The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeks to project itself in Calcutta as the viable political alternative today.
In Gujarat … the government, led by the Janata Dal with almost equal participation of the BJP, allows the saffron storm toppers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to run amok for days on end. The staged communal carnage is facilitated by the utter incompetence, if not worse, on the part of the state government.
Through a judicious mix of political drama and strong administrative action, the fledging chief minister of Bihar, Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, checks the outbreak of communal tension and thwarts the designs of VHP agent’s provocateur, among them a BJP Member of Parliament.
The fact is that whatever may be the pretension, the assertion of aggressive Hindu identity by the BJP and it cohorts in the VHP, Bajrang Dal Shiv Sena etc. is a force that is inevitably geared to the fragmentation not only of Indian politics but even on Hindu society. In this dangerous pursuit it is aided by marching Sikh and Muslim fundamentalism. On the other side it is confronted by real, live subaltern secularism. This is missed by formulation of political sociology on the basis of the trees of caste while missing the wood of class altogether.
The ambitions of the BJP are abundantly clear and in fairness to its leaders it must be admitted that they have made no attempt to hide them. The party is quite obviously engaged in the task of capturing state power through creating a socioideological base shaped according to the contours of an invented Hinduism. Its religious pursuits have little to do with the immense heterogeneity and pluralism that have characterized Hinduism historically. Even the symbols of such neo Hinduism can be constructed afresh and used opportunistically. This was demonstrated dramatically during the Ram Shila Punjab exercise when suddenly the worship of bricks was introduced into Hindu rituals as part of a marketing strategy. ‘The commercialization and attendant homogenization of Hindu worships also entails a significant hanged in the sociology of such religious politics.
Up to now the leadership of eligiopolitical Hindu organizations like the Hindu Mahasabha, 2SS and even the BJP has largely consisted of Brahmins.
In sharp contrast today the leadership of the aggressive Hindu organizations like the VHP and the Shiy Sena is increasingly dominated not only by non-Brahmins put indeed by traders large and small.
This is by no means an insignificant development If this transformation of Hindu practice continues, there may yet come a day when there will be no place for Brahmins in Hindu India.
The Bania dominated neo Hinduism is monotonous, monochromatic and simplistic. Neither the intricacies of Vedantic philosophy nor the liveliness of Bhakti devotion is of much use to it. It deities are shaped in images portrayed in the kitsch art of Raja Ravi Varma and sanctified by the electronic mythology marketed by Raman and Sagar and B.R Chopra. It has sharply demarcated boundaries and is self-limiting.
The politics of this type of Hindu religiosity first of all cuts itself off from the Dravidian traditions of South India and of the non-Aryan north east, It then restricts itself vis a vis the various subaltern elements in Indian society even as it seeks to insinuate itself into the tribal frame of India through spurious devices … It alienates itself from the numerically limited but nevertheless influential intelligentsia which stands by the secular and democratic values of the Indian state. Finally the aggressive trader instincts of the protagonists of such neo Hinduism puts them into conflict with the working peasantry.
It is this last element which today stands in the way of the BJP. ‘Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav is not a historical accident. He represents the fundamental secular, grassroots secularism of the poor peasantry and he is historically and culturally bound to combat communalism. The Ajgar theorists who see politics only in terms of fortuitous combinations of caste configurations based on colonial census classifications miss that castes span a whole political economic spectrum.
If today peasant castes, or even some sections of such castes, resist communalisation of politics, it is because they see traders as the natural adversaries of peasants. It is also because they feel uneasy with the unitary religion imposed from above when for centuries they have evolved their own indigenous, localised modes of worship in keeping with the peasant universe.
On the other side, Hindutva of the BJP is aided by Sikh and Islamic fundamentalism. In the political arena this is reflected in violation of ideological pluralism and democratic practice … the sword of Mann is complemented by the trishul of the Bajrang Dal.
The political economy of India is such that its politics must of necessity be shaped by those engaged in production rather than those who live off distribution.
(Times of India)
Article extracted from this publication >> July 27, 1990
