Blending of communalism with politics in India is as old as the history of politics. After independence communal organisations were not satisfied with their earlier indirect political role. They directly intruded into the realm of politics – a sort of strategic shift in their political manoeuvrings.
Bharatiya Jana Sangh was the first political offshoot of the RSS in 1951; it was merely an outcome of the post-Independence communal strife. It was a challenge to the pseudo secular ideology of the Congress. Shyama Prasad Mukherji emphasised the fact that the migration of the Hindu refugees from Pakistan compelled him to launch the Sangh. Needless to add that the Sangh took roots in the refugee settlement colonies. After the Emergency, it was renamed as Bharatiya Janata Party. The change in the name was to indicate the political reorientation of the party. The word ‘Sangh’ being common to both BJS and RSS was perceived to be a liability, although the members were permitted to have connections with the RSS. The major political platform BJS took up was to make Hindi as the national language and to ban cow slaughter all over India. But it was actually the movement for ban on cow slaughter that provided the Sangh Parivar unlimited ammunitions to set in motion communal frenzy, hatred and riots.
In 1973, Golwalkar passed away and Balasaheb Deoras took over the leadership, and continued until 1993, when Dr. Rajendra Singh took over from him. During this period, came the rise of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the political front of the RSS. Between 1975 and 1977, the RSS, along with socialists like Jayprakash Narayan, launched a civil disobedience movement, to reject the national emergency and postponement of elections by then Prime Minister and Congress President Indira Gandhi. The Jana Sangh was an integral part of the Janata Party coalition that defeated Indira Gandhi’s Congress in a landslide in 1977.
It was in fact the close relationship between the Jan Sangh and the RSS that proved to be the Janata coalition’s undoing. All non-Sangh constituents of the coalition insisted that all members of the Union Cabinet distance themselves from the RSS, as they were then members of the Janata Party. When Vajpayee and Advani in particular refused to do so, the coalition collapsed over what came to be known as the ‘dual membership’ issue.
The RSS saw its stock rise as the BJP thrived upon the disenchantment of the masses with the Congress-led governments. By 1988, the BJP had 88 seats in the Lok Sabha, and by 1996, it was the single-largest party. In 1998, it went on to head a coalition government that survived 13 days and later 13 months. In 1999 however NDA secured majority and successfully led the government for five years.
During recent time, the people who share RSS ideology, many of whom have been swayamsevaks or former swayamsevaks, have gone on to achieve the highest political positions in the Indian politics. These leaders include Atal Behari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Pramod Mahajan, Gopinath Munde and Ram Prakash Gupta.
The question however remains the same. Is the BJP less communal than BJS? The unfortunate answer is a resounding NO; it is the same old and lethal wine in a brand new bottle. The change in nomenclature is indicative not only of the name but also of change in policies (on paper) and methodologies of political mobilisation the Sangh Parivar adopted during the course of time. In the first national convention held in December 1980, Vajpayee called for a three-pronged programme of sangathan, sangharsh and sanrachna that is organisation, struggle and reconstruction. Thus BJP opted for the organisational mobilisation, struggle to attain political power and constructive work.
Partha Ghosh divides the of BJP’s history in three parts.
1) Under the leadership of Vajpayee, it projected itself as a liberal force drawing its inspiration from the Gandhian socialism. However, it did not politically pay off. On the social level, a new form of Hindu militancy was gaining grounds. In November 1983, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad organised ekatmata yagna. The slogan was “India cannot be kept united without uniting the Hindus.”
2) Advani took over the reigns of the party in 1986. By criticising the pseudo-secularism and minorityism he worked on the Hindu resurgence. In his first address he said, “Ours is the nation’s first party.” In 1990, V. P. Singh’s government decided to implement the old Mandal Commission Report, providing reservations to the backward castes. Nevertheless, BJP saw the threat posed by this since this will vertically divide the Hindu community into the forward and the backward castes, and lose its hard-earned Hindu vote bank. Hence, in August 1990, Advani decided to launch his Rath Yatra. The Bajrang Dal that was constituted by the RSS militant youth brigade in 1984, was in the forefront. Swapan Gupta here quotes a party functionary plainly saying, “The election campaign has begun. The real question is whether Rambhakti will translate into votes.”
3) The third phase was under the combined leadership of both Vajpayee and Advani. Where Vajpayee led the coalition of party and acted as a mukhota (mask: the term used to describe the image of Vajpayee in the party, by the rebellious general secretary of the party Govindacharya) to pacify NDA allies. Advani here is a leader of the party – the iron man (loh-purush).The party has now entered in its fourth phase in which Advani and Vajpayee are sidelined, this process begun with Advani’s comments on Jinnah in Pakistan. Nevertheless both leaders are back in active politics due to the dearth of public faces that the party possesses, this time Advani being the prime-ministerial candidate of the party.
Oliver Heath, in his observant reading of the Anatomy of the BJP’s Rise to Power exposes the three levels of BJP’s expansion during the 1990s. The expansion was social, regional and political in nature.
First level: it is well-known that the original support base has been concentrated among the upper castes. Especially in the Hindi belt, which is the homeland of the Sangh Parivar, it is comprised of 4Bs, viz. the Brahmins, the Banias, the Babu Sahibs, and the Bhumihars. In this region, Ayodhya as the ‘Hindu vote bank’ worked wonders in favour of the BJP. It has been the weakest among the Muslim and the Christians minorities and the lower caste groups. Heath goes on to argue his points based on the electoral performance of BJP.
Second level: in most of the states of Hindi heartland as well as in some of the other states the OBCs constitute the new social base of the BJP.
Third level: in most of the states the BJP has made giant strides in garnering support among the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and even the Muslims. This is more due to the support for the allies than the BJP itself. Ultimately, it has benefited the BJP more than the alliance partners.
In sum, it can be stated that due to the presence of its political allies the BJP has been able to gain a foothold in a new territory. It is due to the interface between social, regional and political expansion the BJP has emerged as the largest political party and with the support of allies, it has been able to form its government at the Centre and in several states. But even after so much of complexities the fact is perspicuous that the original vote bank of BJP is the Hindu upper castes. After its 13-day rule at the Centre, the BJP has consistently tried to appease the other sections of society especially those whose votes matter. This section includes first and foremost the Dalits who constitute a big chunk of Indian population. Though the attempt to win Dalits is not new, the recent attempt has surpassed all the previous records. It appointed Bangaru Lakshman, an MP from Andhra Pradesh as the party president. Bangaru Lakshman claimed that the Congress always used Dalit votes but never allowed any Dalit to be the leader of the party. He also applauded the BJP for making Mayawati first Dalit and woman chief minister of UP. This clearly indicates two social realities. First, every political party, irrespective of their ideological leaning has used rather exploited Dalits as their vote banks. Secondly, compared to other parties, the BJP has projected that it treats Dalits on equal terms. This is the point of attraction for Dalit leaders. The voters on the other hand cast their votes more for individual leaders rather than the party. With its involvement in the demolition of Babri Masjid, the BJP did not dare woo the Muslim voters. Yet in 1993 elections, it sent feelers to the community by distancing itself from the belligerent VHP. But its political manipulations did not yield results. Hence it undertook various activities. For example, BJP leader Madan Lal Khurana, when he was chief minister of the Delhi, ceremoniously named an important street as Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Marg. The BJP made strategic changes in their rhetoric and actions. Broadly, the BJP and its allies decided to focus their campaign for the 1996 elections on total ban on cow slaughter, uniform civil code, Muslim population, the temple trio (Kaashi, Mathura and Ayodhya temples), infiltration of foreign nationals, and demand for scrapping of the minority commission, etc.
BJP changed its strategy, keeping in mind electoral advantages. Hence it argued that ‘the Hindutva was and is the basis of the party’s ideology but it also decided not to talk about it any more. Our votes on Hindutva have been consolidated in our favour and now we must expand our vote bank. Hence, it began to shed its untouchability image. The Hindutva rhetoric was relegated to the background. It tried to woo the Muslims with the slogan, “we consider the Muslims as the flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood.”
Here come the 1999 elections with NDA agenda: improvement of poverty alleviation programmes, to ensure food security for all through public security system, implementation of land reform, ban on practice of real estates buying agricultural lands, opposition to implementation of IMF-inspired economic policies and to privatisation of education, etc.
The above two general elections manifestos bring into light the salient features of the functioning of the BJP. First, BJP has for convenience sake aligned with parties of divergent ideologies and interests. Secondly, like Congress, it also has tried to raise slogans of popular issues like poverty and unemployment. But in reality its top leadership was accused of scams (tehelka kaand).Thirdly, while in opposition BJP employed every means to appeal to the people’s religious sentiments for political purposes, but while in power it called for unity and harmony. Fourthly, L. K. Advani who refuted the plea of the concerned citizens to avoid his inflaming Rath Yatra – which led to the riots – emerged as the champion of a riot-free nation. And finally, the Brahmanical social order, which ostracised and dehumanised the lower castes, has suddenly become conscious of the plight of the lower castes and promised to alleviate their sufferings.
The corroboration cited by Sangh Parivar for the electoral defeat of BJP in the last 2004 Lok Sabha elections was only that BJP has diverted from its traditional Hindutva agenda and thus lost the confidence of Hindus (read upper castes). This was because of that the BJP under the recent leadership of Rajnath Singh is learning the lessons of “back to basics”, bharat ki pukar – the hate spreading CD election campaign is the naked demonstration of the BJP’s ‘back to basics’. Share some scenes from the hate mongering election campaign CD, “image of a Muslim (identified by cap) planting a bomb under a white ambassador,” “50-second long footage of a buffalo slaughter,” “Muslim sharing command of their leaders to produce at least 10 children and getting economic assistance on it,” “a Muslim who has already kidnapped a Hindu girl, comes and throws the Krishna portrait thrashing on the floor,” “a Sanghi woman shouting that, Hindus will produce 2 children and Muslims will marry 5 times and will produce 35 pups and make this country an Islamic state” and much more. However, many people argued that it had never deviated from basics. These people considered that Sangh Parivar has found an scapegoat in BJP after the public has thwarted to re-endorse their communal agenda in general elections.
The dilemma of Indian political system is its tolerance of communalism by secular political parties. As they are afraid of losing their communal ‘vote bank’, they never actually denounce communalism in its fullest. Though equivocally they used to condemn it, this leniency proves most ominous for the secular cause. It maintains a semblance of tolerance as opposed to the outright intolerance. Prakash Chandra Upadhyay has referred to this phenomenon as majoritarianism which sometimes could even get moulded in minorityism. According to him, “majoritarian politics tends o be guided more by opportunism than by ideology, and the imperatives of acquiring power overrides every principle, secular or communal.” Thus the history has witnessed Indira Gandhi’s “limited” Hindu card’s disastrous consequences. This growing tendency of majoritarian leadership to compromise with Hindu communalists (as, for instance, in the case of Rajiv Gandhi’s acceptance of Ramshila programme), has created a climate in which the position of genuinely secular in individuals and organisations has become increasingly precarious. Such tacit agreement and clandestine support communal ideology must soon be relinquished and replaced by uncompromising condemnation of the same.
Another gigantic tragedy of Indian politics besides the overlapping of communal and secular forces is the label of secularism itself which shines even on the head of the fiercest communal outfits of the nation. Prakash Chandra further reveals that even Hindu Mahasabha proclaimed that it was the ‘secular’ opponent of the ‘communal’ Muslim League. There is no instantaneous remedy for this notorious conspiracy. In other words the wine is sold in the bottles of milk. The only solution to this problem lies in developing the conscience of masses that they can distinguish between wine and milk – between communalism and secularism.