Talking Turkey: Hindutva’s Bihar test

Whatever the results of the Bihar As-sembly election (different poll projections have already been made), campaign rhetoric, which has understandably aroused the ire of the Election Commission, has reached a new low. Regrettably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, instead of being above the fray, is very much part of it. Disregarding political convention, he has campaigned in Assembly elections after assuming his high office. The objective is to augment his party’s strength in the Rajya Sabha, based as it is on party positions in state legislatures.

There is substance in the Opposition’s charge that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the larger Sangh Parivar stir the communal pot to polarise voters before elections. But things have not gone according to Bharatiya Janata Party’s plans this time around for two reasons: the lynching to death of a Muslim in Dadri over allegations related to cow meat and Mr Modi’s silence for nearly 10 days over the tragedy that marks a macabre symbol of where the country is heading.

The disadvantage of being a tweeting Prime Minister is that when he habitually tweets inconsequential greetings to one and all but remains silent on a gruesome murder with huge political fall-out, it raises a stink. Forced to take a stand in the face of growing public clamour, he took shelter behind the President’s pointed reminder of the secular nature of the Constitution while stressing that the priority should be on fighting poverty, rather than Muslims. And in what must rank as the strangest justification of all, Mr Modi sought to justify the poison being spread by his own junior ministers and MPs as expressions of free speech in a democracy.

In Bihar, Mr Modi has been following the same strategy that he has in previous Assembly elections. He pits himself against the Opposition candidate, in effect saying that like in the glory days of Jawaharlal Nehru, he can put up a lamp post and win. But Bihar is not Nehru’s India and although he has had a good run in previous Assembly elections, his temerity in projecting himself as the visionary leader and symbol of democratic India sits ill with a growing number of people. Besides, the spark seems to be missing from Mr Modi’s campaign rhetoric this time round. Much like

Rahul Gandhi’s addiction to deriding the Modi dispensation as the “suit-boot government”, the Prime Minister’s rhetorical question to audiences to egg them on to answer what he wants to hear is beginning to pall because the formula remains the same and, thanks to extensive television coverage, they have heard it before. After the echoes of Mr Modi’s election rhetoric fade, the cloud of hyperboles it has produced will remain to muddy the state’s and country’s polluted political waters. Dadri, unlike other tragedies of an even greater scale, is an accounting of some 16 months of Mr Modi’s dispensation at the national level.

It is not a pretty picture because even as the Sangh Parivar spouts evil and poisonous words, the Prime Minister is either unwilling or unable to rebuke or act against the perpetrators of what must be described as pouring petrol over burning fires. Two consequences flow from the stage we have reached. The political climate in the country has become brittle and hence more prone to manipulation by vested interests with evil designs. Second, as the President’s timely warning suggested, it is time to stop going downhill on the path to perdition. Bihar is not only a signpost but a potent reminder of the shape of things to come if we do not heed the warning.

It is important to face facts. Many elements in the Sangh Parivar — it would be insulting to call them fringe elements — feel empowered to indulge in their fantasies by the coming to power of a majority BJP government for the first time. They have remained unchecked, if not encouraged, by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh hierarchy and Prime Minister Modi. The question thus boils down to the desire and ability of the Modi dispensation to try to rein in a dominant stream of Sangh Parivar thought before it causes irreparable damage to the secular fabric of India.

However desirous the Parivar might be of building a Hindu India, the latest census has revealed that a little over 20 per cent of the population consists of peoples professing faiths other than Hinduism broadly defined. They cannot, contrary to the declaration of a distinguished member of the Parivar, be thrown into the sea. The Bihar Assembly result, after its multiple phases, will pass into history. But the problems the campaign rhetoric has highlighted will not go away because they relate to the very idea of India. Will Mr Modi, under the cloak of free speech, allow his partymen and others belonging to the larger Sangh Parivar to taunt “the other”, be they Muslims, Christians or Sikhs, to continue to vitiate the atmosphere?

The country has already tasted some of the results in the increasing desecration of mosques and churches ascribed by BJP spokesmen to hooligans. There have been enough indications from sober elements of minority communities of their concerns and opposition to be painted in saffron colours. The question to ask is: Are the BJP government and the Sangh Parivar so intent in bringing about their concept of Hindu India that they are willing to disregard the prime importance of the nation’s unity and integrity?

The jury is still out, but one would hope that the new rulers of the country will have the wisdom and sagacity to halt the excesses of their followers even if they themselves subscribe to the fantasies we have got accustomed to hearing. Every nation worth its name has a soul. To assault that soul for extraneous objectives, whatever they be, is dangerous. History has shown the folly of making a creed the ultimate truth to the disregard of wisdom accumulated over millennia. In a sense, it boils down to leadership of the right kind and the ability to see the dangers on the horizon.