Journalist, author, and blogger Chandrahas Choudhury has an excellent, in-depth piece in Caravan Magazine, on the BJP’s 30th national convention, which took place this year in Indore. The party suffered losses in the Indian elections last year, so one is especially curious to see where they are going to go next.
I know some readers at least may not be interested in Indian politics, and I would recommend this piece by Chandrahas particularly for those who don’t follow Indian politics all that closely. It’s more in the vein of New Yorker articles, which blend closely observant journalism, personal memoir, and analysis, than what one sometimes sees in mainstream Indian journalism. Chandrahas also doesn’t write with the presumption that readers know all of the back-story already.
Here is how Rajnath Singh, the BJP’s former president, frames the debate:
Rajnath was not willing to concede, as some had argued after the failure of Advani’s campaign in 2009, the prospect of the exhaustion of the politics of Hindutva or a rethinking of the party’s self-definition. The BJP found itself today in a predicament, declared Rajnath, similar to that faced by Coca-Cola in the 1980s, when the company found itself steadily losing market share in the cola wars with its big rival–Pepsi.
Convinced that it no longer appealed to mass taste, Coke decided, fatally, to change its original formula. The company then produced and enthusiastically advertised a new Coke similar to its competitor–with more lemon oil and less orange oil– explained Rajnath, whose research on this subject appeared to have been very thorough. But, far from winning back those who had jumped ship, the new product was a disaster in the market, and Coke fell away even more. Only when, chastened, it reverted to its original formula and kept the faith in its original identity did it eventually make up its lost ground. For Rajnath, the BJP was now in the position that Coke was in the 80s. Learning from history, it had to avoid the temptation to abandon its ‘original formula.’
That original formula was, of course, Hindutva. (link)
Chandrahas doesn’t say it, but it might be worth pointing out at this point that Coca Cola tried this experiment as a market-leader. The “stick to your guns” strategy might less effective for a political movement that’s trying to grow, as opposed to maintain dominance. But even if Rajnath’s message fails to resonate, there are nevertheless some signs of life within the BJP — though they are coming from the party’s new president, Nitin Gadkari, rather than from more familiar figures:
More persuasively than many leaders invested in ushering in a new era, Gadkari returns repeatedly to first principles, to notes of warning and self-restraint. “We should think: what kind of political culture do we want to be a part of?” he asks, enjoining delegates not to go around touching the feet of leaders, especially his own. Past mistakes should encourage reflection about the thin line between atmavishwas (self-confidence) and ahankaar (arrogance). The party is to make a conscious effort to reach out to scheduled castes and tribes, minorities, the lower middle-classes and the poor. After all, isn’t this the true meaning of Deen Dayal Upadhyay’s concept of Antyodaya, or reaching out to the last man? Without actually crossing his predecessor, Gadkari was taking issue with Rajnath’s more static view of the party.
If Gadkari’s vision comes to be a dominant one within the BJP (and, needless to say, if Varun Gandhi is carefully managed & restrained), I suspect the Congress will shortly have its hands full with the BJP again.
Finally, I was intrigued by Chandrahas’s personal account of growing up in the era of the rising BJP:
When we were both 18, the party finally came to power at the centre, as the principal player of the National Democratic Alliance. Although far from being the kind of Hindu the party valorised, I found myself persuaded by the poise and intelligence of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who seemed to promise a government more vigorous than that offered by the moribund Congress. When his government embarked on a set of nuclear tests at Pokhran that year and declared India a nuclear power, I was not to be numbered among the skeptics. At discussions on university lawns in Delhi and later in England, against those who argued that the party was at its very heart illiberal and communal, I argued that the BJP deserved a chance to prove its worth.
What changed Chandrahas’ view of the party, not surprisingly, was Gujarat.
Because of your post I looked up what Hindutva means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva It is a word that is used like an epithet but I never knew what is its dictionary definition.
As well as what is meant by Hindu nationalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_nationalism I grew up in the US so I have to look them up.
It surprised me that “Hindutva” was coined by an atheist back in 1923 who regarded being Hindu as cultural and political identity than religious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar
One thing I noticed with my encounter with Indians especially at MIT (mostly upper caste people from IITs) is their staunch support for BJP. Despite their liberal outlooks (vegetarians but some drink alcohol and most are fine with gay marriage), they have deep prejudice toward Muslims. But they have very little prejudice toward Indian Christians.
We are always told that Congress embraced minority appeasement. I wonder whether BJP is trying to appease these select Hindus who are mostly upper caste and western educated and who will eventually be NRIs and USINPAC members.
And, I also wonder how would our education system look like in 20-30 years time when these BJP stalwarts hold positions within American universities and Indian universities.
Yes, well, fine–consider me among them–a DBD, grad student in US after taking a degree at IIT, and pro-BJP.
Maybe the truth about Indian history will be taught, instead of endless blathering about “syncretism” of the Moghuls.
And, Amardeep, the shot about Gujarat at the end feels (to this newly-arrived in US DBD) cheap. All parties in India have blood on their hands. This is bad, but also normal in politics in a developing country. I’m not going to take cheap shots at Congress, BSP, or CPI(M), but I could.
Oh hi! You must be new here or you’d be familiar with the general story arc of any post regarding the BJP.
It usually has a cheap shot about the BJP in the post. Some stalwart supporter will point out that it is a cheap shot and take a similar cheap shot at the Congress.
Then some self-styled secular intellectual will jump in and start talking about Gujarat and Modi. Other people join in, invective is slung, argumentum ad Hitlerum, abounds.
Then DrAmonymous shows up and starts deconstructing everything to little effect.
Razib will somehow reference some study he read at somepoint.
If you’re lucky Lupus Solitarius will say something intelligent or Yajnavalkya will make a ponderous post explaining the history and scholarship behind the subject.
Then that one guy who never posts with the same name twice makes a series of glib pronouncements in reply to every post by anyone to the right of Che Guevara.
And then it gets locked.
And, Amardeep, the shot about Gujarat at the end feels (to this newly-arrived in US DBD) cheap. All parties in India have blood on their hands. This is bad, but also normal in politics in a developing country. I’m not going to take cheap shots at Congress, BSP, or CPI(M), but I could.
Actually, there are no cheap shots in this post. I made that statement strictly because it’s what he says in the article. Read it.
So was the only difference between New Coke and Coca-Cola classic the change in ratio of lemon oil and orange oil?
How does Rajnath Singh know this? Isn’t the Coke formula one of the best kept secrets since the enigma machine?
Has Rajnath Singh discovered the secret of Coca-Cola? This is groundbreaking news people. If Rajnath Singh could figure out the secret formula of Coke what else could he discover? Who could hide anything from a man this skilled?
In terms of the BJP as a “big tent,” ABD’s in particular might be interested in “Friends of BJP,” which is seeking to “modernize” BJP as more of a Western-style center-right party. Their manifesto is interesting.
Yoga Fire, thanks for that–I will look through the archives.
Rajnath Singh has compared the ideology of a political party with the branding of a company. This is a valuable way of looking at politics.
The Congress party’s ideology—or brand, if you will—is that it stands for uniting all Indians across language, caste and religious lines. Suppose now that you and I want to form a political party. Can we say that our new party also stands for uniting all Indians across language, caste and religious lines? If we did, we would be a “me-too” political party—in other words, no market brand at all.
All non-Congress parties therefore present some other ideology. Example: the DMK’s brand is “We stand for the Tamil language and for non-brahmins. The Congress talks of unity in theory; in practice, the Congress only stands for Hindi and North Indians”.
Another example: Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav’s brand is: “We stand for OBC. The Congress talks of unity in theory; in practice, the Congress only stands for Banias and brahmins”.
Yet another example: The BJP’s brand is: “We stand for Hindus. The Congress talks of unity in theory; in practice, the Congress only stands for Muslims”.
You can understand the branding of the Akali Dal, the Telugu Desam, the Shiva Sena, the BSP and so on in the same way.
Rajnath Singh is making the case that Advani and Vajpayee moved the BJP brand closer to the Congress’s brand over time, and this led to the BJP looking like a “me-too” of the Congress.
I think Shilpa’s point about blood on all parties hands in salient. Meerut, Bhagalpur and Anti-Sikh riots in Delhi all took place under the Congress party. Shilpa, as you are a BJP supporter, and presumably a woman, you might be interested in reading this: http://bostonreview.net/BR29.3/nussbaum.html
yoga fire seems to be trolling.
The link seems to be broken, I am getting some error when i try to access it.
If the analogy between party ideologies and company branding can be continued, intellectuals, historians and op-ed writers play the role of advertising or marketing gurus—the ones who actually devise the brand. I think this might be why history textbooks are always about politics and war, and why history textbooks become controversial.
Pagal_Aadmi_for_d, Thanks for the Nussbaum link. Ugh. Ugliness exists. But she has a “tin ear” for Indian history. One example: “self-respect that was injured in the daily encounter with the racial hierarchy of the outer world could be built up again by the experience of secure kingly rule in the sphere of the family.” Most Hindus never even saw a Britisher during the Raj–India was not an urbanised society, and there were few Britishers around, and they in the metropoles. So I’m confident this can’t explain her purported “dark side” of male Hindu sexuality.
My broader point about Gujarat/Godhra is that whatever the facts, you’re not going to be successful in tarring 50% of the Indian political spectrum by harping on it. Fewer than 0.2% of those killed during Partititon were killed. India (at least north-west India where I was raised) is still haunted by Partition (just like Americans still talk a lot about World War II, both in terms of facts and in drawing on it for analogies). At my IIT it was “normal” (in the sense of not being remarked upon) for the children of the middle class (not creamy layer!) to be involved with the BJP. Please see my link in #9 above for a non-communal, “modern” take on where many of us want to take the BJP.
“What changed Chandrahas’ view of the party, not surprisingly, was Gujarat.”
Actually, even as cheap shots go, this one is pretty cheap. Chandrahas refers to the “genocide” in Gujarat, which is pretty mind-boggling when you look at the Holocaust, or Rwanda ’94, or Cambodia Year Zero, or Armenia ’15, or Nigeria ’66 (or Nigeria since ’66). There are cheap shots, and then there is the cheapening of human life by such a breathtakingly casual use of terms like “genocide.”
The shallowness of Chandrahas’ “analysis” is laid bare by his contention that as soon as India had gained independence, after centuries of conquest and colonialism now, suddenly, “Hindus had no one else but themselves to blame for their marginalisation.” It is really too bad the First Baron of Macaulay couldn’t have lived another 150 or so years to hear this. Few men have ever had their dreams come to fruition so completely.
Sorry about the problems with the link. I fixed it, I hope.
At any rate, this link should work:
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story.aspx?StoryId=215
I would suggest open-minded readers check out the story and decide for themselves whether the most intelligent approach is to go after Chandrahas for cheap shots and what not. I actually think his nuanced reading of what is happening in the BJP leadership right now ought to be of interest to people on both the left and the right.
Of course, partisan readers already know what they think, so they don’t need to bother to read anything new.
Sorry, that link doesn’t work either. It’s a pity, I was looking forward to reading an article that would de-mystify the BJP a little. Ah well. Back to lurking.
“Of course, partisan readers already know what they think, so they don’t need to bother to read anything new. “
Chandrahas toes the anti-Hindutva party line: he dutifully intones the “gujarat-genocide” mantra, calls those who did the heavy-lifting at the Babri Masjid “miscreants”, misses no opportunity to self-righteously defend Islam against it’s “paranoid” critics, and remembers to invoke “tribalism” in the final paragraph. With such a partisan piece of reportage as a point of reference, where did you expect things to go from there?
The link still didn’t work for me, btw. Not sure what the problem is. But you can always just go directly to The Caravan’s front page and find the article very easily from there: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/
Someone who calls Gujarat riots a “genocide” is being provocative and completely devoid of any sense of magnitude. But putting that aside when one looks at the facts as they are coming out from the SIT a completely different picture starts to emerge. You can read the India Today article on SIT inquiry here Apparently the NGO making the most sensational accusations have some explaining to do.
Credibility Gap
Then —> In his petition before the SC, Nanumiya Malek, a key witness in the Naroda Gam case, says that a married woman called Madina had been raped by rioters. Now —-> Malek later told the SIT that Madina’s rape was an accusation put forth at the behest of Teesta Setalvad. Madina also denied the charge.
Then —> For the past eight years, human rights activists and Naroda Patiya victims have alleged that the rioters ripped open the womb of the pregnant Kausarbanu.
Now —-> Dr J.S. Kanoria, who conducted a post-mortem on Kausarbanu’s body, says she died of burns during the riot and that her womb was intact.
Then —> While reinvestigating the Gulberg case, the SIT comes across nearly 20 witnesses who came with their readymade, typed statements to which the SIT objects.
Now —-> The Muslim witnesses refuse to videotape their statements. The statements that are recorded by the SIT do not match the readymade statements.
Then —> Imtiaz Pathan, a key witness in the Gulberg case, tells the special court that Ehsan Jafri was abused by Modi when Jafri called the latter seeking his help during the riots.
Now —–> The SIT has not been able to find any evidence or a record of Ehsan Jafri making a phone call to Narendra Modi.
Then —-> In their 2003 SC petition, Muslim witnesses accused the rioters of raping women. As a result, the trials of nine major cases were stalled for over six years.
Now —-> In their statements made before the SC-appointed SIT, the witnesses haven’t accused the rioters of raping women.
Yoga fire is right. I laughed at the succinct summary. This thread has already gone whack. A matter of time before it is locked.
The BJP seems to be taking positions identified with the “leftist” spectrum of Indian politics these days – whether on environment, the focus on the poor or the opposition to American policies. The last bit is to be expected I suppose given Congress’s close ties to America, but it remains to be seen if they can use this to court the Muslim vote by keeping the fanatics in check.
heh. well, i don’t comment here much anymore anyhow. so i won’t be citing stuff in the foreseeable future….
Let’s face it, most Indian politics are whack. Corruption is rife. But add to that mix intolerance of other groups and hatred, and it’s going to explode (It has before many times). I don’t think any sectarian political parties are going to offer up any real improvements to the Indian political system, but they certainly can do a lot if they want to rile up people and contribute to communalism and violence of innocent people, regardless of the group behind it.
The BJP’s politics are execrable, period. It’s pathetic when the only way you can defend a political party is by saying that it’s almost as bad as the rival party. This seems like common sense, but it strangely seems to escape the MIT-educated supporters of the BJP!
I’m no fan of the Congress, but Shilpa’s comparison of the record of these two parties just doesn’t work (don’t know if this is simple ignorance or sophistry at work) if you know anything at all of recent Indian history. I don’t think you need a class in logic to see that the orchestrated violence against minorities (which is the BJP’s proud record in state after state) is different from violations of civil rights by the State which both the Congress and BJP are guilty of. Hindu Supremacism, (i.e. the notion that Hindu religion and culture deserve a dominant position in Indian society, and fuck the minorities if they don’t want to be second class citizens in their own countries) is the BJP’s openly professed OFFICIAL policy. Modi’s actions in Gujarat have been all but officially sanctioned by the BJP and its supporters (exbhit A: Shilpa and her chums, above). One must make a distinction between the BJP’s embrace of Hindu Supremacism as a policy, and the thuggery of political scoundrels in the Congress that were responsible for the violence against the Sikh community in 1984. It is easy to pontificate about how all political parties “have blood on their hands”, but for most folks that want to be engaged in the political process, and for those that have some kind of commitment to working for a better society, this kind of difference matters very much indeed.
^^^
Err, so you are the type who stays home and doesn’t vote I presume? If you are not a fan of the Congress and not a fan of the BJP, there’s slim pickings in the political space. About the only realistic way forward is to change the parties from the inside.
No, that’s the leftist side of the spectrum of American politics. Being to the left of the Democrats, though, essentially makes you a jackbooted fascist in India.
AJ, I don’t know that you have to be inside a party to change it, but I’m all for people being engaged in the political process, for people caring for something other than what kind of car they will buy, or which restaurant they will have dinner at tonight. and yes, I’m for voting too.
My point is that it is extremely lazy and self-indulgent to keep supporting the BJP because “the Congress is awful too.” If you are a blood thirsty bigot, then I’d understand your allegiance to the BJP, but if you claim to be “educated”, or imagine yourself a thinking person, or want your place in civilized society, then, please take a minute to ask, why exactly am I overlooking the BJP’s philosophical embrace of Hindu Supremacism and their bloody record that is there for all to see? I don’t want to live in an America where Hindus, Muslims, etc. must play junior partner to their Christian friends, and neither do you. Same rule applies to India.
AND, read the piece from Caravan, won’t ya?
Veena S,
The reason why “educated” and “thinking” people gravitate towards the BJP is because they are fed up with the sycophantic, traitorous, and anti-democratic communalism of the congress. That’s right, I used all those words.
What you rather ignorantly dub as “hindu supremacism” is nothing of the sort. There is a reason why parsis (who were exterminated in their homeland) have been able to come and prosper in India. There is a reason why jews (who were persecuted in virtually every other country in the world) were able to leave in peace in India. It is because hindus believe in Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudah Vadanti. However, “educated and thinking people” are tired of self-professed liberals who know only to weep for the 800 odd minority victims of the Gujarat riots and not the 58 hindus who were burnt at Godhra (not to mention the 300 who died in the riots, and the 10,000 hindus made homeless) as well. BJP supporters here and elsewhere have sympathy for both groups.
So if you think a Uniform Civil Code is “hindu supremacist”, then by all means keep on ranting. But remember, in America that is the cornerstone of secularism, and the majority and the minority in the United States would laugh at the very thought of what it is your party advocates.
I read Choudhuri’s article, and while I sympathise with him for really straining hard to remain objective and balanced, occasionally the condescension, snide comments and unsubstantiated allegations masked as casually mentioned facts spilled through . Still, it was less obviously hateful than many other similar pieces one reads frequently.
Veena S
Veena, that is exactly the kind of unsubstantiated personal opinion masked as definitively stated facts that a lot of our biased media reports propagate. It is very easy to be taken in, specially if you don’t have first hand experience of living in India, or a special interest in Indian politics.
Here are statistics for your consideration.
What actions are these? Have they ever been proven? And what exactly is ‘all but officially’?
Is it really? Here is the BJP’s official constitution. Nothing even remotely similar in it to what you have been alleging.
I don’t have very strong political affinities, but I cannot stand artificially reinforced falsehoods, witch hunting and poorly disguised hatchet jobs replacing genuine political debate. In the past, the Congress has done a very good job of suppressing rival political opinions and ideologies using it’s institutional clout and it’s long grip on power. It is very obviously happening here. I believe that a strong, rejuvenated BJP would be a stabilizing influence, and would provide the political options that many feel the need for- Many of us who don’t consider nationalism a dirty word.
Yoga Fire, that was quite a summary.
So, if Congress dispatches armed thugs to kill Sikhs, it’s a “violation of civil rights by the State” which is somehow of lesser concern than if the BJP dispatches armed thugs to kill Muslims, because the latter is more troubling “orchestrated violence against minorities.” Uh-huh. Only the brainwashed anti-Hindus could agree.
Veena S = Prema?
@Yajnavalkya
“What you rather ignorantly dub as “hindu supremacism” is nothing of the sort. There is a reason why parsis (who were exterminated in their homeland) have been able to come and prosper in India.”
Parsis have lived through Muslims rule of Northern India, so spare me this Hinduism-is-the most-tolerant-religion crap. If anything, the existence of Dalits should make you aware of the inhumanity of the faith you tried to uphold to a supreme standard. Secondly, Persians viewed Zoroastrianism with disdain before the ancestors of today’s Parsis “migrated” out of Central Asia to South Asia. The milk and sugar myth might as well be compared to the myth of how Arabs liberated Persians from the brutality of today’s Parsis’ ancestors. The same Parsis, mind you, who would decide what kind of ‘human’ can enter their living quarters in the 21st century India.
“There is a reason why jews (who were persecuted in virtually every other country in the world) were able to leave in peace in India.” Jews prospered in Muslim lands, from Istanbul to Baghdad to Tehran. Heck, you can compare the shrinking of the Jewish population in India to that of Iran.
“It is because hindus believe in Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudah Vadanti. However, “educated and thinking people” are tired of self-professed liberals who know only to weep for the 800 odd minority victims of the Gujarat riots and not the 58 hindus who were burnt at Godhra (not to mention the 300 who died in the riots, and the 10,000 hindus made homeless) as well. BJP supporters here and elsewhere have sympathy for both groups.”
I begged to differ. If anything, Hindu supremacists would eagerly push Kashmiri Muslims, sans Kashmir, to Pakistan. Gujarat was the tip of the iceberg of what is waiting Muslims of India. Muslims of India have very bleak future ahead of them. If they don’t wake up from their deep slumber, Gujarat would be repeated in every corner of India, from UP to TN. And people like you and Shilpa would be fighting keyboardists on behalf of your “bharat mata”.
Anonymous,
Additionally whatever the ill of untouchability may be, it is a far cry from the oppression hindus face in Pakistan where they have been extirpated and Bangladesh, where their extermination is impending: http://www.dailypioneer.com/168047/The-death-throes-of-minority-Hindus.html. So please spare us the conspiracy theories about the condition of muslims in India. As Salman Khan himself said, his story would not be possible in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Hindus of the “educated and thinking” sort want opportunity for all.
Umm, Zoroastrianism was the state religion of Persia–I think you need to crack open a history book. Also, the jewish population shrinks in India because they all want to answer the call of Israel and return to their homeland, good job…
And yet somehow it is the hindus of the Kashmir valley that were pushed out by Islamic Supremecists who said they want pandit men to leave and pandit women to stay behind. Isn’t odd how those great liberals of conscience, Swaminathan Aiyer and Arundhati Roy conveniently forget those “minorities”. The reality an Indian Kashmir offers a future for all communities (unless Congress has its way), an Independent or Pakistani Kashmir means the death knell for sikhs, hindus, buddhists, and shias.
Deep slumber is an interesting choice of words considering the riots in Bareilly and Godhra massacre, but please, continue with the conspiracy theories that actually deepen the chasm between the two communities instead of working towards modernity and fair relations between them. “Educated and thinking people” want a modern and prosperous future for all communities.
Anonymous, not sure why you view keyboard warriors with such disdain –I would have thought you recognized a fellow solider. One must extend professional courtesy after all.
Regarding the prosperity of Jews in Muslim lands as compared to their status in India I did some checking with you know, purportedly Jewish sources. The address I have pasted below indicates that while the flavour of anti-semitism in “Muslim lands” differed from that in “Christian lands”, it still met the criteria of anti-semitism (Jews inferior to Muslims and deserving of and experiencing some type of sanction for their inferiority). Don’t let the title in the address fool you, the author makes a distinction between anti-semitism and anti-zionism as well (i.e. the author does not automatically equate opposition to the existence of Israel with anti-semitism). I have not found anything similar about the history of anti-semitism India except those parts of India that were subject to Portuguese (ergo Catholic) rule.
What Jews in India have historically faced in Hindu denominated areas can probably best be described as indifference and ignorance. This state of affairs also has its negatives, but it should not be confused with anti-semitism (a.k.a how can I hate you if you aren’t even on my radar?).
Of course Hindus historically have expressed and currently express intolerance towards identifiable groups (including their own lower castes). However, it is flat out disingenous to pretend that, by any stretch of the imagination, Jews historically suffered from the same degree of anti-semitism in Hindu majority societies than they did in Muslim (particularly Arab Muslim) ones.
Regarding Hindu supremacists (and making the big assumption that accusations about various political parties are correct), is it that you are opposed to any religion claiming supremacy or just any religion that isn’t Islam? Your response would certainly help this viewer in making an assessment as to your credibility (is your anger coming from a violation of your pluralistic or secular principles or anger that Islam and Islamic societies are not accepted by everyone as the ne plus ultra as you feel they should be?).
http://www.zionism.netfirms.com/ArabAntiZionism.htm
Dear BJP Fans, Reasoned debate presupposes some common ground in terms of an acknowledgment of well-established facts. If you are going to deny that the carnage in 2002 Gujarat was orchestrated with the active involvement of Modi and his henchmen, you are clearly in denial, or have confined your reading in the last 8 years to the BJP website. I can’t help with either. I can only recommend that you start your homework with the report “We have no reports to save you” by Human Rights Watch, or depending on your preference you can start with any one of the numerous reports by civil society groups in India, as well testimonies by IAS officers and Police personnel (that worked for the govt. in 2002, and who have since quit in protest), etc. which document IN DETAIL what happened and how. I can no more prove in one blog comment that the earth is round than I can prove that Modi is involved. Accusing me of not proving this is ridiculous- read up!
I have no interest in defending the Congress and share Yajnavalkya’s disdain about the anti-democratic, corrupt and sycophantic culture of that party. Also, in response to Shilpa’s last comment, the distinction I made between the BJP and Congress’s records makes sense to me, and it’s OK if it doesn’t make sense to you, but you must be very clear as to exactly what you are agreeing is acceptable practice (i.e.killing people for believing differently) by a political party in supporting the BJP.
Let’s not equivocate about this.
I must confess that I have never understood why Hindutva supporters bring up Kashmiri pundits (granting for the moment for purposes of argument that the claims of injustice against them are true) – has the Tit for Tat school of political behavior ever worked anywhere? How does targeting minorities today make up for what Kashmiri pundits went through? And remember that wonderful quote by Gandhi? “the policy of an eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind”.
Yajnavalkya – Yes, Parsis and Jews have lived in India, but there was no BJP then, was there? What I am describing as “Hindu Supremacist” is the BJP’s world view from 1980-2010. Let us not obfuscate the issue by bringing up Jews and Parsis who arrived and lived in India under very different political arrangements and contexts. While on the subject, “Nationalism” and “Hindu Supremacism” are not the same – the latter is far more exclusionary and hierarchical than the former.
Lupus, I hope you are joking when you remind us that BJP’s consititution does not mention the phrase “Hindu Supremacism”!! the U.S. constitution explicitly disallows Racism, but does that mean racist discrimination doesn’t exist in American society? Regardless of what the constitution says or doesn’t say, the BJP’s official representatives have described the Hindu supremacist world view countless times in their meetings, conventions, manifestos, media interviews, election speeches, etc. the Caravan article discusses it too. And then of course there is their record in Gujarat, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and so on.
posting to correct a typo- the title of the Human Rights Watch report is “We have no Orders to save you” (which incidentally is a quote from Police personnel to civilians seeking protection) the report is here: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2002/04/30/we-have-no-orders-save-you
Some of the policies that we younger BJP members seem especially eager to strive for include:
I am excited to be a part of this agenda!
Veena S,
I think the other commenters can defend themselves, so I’m just going to focus on the specific ones you addressed to me:
no veena you’re absolutely right, the bjp just invented the ethnic cleansing of the pandits in 1989, they made it all up and timed the release of the ramayana and mahabharata serials to engender an atmosphere of strategic essentialism inventing a hindu identity out of thin air…
yeah, i think you’re really off the deep end here or spend most of your afternoons reading Samar magazine…who is justifying anything based on the oppression of the Kashmiri pandits? What we’re calling out are the double standards of you and your ilk who only see the world through the prism of “only muslims victims”. We’re saying if you’re a true liberal, a true human rights advocate, then you will speak out against the oppression of all parties and call out violent sexism wherever it stands; otherwise, you’re just an apologist for the ISI/Jihadi complex like a one Arundhati Roy who wrote the most asininely logic bereft piece after the 26/11 attacks and had the gall to do it a mere 2 weeks after those events.
Where oh where has the BJP spoken against Parsis and Jews? If anything, they (the parsis in particular) are honored as model minorities. Even the most hardcore RSS member has great respect for Sam Maneckshaw. I’m afraid you are under the influence of the very delusions you accuse others of being in. This “hindu supremacist” talking point, being the James Astill/Banyan/Economist talking point that it is doesn’t pass muster with anyone even remotely acquainted with Indian politics. Perhaps your sponsors can arm you with a better memo next time.
That has already happened for Muslim women in India through common law and legislation. Not sure about Hindu, Christian and other women.
Just so we get this right, you do then advocate supporting the other party that stands for legalised rape of Muslim minors and allows its ministers to participate burning people alive?
I miss the Swatantra Party of C.Rajagopalachari. Thinks tanks such as FNF South Asia and Center For Civil Society would be great launching pads for a revival of classical liberalism in India. All Indian liberals should read the 21 principles of the Swatantra Party.http://www.liberalpartyofindia.sabhlokcity.com/party/21prin.doc Regarding religion, I think the BJP focuses too much on Hinduism and the Congress focuses too much on secularism. BJP’s position alienates minorities and Congress’s position alienates those who feel religion plays an important role in public life. I personally think the government should take a laissez-faire approach to religion, neither promoting Hinduism nor Secularism. I’m not talking about money of course but of allowing a sort of “free market” to determine the role of religion in India. Ultimately, I am deeply pessimistic about this ever becoming a reality in my lifetime. As long as Congress, BJP and communal disputes exist in their present form, there isn’t much hope for a change in attitudes.
Organized and pre-planned rioting and murder has always been used by every conceivable political party in India since, oh at least the 1960s, especially in North India and the heartland (but also eastern India, including West Bengal). At this point it is almost “politics by other means” to quote Clausewitz’s dictum about war. It is a strategy carefully honed by Indian political parties and factions to be used as the ultimate weapon (of course India is not alone in this; this is the case in almost every developing country where some amount of political contestation is allowed; examples have included, Malaysia–remember ethnic rioting kick started its Bumiputera policies–, the Philippines, Indonesia during the brief democracy decades and after, Nigeria, and finally many parts of Europe and the United States in the 19th and 20th century, though these latter were not really manifested as ethnic or linguistic conflicts owing to relative uniformity along these dimensions . Ironically they tend not to happen in otherwise multi-ethnic or multilingual countries where dictators have held power). Indeed you are sure to lose out in local and regional politics (whether you are a caste or religion based party or an ostensibly secular party) in India if large-scale violence is not one of your strategies to polarize the electorate.
The BJP is just one example, and is deservedly held up as one of the more egregious examples because of its larger national ambitions (most conflicts on the other hand always play out locally), though Congress is not far behind, given its bloody history. All this does not mean that we–whoever we is–have to accept this sorry state of affairs. I think every effort has to be made to de-legitimize these tactics, but unfortunately I suspect that will only happen as the economy changes and violence becomes a more and more expensive tactic for non-state actors, including political parties (this can happen in many ways, and through various channels).
Veena S–Now that is rhetoric based on your own perception. The link I had posted for you had statistics from 2004 onwards for the number of communal incidents in the country. Gujarat and Orissa were much better off than UP/MP/Karnataka (both under the Congress and BJP) etc in it. It also says that in Karnataka, the communal situation was no different between the Cong and BJP governments. Please do read it again. Now the reason I had pointed out the BJP manifesto, was because you had, in capitals, stated that the OFFICIAL policy of the BJP was Hindu supremacism. That is factually incorrect.It is ‘Integral Humanism’. The BJP ruled the country for 6 years. There were the Gujarat riots in 2002, but the country did not turn into Pakistan or Rwanda or Nigeria, as it would seem from your “crazed fanatical fascist xenophobes” hyberbole. As for the riots itself, there have been many riots before under different governments, and the 1984 riots compare in scale. But you only see the communal killer tag being pinned on the BJP.That is hypocrisy.
The congress, SP, and a host of regional parties have cynically cultivated the Muslim community as a captive vote bank by promoting and encouraging it’s more intolerant and fanatical sections, and in the process retarded true progress and wider integration of the community. Sadly, we have reached a point where any party which objects to this practice will be labeled communalist.
They bring it up because no one else has the moral spine to bring it up. Ever seen Teesta or Arundhati beating their chests about it? Are they any less important citizens of our country? Why is mentioning their plight a Hindutva identifier?
Gandhiji also adviced the Jews to offer themselves to be slaughtered by the Nazis as a symbol of non violent resistance. We have got to approach his political views in a nuanced way, not always at face value.
Veena, there was religious violence in India much before the BJP existed, and the BJP has never had any problems with these communities. There was a definite reason why the Zoroastrians migrated and sought shelter in Gujarat. The persecution of Zoroastrians continues to date in Iran, and Hindutva has got nothing to do with it.
nemo, I agree with the spirit of your comments. Economic growth will curtail Congress and BJP-inspired riots, just as economic growth will render irrelevant the CPI(M) and BSP. For all of my anti-Congress sentiments, they at least have been better at growth-oriented policies in the past several years than in their previous incarnations. So there is hope for a much better future!
Remember my friend. You must pay no heed to the fact that every major Hindu social or political organization going back to at least the late 1800s has critiqued, sought to reform, or outright condemned the application of [i]varna[/i] and untouchability. The plight of the Dalits is not meant to actually be addressed. It is only to be brought up to be used as an ideological bludgeon with which to hammer your opponents, never as an expression of genuine concern for the situation on the ground or about constructive ideas about reform.
That’s just because as far as commerce and major industry is concerned the government has basically been captured by the merchants and industrialists. This can be good for generating growth as an end in itself, but whether it’s useful for translating that abstract growth into tangible improvements for all of Indian society and India as a nation is yet to be seen. It’s not enough just to bring money in, that money needs to go towards investing in the future. It’s not enough to just earmark money for “pro-poor” programs, you need to actually have programs that work to improve the lot of the poor over the long term with improvements in health, education, and adoption of new technology where appropriate.
The UPA’s anti-poverty strategy is fixated on simple transfer payments to the needy through guaranteed employment schemes and inefficient farm, energy, and industrial subsidies. When you just dish out money like that you need to understand that’s it’s only good as an anti-starvation measure. It may be good on some level, but it’s not an actual solution to poverty unless you equip people with the means to lift themselves up out of the muck. Schools, sanitation, and better access to markets require actual competent governance that can think outside the narrow prism of “Who do we need to hand out money to in order to stay in power?” It has yet to be seen whether the BJP can implement a sufficiently comprehensive scheme nationwide, but You-Know-Who’s record on that front in You-Know-Where has actually been rather spectacular.
Yoga Fire, you are both accurate and really have me laughing!! Thanks!!
In 46 it’s supposed to say “application of jati,” not “application of varna.”
The Congress is full of nepotistic kleptocrats. The BJP is fascist. A plague on both your houses.