Power flows from the mask

It is all to the good of this democracy that the clash between liberalism and Hindutva has come in open. Hindutvawrapped in liberalism was a very untidy packet, certain to tear apart under the slightest pressure.

Pressures put on the Vajpayee government by the Hindutva forces were enormous: call off the cricket match with Pakistan in Mumbai, make the recitation of Vande Mataram in the schools mandatory, renege on the country8217;s international commitments on patents. The government had to say no to these Hindutva demands, if it wanted to govern a country of such diversity and a democracy of such resilience.

The Hindutva votaries seriously err in believing that they could recoup the severe loses the party has suffered in recent elections in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and perhaps even strengthen the party8217;s appeal by returning to Hindutva orthodoxy. Bal Thackeray believes so.

Another rath yatra or some such feat and the party would regain the elan it has lost because of Vajpayee8217;s straying from the Hindutva course, the BJP die-hards, the RSS ideologues and the VHP roughnecks think. No doubt, L.K.Advani8217;s rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya in October 1990 was a spectacular success. It was the most successful political mobilisation the Hindutva forces have ever achieved. The earlier agitations for Hindi and the ban on cow slaughter were small eddies compared to the rath yatra storm. Because of it the party doubled its votes, from about 10 per cent in 1989 election to about 21 per cent in 1991 election. The party gained the status of the main opposition party and a growing recognition among people that it could be an alternative to Congress.

However, if the nationalism launched for the cause of Ram Mandir were the only reason for BJP8217;s impressive performance in the 1991 election, then how can one explain its poor electoral showing in the Hindi heartland just after the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992? The BJP clearly did not participate in the demolition; nonetheless the event marked a culmination of the drive it launched to rebuild the Ram mandir in place of the BabriMasjid. The demolition brought no gains to the BJP, only condemnations.

In the 1996 parliamentary elections, the BJP got just about the same percentage of votes it did in the 1991 election. Clearly the Ram temple issue was dead. It8217;s only when the BJP began to behave like a normal party and not an ideological band that it began to go up the power ladder. Between the 1996 and 1998 elections, it succeeded in exposing the ruling Congress Party as corrupt, inept and one without effective leadership. In the 1998 election it secured about the same percentage of votes as the Congress 8212; 28 per cent 8212; but to the electorate it appeared to be the rightful winner.

It owed this victory to Vajpayee. Only he could make the BJP8217;s claim to be secular credible to people and the various regional parties; that8217;s why they joined the BJP to form a coalition government, but only if it was headed by Vajpayee. Without the mukota the BJP would not have come to power. L.K. Advani has belatedly realised that his rathyatra image has diminished him in the public eye.

Hindutva is a grotesque subversion of Hinduism; one calls this an ism when it8217;s really an amalgam of various rituals, practices and thought. How could a nationalist creed, which is what Hindutva is, be derived from it? It8217;s not a salvationist religion like Shia Islam or some strands of Protestantism and Buddhism, which have spawned or complemented nationalism in recent years.

Religious nationalism in Iran, religious fundamentalism among some Protestant sects in the United States and the Sinhala nationalism are some examples of religiously-based nationalism. How can Hindutva, Hinduness, be teased out of the Hindu religion which has no immutable doctrines and no organised priesthood? It8217;s too diverse in thought and practice to provide an ideological basis for Hindutva.

The reality of our diversity and the BJP8217;s perception of it that it is 8220;one nation, one people, one culture8221; cannot be reconciled. The phrase appears in its manifesto, which many whovoted for it ignored. Vajpayee cannot reconcile the clash between the reality and the BJP8217;s perception of it.

Perhaps he thinks he can balance the clash and keep the coalition going along a moderate course. The recent protest by the Christians all over the country should tell Vajpayee the perils of straying away from the moderate course.

Of course Vajpayee can sideline the Hindutva forces, as he did between 1977-1980 when the Jan Sangh merged in the Janata Party. With the support of the towering JP, the Jan Sangh under Vajpayee transformed itself into a radical democratic party. It talked of 8220;integral humanism8221; and Gandhian socialism. The result was a rupture between the RSS and Jan Sangh, with the former going to the Indira Congress. By the early eighties, Indira Gandhi8217;s 8220;secularism8221; had acquired a distinct saffron taint.

After the Congress defeat in Andhra and Karnataka in 1983, Indira Gandhi began to appeal to the Hindi heartland people in the name of religion. At this time the RSS was withIndira Gandhi and against Vajpayee; it returned to the BJP only when it vigorously espoused the cause of the Ram Mandir in 1989.

Vajpayee can effect the transition of the BJP from a doctrinaire party to a liberal centrist party, provided he can manage to stay in power for some time. Power has a great moderating influence on people. The old confessional parties like the Christian Democrats in Germany and Christian Socialists in France and Italy shed their religious baggage as they began to wield power.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi