Rise of Hindutva, the BJP and some exam revision

I am not sure how much I will be able to blog till 2nd June as my finals are looming. Since this is the last ever exam I shall take, I'm hoping not to screw up. I've done a course on South Asian politics, for which I have an exam on the 1st. So for the next few days, I might use this blog to revise some stuff for my exam, but also hopefully, jot down some fairly interesting stuff. I'll also start posting some photos on this blog. I can't access the required programs from my college ethernet, so once again you'll have to be patient till the 2nd!

Today I'm going to blog a bit about Hindutva, BJP and the Congress. If you've read an earlier post of mine, you'll know that I hold the Congress equally culpable for the rise of Hindu nationalism. Now there are various issues to be tackled here. First, what is Hindu nationalism? It is important to remember that many 'nationalists' feel that Hindu nationalism (which we shall now for convenience called Hindutva) has hijacked the nationalist agenda for anti-national purposes. In fact as John Zavos has shown, communalism is not a post independence phenomenon. At the same time in the 1920s when Nehru was enunciating his vision of a 'pure' nationalism, unsullied by the primordial pulls of caste, religion and politics, the communal riot as a staple feature of north Indian politics was becoming prominent. So throughout the national movement and nationalist historiography we see a constant collision and coalescing of these two phenomenon- nationalism and communalism. For the purpose of this post, I'm going to define Hindu nationalism as a)an attempt to create a monolithic version of Hinduism that is intrinsically linked to a 'Hindu' nation as an alternative to a secular and diverse India b)this 'nationalism' then seeks to define itself in terms of the 'Other', ie.e the Indian Muslim.

Now in this context, perhaps it is also wise to point out that the rise of Hindutva and the rise to political power of the BJP are not the same. The former, I would argue is a far more dangerous phenomenon, as it means that parties like the Congress have to toe a 'soft Hindutva' line in order not to marginalize their key vote bank. The rise of the BJP then, could be linked to the creation of political spaces by this ideological shift from the Congress which was effectively harnessed by the Sangh Parivar.

As Sumantra Bose (in a fantastic article in Ayesha Jalal, Sugata Bose (ed): Nationalism, Democracy and Development) has argued, the secular state has misinterpreted its mandate. Either it has supported majoritarian tendencies, or it has provided more overt support to communal forces. He then points to the reign of Indira Gandhi when riots swept Moradabad, Ahmedabad and Godhra. IG went so far as to say that minorities must 'adjust' in India- not very far from RSS-speak, I'd say. All of this meant that in this period, the RSS actually asked its supporters to vote for the Congress rather than the BJP.

But there were other subtle ways in which the Congress opened up spaces for Hindu nationalism to emerge. The over centralization of political power under Indira Gandhi allowed fissiparous tendencies in Kashmir and Punjab to develop. This could then be given a communal overtone by arguing that the Kashmiri Muslims and Punjabi Sikhs were 'disloyal opponents' of the Congress, seeking to tear apart the integrity of the nation.

Next, as liberlization proceeded, the middle class in India found itself in a unique position of being able to completely dominate the political agenda. As Thomas Hansen (again, in a few fantastic studies of Hindutva) has argued: ritual congregational activities, provided a sense of community and belonging helping to bridge the gap between economic and social status for the newly economically enfranchised classes. He argues that in a globalized world, the Indian middle class was suddenly made painfully aware of its own marginalization. Here, the BJP's doctrine of an 'Akhand Bharat' (and note that this again plays well with the rise of separatism in this period) and the return to a 'glorious Hindu past' would have obvious appeal. But there is a dichotomy in this. Just as Hindutva derides Western philosophy for producing disharmonious societies, its new proponents were avid consumers of this same Western global culture. Perhaps this consumption made them even more acutely conscious of their marginality, and Hindutva was then seen as the perfect bridge between reality, and the promised glories of a 'Hindu' future, where India would regain her rightful place on the world stage.

The last aspect I wish to touch upon is caste. The V.P. Singh government's proposition that it would implement Mandal Commission recommendations set off upper caste/middle class fury in North India. Worried that patronage dispensing mechanisms in states like U.P and Bihar, would be severely dented by this, many of the upper castes shifted their allegiance to the BJP. But for the BJP this was a difficult time as well. At the grassroots level, the organization is largely upper caste. So while it publicly endorsed Mandal, its grassroots organizations actively undermined it. More importantly, the BJP replied to the caste issue by shifting the agenda- the response to Mandal was mandir. This is evident in what happens in U.P. subsequently. The BJP was able to come to power because of caste issues, but then under Kalyan Singh, it raises the question of a ram mandir, effectively moves attention away from caste politics, and creates a new, incredibly divisive issue which is sure to touch a chord in many of the middle class Indians I've referred to above.

This I hope is a relatively nuanced perspective of how the rise of Hindutva and the rise of the BJP are related but separate phenomenon. Some time later, I will blog about Gender and Hindu Nationalism- and the implications of Hindutva for the feminist movement in India. Incidentally, Sugata Bose, whom I mention earlier on the piece is to be my PhD supervisor! I'll also blog a synopsis of what I'm hoping to work on at some point.