Beyond the passions events in Jawaharlal Nehru University have caused in Parliament and outside it, a new strategy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the broader Sangh Parivar is taking shape. As BJP leaders jab at opponents on grounds of being less than patriotic, the Parivar has decided to combat an increasing sense of disillusionment among the public with the BJP government with the blunt instrument of nationalism.
After winning power, the Parivar’s intention was to change the idea of India from a modern secular discourse to a Hindu-influenced nation rich in myths, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi given the task of marrying it to governance and a measure of modernity.
The new dispensation began with the RSS capturing the key ideologically-related ministries of human resources development and culture. But the process of spreading the Hindutva ideology has been advanced by casting it in stone with the Indian flag and a shrieking form of nationalism.
It was no coincidence that the student wing of the BJP called military veterans to the JNU campus to beat the drums of nationalism and declare their belief that students should be indoctrinated in its narrow definition. Whether they are influenced by the old Nazi ideology is not certain, but the Parivar has decided to use an exaggerated form of nationalism to dragoon voters to cast their lot with the BJP. There are, of course, such muscular ancillaries of the Parivar as the Bajrang Dal to enforce compliance, if necessary.
In line with the new strategy, one saw the unusual spectacle of men in lawyers’ black jackets carrying the tricolour hoisted on long bamboo poles in the Patiala House courts complex while the case against Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the JNU students’ union charged with sedition, came up for hearing. These same lawyers roughed up journalists and JNU students for allegedly being anti-national. And the lawyers later took out a “victory procession”.
The intensified process of creating nationalists of the Parivar variety has two objectives: to change the idea of India and counter the anti-incumbency wave ahead of a season of important elections in a number of states. The bugle was sounded by no other than home minister Rajnath Singh who employed an apparent fake tweet from the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba chief Hafiz Saeed to link JNU student protests with the Pakistani evil mind thus giving a Pakistan twist to events in the university.
There will doubtless be further refinements to the Parivar’s propagation of its form of nationalism as more heads are bashed up at more gatherings of the young and old and benign police forces look on. More young women will be chased out of Bengaluru pubs. More modern paintings will be destroyed although the Parivar’s favourite target, M.F. Husain, is no more.
The top Parivar leadership will doubtless meet sooner rather than later to take stock of the situation as its followers wear nationalism on their sleeves. Debates in the two Houses of Parliament were revealing for Smriti Irani’s defence of her ministry and government with more passion than wisdom as for the Opposition’s combined onslaught in the face of growing intolerance of dissent by authority.
Perhaps the most cogent case was made in the Rajya Sabha by the former Harvard academic and member of the Trinamul Congress, Sugata Bose. He pleaded, “What must be avoided at all cost is the criminalisation of dissent”. He went on to describe the treasury benches’ brand of nationalism as “narrow, selfish and arrogant”.
Judging by the performance of Mr Modi’s ministers, the word from the top was to strike a belligerent note to get the better of the Opposition. But many questions remain unanswered. While treating a students’ demonstration as a major attack on the nation and exaggerating its import by slapping sedition charges, where will the train stop? As the reaction from many academic institutions from across the country demonstrated, students are getting increasingly restless. And the vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University has warned that increasing threats to its, and other institutions’, autonomy can have dangerous consequences.
A recent triumph of a meeting of Central university vice-chancellors logged by Ms Irani was to enforce the flying of the national flag of a certain height atop Central university buildings. No one can object to such display of patriotism but it is part of the larger scheme of propagating a certain kind of patriotism that places a premium on using the tricolour in aid of the Sangh Parivar.
We are witnessing the opening shots of a long-term game in which the national flag is an accessory to the conversion of an essentially Nehruvian idea of India into an Indian superpower of the Parivar’s dream in which Hindutva will reign supreme and dissenters will be made to feel unwelcome. In modern historic terms, the nearest analogy to this dream lies in the political philosophy of Nazi Germany, whether consciously conceived as such or not.
There are moments in a nation’s life when politicians’ resolve and circumstances determine its future. If a nation of 1.3 billion people of diverse faiths, ethnicities and languages is sought to be confined to a straitjacket, explosions will inevitably occur. Additionally, the process of getting to the Parivar ideal is fraught with risks.
The BJP leadership might well believe that opposition to its grand plan is limited to an English-speaking elite or Opposition members of Parliament. Masses in the countryside and the urban poor, the word is being spread, are with strident nationalism wrapped up in myths and miracles of ancient India. Such reasoning has been proved wrong time and again.
Taking a rather recent Indian historical example, Indira Gandhi’s Emergency led to her cataclysmic defeat when voters were asked. Equally praiseworthy was the punishment of the divided house the Janata Party had become, leading to the army of ambitious men donning the hat of Prime Minister. They were dumped by the people to bring back Indira.
