Moving beyond time of temple

What makes India worse than Pakistan, they argue, is that Hindu fundamentalists are actually in power in Delhi while Pakistan’s military dictator is generally viewed as secular and moderate. They ask me to remember what happened to the Babri Masjid and that more than a thousand Muslims were murdered in Gujarat which then went on to vote overwhelmingly for the man blamed for the massacres. These things, they say, indicate that in India it is Hindu fundamentalism we should be worrying about.

It does not help that Pravin Togadia and Bal Thackeray offer such juicy sound bytes that they appear on one channel or other almost daily, and every time they open their mouths confirm the impression that something is going seriously wrong with the social fabric of India.

Only last week we had Togadia declare that since Muslim invaders had over the centuries destroyed 30,000 Hindu temples there was nothing wrong with asking that three be restored. Hindu fundamentalism has found its way even into cyberspace where websites that drip saffron blood routinely update lists of ‘enemies’.

Abusive descriptions of alleged crimes against Hinduism appear beside names that range from M F Hussain to your humble columnist. So, would it shock you terribly if I said Hindutva has had its day? Yes, despite what seems like evidence to the contrary, it is my view that Hindutva has peaked and is unlikely to work again as an electoral weapon.

I also believe that unlike in Pakistan where Islamic fundamentalism, as I wrote last week, can be seen clearly in the mindset of the new middle class there is no evidence that Hindutva has replaced consumerism as the ideology of the Indian middle classes. Quite the opposite as can be seen from the general disinterest in that temple in Ayodhya except from religious leaders and politicians.

If you travel, as I recently have, in states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where elections are due this year, one of the things that strikes you is that when BJP politicians mention Ayodhya the response from ordinary people is apathy.

This was not so ten years ago when, just before and after the Babri Masjid came down, L K Advani’s Ayodhya movement had so much support that in genteel drawing rooms in Delhi and Mumbai you would meet sophisticated, educated Indians who talked of ‘appeasement’ and ‘pseudo secularism’.

Unless you are a member of the Togadia or Thackeray household it would have been a long time since you last heard talk of these things. Islamic terrorism may enter conversations in drawing rooms but not in village streets where, Rama be praised, it is governance that is the only issue.

There are signs that the BJP will win Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh but it will be because Congress governance in these states has been unspeakable not because the BJP offers Hindutva.

There are signs also that if the BJP wins in these two states the Vajpayee government is likely to go for an early general election in February and if we get the same BJP-led government back, as seems likely, it would be wrong to read this as yet another sign of Hindutva’s spread.

You only need to look at the endless conclaves the Congress Party holds these days to know that it seems to have reconciled itself to being unemployed for a long while yet. If it were serious about returning to power after the next election there would be more time spent improving governance in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh than on traveling from Srinagar to Simla as if life were a long, summer holiday.

Besides, when was the last time you heard anything from our Italian leader of the opposition that sounded like a new idea or even a comment on some government policy? When you ask Congress leaders about this they mutter that Priyanka as their secret weapon next election, plus ca change…

Our Hindu Nationalist party, as the Western media likes to call the BJP has come under greater attack from Hindu fundamentalists than it has from Congress. If the Vishwa Hindu Parishad rarely misses a chance to go for the Prime Minister’s jugular the RSS is not far behind. Last week we had K S Sudarshan berate the Deputy Prime Minister for daring to talk about ‘give and take’ on Kashmir. ’What do we have that we can give, all we have to do is take’.

Luckily, nobody pays any attention to RSS views on foreign policy or we would be permanently at war with Pakistan since Sudarshan believes that peace with ‘that country’ is impossible. Luckily, nobody appears to be paying much attention to their views on domestic policy either or we would also have civil war.

If after five years of being ruled by a BJP prime minister the only signs of Hindutva are Murli Manohar Joshi’s clumsy attempts at rewriting history books then we can safely write Hindutva off as an idea whose time has gone. For those who continue to believe that Hindu fascism is around the corner please keep Mayawati, Laloo and Mulayam in mind and you will remember that Hindu society is not a cohesive whole. Even the gods are divided among the castes. Rama for Brahmins, Krishna for OBCs and Shiva for the Dalits.

Write to the author at tavleensingh@expressindia.com