The ruling Hindu nationalist party of India, the Bharatiya Janta Party, was badly beaten in the elections concluded last week in four states of India. It lost as many as 50 seats in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Its performance in the other three states -Punjab, Uttranchal and Manipur- where the mid-term elections were held, also recorded a similar trend.
The BJP has now its governments in only five states as against eight of the Congress. The consensus among political analysts and commentators of India is that the party is likely to fare no better in the national polls.
Why this debacle?
It appears that the very basis on which the BJP stood, that is Hindu nationalism that gradually degenerated into communal fanaticism, had rendered it, after Sept. 11, as anachronistic, as obsolete, as the extremist Islamic parties of Pakistan, or the Taliban and the zealots of Osama and his Al Qaeda.
The BJP has its roots in Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, Janta and JanSangh Parties -all communal in outlook. BJP was formed in April 1980 by Atal Behari Vajpayee, the present Prime Minister, drawing its members from the ranks of the communal setups mentioned above. In 1984, L.K. Advani, a rabid communalist, became its president. He used religious symbolism to rouse public’s passions, advocated the repeal of the article (#370) in the Constitution which granted a special status to Kashmir and its Muslim population. He advocated the reconversion of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism, and led the agitation for the destruction of the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhiya in Northern India to build a Hindu temple in its place. This destruction was accomplished in Dec. 1992 under the leadership of Mr. Advani..
The BJP being now in the seat of power, the task of constructing a temple on the site of the mosque has been taken in hand by Vishwa Hindu Prishad, an umbrella communal set-up.
By exciting the religious passions of the public, the BJP continued to increase its representation in both the state and federal assemblies till it attained power in New Delhi. But, the weakness of its base started showing. Its Brahamanical interpretation of Hinduism rather than the more inclusive and syncretic values of popular Hinduism, became its bane. It had naturally to concede ground to the other Hindu parties that had vast support among the lower castes.
The Brahmans of BJP could not, like the feudal rulers of Pakistan, continue keeping the poor and low-caste voters under their heels. Expanding educational facilities, widening economic opportunities and the spread of democratic institutions at the grass root level, freed the low caste communities, known as Dalits, from the clutches of the Brahmans. They joined political parties like Samajwadi and Bahujan Samaj which warmly welcomed and patronized them.
The famous dacoit turned politician, Phoolan Devi, a Dalit, got elected on a Samajwadi ticket. She couldn’t be eliminated politically but only by the bullet of a high-caste assassin.
One may pause and reflect here on the grass-root elected bodies brought into being under the devolution of power scheme of President Musharraf. These institutions will have much more impact with the spread of educational facilities in the society. That is the sector begging now for attention in Pakistan.
As for the economic lot of the Indian masses, the annual Economic Survey that has just been released by Indian authorities claims that over the past six years, some 60 million people were lifted across the poverty line.
India, like the US, is a plural society whose Constitution commits it to secularism. The BJP, while paying lip-service to secularism, aligned itself with the Hindu communal set-ups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, RSS and Shev Sena , and tried to maintain its hold over the people through its anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan rhetoric.
BJP used the attack on the Indian Parliament last December to mobilize its forces at the border with Pakistan, cut-off diplomatic relations and whip up the emotions of the people. It rejected off-hand the offers of Pakistan and the American FBI to jointly investigate the attack. The more reconciliatory Musharraf became, the more belligerent Vajpayee and Advani grew. It was generally felt that this bellicose attitude was calculated to consolidate the Hindu vote behind the BJP candidates in the elections to the state assemblies. The voters knew better.
This duality of conduct became more pronounced in tackling the project of building a temple at the site of the razed Babri mosque. While publicly advising the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHS), which had taken the project in hand, to abstain from pursuing it any further, the BJP workers were hardly prohibited from taking part in the construction work.
Betraying his non-secular thinking, the Prime Minister went to the extent of claiming that he did not need the Muslim vote to win the elections in the UP. This provocative statement came in for severe criticism by leaders of different parties including some former Prime Ministers and by the press.
A prominent Indian daily, The Hindu, Madras, of February 26 commented editorially: “The verdict against the BJP-led alliance in Utter Pradesh (as well as in Punjab and Uttaranchal) is indeed a reflection of the extent to which the people are indifferent to the war mongering that the Vajpayee dispensation had indulged in during the campaign. It is time that Mr. Vajpayee and his colleagues in the Union government realized that sectarian passions and war mongering have no place in the democratic discourse.”
India’s secularism, under the BJP regime, has slipped into communalism of the fanatic variety. Mr. Vajpayee, who masquerades as a moderate Hindu leader, had condemned in December 1992 the demolition of the Babri mosque and had called it “a sad day for India” But, last year he referred to it as “an expression of national sentiments.”
The deliberate ambiguity was stoking the flames of frustration in both the Hindu and Muslim communities. Instead of stopping the congregation of Hindu volunteers at the projected site of the temple, which was quite easy, the BJP leaders confined themselves to mouthing pious sentiments for peace and communal harmony. Encouraged by the inaction of the government, the Hindu communal volunteers started jeering at Muslims. The February 27 arson attack on a train in Gujrat was, according to press reports, provoked by such jeering by the Hindu passengers returning from Ayodhiya. While in no way condoning the action by the Muslims who attacked the train, Vajpayee acknowledged, according to the BBC, that Hindu militants inflamed feelings
No matter which community was immediately responsible for the abominable incident, the fact remains that some 60 persons including women and children lost their lives in it. And, it sparked communal riots throughout the state of Gujrat. It might spread to other parts of the country by the time you read this piece.
Some 3,000 persons got killed in the riots that followed the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992.
That the issue has kept hanging fire for almost a decade, reflects either the incompetence or the malafides of the BJP government.
The real reason behind the debacle of the BJP in the elections is obviously its inability to measure up to the expectation of the electorate. The vote was an expression of that disappointment.
An interesting expression of this disappointment and the anti-incumbency sentiment was in the form of the candidature of no less than eighteen persons from the community of eunuchs (gays, hijras) The Indian gays have always been out of the closet. They wear feminine attire and bear feminine names. Irrespective of the caste in which a eunuch is born, he ranks the lowest in the hierarchy.
“The emergence of eunuchs is seen as a growing indication of people’s disillusionment with the political class” (BBC Feb.14)