The communal virus is no longer limited to a fundamentalist fringe; it is now Sapping the very unity and integrity of the Indian nation. It had a limited appeal for long-we always had communal parties but their electoral base was miniscule and localized-but two dramatic developments transformed communalism from being a fringe phenomenon to taking over the main Stream political process. The first was the decision of Indira Gandhi following the erosion of her normal electoral coalition to use the problem of Punjab as a catalyst for castigating the minorities and dissenting groups as anti-national in the process injecting a deep anxiety in the middle class Hindu and about the ‘nation in danger.

The second was the emergence of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad which combined with the RSS the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal to transform an anti-minorities stance into majority chauvinism of the Hindus whom they undertook to ‘unify’ under the banner. While events from the invasion of the Golden Temple to the assassination of Indira Gandhi and its horrible aftermath produced the great divide between communities the Ram Janmabhoomi call surcharged the same with a highly emotional appeal But for the dominant party (the Congress) itself adopting a communal stance and Legitimizing anti-minority feelings the VHPBJP appeal would never have made it.

The combination of the Congress-I brand of political communalism and the VHP-BJP stamp of a deep-seated Hindu identity succeeded in drawing large sections of the middle-class (in many places joined by the lower classes who were also emotionally drawn by communal appeals) towards a pseudo-religious symbolism of Hindutva. With this the two streams of the ‘nation in danger’ and Hindu Rashtra joined into one common theme of a Hindu hegemonical state which the other communities should accept and abide by. And with it the whole ideology of a pluralist democracy which had been built around the essentially plural tradition of Hindu civilization itself has come under shadow and the unique brand of secularism as the ideological basis for the Indian state has been jeopardized.

Inevitably the alienation of the minorities (and regions where the minorities are in large numbers) had bred minority communalism often taking to ‘extremist’ and ‘terrorist’ escape routes in the process gravely affecting neighborly relations militarizing the subcontinent and rendering each national economy highly vulnerable to outside influences There is a deep interface between the communal divide within the country and the international divide across the borders to which very little systematic attention has been given beyond accusations of “terrorists” receiving aid from across the border. However the basic reality of a simultaneous attack on the integrity of the state from within and without cannot be ignored. It sets the stage for the growing culture of violence and the free market in dangerous armaments.

There is need to probe this growing interface between external and internal vulnerabilities

The answer surely lies in the sharp erosion of the state’s role in bringing about social transformation at home in which the people at large were to be involved and in which self-reliance and national autonomy visa-vis the external world in realising social democratic mobilisation at home was to have been the principal spur.

In the meanwhile the print media and the professional middle classes fell victim to national chauvinist appeals on the one hand and narrow interpretations of self-interest on the other (as found in the virulent reaction to the SCs STs and the OBCs).

To be sure it is from within the same middle class and by working in the same media that a whole lot of idealists committed to social transformation secular values and the environment have emerged. A large array of organisations intellectual articulation and newspaper columns devoted to the human nights of the oppressed and victimised people the women the children the Dalit’s the displaced and the homeless have sprung up from among these rebels against the system. But so powerful have been the simultaneously recessive and aggressive strain of Hindu culture and its flirtation with modern nationalism of the Western vintage that despite many efforts at charting new paths towards a truly indigenous pluralist sensitive and just social order these have failed to make a dent in the mainstream social process.

To an extent both the social agenda with which the Janata Dal/National Front formation Started and the two issues (social amelioration and defence of the minorities) to which it chose to give priority represented an attempt to provide a new deal for a polity that had been taken for a ride by the elite classes.

The end of the National Front experiment came as a result of the Janata Dal’s failure to build a party and a grassroots base that could have countered the VHP offensive on the basis of the real interests of the people with its end has ended any hope of a democratic resurgence from within the mainstream political institutions the planning mechanisms and the representative bodies at local and state levels. It will now have to be once again based on the long-term struggles of the masses waged against the entire backlash that has been let loose from three diverse yet converging strands: lower middle class jingoism upper middleclass elitism and the aggressive insecurity of the minorities and the aggrieved nationalities.

(Courtesy The Muslim)

Article extracted from this publication >> April 5, 1991