Time to mend fences to fight communalism

Will Indian politics take a different turn in 2003? This question has become relevant today because of the BJP's victory in Gujarat, where the contest was between secularism and anti-minority phobia. Bigotry won hands down.

Is Gujarat an aberration in an otherwise pluralistic polity? Is it a wake-up call for democracy? Or, is it a proof of the communalism that has seeped into the body politics of the country? The concern on this account is justified in and outside India because its image is that of a secular democratic country.

The problem is the BJP and other members of the Sangh parivar. Their hardcore analysis of the Gujarat election has confirmed their belief that the anti-Muslim agenda was the propelling force in the state polls. Naturally, the party reaffirmed its faith in Hindutva at its executive meeting in Delhi a few days ago.

Hostility towards the minorities has become the BJP's creed. It believes that it can replicate the Gujarat model in other states. Godhra is its mascot. The hardheaded want to use the railway bogey's replica in the five states that will be going to the polls later this year.

Whether the Election Commission can stop it as an unfair practice is yet to be seen. A blatant use of communal idiom is banned. The BJP knows this. Maybe, this is the reason why the party has already directed its attack on the commission so as to make it flinch from taking the correct and courageous stand it has been pursuing so far.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which seems to have taken charge of the BJP's election campaign, as was seen in Gujarat, wants to force the issue. Without waiting for the court's verdict, it threatens to build the temple on the site where the Babri masjid stood before demolition. By vitiating the atmosphere, the VHP believes, it can propagate the Hindutva line.

Therefore, the answer will be provided by the outcome of elections in the five states - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. Nagaland is also having elections this February. But it is not the battleground for Hindutva because the state's population is Christian.

Hindus are in a preponderant majority in all five states. The Muslim population does not average more than 10 per cent. But if Gujarat, with almost the same percentage of Muslims, could be turned into an anti-Muslim inferno, there is no reason why the same tactics will not be tried elsewhere. The BJP and other members of the Sangh parivar may repeat Gujarat as BJP president Venkaiah Naidu has announced.

That the five states are from the Hindi-speaking region maybe a coincidence. But it can set a trend. However, constituted as India is, even a clean sweep by the BJP in all the Hindi-speaking states, including the five, in the general election 20 months away, does not give it a majority in parliament. The party will have to seek allies to get to the magic figure of 273 in the 545-member house.

The presence of the chief ministers from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry in Ahmedabad at the time when Narendra Modi was anointed like a Maharaja gives an idea of the possible tie-ups. Mayawati, a dalit leader, can scare away the upper castes. The Brahmins are already set against the BJP. Caste politics tends to take precedence over communal politics in India. Again, Jayalalitha's alliance with the BJP does not mean any tangible support. The south, like the east and the northeast, will be averse to the domination of the Hindi- speaking states.
Above all, it is too early to predict whether Mayawati and Jayalalitha would at all join hands with militant Hindu fanaticism. And even if they do, the question of how long the alliance will last would remain. The most important thing is whether their supporters will accept the BJP from their hearts.

Power is a big magnet. If George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav, once big lights in secular ranks, could jettison their life-long beliefs for a berth in the central cabinet, the Mayawatis and the Jayalalithas could do likewise. But they would not want to be a part of the BJP's furniture as George, Nitish and Sharad have become. Too much strident clamour of Hindutva - it will increase as the days go by - may scare away even Mayawati and Jayalalitha, let alone their supporters.

The strategy of the BJP is clear. It proposes to lead another National Democratic Alliance. At the same time, the party wants to beat the drum of Hindutva. As Deputy Prime Minsiter L.K. Advani put it: "We want the NDA's agenda in onehand and the BJP's in another."

The Congress, which should be marshalling anti-Hindutva forces, is still far from active. Whether it is the right party to do the job is secondary. The first is: What is its strategy in the face of the open, blatant Hindutva challenge? The party does not give the feeling that it is fighting for the country's ethos of secularism. It is taking too much time to regain its composure after Gujarat.

Somehow, the Congress conveys the impression that it needs nobody, and that all others need the party. True, it is the largest opposition party. But the challenge to secularism is too big for it to take it single-handed. In the absence of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a collective effort should be made to string together all elements believing in our pluralistic society and composite culture. The cause is important, not who is in the limelight.

In Gujarat, the Congress lost 11 seats because the like-minded parties or individuals took away from it enough votes to make the BJP candidates victorious. This is going to be the opposition's dilemma again. Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal are two examples. The Congress will go to any extent to win in these states. If they do not accommodate each other, their incoherent voices will not be able to drown the cry of Hindutva?

The difference between the BJP and the Congress is that the former favours a coalition before the polls, while the latter after the polls. The Congress has a genuine problem. It has a solid base in Andhra Pradesh against the Telugu Desam and against the communists in West Bengal. How does it square it up?

The BJP does not face this sort of problem because it has hardly any support in the states where its allies are strong. In fact, the party's limited support helped, for example, the Telugu Desam to get a majority. That is the reason why Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu supported the BJP-led government at the centre whenever it faced the problem of proving the majority.

The question that neither the Congress nor its non-BJP opponents realise is that the Frankenstein of Hindutva now stalks the land and it is only a matter of time before it devours all secular forces. The primary job is to fight the monster. Perhaps the Congress, the Telugu Desam, the communists and Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party should mend their fences. This may help them to have a joint strategy to fight communalism.

The economic situation and the law and order problem in the country are deteriorating so fast that the BJP will find it increasingly difficult to contain the dissatisfaction. These two points can provide a common platform because the Hindutva appeal is primarily meant to divert people's attention from the real problem of livelihood.


Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a Rajya Sabha MP.