When politics is religion & religion politics

Having bestowed Narendra Modi on India, the almighty tried to compensate for it by receiving Kumaraswamy in nine temples in four days

Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, once telephoned Heathrow in stormy weather to ask if his flight would take off. “God knows...” began the airport official when the prelate cut him short. “God is my business. You tell me about the aircraft!” That healthy division of labour reminds us that the clamour aroused by another archbishop, Anil Couto of Delhi, enabled the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha to slip quietly and unnoticed through the dividing line between what is god’s and what is Caesar’s.

Unlike the Ramkrishna Mission in 1986, the Mahasabha makes no attempt to deny its faith. It can declare “I am proud to be a Hindu” as forcefully as Swami Vivekananda at the Chicago Parliament of Religions. Implicit in its appeal to the Supreme Court was the conviction that it isn’t enough only to organise a patriotic “Rashtra Raksha Mahayagya” to save India from ungodly hordes. Protection against the deadly danger of which pastoral letters are a sinister manifestation demands much stronger action. And so the Mahasabha moved the Supreme Court against Vajubhai Vala’s anti-national act of inviting H D Kumaraswamy to form a government just because his “unconstitutional” and unholy Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) combine claimed a majority. A party that flaunts “Secular” in its name is godless or, worse, pro-Muslim. Even if the Bharatiya Janata Party didn’t boast a majority that day, a week is a long time in politics. Harold Wilson, who coined that memorable phrase, knew that given money and authority, numbers are manipulable.

Not having acted then, the Supreme Court could have done so when Kumaraswamy dashed dramatically to Delhi to seek Sonia Gandhi’s blessings. Stalin’s question about the Pope’s divisions revealed his canny insight into the power of unseen forces. Christians account for only three per cent of India’s population but the furore over Couto confirms their consequence. Another pastoral letter fuelled the so-called Liberation Struggle that cost India the glory of the world’s first democratically elected Communist government. Pastoral letters since then in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and even Gujarat have sought to interfere with majoritarian governance. No one dares to echo the English King Henry II’s “Will no one rid of me of this turbulent priest?” Here, its priests in the plural.

Saffron robes, shaven heads, tilaks and rudraksha beads don’t count: they signify a way of life, not a religion. A commercial manufacturer of medicines and food products doesn’t become a godman (a hideous oxymoron that pollutes the English language) by sporting a bushy beard and wrapping himself in red robes. He is a businessman like those who read palms, cast horoscopes and mediate with divinity through vaastu. But Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act forbidding political use of religion and religious symbols should be invoked against priests who demand a “new government”.

God is overworked in India. He has even more to do than during World War II when Germans mocked the British by chanting, “God save England/And god save the King/God this, and god that/God the other thing/‘Oh god!’ says god, ‘My work’s all cut out'.” Having bestowed Narendra Modi on India (according to Shivraj Singh Chouhan, although Modi might feel India has been bestowed to him and not to god) the almighty tried to compensate for it by receiving Kumaraswamy in nine temples in four days. After this exposure to politicians, god might sympathise with the US senate chaplain who was asked if he prayed for the senators. “No,” he replied. “I look at the senators and pray for the country.”

Archbishop Couto must have been similarly moved to warn of a “turbulent political atmosphere”. Of course, he didn’t know that ghar-wapsi benevolently promises every Indian a ghar in lieu of the promised Rs 1500,000 from repatriated black money. Or that gau-rakshaks love cows as dearly as the invading English king who loved France so much he wouldn’t part with a single captured French village. Nor that horse-trading isn’t an offensive term since those who are bought and sold are donkeys.

The venue of Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in was significant. K Hanumanthaiah’s palatial Vidhana Souda demonstrated that power had passed from the Mysore maharaja’s palace. The stellar attendance on Wednesday suggested a bigger transfer of power. But Modi needn’t worry. BS Yeddyurappa’s overture to “sidelined” politicians could be the thin end of the wedge. It might fulfill the Mahasabha’s hope and seize through the backdoor what the BJP failed to win up front. Politics is religion in India, and religion is politics.