From Shimla, the Congress president has exhorted all “secular” parties to come together to fight the “communal” forces. It is being said that Sonia Gandhi has sounded her party’s most strident challenge yet — not merely electoral, but also ideological — to the BJP and allies. From Raipur, comes news about a Congress chief minister’s plans to take on the BJP. Ajit Jogi, Chhattisgarh CM, has organised a week-long Virat Ram Katha, he has announced nine Vikas Yatras from different shrines across the state, his government proposes to set up a Kaushalya Temple Trust to oversee the construction of a splendid Rs 2 crore temple for Lord Ram’s mother in the poll-bound state. So what happened between Shimla and Raipur? Some would say that somewhere in between, Congress’s secularism ran out of breath and lost its way. But others will point out that this is only par for the course. It’s secularism, Congress style. Historically, the party has articulated a rather distinctive sort of secularism. It is not one that insists on the strict separation of the church from the state. Rather, from the days of the freedom movement, the Congress’s version of secularism has meant the state patronage of all religions. An unabashed pandering to all religious groups, with the promise to maintain even-handedness between them all. Down the years, therefore, Congress policies have negotiated a not-so-delicate balancing act between religious orthodoxies, Hindu as well as Muslim. So why cannot it get away with more of the same? As it confronts the BJP, why can’t Ashok Gehlot call a halt to Praveen Togadia’s trishul diksha one day in Rajasthan even as Digvijay Singh stokes the bhojshala embers and calls for a nationwide cow slaughter ban in Madhya Pradesh on another? Some would say the Congress can successfully fight Hindutva and have it too. It’s always been a risky act but the going just got tougher. While it was the centrepiece of a one-party dominance system, the Congress could get away with, even profit from, this carefully crafted ambiguity. But the political arrival of the BJP’s Hindutva has drastically changed the game. Now, its traditional flirtation with religious conservatism on all sides could, Congress must beware, end up further opening up the field for the BJP.
