Engulfed by the tidal wave

The first generation of Jana Sangh leaders was reined in by parliamentary politics, and by Congress8217; hegemony. Confronted with the orthodoxies of the Left and centrist forces, they preferred playing the watching game. All this changed during the mid-1980s. The campaign to 8216;liberate8217; the Babri Masjid brought street fighters to the fore, the kind who roamed the streets of Germany killing Jews and burning synagogues. Local, regional or national, the scale and intensity of mobilisation were on an altogether vaster scale than anything previously experienced. The Congress leadership then, as indeed during the recent Gujarat campaign, failed to marshal their secular resources to stem the tide. It was playing the soft Hindutva card then, as it did in Gujarat recently.

The result is for everybody to see. In its desperate effort to win the election, hopes were pinned on a former RSS stalwart. The Congress, thus, destroyed not only itself but also its moral legitimation. Without some savage rearguard action, it may, in the foreseeable future, face near extinction in the other states as well. And the price of failure, that is to say the alternative to a secular democracy, is darkness.

We will ceaselessly debate the impact of Gujarat on the rest of the country. For the time being, let us recognise the significance of Narendra Modi8217;s astounding electoral success. Whether we like it or not, he united an extraordinary range of forces. What is more, he achieved this unity despite the countrywide outcry against his role in instigating violence against the Muslims. He exploited to the full the communal divide, and put to rest the old assumptions about the caste and the tribal 8216;factor8217; in electoral politics. With meticulous care, he drowned and silenced the secular and modernising voices in his state.

The Modi victory has established a sinister precedent for the future of democracy. His people fought with stubborn loyalty and formidable efficiency the liberal and secular ideologies. Therefore, one cannot help feeling that Modism, rather than the tired Hindutva ideology, will be the new mantra of a Hinduised polity that is being constructed with the aid of militant Hindu jehadis. For a while they would let Vajpayee and Advani steer the BJP ship. But, in the event of Modism gaining ascendancy in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, they will abandon their captain, seize control of the BJP, and pension off George Fernandes and his opportunist NDA colleagues. The net effect of their rule in Gujarat will leave large parts of India at the mercy of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

Suddenly, the 8216;Muslim factor8217; has become irrelevant in politics. With unprincipled combinations becoming an established norm, as in Uttar Pradesh, their capacity to use the instruments of electoral politics has diminished. Indeed, they will be squeezed out of the political processes. In areas where they are less numerous, Gujarat8217;s horrors may well be repeated. In short, the era of security, provided to them by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi8217;s sagacious leadership, is a thing of the past. For India8217;s Muslims, this millennium has, coincidentally, ushered in The Era of Vulnerability. Brute violence against them will become a norm and no longer an exception. The politics of hate will, inevitably, lead to the destruction of more shrines and mosques. The Babri Masjid was pulled down at the behest of some present-day rulers; now, it8217;s the turn of the mosques in Kashi and Mathura, and the removal of medieval monuments from the 8216;Hindu8217; landscape. One fears the worst, though one must ready oneself without resorting to any form of violence, to face the VHP onslaught.

Regardless of the rhetoric of Muslim historians/theologians and the misdeeds of medieval rulers, Islam in India has been not only benign but also a vital component of the great Indian civilisation. The Mahmud of Ghaznis and the Aurangzebs introduced a discordant note in the rhythmic flow of this evolutionary process, but the vast majority of the Muslim communities in the subcontinent must not be judged by the conduct of such individuals. Moreover, just as the upper caste Hindus cannot be expected to pay the price for the atrocities against Dalits, the Muslims are in no position to undo the wrongs of the past. Forget the iconoclasts and listen, instead, to the mystical experiences of the Sufis at the khanqahs. Appreciate the great music produced from the days of Amir Khusro, or the ghazals of Mir and Ghalib. Admire and not damage the splendid monuments, and seek refuge in and not disfigure the great mosques, palaces, and forts. To destroy our common legacy on the basis of an imaginary and invented sense of 8216;hurt8217; will be an act of monumental folly.

It is hard to tell whether or not we have entered 8216;The Age of Catastrophe8217;, an expression coined by the historian Eric Hobsbawm. The signs are that Modi and his allies will not be content with just the battle of words: they will systematically destroy, brick by brick, the edifice of secular democracy and pursue their agenda of creating a Hindu Rashtra. For, as the philosopher Thomas Hobbes observed, 8216;8216;War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.8217;8217; This is what the sailaab-i bala, the great tidal wave that engulfed the community of the Prophet Noah, is all about.

E-mail the Author