Riding The 'Secular' Rath

The noted scholar Benedict Anderson in his famous book on the origins of nationalism, The ImaginedCommunities had pointed out how the pre-bourgeois classes did not need language to construct alliances:

"If the ruler of Siam took a Malay noblewoman as a concubine, or if the King of England married a Spanishwoman - did they ever talk seriously together?"

If one substitutes ideology for language, one can get a fair picture of the promiscuity of politicalparties in the ‘shining India’ of ours. It is this promiscuity that political commentators across thespectrum of the Indian media have (mistakenly) celebrated as the secularization of the BJP. Nothing could befurther from the truth.

In the last two decades we have seen a seething debate in the academic andnon-academic world about the relevance of secularism in a ‘traditional’ and ‘religious’ society likethat of India. In fact, the BJP rode the crest of success by demolishing - what in its eyes was - the myth ofNehruvian (read Western) secularism. But BJP’s descent into more perverse forms of ‘pseudo-secularism’is something that has not received enough attention.

If BJP’s alliance with the National Conference was the greatest of ironies (people in Kashmir saw throughthis chimera eventually), the induction of P. C. Thomas into the union ministry last year made one feel aghastat the brazenness of the ruling classes. For Thomas represents the Indian Federal Democratic (sic)Party (IFDP), a unique entity in the nation’s political history: it was probably the first time aparliamentary party was formed by MPs from various parties (and also independents) and regions as varied asKerala, Bihar and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

The other known face in the party was Pappu Yadav, one of the leading members of the Bihar mafia who has atleast twelve charges of murder (including the killing of Ajit Sarkar, CPI [M] MLA) and kidnapping against him.The BJP, by inducting this rag-tag formation into the NDA, truly proved that it is a party with a ‘difference’.The vacuity of a party like the IFDP was reiterated when recently most of its MPs other than Thomas left it tojoin other parties.

The temptation of flaunting its secular credentials through the first Christian member of the cabinet (ifwe discount the Christianity of George Fernandes) was too much to resist for the BJP. More important was theopportunity to make a headway into Kerala, an electoral barren desert for the BJP. And what better way toaccomplish it than dangling the carrot of ministership to the Syrian Christian community, which constitutes astrong 20 percent of the Kerala electorate.

If Advani’s Bharat Uday Yatra rolled onto the streets of Muvattupuzha, a predominantly ChristianLok Sabha constituency, which Thomas has been representing since 1989 (on a Kerala Congress [Mani] ticket), itis not without a reason. Unbeknownst to the rest of the country, the verdict in this constituency, assumessignificant national importance.

A victory for Thomas will be the crowning glory on the BJP’s plank of ‘positive secularism’, whichapparently can only be an attribute of Hinduism. After all, ours is the great civilization that ‘happily’and ‘peacefully’ tolerated the invasions from the Greeks to the Mughals. What better advertisement for theBJP than all the Thomases and Sangmas declaring a la Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, "BJP is the only secularparty in the country"?

Until recently, Kerala has had a relatively remarkable record of communal harmony (despite the presence ofthree major world religions), something to which the Left has contributed in no small measure. The significantinfluence of communitarian consciousness was always harnessed to the peaceful and democratic pursuit ofsecular goods thus resulting in what could be called a non-antagonistic communalism.

In this kind of scenario, even confessional parties such as the Muslim League were forced to tone down, ifnot completely abandon the reliance on the sacred. The pervasiveness of this model saw the unique phenomenonof the BJP/RSS combine reduced to constructing secret alliances with the Congress-led front or transferringvotes to the latter (for example, the 1982 and 1991 Assembly elections) in a desperate bid to stop the Leftfrom coming to power. What is galling for the sangh parivar is this status of a political hermaphrodite(to use a term from their own discourse of masculinity) despite the fact that the Kerala has one of thehighest RSS cadre-strengths in the country.

However, three decades of RSS activity is finally beginning to ‘bear fruit’(including the provoking into existence of Islamic fundamentalist groups in the nineties). The last decade hasseen a shocking incursion of the Hindutva agenda into the socio-cultural sphere through the variousfront organizations of the sangh targeting sections like children, tribals etc. and areas likeeducation, arts and literature, theatre and temple renovation. The public sphere is now awash with religioussymbols, motifs and ‘spiritual’ gurus. The communal violence in Marad in the last two years was anoutcome of the long process of erosion of the non-antagonistic model of communalism.

Nevertheless, the task of making Hindutva the political alternative is still an immensely difficultone in the highly polarized political atmosphere of Kerala--it is the only major state in the country thatstill does not have a BJP MLA or an MP, a remarkable trough in the high tide of Hindutva. Here, thealliance with the IFDP allows the BJP to piggyback on Thomas’ popularity and gain the necessary legitimacy.This is a proven strategy that has worked in other states. Therefore, the verdict in Muvattupuzha will be ofcrucial importance to the future direction of state politics too.

History and common sense tells us that it would be a tough ask for Thomas to win in a three-corneredcontest in Kerala, but reports from the constituency indicate that there is substantial support emerging forhim among the Syrian Christians. While the various factions of the Kerala Congress representing the latter hadalways dreamed of the power and benefits that would flow their way if they were to enter into an alliance witha BJP in government, the Kerala sensibility which still abhors any kind of religious extremism prevented themfrom making the final jump.

However, in the present scenario, there is an increasing attraction for the BJP amongthe Syrian Christians. The prosperous sections among them are enthused by the BJP emerging as a betterenforcer of the neo-liberal agenda, which equates progress and development solely with capitalism and economicgrowth. P.C.Thomas echoed this sentiment during Advani’s yatra:

"only BJP can save the nation and only a BJP government can bring development to the country".

Advani himself in his speeches throughout Kerala criticized the state for becoming a "prisoner of itspolitical ideologies" and thereby lagging behind in "progress" and "development". In this discourseof crude neo-liberalism and market-led Hindutva, the building of an extensive welfare state in Kerala(the likes of which have been hardly achieved elsewhere in the third world), does not even qualify as eitherprogress or development.

The tendency to view the economic in isolation from all other aspects of human social life and glorify itis a pernicious tendency of our times. In Kerala, this is seen in the celebration, even by the liberal media,of the ‘efficiency’ of someone like O.Rajagopal, RSS man and union minister (presently Lok Sabha candidatefrom Thiruvananthapuram), in fighting for Kerala’s share of the economic pie at the centre. This totallyignores the role of Rajagopal’s ideology and its culpability in the destruction of the secular fabric ofKerala.

Christians in Kerala may justify the new bonhomie between them and the BJP as purely motivated by thesecular motive of economic development, and thus conforming to the Kerala model of non-antagonsiticcommunalism which has subordinated the sacred to the secular. On the one hand, this is a misunderstandingstemming from the inability to recognize the Janus-faced nature of the BJP - that even when it seeks toappropriate the centrist space of the Indian polity, it is dependent on the right wing fanatic cabal. On theother hand, it shows the increasing identification of Christians with the Hindu demonization and vilificationof Islam parallel to the Christian-Jewish alliance against Muslims in the world stage.

In the psyche of a middle class Syrian Christian, the threat of Hindutva and the violenceperpetrated by it is a malady that afflicts only the northern parts of the country. It denotes the sheer factthat communal violence and its associated history is something that is physically far removed from his/herimmediate reality (although, it is increasingly less so).

At the same time, and this is the tragedy of the times we are living in, it shows the moral estrangementfrom the plight of the distant stranger, not just from the Muslims and Hindus who are victims of communalviolence, but also from his/her own co-religionists frequently subjected to violent attacks by Hindufundamentalists in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and so on (the ongoing violence in Jhabua is an example). This kindof moral apathy was demonstrated in the muted protest against the Gujarat events.

The mad rush to align with the BJP across the country portends a dangerous tendency in our polity -- thewillingness to legitimize the unspeakable horrors that have been wrought upon by the fascist forces in thelast decade and more. Sadly, even the minority communities, are imbibing the ‘art of forgetting’systematically fostered by the forces of cultural and religious nationalism.

Nothing is more shocking than to find that one of the worst carnages in thepost-independence history of our country -- the state-sponsored genocide in Gujarat -- does not figure, evenas a foot-note, in the election debates. The BJP’s shift to the discourse of bijli, sadak and paanidoes not signify the secularization of the party, but rather an attempt at evasion of responsibility for thecommunalization of society and its horrendous outcomes. The discourse of religious nationalism is never givenup, but lurks underneath the discourse of development, waiting to erupt and cause another Gujarat.

Even development, as noted before, connotes something else for the BJP. The vision document of the partygives telling evidence of its Goebbelsian propaganda and sleight of hand which dexterously equates developmentwith achieving ‘Great Power’ status on the world stage. Never mind that for the time being we are the ‘runningdogs’ of American imperialism. The party leaders crow about the world stature that nuclear India hasacquired in the five years of NDA rule, and how five more years will see it attaining the ‘glory’ that our‘great’ civilization was always destined for. Never mind that our Human Development Index ranking hasfallen from 124 to 127 or that the per-capita food availability for the year 2000- 01 was lower than duringthe period of the Bengalfamine!

There is some food for thought when the media here in N.America, which usually devotes not more thancursory space for the largest democracy in the world, decided to feature Lalji Tandon in the headlines. Afterall, it is not every day that people die for something which cost less than a dollar (the cost of each sareewas Rs.40)! However, it is not a surprising fact considering that in the priority agenda drawn by the BJP,poverty alleviation comes fifth. So what if the masses do not have food to eat or sarees to wear, at leasttheir ‘lives’ are safe under the nuclear umbrella? All this shows that in the BJP version ofsecularization basic livelihood issues of the poorest 40 crore Indians do not feature at all.

BJP’s recent wooing of Christians and other minorities and its willingness to alignwith anyone and everyone is only seemingly secular. In reality, it is an abuse of the fundamental principlesof secularism. One need not look beyond the irony of a Narendra Modi showering praises on Irfan Pathan tounderstand this. Commentators, who have gone to town delineating a split between the moderate party and thehardcore RSS/VHP/Bajrang Dal troika, obfuscate the fact that the BJP is reaping electorally what the sanghparivar has sown culturally. The Hinduisation of adivasis and the BJP’s stunning electoralsuccess in the adivasi belt of Central India is the classic example of this. Pray, where was themoderate face when fetuses were gouged out and speared by Ram bhakts in Gujarat? The ineradicable role thatviolence plays in BJP’s success should stop us from harboring any illusions about its benign face.

The ‘moderate’ face of the BJP and the shallowness of the media celebration of the same were exposedwhen the ‘sophisticated’ Arun Jaitley, the darling of the middle classes, had the temerity to suggest thatthe scathing verdict of the Supreme Court in the Best Bakery case was not an indictment of the GujaratGovernment! All his education and sophistication could not endow Jaitley with the moral courage needed tocondemn the perpetrators of a human tragedy. He unwittingly justified the Supreme Court’s characterizationof the ruling political class as the ‘modern day Neros’.