Resources for all concerned with culture of authoritarianism in society, banalisation of communalism, (also chauvinism, parochialism and identity politics) rise of the far right in India (and with occasional information on other countries of South Asia and beyond)
As
Yogi Adityanath contended with balancing hardline Hindutva and the
demands of development during his first year as UP's chief minister,
four members of his radical religious youth organisation went through
their own struggles.
In
December 2017, after months of playing cat-and-mouse with members of
the Hindu Yuva Vahini, I got a message on a WhatsApp group about a
gathering on “Shaurya Diwas”, the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Posters advertising the December 6 event were plastered around Banda,
in the Bundelkhand region of southern Uttar Pradesh. These Photoshopped
works of art depicted a muscular Rama, flanked by a punier local
leader, against the background of the Ram Mandir compound, wreathed in red smoke.
The
images gave me goosebumps. Despite my trepidation, I arrived, camera in
hand, at the HYV’s Banda office: a large compound with a few motorbikes
and cows, a shed, and a temple where meetings are generally held, if
not under the shade of a peepal tree outside. It didn’t look much like
the regional nerve center of a powerful youth militia with political
patronage, whose founder Yogi Adityanath was now chief minister of the
state.
Inside the temple, I sat outside a circle of 10 men—11
if you count the swarthy figure of Hanuman presiding over us. My
presence was charged: a woman and a reporter? The men were suspicious, but soon warmed up. They vowed—as other Hindu organisations had done—to
mark Shaurya Diwas yearly until the Ram Mandir was built. They even let
me film a series of video portraits in which they explained what
Ayodhya meant to them. An older advisor, Adhirsh Singh, talked about the
historical “proof” that the three acres of disputed land were passed
down by King Dashrath. For him, these were not “Hindu truths”, but
geographical ones. Dinesh Kumar, “Dadda”, the district coordinator, put
forward his opinion that Babar should be seen in a long line of "Muslim
terrorists."
At the Shaurya Diwas meeting in Banda. Image: Khabar Lahariya
Despite
the enthusiasm, the event felt somewhat anticlimactic, especially when
compared to the beginning of that year, when the HYV was on a high. In
March, it had helped the Bharatiya Janata Party capture the Legislative
Assembly and ensured for Adityanath the foremost seat.
Adityanath
founded the HYV in 2002, but it was only around Ram Navami 2017, soon
after the new government came to power, that I suddenly saw members of
Yogi’s youth wing everywhere in Bundelkhand: managing crowds and
traffic, playing at bouncer, priest, and police. The organisation was reportedly swelling, especially outside its traditional stronghold of eastern UP.
Who were these men, and how deep was their loyalty to Adityanath’s organisation? Were they as efficient and influential as they appeared in the news, and in their processions? Or was the HYV just the latest banner being hoisted by vigilantes and criminals to gain legitimacy?
Over
the next few months, I did everything to find out, short of signing up
myself— something I couldn’t bring myself to do, though several
colleagues and members suggested I should try. As a woman with less than
conducive caste and political credentials, I felt ambiguous about
actually joining this male, Hindu bastion, dominated by Thakurs and
other “upper castes”. Still, each time I approached what was touted as
one of the most powerful forces in UP, the HYV seemed to vanish, like
the mirage of a shiny glass building on a hot, dusty road.
Men celebrate Yogi Adityanath's win in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Image: Khabar Lahariya
A
little over a year after Adityanath’s victory, it seems obvious that
the HYV was on shaky ground. The army that had propelled its mukhya to power was a threat to the BJP and its affiliates in the Sangh Parivar. As the HYV saw mass desertions, there was also reportedly a growing dissonance between its higher echelons and its newer foot-soldiers. Consequentially, the BJP’s defeat in Gorakhpur and Phulpur in the March 2018 bypolls was seen by many as a turning of the tide.
Looking
back over my nine months of befriending HYV members, and eavesdropping
on their real life and WhatsApp conversations to try and get access to
the group, this wasn’t too surprising. I had found that for its newest,
youngest, grassroots members, loyalty to the Hindu militia was born not
only—or not even primarily—out of a sense of religious duty. Their
motivations were in keeping with those of any millennial with few
prospects, with an eye out for a step up, or out. Some came to the HYV
out of personal need or a sense of responsibility to community. Others
were drawn to the outfit by family or caste connections. These factors
often blurred with political ambition.
On
December 10, a few days after Shaurya Diwas, I finally found myself
inside an HYV meeting in Banda. There were even fewer people present,
and the mood of these men in their 20s and 30s was mostly disgruntled. A
notice had been circulated, suspending members who had contested in the
UP civic polls the previous month, even though they had allegedly been granted permission to contest earlier.
The
promise of BJP electoral tickets, or implicit blessings for candidates'
campaigns, were crucial in mobilising HYV support in the Assembly
elections that year. Perhaps more so than the selfless urge to do social
work or religious fervour. But when the members started to remind the
organisational leadership of this promise of political power, it became
clear that they had been “doing all that work”, as one member said, “for
nothing.”
A general monthly meeting of the Hindu Yuva Vahini in Banda. Image: Khabar Lahariya
In
a sense, the following profiles of one woman and three men of the Hindu
Yuva Vahini illustrate the fragility of such networks and their
symbiotic relationship with electoral politics. But through each story
also runs the strong current of the HYV's religious discourse,
threatening to consume those who dip their toes in the waters of
Hindutva.
Brijesh
Sharma, a pharmacist recently recruited into the Hindu Yuva Vahini,
describes himself as one of India’s “educated unemployed.” Image: Khabar
Lahariya