With Narendra Modi’s candidature declared as the prospective prime minister of India in case the NDA should win the 2014 elections, L. K. Advani must be a broken man. Cardinal Wolsey, a politician and cardinal under King Henry the VIII of England, famously said before he died, “If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.” Having entered the twilight of his life, I am sure L. K. Advani feels the same, that had he served the people of this country rather than the sectarian agenda of the BJP he wouldn’t have been a lonely, isolated man and the people would still be with him. The historic opportunity for a politician to be a statesman is a lost one.
Somewhere in the mid-1980s I remember a man asking me if I had heard Advani speak. He then added, that had I heard Advani, I would want to kill every Muslim in this country. If I remember the line to this day, it is because it gave me an insight into the politics of hate that dominates the communal mindset in this country.
The Congress-led UPA has much reason to celebrate with Narendra Modi as their rival. L. K. Advani or Sushma Swaraj would undoubtedly have been a stronger opponent and the certainty of victory much greater than with Modi at the helm of party affairs.
Rahul Gandhi, pathetic as he is, as a possible leader of this country, has much reason to rejoice. Rahul Gandhi reminds me of the weak and passive Dauphin in George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan and unfortunately for him without a Saint Joan to crown him. My gut feeling is that his victory will not be sustained and as always happens with a weak leader, a cabal will be formed that in turn will manipulate the Prime Minister’s Office and make a catastrophe out of a disaster, the disaster being the prime minister himself.
My view of Narendra Modi’s role in the communal carnage in 2002 does not come out of a feeling of meaningless suspicion. On the contrary, coming from a humble background, Modi needs to be sincerely admired and respected given his unbelievable rise to power. He is an intelligent man, an astute politician and any day a much more formidable leader than Rahul Gandhi. My worry is about what Modi stands for—the symbolism of the discourse surrounding the aura he is endowed with by party members and the middle class supporters. That he is a polarizing figure or a divisive politician is a gross understatement. It is the shape the government will take under his leadership that is a more worrisome factor.
Ornit Shani’s study Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism: The Violence in Gujarat (2007) brilliantly explores the relationship between caste and communalism. Hindu nationalism is a discourse primarily meant to contain the aspirations of the downtrodden castes as well as minorities from seeking socially transformative power that will give them a substantial share in the political economy. Its upper casteist character can hardly be denied even by the most neutral bystander. In the attempt to unite Hindus across caste lines by viewing the Muslims as a common enemy, Hindu nationalism makes sure that the Dalits and the other backward castes are not challenging the caste based hierarchy.
Narendra Modi is merely fulfilling an upper caste agenda though interestingly he is himself from a backward community. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that his greatest supporters are from the upper caste Hindu middle classes who see him as somebody who could save India, which means their own interests. But he managed to garner support from the Hindu lower castes as well who are more into feeling Hindu rather than recognize the fact that they are the traditional victims of the caste system.
Thus Shani notes: “During the violence of 2002, an educated Dalit complained that ‘with their technical skills, any Muslim youth would make his Rs.40 daily earning by even standing on the pavement for the whole day.’ Some Dalits, mainly the young, increasingly felt marginalised in comparison to their Muslim contemporaries. In this shift from caste and class issues to communalism, Dalits, as well as the status-frustrated groups among the middle classes, were attracted to the upper-caste agenda partly as a means of assuaging their status insecurity. A Dalit leader testified that between 2000 and 2002 the VHP had organised public meetings for Dalits in Ahmedabad, which propagated the notion that ‘their [Dalits’] life is not safe as long as the Muslims are here. In the meetings they also distributed small metal trishuls, like Shivaji’s weapon, for free.’ The fact that the Dalits were spared from the violence in 2002 and that the state manifested a clear bias against Muslims reinforced their sense of having the state on their side.”
The economic basis of the anti-Muslim feeling is as real as life itself. Primarily Muslims have to be excluded from any possibility of being state beneficiaries in any form, or as leaders or as a strong educated middle class that is capable of articulating the aspirations of their social group, or as a business community. The exclusion has to make sure that they are nowhere within the reach of state power or government or the economy which means they will continue to be second class citizens. The Hindu Dalits and Other Backward Castes have their own vested interest in seeing the Muslims as enemies because they don’t want to share whatever benefits they were able to acquire owing to the policy of Reservations. Their fear is a practical one. Also, they are incapable of transcending the larger discourse of Hindutva—an ideology of Hindu nationalism—because caste and communalism are intermixed with gender. Hindutva is the ideal discourse for keeping the women suppressed in the name of tradition and values that are basically euphemisms for superstitions, although Ornit Shani does not deal with the gender aspect in her book. What Ornit Shani does very well is give a context to the Gujarat riots. She says:
“The attacks on Muslims started in Ahmedabad on 27 February and spread throughout the state of Gujarat after 58 Hindus, mainly women and children, died when the S-6 cabin of the Sabarmati Express was stoned and set on fire outside Godhra railway station . . . Before any formal investigation had even been initiated, and despite the fact that there were conflicting accounts about the incident, state officials, among them the chief minister, Narendra Modi, as well as militant Hindu organisations, promptly declared it an organised Islamic terrorist attack. Some officials even suggested that the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, was involved. The VHP promptly called for a Gujarat bandh for the following day. On the next morning an organised and systematic persecution of the Muslim minority began in Ahmedabad and through large parts of the state. Within a week, about one thousand people were killed, of whom the overwhelming majority were Muslims. Muslim families were burnt alive in their homes; they were stabbed and stoned, their houses were damaged, and shops and businesses owned by Muslims were looted and set on fire. Mosques and Islamic monuments were destroyed. The tomb of the Urdu poet Wali Gujarati was paved over. A Gujarat High Court judge and several former judges—all Muslims—had to move with their families from their homes to safer places. The violence was selective and well planned, drawing on information, protection and direct help from public authorities.”
Given this background to the Gujarat violence of 2002, how can we expect the Muslim minorities to feel that this is not a Hindu country and that there is no conspiracy against them by the majoritarian state! Their fears are legitimate. I mean: how could we dream of making a leader of a government under whom innocent people were murdered and raped the prime minister of a country! This could happen only in countries of the world where the majority of people have lethally drugged their conscience to sleep lest it should wake up and accuse them of being part of a terrible crime.
Narendra Modi carries that dangerous image of a bitter, small town boy who wants to prove to the world that he is not a nobody but a somebody. Colonialism combined with casteism creates characters like Modi who need to belong and will do anything in the process to prove that they in fact do. Advani is an ideologue and at the end of the day like a true upper caste ideologue, is aware that power is about sustaining an order. With Modi it is all about himself.
The isolation of the Muslims who once ruled this country is tragic to say the least. I thoroughly detest their opportunist leaders and their middle classes who are fundamentally not different from the Hindu middle classes. I also detest, while I understand, the role of the right wing in creating a culture of paranoia to keep the Muslims subjugated and anti-modern without giving rights to women or aspiring for intellectual liberation that is the basis of social liberation. The plight of the poor Muslim is terrible to say the least. He or she will be victimized both for being Muslim and poor. I don’t see any justice in it. I am born Hindu and feel Hindu in the sense of the culture I belong to. It’s a culture I celebrate as being mine with all my heart. To me the Muslim Indian is as much Indian as a Hindu or a Christian and their lives, liberties and happiness should be preserved at all costs.
One thing is inevitable in our context: it is that power needs to move from the upper castes to the traditionally lower castes and minorities. Hindu nationalism might delay the process but it cannot derail it. My worst fear and not an entirely unjustified one is that the Dalit, Other Backward Caste (Modi being the best example) and minority leaders are hardly any different from the more aggressive upper caste Hindus. They are as exploitative and self-serving as anyone else when it comes to power. That does not however mean that as a social group they should not enjoy the fruits of power. They should, they must and they will in the nature of things.
“Never Again” are the chilling words inscribed on a monument at the Dachau concentration camp where thousands of innocent Jews and others were lead to their deaths in the Nazi era. We cannot wait for another Gujarat riot to happen to be convinced that the direction in which this so-called democracy is heading is in fact fascism. Neither has any apology been tendered to the Muslims with compensations for the victimization nor have attempts been made by the BJP in altering their party’s agenda. BJP politicians along with the others had a role to play in inciting communal violence in the not even a month old Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh. The NDA, with or without Narendra Modi, should be severely punished for its communal agenda through a decisive electoral defeat. And with Narendra Modi, all the more reason.
Prakash Kona is a writer, teacher and researcher who lives in Hyderabad, India. He is currently working as an Associate Professor at the Department of English Literature, The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad.
Pingback: ELECTIONS INDIANA 2014
‘tradition and values that are basically euphemisms for superstitions’.
So you know of a tradition, religion, culture, or anything that can be construed as a system or an articulation that can be grounded?
My comment is polemical and aimed at contextualizing the role into which women are placed in a patriarchal society as preservers of tradition and values. I find that unacceptable. That doesn’t however mean that tradition or values are not important. On the contrary, religion, culture, tradition and values are not something that should be dismissed without a serious investigation. If my comment sounded a bit superficial I am sorry for that. My intention is not to denigrate what people believe. I go with what Gramsci says at the beginning of his “The Study of Philosophy.” This is where we need to look for the system, the articulation that can be grounded. “It must first be shown that all men are “philosophers”, by defining the limits and characteristics of the “spontaneous philosophy” which is proper to everybody. This philosophy is contained in: 1. language itself, which is a totality of determined notions and concepts and not just of words grammatically devoid of content; 2. “common sense” and “good sense” 3. popular religion and, therefore, also in the entire system of beliefs, superstitions, opinions, ways of seeing things and of acting, which are collectively bundled together under the name of “folklore”. Having first shown that everyone is a philosopher, though in his own way and unconsciously, since even in the slightest manifestation of any intellectual activity whatever, in “language”, there is contained a specific conception of the world, one then moves on to the second level, which is that of awareness and criticism.”
Thank you for the reply.
Issues remain, but one at a time:
“My comment is polemical and aimed at contextualizing the role into which women are placed in a patriarchal society as preservers of tradition and values. I find that unacceptable.” — So do I. But that does not, in my view, warrant an intervention, and here is why:
You take for granted notions such as individual liberty and individual rights. For you, a society is a conglomeration of individuals. These notions operate within the constellation of a subjectivist metaphysics; and within that metaphysics, human beings are beheld as individuals capable of reasoning and choice. Now, without further probing and pointing out that this political theory would require a metaphysical grounding (and is in fact grounded) in a Protestant theology, it seems safe to surmise that, for you, political liberty is the right for self-determination. No issues there–at least, as long as we both, along with the third party, are of a culture that is Christian and individualistic.
But it is pretty evident that the societies that you are talking about (you probably have in mind the northern Indian Jat communities with their Khap panchayats) are collectivist and communitarian in their organization and outlook. There the society is not a conglomeration of individuals. In fact, the notion of individual itself does not operate within such societies. There men and women are who and what they are because (and only because) of their communities.
In such a setting, the latter group can not even begin to make sense of your criticism; and your criticism, because it aims to transform the communitarian to an individualist, does not amount to liberation (whatever that may mean) but to the extinction of a culture.
Julian,
Thanks.
But again. We cannot talk about a third world society like those that define the landscape of South Asia without colonialism as the background. It is colonialism that determines who we are in more ways than one. We haven’ broken free of the “colonial mentality” and given the economic and military domination of the West especially the US our chance of fully “knowing” our potential as a social order is bleak. Even this exchange of ideas is rooted implicitly in the fact that somewhere colonialism gives me the language to critique colonialism. To imagine what these societies would be in the absence of a colonial history is impossible to envisage and perhaps pointless.
That the society is collectivist and communitarian is fine for a statement on how these communities operate given the nature of their political economy. What will happen to the culture in an economy that is socialist for instance and gives them the possibilities of greater autonomy (both personal and political) is not difficult to imagine. It will preserve the culture but not in that hegemonic way as is being articulated by the extreme right-wing; at the same time not commodifying the culture the way the defenders of globalization are doing it. The balance will be struck. If the culture has to go extinct, frankly the rights of women and the working classes are more important and freedom will create the space for another culture.
Serious research has consistently rejected the view that there is no space for individualism even in the most oppressive order. That includes the women who inhabit extremely oppressive communities as well. Watch the movies of Kenji Mizoguchi. It will give you an insight into repression and how women assert their sense of who they are despite the repression and sometime because of it. Likewise what we call individual rights that average citizens enjoy in any western democracy would be impossible in my view without the economic and cultural colonization of the third world that happens at various levels.
James Baldwin in A Rap on Race makes the point rather well when speaking to Margaret Mead:
“there is a very serious flaw in the profit system which is implicit in the phrase itself. And, in some way or another, one can even say at this moment, sitting in this room, that the Western economy is doomed. Certainly part of the crisis of the Western economy is due to the fact that in a way every dime I earn, the system which earns it for me…is standing on the back of some black miner in South Africa, and he is going to stand up presently. Now, if we don’t anticipate that, we will be in terrible trouble. Because he is not going to be bending under this weight…And if we don’t understand that and let him stand up, the whole thing is going to be a shambles…What shall we do? How should we liberate that man and us? Because that liberation is a double liberation”.
Liberation for me in an important way is liberation from colonialism. If and when such liberation happens how that black miner in South Africa will confront the possibility of his or her freedom and how the Jat woman in North India will understand herself is something I would not be able to imagine as of now. But such a liberation is again impossible unless we have fought to challenge exploitation and commodification which is not simply about colonialism but also about fighting human greed, injustice and obsession with power. As Baldwin says: “that liberation is a double liberation.”