Imaginary homelands

Consider the 8217;80s that ushered independent India8217;s first wave of globalisation, besides marking the beginning of the end of the Congress dominance in national politics. Karnataka, in contrast, is often showcased as India8217;s incubator of information society, and now has a BJP superstructure, crafted exclusive of the RSS. Most of today8217;s Orissa remains untouched even by the industrial revolution.

The spread of an absolutist cultural great tradition, facilitated by a mushrooming mass media, against this backdrop creates multilayered societal conflicts. Emile Durkheim captured the phenomenon as 8220;anomie8221;. No surprise then that the Bajrang Dal workers often thrive on a sense of 8220;imaginary hurt8221; that gets reinforced every time there8217;s even a mention often imaginary of conversions or something that they perceive as an assault on 8220;Indian values8221; Valentine8217;s Day. If the state turns a sympathetic observer, as was the case in Karnataka, these elements manage to hog headlines.

As posited against this breed of trishul-brandishing, rootless youth, an RSS worker would almost come across almost as a voice of reconciliation. The Bajrang Dal thus fulfils a great functional need for the BJP/RSS parivar.

A significant section in the party, however, has been acutely aware of the bad name that outfits like the Bajrang Dal have brought to the BJP. It8217;s in this context that the recent BJP policy statement on the need to 8220;de-link Islam from terror8221; is important. With divergent 8212; and competing 8212; strands of thoughts, Advani egged on by an aide and, insiders say, columnist-author M.J. Akbar , insisted on making the 8220;terror-Islam8221; distinction clear. Some other ideologues, who perceive themselves to be in the Karl Rove mould, of course, would have liked otherwise.

Advani8217;s detailed statement on terror recently, had two key ideas. One, stressing on de-linking Islam from terror, the BJP8217;s PM candidate said that the interpretations of the Quran often cited by terror agents were plain erroneous. Two, he also held forth on the new phenomenon of the 8220;low-cost, low-intensity terror and the invisible enemy8221;.

BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley, who along with Narendra Modi has emerged as a prominent voice of the second school of thought, has also expressed surprise at the new phenomenon of 8220;home-grown terror and educated Muslims taking to terror8221;. It8217;s not difficult to comprehend this though.

In his seminal study on the US army during World War II, Samuel Stouffer found out that well-educated, middle-rung against low-ranked soldiers often felt discriminated vis-a-vis various service conditions. Stouffer called this 8220;relative deprivation8221;. If relative deprivation is the first step towards manufacturing temporary identities, it8217;s the educated class 8212; aware of the subjective conditions 8212; that acts as its agent. It8217;s for this reason that it8217;s rare to come across an illiterate Bajrang Dal cadre they are often semi-literates, nursing half baked ideas on issues ranging from nationalism to women8217;s honour.

Handling them, therefore, could be an extremely tricky affair. While the Sangh Parivar remains oblivious to larger societal changes, Advani has been clever enough to rope in new-age Hindu saints 8212; their Hindutva is often more accommodative and the RSS cannot outright dismiss them. No wonder then, that Advani got Rishikesh8217;s Swami Chidanand Saraswati to mediate between the Bajrang Dal and Christian community leaders in Orissa.

The Congress has, however, not adequately understood the import of endogenous community responses. While its leaders like Mohsina Kidwai advocated the need to back Deoband-like anti-terror declarations, the party was found wanting when faced the Jamia Nagar shootout.

Consider, for instance, if a team comprising leaders like Mohsina Kidwai, C.K. Jaffer Sharif, A.R. Antulay, Salman Khursheed, Rashid Alvi and Noor Bano had visited Jamia Nagar immediately after the shootout with two talking points 8212; that deviants sympathetic to terror needed to be isolated, and that they and hence the largely Muslim populace there represented the idea of India as much as Delhi Police Inspector M.C. Sharma who died in the encounter there did. They would thus have would have taken the wind out of the BJP8217;s sails on its most-potent campaign issue. More importantly, India8217;s Grand Old Party would have been spared the embarrassment that it has recently had to face.

suman.jhaexpressindia.com