Frontline
March 28-April 10, 2009
Ways of Hindutva
by K.N. Panikkar
The violence in Gujarat and Orissa has generated disgust towards the Sangh Parivar, but Hindu communalism is seeking to refurbish its image.
AP
NO other phenomenon has affected life in the subcontinent so adversely as communalism. When this “monster” came on the stage as early as the beginning of the 18th century, as evidenced by a communal riot in Ahmedabad, no one perhaps had an inkling about the magnitude and character it might assume in future.
Although it took a long time for it to take centre stage, when it did, it had a devastating effect on Indian polity and society. Its inherent ability to divide people on the basis of religion and sow the seeds of mutual hatred led to the partition of the country. The people of India and Pakistan can ill afford to forget the human tragedy that Partition entailed. The pathos of Partition, which the Urdu writer Sadat Ali Manto so touchingly captured in Toba Tek Sing and Khol Do, or the masterly account in Bhishm Sahni’s Hindi novel, Tamas, tell us how devastating and brutal communalism can be.
The heart-rending experience of Partition, however, did not put an end to communalism. It only exacerbated it, at least in India, as the memories of inter-communal violence were invoked for political mobilisation. As a result, during the post-Independence period, communalism continued to plague social consciousness and colour political perspectives in the country. By the end of the 20th century, its influence had assumed such proportions that Hindu communal forces succeeded in wielding power at the Centre and in some States. This success heralded a new stage in the development of communalism and at the same time a tumultuous phase in the political history of the nation.
The access to power that the communal forces gained by the end of the 20th century was important for a variety of reasons. Among them, the most significant was the two-fold agenda that the communal forces pursued in order to perpetuate the newly acquired political power. They realised that controlling the state institutions in itself was not sufficient if they were to consolidate power and exercise it for a long time to their political advantage. It would be necessary to transform the character of the administration itself.
The secular administrative practices, which the Indian state had followed since Independence, albeit with limitations, were out of sync with the new regime. The Sangh Parivar expected from the state institutions active involvement in the pursuit of its communal agenda. In other words, it wanted the administration to shed its secular character and serve as the communal arm of the state. In pursuit of this objective, the governments led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), both at the Centre and in the States, ensured that communal elements were extensively, if not exclusively, recruited into various branches of the administration.
The extent to which it succeeded in this endeavour is difficult to ascertain, but it is fairly apparent that a conscious policy to induct Sangh Parivar cadre was followed. A good example is the police. It is widely reported that the police force in States ruled by the BJP, such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, has been “saffronised” by inducting recruits from the Sangh Parivar. The consequences are by now well known. In the communal conflagration in Gujarat in 2002, the police not only refused to intervene to save the victims but actually abetted members of organisations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal in their crimes.
Police partisanship has also been reported from Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and other States in which the BJP is or was in power. Almost all state institutions underwent such a transformation under BJP rule. When the National Democratic Alliance was defeated in the last elections, it was hoped that the secular character of the administration would be retrieved. However, it did not happen. The lack of political will was not the only reason. The communal elements were so well entrenched in the administration that they could prevent the attempts to recover secular practices. This has led to a paradox: a government pledged to secularism, but an administration predominantly manned by communal elements. As a result, communal influence remained unabated in administration. Even the Army, it is reported, was not free from the communal influence. If so, it is possible that the example of Lieutenant Colonel S.K. Purohit, who is accused of being the brain behind the Malegaon bomb blast, may not be an isolated instance.
What distinguished BJP rule from the previous administrations was the manner in which the government was used to realise the political agenda of creating a Hindu state. The Sangh Parivar looked upon the government not from the perspective of what was immediately possible, but as an instrument to create a communal future. As such, its main interest was to construct a social and political consciousness that would usher in and sustain a Hindu nation. That was the purpose for which the institutions of the state, particularly the ideological apparatuses, were used extensively.
Almost every initiative in the fields of education and culture were undertaken with such an intention. In order to realise it, the ideological apparatuses of the state were placed under the control of communal activists, ideologues and fellow travellers. They rewrote the national agenda in communal terms. Their interventions in the educational, cultural and intellectual fields sought to privilege indigenous knowledge over others and thus create a Hindu nationalist fervour. In the process, they sought to redefine the nation as Hindu.
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