force and consequently there are instances of false cases being foisted against innocent Muslims”. Other trends pointed out by the tribunal included denial of education to members of minority communities as well as attempts at their social and economic boycott.

The BJP-ruled States present any number of instances of the practice of the trends identified by the tribunal. The circular issued by the Chauhan government last year to all police stations directing them to collect information about Christians, including data on the number of priests, bishops, schools and institutions, is a case in point. The circular directed the police stations to find out what sort of political patronage the community received and what their economic sources were and to identify Christians with criminal antecedents.

Conclaves of purification

While these initiatives of the BJP governments and the Sangh Parivar affiliates continue apace in diverse areas, the VHP has been quietly organising shudhi melas (conclaves of purification) with the objective of making people embrace Hinduism. One such mela was organised in December 2011 at Shajahanpur in Uttar Pradesh. According to VHP activists, 1,200 people embraced Hinduism at the mela.

“Such melas were organised in Haryana and Jharkhand too last year,” an Uttar Pradesh-based VHP activist told Frontline. He said this initiative of the Sangh Parivar was a not-so-open challenge to the prosleytisation being carried out by Christian missionaries. Cumulatively, all these activities, from amending or drafting pieces of legislation to issuing administrative orders by BJP governments to the shudhi melas, signify that the Sangh Parivar is continuing on the Hindutva path using different means. At another level, the silence at the national level on the controversial core Hindutva issues combined with the pursuit of other aspects of the Hindutva agenda points to the political and organisational felicity of the Sangh Parivar. In fact, it has displayed this felicity repeatedly in the past four and a half decades.

In the 1970s, before the imposition of the Emergency in 1975, it aligned with the Jayaprakash Narayan-led Total Revolution, suggesting that it would play second fiddle to the Socialist leader. Post-Emergency and following the defeat of the Congress in 1977, the RSS even took the “boldest “decision to merge the Jan Sangh with the Janata Party, which consisted of diverse groups ranging from the Socialist Party to the free market-oriented Swatantra Party. However, when the dual membership in the RSS became an issue in the Janata Party, it displayed the skill to reinvent itself as the BJP, with professed values of Gandhian socialism. By the mid-1980s, this adherence to Gandhian socialism was given up in favour of an aggressive Hindutva and the campaign for a Ram temple at the spot where the Babri Masjid stood in Ayodhya. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 took the emotive content out of the Ayodhya campaign, and the Sangh Parivar once again nuanced the aggressive pursuit of Hindutva. At the peak of the Ayodhya movement in 1990-92, large sections of the Sangh Parivar had seen visions of the rise of a pan-Hindu political identity, but the demolition of the Babri Masjid alienated sizable segments of secular Hindu society, even those who had regard for some leaders in the BJP.

Sailing in many political boats

Consequently, the BJP was forced to tone down the rhetoric on Ayodhya. This led to the strengthening of the BJP-led NDA in the mid-1990s, leading to its six-year stint in power at the Centre between 1998 and 2004. This period witnessed several subtle and not-so-subtle attempts at pursuing the Hindutva social and cultural agenda, especially in the area of education. The fall of the NDA government in 2004 once again signified the reduction of the Hindutva quotient even while taking it forward in the States. Clearly, these stratagems have involved sailing in many political boats. An overall assessment would have it that the Sangh Parivar has carried all this out adeptly.

It is not as though these processes and the multi-boat sailing have been carried out without a hitch. The tumbling down from the “Ayodhya high” does contain the message that majoritarianism and its political manifestations are not effective tools to attain power in a country like India, where Hindu society has been historically divided for centuries on the basis of oppressive caste discrimination. The period after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which signified the alienation of sections of Hindu society also had caste dimensions. It was the lower strata of society that effectively stopped the rise of the pan-Hindu political identity. At the same time, the leadership of the Sangh Parivar is driven by the realisation that its attempts to develop a pan-Hindu political identity can go forward only with extraordinarily assertive Hindu identity politics, characterised by slogans such as Ayodhya Ram mandir and cow protection. The Sangh Parivar hopes that such assertion will ultimately lead to the creation of a pan-Hindu political identity.

The combination of multiple public postures and the periodic stints in power have indeed resulted in many problems for the Sangh Parivar, including ideological confusion and clashes between the different outfits in the Hindutva combine. One significant clash in the last decade and a half has been between the VHP and the BJP, following the VHP's accusations about the dilution of the Hindutva agenda by the BJP. This climate, which was marked by stints in power at the Centre and in the States, also gave rise to a culture of personality cult in the BJP and tussles within its leadership. So much so that, at a conclave in 2004, the RSS leadership even contemplated propping up another political arm for the Sangh Parivar. The RSS top brass' contention at that meeting was that the BJP no longer fulfilled the primary objective that the Sangh Parivar had envisioned for it: that of developing a pan-Hindu political identity.

A number of meetings of the Sangh Parivar constituents grappled with these issues between 2004 and 2009 even as one-time Hindutva stars such as former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati caused one organisational problem after another. While issues relating to Advani sprang from his controversial “positive” assessment of Pakistan founder Mahammad Ali Jinnah and his reluctance to demit office as party president, Uma Bharati was perceived as one prone to get into personality tussles with other leaders. She even went out of the BJP during this turbulent period. According to Sangh Parivar insiders, it cannot be said that the issues have been settled, although the BJP has more or less fallen in line.
[. . .]
FULL TEXT HERE: http://www.frontline.in/stories/20120224290300400.htm

Communalism in School curriculum via Sangh Parivar's “Indianisation reforms”

From: Frontline, 11 February 2012

Communal curriculum

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN

The Sangh Parivar is systematically following its “Indianisation reforms” in schools run by its affiliates.

SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP

A BJP leader holds a copy of the Bhagvad Gita. In November 2011, the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka introduced lessons on the Bhagvad Gita in schools.

THE attempts of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)-led Sangh Parivar at “saffronising” education attracted widespread attention between 1998 and 2004 when the Hindutva combine's political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), held the reins of power at the Centre. During that period, especially between 1998 and 2002, the BJP's Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi advanced a number of initiatives self-professedly aimed at making “the content of education in the primary, secondary and higher stages Indianised, nationalised and spiritualised”.

Specific proposals were brought in as part of this effort in various fora, including at the national-level conferences of State Education Ministers and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). These proposals argued for the incorporation of studies on the Hindu way of life and also the Vedas and the Upanishads into the curriculum. The strong response and resistance to these moves from academics, educationists and secular political parties forced the Sangh Parivar to give up these “Indianisation reforms”. However, periodic reports emanating from different parts of the country, particularly from the States ruled by the BJP, have underscored the fact that the party and its multifarious associate organisations in the Sangh Parivar are systematically and quietly pursuing the Hindutva agenda in education.

In November 2011, the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka introduced lessons and discourses on the Bhagvad Gita in schools. They sought to make the teaching of the Gita compulsory. But following widespread opposition from political parties, educationists and even Education Department officials, the governments in both the States were forced to make Gita studies optional. A Central government official told Frontline that officials in Karnataka had cautioned the State government that the introduction of Gita studies in the syllabus would lead to divisions among students from different backgrounds.

According to Father Cedric Prakash Lobo, an Ahmedabad-based social activist, attempts at saffronisation are being pursued in a discreet manner in Gujarat. “On paper, the highly objectionable anti-minority, gender-insensitive contents of various textbooks introduced in Gujarat in 2001 have reportedly been withdrawn. But these portions are still brought into discussion in classrooms across the State.” The portions referred to by Father Prakash Lobo include the ones that brand minority communities as “one of the foremost problems facing the country”. This portion, introduced in the social studies textbook of class IX, was under the chapter titled “Problems of the country and their solutions”. It listed “minority communities” as the foremost problem, followed by the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, smuggling, corruption and bribery. The chapter also termed Muslims, Christians and Parsis as “foreigners”. The government claims that these portions have been erased, but reports from different parts of the State indicate that references are made to these portions even now.

Father Prakash Lobo told Frontline that the elaborate but subtle political and ideological game being played in the State's education sector subverts the constitutionally mandated parameters of the education system. Chief Minister Narendra Modi figures in the classrooms, from the primary to higher levels, in various forms. Modi's life story is part of the suggested reading for classes at the secondary level. On Teachers Day, you see Modi addressing classes across the country through television and the Internet. “In many ways Teacher's Day is not the day of teachers in Gujarat, it is Modi projection day,” Father Prakash Lobo pointed out. According to a senior official in the Central government, the saffronisation initiatives of the BJP-ruled States are at complete variance with the current requirements of the educational system and the curriculum. “What is required is the upgrading of the study material and its orientation to a changing world. But these State governments do not seem to have this as a priority.”

While attempts are being made in fits and starts in all BJP-ruled States, the massive parallel education machinery of the Sangh Parivar is also growing steadily. This machinery, which is spearheaded by organisations such as Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan, predominantly follows a syllabus that has communal overtones. Take the case of Vidya Bharati, which was established in 1977 as an apex body with the objective of providing a coherent organisational setting for the activities of the RSS in the field of education. Vidya Bharati runs 28,000 educational institutions with approximately 32,50,000 students on their rolls. The organisation employs approximately 1,60,000 teachers. These schools are run in all States except Mizoram.

The organisation's promotional material says: “Vidya Bharati caters to the educational needs of students of pre-primary, primary, secondary & senior secondary schools, colleges and post-graduates training colleges. Vidya Bharati conducts and promotes research in education and has its own publication division which brings out books, magazines and research studies. The organisation is part of the Sangh Parivar and is understood to be integral to promote Hindutva nationalism by targeting areas with limited facilities.” It goes on to add that one of the ultimate objectives of the organisation is to “develop a National System of Education which would help to build a generation of young men and women that is committed to Hindutva and infused with patriotic fervour”.

The organisation's growth underscores the systematic work that has been carried out by the Sangh Parivar in this core area. In the first two decades of its existence, Vidya Bharati set up 14,000 schools at the nursery, primary and secondary levels and had over 18 lakh students under its tutelage. In that period, there were 80,000 teachers on its rolls. These numbers almost doubled in the next 12 years.

In fact, many of these State and regional institutions have been around for more than four decades. The schools themselves are known by a variety of names – Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Bharatiya Vidya Niketan, Gita Vidyalaya, and Saraswati Bal Vidyalaya. Significantly, the State and regional governing bodies of these institutions do not always go by the name of Vidya Bharati. They use different names depending on the socio-political situation in each State.

As early as 1996, an evaluation of Vidya Bharati textbooks carried out by the NCERT found that they were “designed to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism in the name of inculcating knowledge of culture in the young generation”.

PTI

SCHOOLCHILDREN PERFORM SURYANAMASKAR at the Sabarmati river front in Ahmedabad. Chief Minister Narendra Modi's life story is part of the suggested reading for classes at the secondary level in Gujarat.

The NCERT thought it was a matter of “serious concern” that such material was being utilised for instruction in schools, which “presumably, have been accorded recognition”. It found that Vidya Bharati schools prescribed a series of booklets under titles such as Sanskriti Jnan Pareeksha (cultural knowledge examination) and Sanskriti Jnan Pareeksha Prasnottari (cultural knowledge examination questions and answers). These consist of a series of questions and answers, which are provided in a manner that makes the rigour of original thinking superfluous. Students are required to learn by rote this “catechistic series”, as the NCERT characterised it. These booklets stated categorically that the “Ram Janmabhoomi was invaded no fewer than 77 times between A.D. 1528 and A.D. 1914” and “3.5 lakh devotees laid down their lives in defending this holy site in that span of time” and that November 2, 1990, when an attempt by Hindutva hordes to mount an assault on the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was repulsed by the police, would go down as a “black day” in India's history.

The course material used in Vidya Bharati schools throughout the country is the same.

While Vidya Bharati seeks to function within the parameters of the organised education system, the Sangh Parivar also sponsors a number of Ekal Vidyalayas (one-teacher schools) that focus on the informal illiteracy eradication movement. These schools obtain government grants but in States such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh and even in parts of Assam, the majority of these institutions are under the control of the Sangh Parivar. As a consequence, the teaching material overtly promotes Hindutva communalism.

A study conducted in 2006 by Avdesh Kaushal, renowned social activist based in Dehradun in Uttarakhand and the founder of the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), highlighted this. The study, carried out in Jharkhand and Assam, pointed out that even days of the week were taught by employing metaphors and icons related to Hindutva. He suggested steps to correct this.

However, Kaushal told Frontline, that even after five years he found many of the Ekal Vidyalayas using the same offensive material. “I had occasion to travel in Jharkhand in the last months of 2011 and I found that no course correction had been carried out by the government,” he said.

According to informal estimates, Ekal Vidyalayas function in about 35,000 villages catering to 10 lakh students. The Sangh Parivar's own estimate is that more than 60 per cent of the Ekal Vidyalayas follow its ideological footprint. Clearly, despite being out of power at the Centre for the last seven years and despite the absence of aggressive campaigns on the so-called nationalist reforms in the education sector, the Sangh Parivar's pursuit of the Hindutva agenda in this area continues unabated.

In a sense, it is a pursuit that has imparted to the Sangh Parivar enough clout to force the withdrawal of A.K. Ramnujan's celebrated essay on 300 Ramayanas from Delhi University's syllabus and stop the national seminar and a film show on Kashmir organised by Symbiosis University, Pune.

Sangh Parivar resorts to multiple offensives on the social and cultural fronts

From: Frontline, 11 February 2012

War by other means

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN

In a shift in strategy, the Sangh Parivar resorts to multiple offensives on the social and cultural fronts.

KIRAN BAKALE

RSS volunteers ata three-day camp, Hindu Shakti Sangam, from January 27 to 29 at Tarihal near Hubli in north Karnataka.

THE design of the array of political, social and religious outfits in the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)-led Sangh Parivar is such that they can jointly and severally advance their collective ideological and organisational objectives using diverse tactics and stratagems. Multi-speak is an important component of the strategies employed by the Hindutva combine. At times these organisations adopt seemingly contradictory views on a variety of issues.

Sometimes they even put their fundamentalist slogans on the back burner in the interest of political or organisational expediency. But, even while doing so, the Parivar affiliates take forward the various facets of the central ideological theme of Hindutva, particularly at the social and cultural levels.

This aspect of the right wing has once again come to the fore through a number of initiatives taken by a clutch of Hindutva organisations, particularly the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political arm of the Sangh Parivar, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), its self-professed ideological sword arm.

Central to this new focus on the social and cultural manoeuvres by the Hindutva combine is the passage of a number of amendments to strengthen the Madhya Pradesh Gauvansh Pratishedh Adhiniyam (Madhya Pradesh Bovine Prohibition Act, 2004). The amendments passed by the Shivraj Singh Chauhan-led BJP government have added a new dimension to the cow protection laws existing in many States. The amendments have clauses that make even the consumption of beef illegal. It also stipulates that a person found guilty of cow slaughter will be liable to face up to seven years of imprisonment instead of the earlier provision of three years.

This renewed aggressive pursuit of the long-standing Hindutva agenda of cow protection has assumed significance at various levels. The slogan has been a key component of the pan-Hindu identity politics that the proponents of Hindutva have sought to advance for over eight decades. Since its inception in 1925, the RSS has formed a widespread network of Gau Raksha Samitis (cow protection societies) that maintain gaushalas (cowsheds), particularly in north India. These societies have a history of instigating riots over the issue of cow protection. They had apparently played a divisive role even during the freedom struggle. At the political level, cow protection has been a key theme of the BJP since the 1950s when it went by the name of Jan Sangh. The slogans on this issue promoted a divisive agenda. One oft-repeated slogan of the cow protection societies is: “Cow is holy for Hindus, Muslims eat it to insult the Hindu faith.” The Chauhan government's preparations for introducing the Gau-Vansh Vadh Pratishedh (Sanshodhan) Vidheyak, 2010 (Prohibition of Slaughter of Cow Progeny (Amendment) Bill), were apparently triggered by a massive signature campaign undertaken by the VHP through its Vishwa Mangala Gou Grama Yatra, which travelled through different parts of the country in early 2010.

It is also significant that the aggressive revival of the cow protection agenda comes at a time when the BJP has apparently put its core ideological agenda, consisting of the construction of a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, abrogation of Article 370, and the imposition of a uniform civil code, on the back burner. The BJP has not launched any aggressive campaign on these three issues for more than half a decade, since the shock defeat it suffered in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Clearly, political expediency has dictated this withdrawal because many of the BJP's allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), such as the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), have expressed reservations about advancing these issues. This context has also led to some debate within the BJP, with sections arguing that the Hindutva element of the party needs to be diluted and replaced with a laissez faire, free market-oriented political thrust.

However, the Chauhan government's move shows that while the BJP and its central leadership may not be as vocal as they used to be on the three proclaimed core ideological issues and may even discuss alternative ideas in pursuing right-wing politics, the party's State units would continue to advance Hindutva causes, which have pronounced anti-minority dimensions, in manifold ways. It is not Madhya Pradesh alone that has traversed this path. All the States that have come under the political and organisational influence of the Sangh Parivar have shown this tendency in varying degrees. Before Chauhan's cow protection initiative, Gujarat had come up with amendments to an Act that dealt with the prohibition of transfer of immovable property and stipulated provisions for the protection of tenants from eviction from premises in disturbed areas. The amendment gave the government the right to decide how the transaction of property in disturbed areas should take place. Given Gujarat's track record of the past 10 years, as also the prevailing administrative climate in the State, this was obviously heavily loaded against the Muslim minority. The Chhattisgarh government's anti-conversion Bill of 2006 had similar characteristics.

CRUCIAL TOOL

A closer look at this phenomenon has revealed that the trend of promoting Hindutva-oriented legislative and administrative action as well as the discrimination of minorities is all the more pronounced in States where the BJP had been in power for relatively long periods. A look at the functioning of the BJP-ruled governments underscores the point that numerous aspects of governance, including the drafting of legislation, policy orientation, issuance of executive orders, maintenance of law and order and routine day-to-day administrative functioning, are exploited for this purpose (see separate stories). Almost all BJP-ruled States have, at some point or the other, witnessed attempts to promote the Hindutva world view through revision of textbooks. This is in tune with the view of the Sangh Parivar leadership that education is a crucial tool in promoting its visions about society and the world. In Madhya Pradesh, even the nomenclature of teachers has been revised as part of this exercise. The Chauhan government's preferred title for teachers is rishi.

A variety of Sangh Parivar constituents such as the Bajrang Dal, the VHP and the Seva Bharati supplement this Hindutva thrust using methods ranging from social service to propaganda to threats to downright oppression. While the Seva Bharati and Ekal Vidyalayas have a record of sustained work in the realm of education and promotion of literacy, outfits such as the Bajrang Dal seek to dominate local communities by imposing Hindutva-oriented social mores and religious practices. The efforts in education and social sectors are facilitated in numerous ways by a number of Hindutva organisations, including those based abroad. Here too, there is a range of outfits that the Sangh Parivar can choose from at different times for different tasks. The VHP of America openly embraces Hindutva while organisations such as the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) are camouflaged under the constitutional format of a charity group. The IDRF has provided huge financial support (running into millions of dollars) to organisations in the education sector.

The social impact of these manoeuvres is undoubtedly far-reaching. Reports from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP has been in power since 1998 and 2003 respectively, point to increasing ghettoisation of minority communities, particularly the Muslim community. These reports also underscore the systematic attempts to subvert the secular character of the education system (see separate story). The Independent People's Tribunal on Communalism, which consisted of eminent citizens like the historian K.N. Panikkar, Justice S.N. Bhargava, the sociologist Dr Asghar Ali Engineer, and Planning Commission member Syeeda Hameed, studied issues relating to this in detail five years ago by getting depositions from people in 16 States, including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.

VIJAY VERMA /PTI

BJP LEADER L.K. ADVANI receives Ganga jal from Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri (not in picture) during his Jan Chetna Yatra, in Haridwar on November 18.

The tribunal pointed out methodical attempts to marginalise the minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians. Specifically, it also noted that there were attempts at systematic clearing or dispossession of lands belonging to members of minority communities. The subtle and not-so-subtle communalisation of the bureaucracy, especially lower-level officials, the police and the district administration, facilitated these discriminatory processes. The tribunal noted that “the criminal justice system in several States appears to be under the influence of Hindutva force and consequently there are instances of false cases being foisted against innocent Muslims”. Other trends pointed out by the tribunal included denial of education to members of minority communities as well as attempts at their social and economic boycott.

The BJP-ruled States present any number of instances of the practice of the trends identified by the tribunal. The circular issued by the Chauhan government last year to all police stations directing them to collect information about Christians, including data on the number of priests, bishops, schools and institutions, is a case in point. The circular directed the police stations to find out what sort of political patronage the community received and what their economic sources were and to identify Christians with criminal antecedents.

Conclaves of purification

While these initiatives of the BJP governments and the Sangh Parivar affiliates continue apace in diverse areas, the VHP has been quietly organising shudhi melas (conclaves of purification) with the objective of making people embrace Hinduism. One such mela was organised in December 2011 at Shajahanpur in Uttar Pradesh. According to VHP activists, 1,200 people embraced Hinduism at the mela.

“Such melas were organised in Haryana and Jharkhand too last year,” an Uttar Pradesh-based VHP activist told Frontline. He said this initiative of the Sangh Parivar was a not-so-open challenge to the prosleytisation being carried out by Christian missionaries. Cumulatively, all these activities, from amending or drafting pieces of legislation to issuing administrative orders by BJP governments to the shudhi melas, signify that the Sangh Parivar is continuing on the Hindutva path using different means. At another level, the silence at the national level on the controversial core Hindutva issues combined with the pursuit of other aspects of the Hindutva agenda points to the political and organisational felicity of the Sangh Parivar. In fact, it has displayed this felicity repeatedly in the past four and a half decades.

In the 1970s, before the imposition of the Emergency in 1975, it aligned with the Jayaprakash Narayan-led Total Revolution, suggesting that it would play second fiddle to the Socialist leader. Post-Emergency and following the defeat of the Congress in 1977, the RSS even took the “boldest “decision to merge the Jan Sangh with the Janata Party, which consisted of diverse groups ranging from the Socialist Party to the free market-oriented Swatantra Party. However, when the dual membership in the RSS became an issue in the Janata Party, it displayed the skill to reinvent itself as the BJP, with professed values of Gandhian socialism. By the mid-1980s, this adherence to Gandhian socialism was given up in favour of an aggressive Hindutva and the campaign for a Ram temple at the spot where the Babri Masjid stood in Ayodhya. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 took the emotive content out of the Ayodhya campaign, and the Sangh Parivar once again nuanced the aggressive pursuit of Hindutva. At the peak of the Ayodhya movement in 1990-92, large sections of the Sangh Parivar had seen visions of the rise of a pan-Hindu political identity, but the demolition of the Babri Masjid alienated sizable segments of secular Hindu society, even those who had regard for some leaders in the BJP.

Sailing in many political boats

Consequently, the BJP was forced to tone down the rhetoric on Ayodhya. This led to the strengthening of the BJP-led NDA in the mid-1990s, leading to its six-year stint in power at the Centre between 1998 and 2004. This period witnessed several subtle and not-so-subtle attempts at pursuing the Hindutva social and cultural agenda, especially in the area of education. The fall of the NDA government in 2004 once again signified the reduction of the Hindutva quotient even while taking it forward in the States. Clearly, these stratagems have involved sailing in many political boats. An overall assessment would have it that the Sangh Parivar has carried all this out adeptly.

It is not as though these processes and the multi-boat sailing have been carried out without a hitch. The tumbling down from the “Ayodhya high” does contain the message that majoritarianism and its political manifestations are not effective tools to attain power in a country like India, where Hindu society has been historically divided for centuries on the basis of oppressive caste discrimination. The period after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which signified the alienation of sections of Hindu society also had caste dimensions. It was the lower strata of society that effectively stopped the rise of the pan-Hindu political identity. At the same time, the leadership of the Sangh Parivar is driven by the realisation that its attempts to develop a pan-Hindu political identity can go forward only with extraordinarily assertive Hindu identity politics, characterised by slogans such as Ayodhya Ram mandir and cow protection. The Sangh Parivar hopes that such assertion will ultimately lead to the creation of a pan-Hindu political identity.

The combination of multiple public postures and the periodic stints in power have indeed resulted in many problems for the Sangh Parivar, including ideological confusion and clashes between the different outfits in the Hindutva combine. One significant clash in the last decade and a half has been between the VHP and the BJP, following the VHP's accusations about the dilution of the Hindutva agenda by the BJP. This climate, which was marked by stints in power at the Centre and in the States, also gave rise to a culture of personality cult in the BJP and tussles within its leadership. So much so that, at a conclave in 2004, the RSS leadership even contemplated propping up another political arm for the Sangh Parivar. The RSS top brass' contention at that meeting was that the BJP no longer fulfilled the primary objective that the Sangh Parivar had envisioned for it: that of developing a pan-Hindu political identity.

A number of meetings of the Sangh Parivar constituents grappled with these issues between 2004 and 2009 even as one-time Hindutva stars such as former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati caused one organisational problem after another. While issues relating to Advani sprang from his controversial “positive” assessment of Pakistan founder Mahammad Ali Jinnah and his reluctance to demit office as party president, Uma Bharati was perceived as one prone to get into personality tussles with other leaders. She even went out of the BJP during this turbulent period. According to Sangh Parivar insiders, it cannot be said that the issues have been settled, although the BJP has more or less fallen in line.

V.V. KRISHNAN

L.K. ADVANI, CHIEF Ministers Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) and B.C. Khanduri (Uttarakhand), BJP president Rajnath Singh, Chief Ministers B.S. Yeddyurappa (Karnakata), Narendra Modi (Gujarat) and Shivraj Singh Chauhan (Madhya Pradesh) at the BJP National Executive meeting in New Delhi in 2008.

“At present, politically and organisationally the Sangh leadership is asserting itself, at least more steadily than in the 2000-04 period. The Hindutva-oriented initiatives that one has seen in different States recently are also a reflection of this assertion,” an RSS functionary based in Lucknow said.

According to Sangh Parivar insiders, the appointment of Nitin Gadkari as BJP president was an important step in this consolidation. The periodic meetings, both formal and informal, organised by the RSS to bring all major Hindutva outfits together have facilitated the multitasking by the national and State units of the BJP and other Sangh Parivar organisations.

The last major formal Samanwaya Baithak (togetherness meeting) of the Sangh Parivar took place in Ujjain in August 2011. At this meeting, it was decided that the strategy for the BJP central leadership would be to raise an anti-corruption campaign along with civil society organisations and their leaders such as Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, while the State governments would focus on “Hindutva-oriented good governance”.

Assessments in the Sangh Parivar on the success of this good governance are divided. Sections of the RSS and the VHP still consider that the Hindutva quotient of many BJP State governments is not “up to the mark”, while those running the governments aver that they are doing their best. Whatever the final evaluation on this debate, there is little doubt that the impact of the Hindutva-oriented good governance on the minority communities is a painful one.

Why the opposwition to use of Urdu in FIR's a problem?

From: The Times of India

Use of Urdu In FIRs Baffles Courts, commoners

Sukhbir Siwach & Hina Rohatki, TNN | Feb 5, 2012, 05.13PM IST

CHANDIGARH: Sounds like a line from a ghazal? It's something more prosaic-these lines are a part of an FIR at a police station in Panchkula district. It means: At this time, the police station's daily diary register number 2 records that the complainant was present at the police post, got his complaint registered, the details of which are as under..."

A heavy spattering of Urdu and Persian, remnant of the days of pre-Independence undivided Punjab, in FIRs and daily diary reports (DDRs) by the Haryana Police have left not only the common man but also judges baffled as they scurry to decipher the text.

The practice continues despite policemen being told way back in 2005 by the then DGP to use Hindi while writing FIRs, reports of cases, investigation and research reports on disputes. Even judges in various Haryana districts have time and again asked the police to use simple Hindi. Munshis, who pen reports in police stations, have not changed their ways over the years and sources say, even the young ones who join learn from their seniors and continue the practice.

"Over the years, policemen simply follow set precedents as they do not wish to make an effort at simplifying things. The words are picked up from earlier FIRs and they become a part of a munshi's vocabulary," said professor of linguistics at Panjan University, Mohammad Khalid.

Even judges have problems deciphering the meaning. During a judgment on November 21 last year, additional sessions judge, Bhiwani, M M Dhonchak had directed the superintendent of police, to ensure that the practice of using Urdu words should be abandoned and instead Hindi or English should be used.

"The reply to the bail application (of the case) contains several words of Urdu and other languages with which this court is not conversant and it was with great difficulty that this court could apprehend the contents ... time and again this court has expressed its displeasure over this irresponsible attitude of the police," the judge had said.

"Police have been writing words even without knowing their meaning. Even lawyers lawyers failed to understand what they meant during questioning in courts," then DGP had said in his communication in 2005.

The present Haryana DGP R S Dalal, however, feels use of such words can continue. "Many such words have become part of our daily conversation. Largely, open-minded people of the state welcome all languages and cultures," Dalal told TOI.

"We should not be too rigid on the use of pure Hindi in place of Urdu, which has become a part of common vocabulary in many cases. However, the language should not be overtly technical. Most policed stations now provide FIRs in computerised formats and in Hindi. This has been appreciated by many courts," said Haryana home secretary, Samir Mathur.

Hard Jargon

Tameel: Execution

Aala-e-katal: Murder weapon

Taftish: Investigation

Daryaft: Plea

Hasab jabta: As per law

Missal: File

Tarmeem: Amendment

Ishtgassa: Petition

(With inputs from Ajay Sura, Bhaskar Mukherjee and Pradeep Rai )

Hindutva Politics and The Holy Cow

The politics of the holy cow

By Manoj Joshi

4th February 2012

It should be no surprise that in India, the cow and politics go hand in hand.

The Sangh Parivar's first move to mobilise the 'masses' came through the anti-cow slaughter movement of 1966.

The vehicle was the then newly created Vishwa Hindu Parishad. But, the movement did not yield any political dividend, despite the unexpected, or really unanticipated, attack on Parliament in 1967 by thousands of sadhus demanding a ban on cow slaughter.

Holy cow

In recent times we have been once again witnessing an effort to use the gentle bovine as a political vehicle by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Last month, the party's manifestos for the state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand featured issues relating to the cow.

Last week the UP election manifesto of the BJP promised a free cow for every below poverty line (BPL) family.

As Mail Today correspondent Piyush Srivastava pointed out, this would involve, at a minimum, a cost of Rs 56,000 crore to the state exchequer, since there are 5.60 crore BPL families in the state, and the going rate for cows ranges from Rs 10,000-Rs 20,000.

That will be approximately 33 per cent of the total state budget (Rs 1,69,416 crore in 2011-12).

And the BJP is offering an additional subsidy of Rs 750 per month for a cow and Rs 500 for a buffalo to small and medium farmers which would add another Rs 17,000 crore to the bill.

According to the National Sample Survey Organisation, 43 per cent of the rural households in the state are landless.

No doubt most of them belong to the BPL category who are barely able to feed and shelter themselves; now they will also get a cow to shelter and to feed. Not to be outdone, the party's Uttarakhand unit's manifesto came up with even more far-reaching proposals.

If reelected, the BJP would encourage the production of filtered Gau Mootra (cow's urine) in the state.

Besides the usual development issues, the manifesto flagged the promotion of cow products and cow reverence in the state.

As the State unit in-charge and national general secretary Thawarchand Gehlot explained, cow's urine would be filtered and cleaned to produce a drink called 'ark' which would have various benefits including curing cancer and injuries.
The Sangh Parivar has long promoted the use of cow's urine and dung as medicine

The Sangh Parivar has long promoted the use of cow's urine and dung as medicine

Cow's urine would also form the basis of medicines for treating eye and ear diseases, as well as toothpaste, deter- gents and aftershave.

Of course, the urine would also be used for conventional requirements such as fertilisers. There is nothing new in all this.

The Sangh Parivar has long promoted the use of cow's urine and dung as medicine.

In 2010, two leading newspapers reported that an institution which was affiliated to the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh had got a US patent for an anti-cancer drug extracted from cow's urine.

Apparently the institution, Go Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra, had earlier received patents for other 'bio' enhancers and anti-cancer drugs. The item also noted that the 'drug' had been tested on three patients, hardly the norm for clinical trials.

A hilarious sidelight to this is that the Parivar kooks claim that the virtues of the cow are limited to Indian breeds.

Some claim that the milk of foreign hybrids may even be toxic.

In a 'learned' article written in the Sangh Parivar journal Organiser in August 2009, Vaidya Kulamarva Jayakrishna laid out the various advantages of cow's milk-it was nutritive, good for the eyes, brain and heart, it promoted immunity and could alleviate a variety of illnesses.

But, he noted, 'We have to understand that these properties have been explained in the context of desi or indigenous breed of cow and not the hybrid ones which are the major source of milk to us today.'

Cow slaughter and cow protection have been a vehicle of the Hindutva movement from the outset.

The Sangh Parivar's first move to mobilise the 'masses' came through the anti-cow slaughter movement of 1966

Prior to the use of the Babri Masjid for the Ram Temple agitation, the Parivar had hoped to use an agitation calling for the ban of cow slaughter as its political vehicle.

This issue is still doing the rounds. In December, Madhya Pradesh's new anticow slaughter bill received presidential assent. Under the new bill, the existing anti-cow slaughter law was reinforced by enhancing the punishment for killing cows and transporting beef to up to seven years' imprisonment.

The Act also gave officials draconian powers of search and arrest and, worse, put the burden of proof on the accused. Immediately after the bill became law, there were a spate of attacks on the Muslim community by Bajrang Dal activists.

This was not unexpected, since the purpose of the law was, indeed, as much to harass them as to promote 'cow reverence' as a means of consolidating the Hindu community behind the BJP.

Mr Chouhan is a canny and able chief minister.

Significantly, what his bill did was to amend an Act penalising cow slaughter passed when Uma Bharti was the chief minister.

He is probably using the issue to cement his position with the kooks who dominate the higher echelons of the Sangh Parivar. With Modi's PM candidacy running into a roadblock of opposition, Chouhan is clearly positioning himself as an alternative. Pasts Hindus do not actually worship the cow.

The bovine, however, has had a major role in Indian mythology, religious ritual, sentiment and everyday life. The five products of milk, curd, ghee, urine and dung form part of religious ritual.

There is no revulsion to the urine or the dung of a cow. On the other hand, Indians will swear by the virtues of ghee and the value of milk and curd in their diet. Poets sing of the beauty of godhuli, the sight of the evening sun's rays piercing the dust raised by cows coming back home from pasture.

The dung of the cow is mixed with straw to make patties which are the basic fuel in many households, and dung is also mixed with clay and used to coat the plaster of the walls of a mud-shack.

When I was a child living in Almora, in the 1950s, the grandmothers of the house would often sprinkle cow's urine on the sheets soiled by bed-wetting children.

They said that it was the best thing available for removing the bad odour which would not go away with an ordinary washing. It was a primitive remedy, but life was like that-no electricity, little or no milk, eggs, sugar, or antibiotics, even for middle class families.

Given the semi-literate and cynical plane upon which politics operates in this country, it would be useless to argue that the role of the cow has actually evolved over time and that one of the most sacred texts of the Hindus, the Rig Veda, even speaks of cow sacrifice and beef eating.

I can understand why my grandmothers did what they did.

The burden of tradition was heavy on them. In a primitive economy, the cow did play a big role in the lives of ordinary folk.

Religion sanctified it and practice, such as the use of cow dung for fuel, cemented it. Cows remain an important part of Indian life even today, but not on the plane that the Parivar wants them to be.

But my memories are of an era when smallpox and TB were big killers, and penicillin had just about arrived in India; a lot has changed since.

But it would be worthwhile exploring just what it is that is impelling the BJP to hark back to that era and beyond in its quest for political moksha.

Source URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2096310/MANOJ-JOSHI-The-politics-holy-cow.html#ixzz1lX7wTHPw

Letter by RB Sreekumar warns SIT may file closure in complaint by Zakia Jafri / Teesta Setalvad

http://www.sacw.net/article2529.html

Stifling Freedom of Expression: Beyond the Obvious

by Ram Puniyani

The whole fiasco of Salman Rushdie not coming to Jaipur Literary Festival, JLF, (Jan 2012) has been a great shame on Indian democracy. With the news that Salman Rushdie will be coming to JLF, Deoband seminary issued a protest against Rushdie’s coming to India to attend the same. This was due to the underlying understanding about the derogatory references to Prophet Mohammad by Rushdie’s in his novel Satanic Verses. As such Rushdie being an India born person has the right to come to the country without any VISA, and has been coming to India off and on. This time around it became a major issue in the public sphere and the conservative Muslim groups took up the issue in a strong way. There were many an associated things, Rushdie dropping his trip on the ground that there is an intelligence report that assassins have been dispatched to kill him. There are claims that this was a hoax deliberately planted to dissuade him from coming. Then, the few authors read non offensive extracts from Satanic verses and were prevented from doing so by the organizers in the face of the strong protest from a group of conservative Muslims.

At the same time the tongues started wagging that the Muslims are fanatic, Islam is conservative and restrictive and many biases against Muslims started re-circulating. This came as one more opportunity for those intensifying Islamophobia. At this time a diverse section of Muslim leadership and scholars also pointed out that Rushdie has full right to express his opinion, to attend the festival. Satanic Verses, a 1988 novel by the author has been banned from being imported to India and its publication was prevented on the grounds that it will hurt the sentiments of section of Muslims. While Ruling Congress has been playing games with the elections in mind, the main opposition BJP has been criticizing the Congress. BJP, while critical of, Congress on this issue has been associated with the groups which have been demanding similar bans and have been vandalizing exhibitions and protesting against M.F. Husain’s paintings, demanding the withdrawal of A. K.Ramanujan’s essay on Ramayana and much more.

One can also recall similar stifling of freedom of expression from Hindutva stable, their agitations-attacks for demanding ban of books/paintings etc. Their acts of vandalizing are a long list, attack on Hussain’s paintings and withdrawal of Ramanujan’s essay from University book being the few of these. In both the responses of Muslim Fundamentalists and Hindutva group, what is common is their opposition to liberal stance, and sticking to the conservative thoughts, protests and much more. Their interpretation of the works of art and writing is narrow and both have no tolerance for the view of ‘others’, both streams are far away from liberal mind set. Freedom of expression, respect for divergent views, which is the core value of democracy does not exist for them.

While reiterating that freedom of expression is the core pillar of progressive, modern society, one recalls that this attack on freedom of expression has gone up in the society more so during last three decades. It needs to be linked to various political forces globally and locally. The politics of oil, projection of the Salafi version of Islam as the Islam, the Madrassas set up by US to train Taliban, Al Qaeda and the threat perceived by sections of Muslim community globally has given rise to the reaction leading to tendencies of conservative world view. With attacks on many a Muslim countries in the oil zone and demonization of Muslims through US media’s coining of the term ‘Islamic Terrorism”, the psyche of Muslim community has come under a stress. This demonization of Muslim community is so gross that the feeling of insecurity comes in and it strengthens the conservative thought process.

In India, the things are much worse. In the aftermath of Partition, the seeds of communal hatred sowed by the communal organizations, Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha-RSS, have led to the mind set which triggered communal violence, which came back strongly in post Independence India. In this communal violence, 90% victims are Muslims, while they are 13.4% in population. The series of violence going from riots to carnage, to pogrom has created an atmosphere of gross insecurity amongst the Muslims. This insecurity is the fertile ground on which the fundamentalists find the merry hunting ground. Salman Rushdie tells us that Satanic verses is not banned in Egypt, Turkey and has been unbanned in post revolution Libya. There is a complex interplay between the global factors leading to Muslim insecurity and the local condition of Muslims, where they face the violence from majoritarian political groups operating in the name of religion. The physical insecurity amongst minorities leads to the situation where identity related issues become more important. This in turn leads to the influence of Mullahs, conservative world view and intolerance to others’ views.

The impact of majoritarian politics in the name of religion has a different dynamics. It creates a feeling of insecurity amongst large sections of majority by projecting the imaginary fear of minorities. In India this has been the handiwork of Hindutva politics. The politics of Hindutva, which resurfaced in the decades of 1980s, is built around the existential anxiety of upper caste/class in the face of social and political changes leading to the entry of downtrodden dalits and women in to the social space. The affluent-upper caste groups, in order to preserve their social-economic privileges hark upon identity politics, the like of Ram Janmbhumi movement-holy cow etc. The agenda of identity politics-politics in the name of religion, any religion for that matter, is to suppress the process of transformation of social equations of caste and gender. This politics of identity projects the ‘outside’ enemy in the form of minorities. The minorities are projected as the threat for majority and so the conservative mind set comes up. So in the country of Konark and Khajuraho, M.F. Husain’s old paintings of nude goddesses are ‘discovered’ and his exhibitions are rampaged. In the country where infinite versions of lord Ram story prevail, a Sahmat exhibition showing the Buddhist Jataka version is attacked, and Ramanujan’s celebrated essay, scientifically telling about diverse versions of Lord Ram story, is made to be withdrawn. This is another threat to freedom of expression, which does not come under as much criticism.

Both, majority and minority fundamentalisms are prevailing in the country; both these fundamentalisms attack the freedom of expression and liberal thought. They are regressive; still their etiology is very different. Amongst minorities the insecurity is the expression of defensive ‘turtle’ psychology while the fundamentalism from the majoritarian groups is expression of offensive agenda and it comes from its projecting the minorities as the threat to majority. No fundamentalism is good, they have their own dangers. The one from minority groups has many times been very visible as in Shah Bano case or in the present one in Rushdie case. The other from, the majoritiarian groups sometimes aggressive; sometimes subtle has much different potential. It aims to abolish democracy and bring in a fundamentalist regime. While taking the government to the task on Rushdie fiasco, one also needs to look beyond and realize that ‘physical insecurity’ (minorities) and ‘constructed insecurity’ (majoritarian politics) are the breeding ground for the intolerance. While recapitulating the Rushdie affair one also needs to keep in mind the aggressive agendas of a politics which cannot tolerate a Ramanujan or a Husain.