The Hindu nationalist outfit, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has given its guarded approval to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s criticism of the cow vigilantes. Notwithstanding the caveat that Modi should not have said that 80 per cent of “gau rakshaks” (cow protectors) were fake, the endorsement marks a giant leap forward for the Hindu supremacist organisation since its note of consent can be interpreted as the sanctioning of a “pseudo-secular” position vis-a-vis the holy cow.
Indeed, this is exactly how one of its affiliates, the more virulent Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has seen it, for it has said that Modi will pay for his stance in 2019.
Another saffron outfit, which is not a part of the Sangh Parivar (Hindu nationalist family), the Hindu Mahasabha, has accused Modi of becoming a “carbon copy” of the Congress.
How the fratricidal bickering pans out over the weeks and months ahead will be a matter of interest to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) friends and foes. But two aspects of this development involving the vigilantes are clear. The most crucial one is that India’s ruling party BJP hasn’t faced a threat of this magnitude earlier. Moreover, the danger for the BJP is from within and not from the opposition, although the latter will gleefully watch the BJP’s discomfiture.
If the BJP did not suffer a serious rupture after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, it may do so now because Modi is taking a position that runs counter to one of the saffron camp’s basic tenets, such as reverence for the cow.
By calling the “gau rakshaks” anti-social, Modi has touched a raw nerve where the Sangh Parivar is concerned. Little wonder that the VHP’s vice-president in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Sunil Parashar, has said that “Modi’s statement is an insult to all those who have sacrificed their lives for cow protection”. If Modi adheres to this line, it can lead to a major shake-up of the Sangh Parivar’s ideology, moving it into the 21st century from its medieval moorings.
As the Hindu Mahasabha has said, Modi has “gone back on everything from Ram temple to abrogating Article 370 and is now turning his back on cows”. Since the Mahasabha, which is on the fringe of the Hindu Right, does not have to follow the politically convenient line of the RSS, it can afford to be more blunt.
It has long been felt by some in the saffron brotherhood that the BJP can model itself on the Christian Democratic parties of Europe, which are right-wing and conservative, but not fascist. It is the element of fascism in the BJP, with its animosity towards Muslims and Brahminical disdain towards Dalits (lower castes) that kept the party on the sidelines of Indian politics until the 1990s. It would have remained there but for the precipitous decline of the Congress and some of the latter’s overtly foolish pro-Muslim steps, like negating the Supreme Court verdict on alimony for Muslim women.
Although the BJP’s rise has been facilitated by the Congress’s fall, there is apparently a realisation within the BJP that despite its current dominance at the national level, the pursuit of a strident pro-Hindu agenda is not feasible in a multicultural country like India. So the party first clamped down on the “Ghar Wapsi” (homecoming) and “Love Jihad” campaigns and is now targeting the “gau rakshaks”.
Although a primary motivation for the criticism of the latter may be a desire to woo the Dalits before the UP elections, since several members of the community were flogged by the vigilantes in Gujarat, that objective does not detract from the BJP’s green signal for punishing the law-breakers.
However, it is also true that the saffron camp was not unduly perturbed when a Muslim was lynched in a village near Delhi on the suspicion of eating beef — RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called it a minor incident — and two Muslim cowherds were killed in Jharkhand. Even then, the latest show of outrage over the rampaging vigilantes will be widely welcomed.
At the same time, the disapproval voiced by the RSS of the lawlessness of “gau rakshaks” may be a temporary instance of censure. It is difficult to believe that the Nagpur patriarchs will disown their cherished philosophy of a Hindu rashtra (state), where the cow is the national animal, because of the BJP’s electoral compulsions.
As it is, several affiliates of the RSS like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) have been voicing their grievances about Modi’s pro-market policies, based on globalisation, which militates against the concept of self-reliance. While the SJM is opposing foreign investment, the BMS is against the Goods and Services Tax, saying that it favours the rich at the expense of the poor.
It is not only on the issue of “gau rakshaks”, therefore, that Modi is having to contend with dissenting voices from inside the saffron camp. He is also up against both the orthodoxy of pro-Hindu elements and the insularity of the Sangh Parivar’s economists and labour leaders.
He can, however, take heart from the fact that large sections of the population in India are with him on the matter of freeing the country from backward-looking religiosity and embracing a globalised economy.
— IANS
Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst.
