Daily Times

The long-drawn Indian election is finally over. The world’s biggest democratic electoral process has returned a clear verdict: the Indian voters want Narendra Modi and his BJP to continue ruling for the next five years. 303 seats out of a total of 543 in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha, means it that the BJP can form the government on its own. The main opposition party, the Indian National Congress fared miserably, winning only 52 seats with the president of the INC Rahul Gandhi being defeated badly.

However, Indian elections since long has been conducted in terms of alliances. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with the BJP as the major national party won 350 seats and the main opposition alliance the United Progressive Alliance with the INC as the main party could muster only 82 seats. In the UPA while Congress was routed the regional Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by Stalin did well. The Communist Party of India (CPI) won two seats and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) three seats. The BJP did badly in the Indian Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Elsewhere its juggernaut rode roughshod over opposition citadels in the Hindi-speaking belt and beyond.

The left-of-centre and Marxist Indian intellectuals were visibly shaken by the result. They thought that since Modi had failed to deliver on the promises made to the poor, the economy was performing badly, and the prime minister made silly statements he was going to be rejected by the wisdom of the masses. For these reasons they believed the Indian electorate will give a mandate in which secular and progressive forces will be given an opportunity to present a better government. All such reasoning proved eminently off the mark. I must say that I was among those who were hoping that the voters will go for change, but as the saying goes, ‘if wishes were horses beggars would ride’.

The BJP unabashedly applied a polarizing strategy concentrating on the support primarily of Hindu voters (80 per cent of the Indian population) who were identified as true patriots. The religious minorities had to prove their loyalty in some manifest way and the 14.2 per cent Muslim minority of nearly 170 million was portrayed as lacking genuine Indian roots.Vigilantes from the Bhartiya the Gao Raksha Dal, a right-wing Hindu organization ostensibly set up to protect the holy cow whose thugs have in recent months have in typical fascist ferocity killed some 35 hapless Muslims allegedly for eating beef. Indian intellectuals and journalists who were critical of the Modi regime such as Ravish Kumar were threatened to death. The overall tone of the BJP campaign was threats to minorities and claims to be true patriots.

The roots of such thinking go back in time to the 19th century when religious or confessional nationalism emerged among communalist Hindu and Muslim leaders The two-nation theory was premised on the assumption that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations which could never form a political nation based on territorial nationalism.

Contrary to popular propaganda in both India and Pakistan Gandhi did not inject religion into politics. It was already part of politics through the Hindu and Muslim revivalist movements and sectarian divisions

In 1923, Hindutva ideology was advanced by VD Sarvarkar, the Hindu Mahasabha ideologue. It talked about India being the home of the Hindu nation and non-Hindus accepting Hinduism as their cultural identity. A more virulent form of it was the RSS ideology propounded by MS Golwalkar. He wrote in 1938 that Hindus should learn from the Nazis and drive out all Muslims or reduce them to second-rate citizens. Today Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a close chum of Modi. Politics can create all sorts of bedfellows.

However, Sarvarkar and Gowalkar were marginalized by the Indian National Congress’ secular, territorial nationalism and Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru and a host of other enlightened intellectuals including Muslims such as Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad could captured centre stage of the anti-colonial freedom struggle.

Contrary to popular propaganda in both India and Pakistan Gandhi did not inject religion into politics. It was already part of politics through the Hindu and Muslim revivalist movements and sectarian divisions. The caste system and the Muslim puritanical zeal were always at hand to be exploited by the British who through the 1909 reform created separate electorates and thus segregated Hindus and Muslims in political terms as well. Gandhi sought to bridge the religious divides through the doctrine of Wahdat -a-Wajud (Unity of Creation) set forth in a popular idiom. His evening prayers included recitations from all sacred books of Indian communities.

On the other hand, the Muslim variant of the two-nation theory had a diametrically opposite effect on Muslims. Although first set forth by Allama Iqbal and Choudhary Rahmat Ali it was Mohammad Ali Jinnah who drew full capital out of it and turned it into a game-changing discourse for demanding a separate state for Muslims and got it. The partition violence resulted in at least one million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs killed and the biggest migration in history: 14-15 million who crossed the Radcliffe Line drawn between India and Pakistan. In the Punjab it resulted in ethnic or rather religious cleansing on both sides of the divided Punjab. The two nation-theory created an ideology always at hand for politicians to divide people, win elections and persecute minorities.

While in India, Gandhi and Nehru and their close associates prevented the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS from expelling Muslims from the rest of India (East Punjab being the exception) and Nehru tried to consolidate territorial nationalism and secularism during his 17-year long rule.All that began to change thereafter. The Kashmir dispute and the war of 1947-48, the 1965 and 1971 wars and then the rest of that story including Kargil, the subversion of Agra Summit in 2002 by people close to Vajpayee, the so-called non-state actors going on a spree of terrorism in India with Mumbai 2008 epitomizing that and Pakistan alleging an Indian hand in Balochistan – are ugly landmarks of the politics of hatred, violence which has become endemic to the relations between India and Pakistan.

Considered in this background, on 25 May 2019 on being nominated by the BJP and its allies elected to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament as their candidate for prime minister Narendra Modi made a marathon speech in which his rhetorical skills and competence was at its best. In a most dramatic and unexpected manner, in complete break with the RSS approach on history, he talked about all Indian communities having participated in the 1857 uprising as patriots against the British. That was a reference to the Muslims being equal partners in that struggle and then he referred to the Quit India movement as well. In the light of that legacy he pledged that his new five-year term would revive that tradition of bringing all Indians in one-fold. He invoked the contribution of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Ambedkar in fine words of praise and graciously mentioned Nehru though just in the passing in one sentence. Sitting in Stockholm I listened to Modi with great interest. He no doubt is a damn good speaker with a charisma which is irresistible.

Not surprisingly it reminded me of how Jinnah after seven years of hammering that Hindus and Muslims were two nations surprised everyone with his 11 August 1947 speech saying that Hindu and Muslim Pakistanis would be part of one nation with equal rights. In the case of Pakistan that never happened. I hope Modi is now serious about treating all Indians equally. Brute attacks on Muslims must stop and casteist oppression of Dalits must cease at once.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi you do have the opportunity to repair the damage and harm. Please direct your indefatigable energies towards converting India from an electoral democracy to a substantive social democracy.

The writer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University