Autonomous Hindutva could devour both India and the Bharatiya Janata Party

In a formally secular India, religion indeed seems to have become the opium of the people, a mass distraction from the transformative social agenda that the country needs

With the rapid radicalisation of sections of Hindu society, the Hindutva project has become dangerously autonomous. It is no longer possible to see it only as an electoral strategy of the  Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Today one does not need to even presume the direct hand of the BJP or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh behind Hindutva’s every move. Its exponential social growth may have placed it beyond their control.

In a formally secular India, religion indeed seems to have become the opium of the people. When Marx described religion as “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people,” he spoke of it as a panacea that people invented to provide personal solace to deal with the unpleasantness of social life. Indians seem to be drugging themselves with religion when they should be fighting to overcome the conditions of their miserable existence. Modernising societies try to ameliorate living conditions by making them less tedious by reinventing their economies to make them humane, by measures such as reducing the working week, ensuring fair wages, improving working conditions, providing social security to the unemployed and infirm.

In India by contrast, Hindutva is a mass distraction from the transformative social agenda that the country needs. It is reinventing religion not as “the heart of a heartless world”, but as an avenging and vindictive force. The rising ambient temperature of religious hatred has converted ordinary people into activists planting saffron flags atop mosques, shouting provocative slogans against the minorities, taking threatening religious processions brandishing swords and trishuls, becoming amateur historians and archaeologists discovering temples buried under mosques and willing to set right ‘historical’ wrongs.

Their reference point is “Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them'' (co-authored by Arun Shourie, Harsh Narain, Jay Dubashi, Ram Swarup and Sitaram Goel). Organisations like “Reclaim Temples” list over 1800 temple sites that were destroyed and Hindutva social media rail against the BJP for not doing enough to reclaim these sites.

This ‘research’ is neither carried out by the BJP nor sponsored by it. But it is an intellectual instrument available to Hindutva activists who will use it to construct narratives that push the BJP towards an agenda that it may be hesitant to take up as the ruling dispensation. There is little doubt now that Hindutva forces will seek the restoration of at least some of their iconic temple sites. The BJP may not be able to resist them.

That the institutions of democracy will facilitate this development also seems likely. There was a time when the official apparatus of Indian democracy had been carefully secularised – those associated with extremist organisations of the Left and the Right were carefully excluded at the stage of hiring using Intelligence Bureau reports about their political leanings. Today in most institutions, including the judiciary, ideological colours are worn with pride. Judges in local courts are opening historical disputes with potential to cause social instability in Mathura or Kashi. Noticeably, Supreme Court judges have junked the political neutrality that was de rigueur. While he was still in service, Justice Arun Mishra, described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an “internationally acclaimed visionary” and a “versatile genius”, while another serving judge, Justice M R Shah, celebrated him as “our most popular, loved, vibrant and visionary leader”.

Perhaps the visible shift within the judiciary has encouraged Hindutva forces to use legal processes to further their claims to mosque sites. Now no one can say they are taking the law into their hands. They are aware that the Constitutional path itself is an evolving one. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act of 1991 is meant “to prohibit the conversion of any place of worship and to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on the 15th day of August 1947, and for matters connected”. However, Justice D Y Chandrachud’s comment while transferring the Gyanvapi Mosque dispute to the jurisdiction of a district judge could be opening new ways for interpreting this law. He said, “the ascertainment of a religious character of a place, as a processual instrument, may not necessarily fall foul of the provisions of Sections 3 and 4 (of the Places of Worship Act)”. It strikes at the core objective of the Act and could conceivably pave the way for repealing it, should the Executive and Parliament so desire.

The minorities in India will have no option but to deal with the ruling BJP if disputed sites start getting reclaimed with judicial facilitation. The problems will escalate when the 14% Muslim population of India is asked to give up their mosques, Eidgahs and other sites peacefully. They have no leader to negotiate for them and little political clout. No national party represents them. Even regional political parties which seek their votes are known to play safe when it comes to Hindutva sentiments. Unlike in the pre-Partition days, Muslims have no pan-India leader representing them. Nor are they a monolithic community across the country. Any peaceful negotiation for the few big temples claimed by Hindutva forces will, therefore, necessarily be from a position of weakness – and may turn out to be a dialogue preliminary to surrendering contested sites.

Is the BJP prepared for the fact that such closing of doors on the minority community could radicalise sections of its youth? If this happens will there not be a backlash from the already radicalised Hindutva forces? Are there any far-sighted statesmen in India today who can predict how this will affect the security and stability of India?

Nevertheless, it is clear that the rise and spread of Hindutva’s avengers endangers the BJP’s own stability. Should the BJP try to moderate its own Hindutva because of governance concerns or its political alliances or even to deflect international criticism, it is possible that other political outfit(s) with a more hardline majoritarian agenda, could push it aside.