Communal genie is out

How things have changed in a decade? Today, the complaint of the Congress is that there is hardly any state which it can claim as its own. It has lost in every state, whether during this election or the earlier ones. Even otherwise, the party is shrinking in space constantly. One BJP leader has boasted that President Pervez Musharraf can travel from Delhi to Dhaka without having to fly over a Congress-ruled state.

There is a near unanimous opinion that the anti-incumbency factor sank the Congress boat in Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan. This is true but only partly. The real malady is different: it is the spread of saffronisation. To remove Vajpayee's complaint of not having any state, the Sangh parivar has saturated the three Hindi-speaking states with the Hindutva chauvinism so much that it oozes out support wherever you seek. Even caste, a deeply entrenched feeling, is only second in appeal compared to religion. The BJP does not have to even mention the word Hindu to get a vote. The response is automatic.

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Still after the BJP's sweep, Vajpayee said that they did not play the Hindu card. When you put up Uma Bharti for the Madhya Pradesh chief ministership, you do not have to play any card. Her Hindutva credentials are so clear and categorical that there is no room for anybody to mistake. She was riding the shoulders of Human Resources Minister Murli Manohar Joshi when the fanatics were razing the Babri masjid to the ground. Vasundhara Raje is no stranger to the Hidutva forces either. Her mother, Vijay Raje Scindia, was a topmost BJP leader and stayed at the pinnacle for years. Vasundhara's ideological stand has been too well known. She was also a BJP minister at the centre. The party did not have to play the Hindu card when the candidate was Vasundhra. That she was "Mata Scindia's daughter" was enough to evoke response in the saffronised atmosphere.

In the tribal areas of Chattisgarh, the RSS has been working systematically for the last 25 years. During the last election, the Congress was able to get most of the seats from the area. But this time the RSS had filled the tribals with Hindutva that it had only to take them to the polling booths. In a way, it was similar to the brainwashing done in Gujarat where the tribals were brought to effect killings in Ahmedbad and Vadodara.

Still one thing that surprises me is why the Sangh parivar is underplaying the role of religion in the BJP's victory. It was a saffron sweep. The parivar should feel elated that its relentless efforts have borne fruit, whatever worth it is. Praveen Tagodia of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad was at least frank when he hailed the BJP sweep as "a Hindutva victory." Why should the BJP have a second thought now when it seems that the genie of communalism is out of the bottle completely. This is what the party has been trying since long. Its public support to development is only because of increasing unemployment and the yawning distance between the haves and the have-nots. It believes it can speak about Hindtva and parivartan (change) in the same breath.

Muslim organisations like the Milli Council and certain individual leaders from the community helped the BJP by appealing to the Muslims to vote either for the Congress or some Muslim candidates they mentioned by name. They tried to play a Muslim card. But it misfired and gave strength to the Sangh parivar's thesis that the Muslims organise themselves only as Muslims.

I was amused to hear Civil Aviation Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudi's argument on a TV show that if you drive us to Hindutva, we would be forced to "take up Hindutva." I thought it was the question of one's belief. You do not become parochial because someone provokes you. The BJP is a product of communal politics and it is going to be repeated whether Rudi admits it or not.

A new development in the RSS after the elections is that it has given up the burqa politics and has come out openly in the field. There was a time when it would stay in the background. Its reported linkage with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi put it on the spot. The RSS is no longer on the defensive and propagates freely that religion and politics go hand in hand. In all the three states, it has had its say in the selection of candidates. Roughly 100 whole-time RSS workers have become members of the three legislative assemblies.

The BJP has also done away with the pretence of being distant from the RSS. Not long ago, both were at pains to prove that they were different. Those who argued that the BJP was a political arm of the RSS were criticised for casting aspersions on its independent political stance. It was considered necessary to play down the Prime Minister's remark in New York that he was a swayam sevak. Even when he stood in knickers at a RSS conclave, the embarrassment caused to his defenders was sought to be rationalised. There was a belief that the façade of the BJP and the RSS as being two separate entities worked far better than the fact that they were one. Now the BJP MPs say at the top of their voice that they are the RSS men. It has become a matter of pride for individuals and the party to trace their political baptism to the RSS.

The RSS is penetrating the south. The strategy is familiar. In Bangalore, religious heads of various mutts met to make a unanimous demand for the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya. Tagodia was there to say that to raise the temple at the site where the Babri masjid stood was "the religious right" of Hindus and those politicians who opposed the construction of the temple should "shift their base to Pakistan."

I have no doubt in my mind that the mandir will be made an issue in a big way in the general election, due any time between now and October next. That the Sangh parivar will polarise the country is not something that worries the BJP. It thrives in such an atmosphere. Efforts are afoot to make dent at places where pluralism stands like a rock. That secular forces are demoralised goes without saying.

Ajit Jogi's case based on a tape-recorded offer to the BJP MLAs to cross over has been referred to the CBI. But Dilip Singh Judeo's cash-on-camera scam has made little progress. Before the election results, the opposition had decided not to let the house function if Judeo's scam was not sorted out. After the results, the opposition had no courage even to interrupt question hour. The issue before the nation is not whether to strengthen the Congress or look for an alternative but how to save secularism in the country. This, indeed, is a challenge.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.