Destroying the house that Gandhi built
By Uwe Parpart, Asia Times Online Editor
The train that on February 27 carried 58 Hindu activists to their
death at the hands of a Muslim mob at Godhra, Gujarat state, on their
return from the holy city of Ayodhya was called the Sabarmati
Express. The community and complex of simple dwellings in Ahmedabad,
commercial capital of Gujarat, that Mohandas K Gandhi built in 1917
soon after his return to India from South Africa is called the
Sabarmati Ashram (though it's now commonly referred to by the
Mahatma's name). The historical irony couldn't be sharper.
From the banks of the Sabarmati river flowing through his home state,
Gandhi launched his non-violent freedom struggle for India's
independence, which finally occurred in 1947. Fearless adherence to
religious tolerance was an abiding and indispensable principle of his
fight. But now 700 or more are dead - mostly in Gandhi's home state -
in the worst religion-inspired violence to hit India in nearly a
decade.
The last time Hindu-Muslim clashes on the present scale occurred was
in 1992/93 in the aftermath of the razing of the Babri mosque in
Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh, UP for short) when over 2,800 people were
killed nationwide. The issue now and then is the same: Hindu
fundamentalists claim the site once occupied by the mosque was
previously - some 500 years back - the site of a temple to Indian
deity Ram; they are determined to rebuild that temple.
At the forefront of the movement for (re)construction of the Ram
temple (mandir) is the fundamentalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or
World Hindu Forum, which is closely associated with the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The VHP has vowed that it will hold a prayer ceremony puja in support
of the construction project at the Ayodhya site on Friday and called
on Hindus across the country to join similar ceremonies. VHP leader
Praveen Togadia told a news conference - and appears undeterred by a
Wednesday supreme court ruling banning the puja - that "The entire
country will become Ayodhya."
He may well be proved right. There is every chance that the type of
chaotic communal violence that emanated from Ayodhya in December 1992
and was just replayed on a smaller scale in Gujarat could engulf
large sections of the country if Vajpayee and his government fail to
rein in the BJP's extremist followers and shock troops and reassure
India's 120-million strong Muslim minority (12 percent of the total
population). Even with the best of intentions, that won't be easy -
not for a prime minister who in a recent election campaign in UP
arrogantly claimed that the BJP didn't need the Muslim vote and lost;
not for a Home Minister (Gujarat Member of Parliament Lal Krishna
Advani) in charge of security who in 1992 acted as leader of the
Hindu activists that destroyed the Babri mosque.
In 1992/93, the central government in New Delhi was led by the
secularist Congress party engaged in an ambitious economic
liberalization program overseen by finance minister Manmohan Singh.
It got the communal violence instigated by Hindu extremists under
control. Rapid economic growth spurred by the Singh reforms helped to
further re-stabilize a volatile political situation. But that was
then. Center-oriented, secular India is no more. The Hindu
nationalist BJP rules in Delhi with an unwieldy coalition of two
dozen (literally!) regional and caste-based parties.
After February state elections it controls just four states
(including riot-torn Gujarat) and suffered heavy losses in the key
state of UP, home to eight of 12 prime ministers since independence
and, with 166 million, more populous than Pakistan. Unhappily,
though, it's not the only other party of national significance, the
opposition Congress, that defeated the BJP in UP, but regional-level,
caste-oriented political entities. Regional, ethnic, linguistic,
religious and caste differences are forcefully reasserting themselves
half a century after independence to the detriment of national unity
and purpose.
The BJP is not alone to blame. After an initial reform push
precipitated by near national insolvency in 1991, Congress, bending
to powerful anti-liberalization constituencies in its own ranks, all
but abandoned economic restructuring after 1993. Scandals and
factional infighting destroyed its appeal to voters. A crushing
electoral defeat in 1996 was the consequence, opening the doors to
rapid BJP ascendancy at the national level (it had only four seats in
parliament in 1988) and ever more pronounced centrifugal tendencies
in major states. Still, rather than responsibly exercising its
growing national political power and transforming itself into a
unifying force in accordance with the Indian constitution's secular
mandate, the BJP counted and continues to count on polarization as
the most effective means for consolidating and growing its political
clout.
Given its history, its ideological orientation, and the nature of the
social movements it relies on for core support, this is not
surprising. The BJP is the successor organization of the Janasangh, a
party founded in 1950 by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) or Association of National Volunteers, a proto-fascist Hindu
nationalist, paramilitary-type (khaki shorts/white shirts)
organization founded in 1925 and modeled after
Mussolini/Hitler/Franco black/brown/blue-shirt outfits. (RSS
co-founder B S Moonje met Mussolini in Rome in 1931 and subsequently
structured the RSS on the lines of the Fascist Academy of Physical
Education.)
The RSS exists till this day and is some 4.5 million strong. Not only
firebrand Advani (who joined the RSS in 1942 at age 14), but also
soft-spoken, professorial prime minister Vajpayee and numerous other
present BJP leaders (75 percent by some counts) came up through its
ranks. RSS chief ideologue KN Govindacharya, who has been edged out
of the office of BJP secretary-general, says that Vajpayee's softer
image is only a mukut (mask). If and when the chips are down, he will
be on the RSS side.
The man who killed Mahatma Gandhi in January 1948 for seeking
conciliation with Pakistan, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, at one time
belonged to the RSS. That's part of the Sangh's legacy. And it has
not only spawned the VHP, but numerous other radical organizations
backing the BJP, notably the Shiv Sena (Shiva's Army) party of Bal
Thackeray, a self-declared Hitler fan. Shiv Sena, in coalition with
the BJP, ruled the state of Maharashtra from its capital Mumbai
(Bombay) from 1995 to 1999 and remains a powerful force there.
When Pradeep Dalvi's Mi Nathuram Godse Boltoy (I, Nathuram Godse,
Speak) theater production based on Godse's court speech in defense of
the murder of Gandhi, was put on stage in Mumbai during that time
(1998), it played to overflow crowds and violent protests until it
was outlawed at a worried central government's insistence.
"Hindutva" (Hindu-ness) and "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu nation) are the
cultural supremacist and political nationalist RSS dogmas and policy
guides of the BJP. Their principal appeal is to the upper castes in
India's socially debilitating and inhumane caste system, the worst
excess of which, untouchability, Gandhi valiantly fought to
eradicate. (And let it be noted that historically large numbers of
India's Muslims are of lower-caste lineage and converted to Islam to
escape that stigma).
Such are the ideological precepts for the new India the BJP is
building - and for the deconstruction of the secular, tolerant India
the republic's founding fathers envisaged. Gandhi would be horrified,
Jawaharlal Nehru more so.
But the likely (and tragic) outcome will be different than the Sangh
parivar (cohorts adhering to the RSS creed) envisages. It will be an
India torn apart, an India bent on self-destruction. Gandhi's and
Nehru's Indian National Congress is not likely to make an early
political comeback to effect a turnaround.
But perhaps it will get help from a most unlikely source: Pakistani
President General Pervez Musharraf. He has embarked on an ambitious
program of turning back the tide of fundamentalism and creating a
progressive, secular Pakistan. His quest has just begun. Success is
uncertain. But if and when his project moves closer to realization,
India may rationally want to respond to that external nation-building
challenge.