India's Crisis Of Change

A poster appeared on the walls of Chandni Chowk in Delhi soon after the elections to explain why the BJP-Shiv Sena combine had lost in Maharashtra. The rout was attributed to Sena chief Bal Thackeray's "mistake"—he had suggested that a national monument be constructed at the proposed Ram temple site. The argument may be too facile, but it confirms the belief that the hotheaded in the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have a one-point programme: to construct a temple on the rubble of the Babri Masjid.

True, the BJP and its allies have distanced themselves from contentious issues and have favoured talks with the Muslim community to reach a settlement. But the same con-sensual approach was expressed by various sections across the country before the Babri Masjid was razed. So, what's different now? Kalyan Singh, during whose regime the masjid was destroyed, is again the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. But L.K. Advani, the chief spirit of the temple agitation, is now Union home minister. In 1992, even after giving an undertaking to the Supreme Court, the BJP leadership went about in a manner which only made the demolition inevitable. If the assurance made this time is to carry any credence it will have to come from the RSS, which controls both the BJP and the VHP.

The Lok Sabha results make it amply clear that a majority of Hindus have voted against the BJP and Hindutva. What voters have sought to convey to the BJP is that if it were to take a liberal stand and wean itself out of the Hindutva bracket, it would win. Now that the party has attained power, it should turn over a new leaf. The party has secured only 177 seats of a total of 543. The seats it has won include 13 from Karnataka, where former chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde was its ally, and seven from Orissa where Naveen Patnaik (Biju's son) made all the difference. The party's showing in Punjab was because of the Akalis. In Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore tipped the scales but it was a pyrrhic victory for the BJP because of the Jayalalitha factor. The BJP government has some 90 members from parties with impeccable secular credentials. George Fernandes and Mamata Banerjee may have compromised with the BJP, but don't favour Hindutva.

India is a pluralistic society to which every religion has contributed. If the BJP abjures its communal leanings, the country can move towards a two-party system, which is ideal for a democratic polity. This hypothesis is, however, belied by the speeches made in Parliament when the BJP MPs elected Vajpayee their leader. Advani's praise of the RSS against Vajpayee's theme of nationalism showed their divergent approach. Advani conjured up the spectre of politics driven by bias—the reverse of what is needed. Vajpayee rose above party considerations, something the country needs.

But alas, Vajpayee's words—'Sangh is my soul'—gives the impression that he may well be a 'mask', as an RSS ideologue has said. Vajpayee believes that the RSS has a two-fold task: to organise the Hindus to build a strong Hindu society and "to assimilate the non-Hindus like Muslims and Christians in the mainstream".

The question is who will decide which is the mainstream. Is it Hindutva? Does religion draw the contours of mainstream? What about Vajpayee's admission that "we (the Hindus) had pulled down the structure in Ayodhya but it was a reaction to the Muslim votebank". In other words, the community was chastised because it had been voting Congress. Even now Muslims do not support the BJP. Does it mean that some other mosques will be destroyed because they are a 'votebank' of some other party? It seems as if the mainstream and the BJP are co-terminus. Such thinking is pernicious because it is parochial and sectarian. If as PM, Vajpayee propagates the views he has expressed, how can the Muslims, the 120 million people of India, expect fairplay? Even if the BJP seeks to make amends, such an attitude would only make the minority more intractable. Since Muslims are generally at the lowest rung economically, they are bound to feel oppressed. If some of them turn to fundamentalism or separatism, they may do so out of desperation, a sense of alienation, not because of their reluctance to join the mainstream. They feel unwanted.

In the past, as the majority community, the Hindus, were careful at least in what they said: they seldom injured the sensitivities of minorities. Now one hears many Hindus saying it is time others learnt to live in a Hindu-dominated society and that non-Hindu communities are "taking advantage of Hindu tolerance". There was a time when communal Hindus were at a disadvantage. Now they rule the roost. Many even defend the bigots and say they are needed to counter fanaticism. Mercifully, the countryside is still better but the stakes in the cities are loaded against the minorities. This is tragic, for it is on tolerance and equal rights that our republic is based. Take the concept of secularism which the founding fathers of the Indian Republic adopted. The majority were Hindus but they voted for secularism.

It is a pity that India is still stuck in the morass of religion and caste, making any real progress difficult. But a different kind of crisis faces the country today. It is a crisis of change, not stagnation. It is a crisis born out of the incapacity of institutions to respond to a deep and far-reaching process of social turmoil. Having run its course, the old order has lost its legitimacy. Old relationships are being questioned and so are the concepts handed down by tradition and history. The questioning comes from a new awakening, a search for a new order. You cannot stop the process by raising the slogan of Hindutva. India is in the throes of a crisis—but it is a crisis that is borne out of a heightened consciousness and a far-reaching response to the democratic ideology. We should welcome the crisis and turn it into a challenge. It's a call of history. A call the BJP must respond to.

As for a national monument at Ayodhya, it is probably the best proposal since the Babri dispute erupted. That Bal Thackeray offered the suggestion makes it doubly welcome. Political parties should take up the national monument proposal which would have a building commemorating India's first war of Independence in 1857, with a temple and a mosque on either side.

The BJP should realise that it is cramped by the demands of a coalition. It cannot preach or practise the superiority or exclusiveness of Hinduism. Nor can it revive fanaticism in the name of mandir. If there is a fire of idealism still burning in its allies, they will not allow the country to be hijacked by Hindu chauvinists. Why doesn't the BJP appreciate India's ethos—a composite culture, which reflects the different religions of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Sikhism?