Governance to the winds

This is amply clear in the strategies it has adopted in Gujarat. They point to the contradiction between the ideology of the parivar and the needs of government. Even if the violence in Ahmedabad was a spontaneous reaction to the brutal burning alive of the train passengers at Godhra, everything the government did after that was a violation of very norms of governance.

The active connivance of the police and some ministers with the rioters, or the turning of a blind eye to the mayhem; the discrimination in the compensation offered to victims; the selective use of Pota; the punishment of police officers who did their duty; the neglect and harassment of those from the minority community in refugee camps displays an openly partisan attitude that has made it clear the government is against the minorities.

Riots breed hatred, polarising communities and strengthening the religious identities of people who are otherwise happy to live with multiple identities that draw upon vocation and work, family and friends, caste and religion. Riots and sectarian tension help parties like the BJP grow because they breed insecurity based on the real or imagined threat of the Other.

Unlike merely right-wing revivalist movements which seek support by harping on a glorious past that is often imaginary, movements like the Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS base their mobilisation on hatred besides using the revivalist appeal. The declining appeal of the BJP was evident as the party lost power in state after state after assuming power at the Centre in 1998. The electoral disaster in UP just three days before Gujarat went up in flames may have proved to be the last straw. Many were apprehensive the RSS would initiate a dangerous course after the UP elections. Few suspected the torch would be lit in Gujarat.

The way the mobs in Ahmedabad and other cities came armed with lists of Muslim shops to burn indicates that some advance planning had taken place — Godhra was the spark, but it could have been any other. Yet, one would have thought that better sense and an appreciation of its long-term interests, would have prompted the sangh parivar to moderate its responses. By not doing so it has thrown governance to the winds.

The RSS has openly warned Muslims that they can stay in India only at the whim of the Hindus. In short, they must be prepared to live as second class citizens. Prime Minister Vajpayee, after a belated and perfunctory visit to Gujarat, first wondered how he could show his face to the world and then a few days later dropped his moderate mask in Goa as he went on to say that wherever there are Muslims, there is strife. At the same time, the sangh parivar’s defence of Narendra Modi has become more strident.

The BJP brazenly supported Modi in calling for an election in Gujarat, to capitalise on what they think is Hindu support. There have also been comparisons in the BJP camp between the genocide in Gujarat and the equally genocidal killings of Sikhs in 1984. The RSS is making a miscalculation.

The unprecedented wave in favour of the Congress in 1984 was entirely because of sympathy on account of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The killings, while they may have assuaged Hindu communalism, had no role in the Congress victory. The Gujarat carnage has diminished the BJP’s electoral prospects in the whole country. Disgust at the happenings in Gujarat is evident in all strata of society. The party is increasingly marginalised and its seats in the Lok Sabha may well drop to two digits in the next election.