Electoral and Secular Values

(HT Op ed 24th Dec2007)
Electoral Parties and Secular Values
Ram Puniyani

The adjective 'Merchants of Death', was a bold and characterization of Modi/BJP politics in Gujarat. It incited various reactions, the major one stating that Congress is no clean body as its hands are also full of blood of Sikhs in the 1984 and most of the riots took place during Congress regime.
Are BJP and Congress comparable? A situation, where these parties are being put in the same category has been created due to the weak policies of Congress and projection of the image of BJP as the democratic alternative. Are these parties in the same league or is there a shade of difference which is worth recognizing?

Congress began as a secular party with the inclusion of people of all religions, and their continued association with this party during freedom movement. At the same time many a communalists formed the part of its leadership, Lala Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Dr. Moonje. Even the founder of RSS, K.B. Hedgewar was associated with it till 1934. At medium and grass root level many a Hindu communalists in particular were and are part of this party. It is this which made Nehru to warn that Congress should be cautious of those members who sound secular but are really communal. At the level of policies Congress took quite a principled secular path till the demise of Pundit Nehru, after which the slip showed regularly. The problem became apparent with Indira Gandhi's election speeches during Jammu bi-election, Rajiv Gandhi's 'when a big tree falls'; Shah Bano, shilaynyas, and Narsimha Raos' afternoon siesta when the Babri was being razed to the ground. Many a riots took place during its regime when the ruling Government either acted as the silent witness or colluded with the rioters.

While apportioning the blame of communal violence it has to be kept in mind that the riots take place due to three major factors, one the instigator and conductor, which according the inquiry commissions, (Jagmohan Reddy, Justice Madon, Vithayathil, Shrikrishna and Venugopal)mostly has been some organization which is a offshoot/associate of RSS. The second factor is the political leadership. Most of the times Congress, when in power, has been lacking the political will to control it effectively. The third factor is the police and bureaucracy, which has been regularly communalized and has been providing the umbrella to the rioters or been the active participant in the execution of the pogroms. It is not enough just to say that so and so part is responsible just because it has been in power. As far as political agenda is concerned, communalism is not the program of Congress. Its basic program remains Secularism, but its execution of those values has been lacking in will power.

BJP is the political child of RSS, which has the agenda of Hindu nation. Irrespective of its temporary mask of Gandhian Socialism, it does lapse in to the 'Hate minorities' mind set at the drop of the hat. It has the patriarch RSS and associates; VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bajrang Dal etc, who have been communizing the mind set, which is the base of communal violence. This RSS combine has been actively initiating situations which bring in violence. It has led many a carnages and has been polarizing the communities along religious lines. The scholars of communal violence have made the pertinent observation that in the aftermath of most of the communal violence RSS combine becomes stronger in the areas where the violence has taken place. For RSS combine communalism, in overt and covert language, is its political vehicle.

One can classify the political formations/ individuals in to four broad categories on the scale of secularism. The first, and rare, category belongs to the party/individuals who proactively strive for comprehensive social justice. A synthesis of values of Bhagat Singh, Gandhi and Ambedkar can best describe this group, which today is being overshadowed by the other political forces.

Second, the formations like Left are genuinely secular but they have ignored the proactive measures to pursue this and so the prevalence of communal social thinking in states ruled by left. Third are secular but compromising, the major one in this category being Congress. These are mired by too many power seekers to be able to stand firmly to oppose the communal elements and land up being the accomplice, in part or in full, of the violation of secular values. The anti Sikh violence was a sort of one go phenomenon, which had more to do with the ethno-regional factors. The last category is that of BJP, aggressive, intimidating opponent of democracy and secularism, whatever its expression. Communal to the core, looking for pretexts to carry on with sectarian politics. Its biggest 'achievement' not that it is the core vehicle of communalism but that some of the political workers compare it with other democratic electoral formations. It is using the electoral space to do away with democratic values, the way Hitler did. It is the Indian face of fascism.

The subtleties of these differences point out that while we do not have the real good choice in the for electoral arena, we will have to keep putting the civic pressure for bringing in better political policies through the grass root campaigns. All the same, to compare BJP with other electoral formations will be undermining the threat of the agenda of RSS, which seeks to abolish democratic space and build a society in the image of 'glorious Hindu past', a neo brahminical construct for upholding the hegemony of elite males.

One can very well say that while communalism, the threat to democracy is becoming stronger by the day, there is a vast difference between Congress and BJP. The Congress communalism is pragmatic while BJP communalism is programmatic. While no party can be excused for its crimes, no democratic formation should be compared to BJP, as it the vehicle of RSS political agenda, the agenda of abolishing the values of Indian constitution and imposing a fascist state. BJP is in a different class by itself due to its goal, which has nothing to do with democracy i.e. concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. Unfortunately, today in electoral arena we do not have a choice between Good better and the best. We are riddled with bad, worse, worst and BJP!


(Writer is recipient of Indira Gandhi National Integration Award, 2006)

Erosion of Democracy - Modi

Erosion of Democratic Norms: A case of Modi
Ram Puniyani

Current Gujarat elections, irrespective of their
results, will remain etched in the memory of the
nation for wrong reasons. Gujarat witnessed the
burning of Sabarmati express at Godhra in Feb 2002.
The carnage which followed this train accident claimed
the lives of thousands of innocents and simultaneously
polarized Gujarat along religious lines. The process
of ghettotisation of Muslims and the fear of
minorities constructed in the minds of majority
community are staring in our face. At the same time
the threads of democratic nationalism, national
integration are breaking rapidly. While various
citizens' inquiry reports did point out the pre
planned nature of the pogrom and the role of RSS
combine led by Modi in the carnage, we could all see
the same for ourselves thanks to the Tehelka. The
consequent polarization led to the victory of the
leader of the carnage back to power in the elections
which took place a bit later. In the elections of
2002, the main opposition party, Congress did not
gather strength to take on Modi with full vigor. One
of the reasons was that Modi deflected the criticism
directed again him and against RSS combine as the
insult to 5 crore Gujartis, and his assertion was well
received in a section of society.

The Tehelka sting showed some of the perpetrators
boasting about their crimes in front of the camera,
and this made most of the people realize once again
the gravity of the crime. Now most of the society got
a direct feel of what had happened, who did it.
Society also registered that the reports of citizens
groups were on the dot in pinpointing the malaise of
Gujarat society. It was in this background that Sonia
Gandhi in her election campaign called the Modi led
BJP as the merchants of death. Modi realized that the
truth is being said after all, and tried to raise the
communal and criminal sentiments by justifying the
extra judicial killing of Sorabuddin, who was killed
in a fake encounter by the police.

The ploy was that since a section of society has been
communized enough, the illegal act of killing someone
will get him sympathy votes. He took 'credit' for this
'bravery' of killing of Soharabuddin and his wife.
Human rights workers raised the issue of Modi
communalizing and criminalizing the people's mindset.
And as is his wont, he presented the criticism against
him as the insult of people of Gujarat, of Gujarat
itself!

Usual damage control exercises unrolled, he has been
quoted out of context, he does not justify the extra
judicial killings etc. But the damage was done and
election commission took a serous note of it. The
frail nature of legal mechanism, as to how a
democratically elected chief minister, takes oath in
the name of constitution, than openly incites the
public and tries to bask in the 'glory' of this
illegal act done by state machinery, is there for all
to see.

The larger issue of democratic norms, morality and
polity are put at the backburner, with the leaders
doing their electoral arithmetic of what will help
them more in getting the power. Now the issue can be
discussed at the level of legalities and also at the
level of electoral arithmetic. All these do have their
importance but one also needs to be concerned about
the deeper and broader issues related to our
constitution, as to what is happening to the values of
democracy enshrined in our constitution?

In Gujarat the legal norms have been put aside in
matters of rehabilitation and in the post violence
justice. In 'regular' life patterns, now a section of
Muslims are willing to bend on their knees to survive,
willing to 'forgive' unilaterally, while no body is
caring to ask for their forgiveness. The 'charisma' of
Modi is on the rise. He was keeping the communal card,
under wraps till the word Merchants of death was
hurled upon him. And then he unraveled his communal
face with full force just before the polling. All this
sounds so unusual but we are becoming used to the
prevalence of these things. Does it ring familiar to
something which happened in history? While there are
lot of differences from what happened in Germany some
similarities are too glaring.

The targeting of minorities, the total abolition of
democratic space, the social common sense directed
against the minorities and secularists, and consensus
built around the fascist state are very similar. 'Kill
them, kill them' is what Modi could easily extract
from the section of crowd for Soharabuddin. What
distinguishes Gujarat from the Germany's state of
affairs in 30s and 40s of last century is that here
the process is taking place at a slower pace and the
same process is on with different intensities in
different states of the country. So can we use the
term Chronic Fascism in Gujarat in contrast to acute
fascism of Germany. Whole of Germany was totally
gripped by this politics, while in India Gujarat is
worst but all the same in other states also this
fascism is strangulating democratic space, though with
different degrees of intensity. The biggest similarity
is the 'successes' of a fascist party, which in
Germany took the pretext of race and here it is
wearing the garb of religion. Interestingly earlier
and even now the fascist parties are using the
democratic space to come to power, to precisely
abolish the same in due course.

During last two and a half decades the rise of right
wing politics has taken place on the pretext of
Hinduism, while it has nothing to do with the humane
streams of Hinduism. It claims to be for Hindus, while
majority of Hindus have become victim of this
intimidating politics. It reflects the state of
erosion of our democratic norms and gradual
strengthening of the forces which do talk about
democracy but are deeply wedded to the RSS, the
organization which is opposed to democracy and wants
to bring Hindu nation. That the concept of Hindu
nation is for Hindus, is just a pretext. It
essentially aims to abolish the values of liberty
equality and fraternity and strengthens the hold of
section of Hindus, the elite, males, on the whole
society. The trick is the agenda of a small dominant
section of society has been propagated as being for
all Hindus.

Coming to Gujarat , one can clearly make out that there
is a slow but dangerous march towards a fascist state.
The classical fascism which one witnessed in Germany
and Italy in the early decades of last century was
marked by the targeting of minorities, of social
rights groups/parties and at the same time doing away
with all democratic norms. It created a terrorizing
atmosphere, where the handful ruled the roost with the
charisma of leader like Hitler, who swayed the people,
worked and he got the anti democratic things accepted
by people in the initial part of the rule, till
Germany itself collapsed under the weight of the
fascist boots. Such politics does discover and project
a single charismatic leader, in Germany it was Hitler,
in Gujarat it is Modi. Incidentally RSS nationalism
also took lot of inspiration from Hitler's
Nationalism, "German national pride has now become the
topic of the day. To keep up the purity of nation and
its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging
the country of Semitic races-The Jews. National pride
at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has
also shown how neigh impossible it is for races and
cultures, having differences going to the root, to be
assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for
us in Hindustan to learn and profit by." (We or Our
nationhood Defined,1938)

The politics of RSS combine has cleverly adopted
itself to the Indian situation and has gone on to
create a fear of the miniscule minority. It is quite
similar to Hitler creating a phobia against Jews,
holding them responsible for the plight of Germany,
and using that as the center of his policies
terrorizing the whole nation into submission to the
agenda of fascism, abolition of the concept of rights,
something which is the life and breath of democracy,
something which is a shield for the average people to
survive. While a large section of Gujarat, Minorities,
dalits, adivasis and women are suffering the middle
and affluent classes are able to get their way through
the agenda of vibrant Gujarat !

The analogy does not end here. The terrorizing
atmosphere created in Gujarat does remind us of the
status of minorities. Now the large sections of
minorities feel that they have been relegated to the
second class citizenship status. Their insecurity is
the index of our democratic ethos. It is correctly
pointed out that if you want to see the state of
health of democracy, have a look at the status of its
minorities!

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Issues in Secular Politics

December 2007 II

For Publication/Circulation

ram.puniyani@gmail.com
www.pluralindia.com