Opinion BJP’s Sufi dialogue may be an attempt to keep its core ideology open-ended

The second explanation is slightly more critical. The Sufi dialogue is also construed as a disruptive strategy of the BJP to create a divide among Muslims. Many political observers have argued that the BJP and, for that matter, the Sangh Parivar, want to disrupt the collective strength of Muslims as a constitutional minority for consolidating the Hindutva constituency. In fact, the party’s selective emphasis on the Pasmanda identity and the caste-based Muslim marginalisation has been criticised as a political gimmick. This criticism is based on the premise that the Muslim outreach will be meaningless if the anti-Muslim propaganda supported by a section of media continues to determine the terms of political discourse.

These elementary readings of the BJP’s attitude towards Muslim communities are, no doubt, useful. However, there is a need to situate the party’s Sufi outreach in its entirety. One must ask two very basic questions: What is the placing of Sufism in the intellectual framework of contemporary Hindutva? And, what are the political-electoral expectations of the party from Sufis as political stakeholders?

For the sake of analysis, we must make a distinction between the Hindutva of the RSS and the Hindutva of the BJP. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat delivered three lectures in 2018 to clarify RSS’s position on the concept of Hindutva. He identifies three foundational beliefs — patriotism, ancestral pride and culture. He said: “… the collective notion of values belonging to the religions that are sprung from the entirety, that is India, is known as Hindutva…Therefore, Hindutva is synonymous with the notion of patriotism”.

Bhagwat does not elucidate the place of Indian Islam in this formulation. However, he made an interesting comment about the inclusive nature of the Hindu nation. Bhagwat said: “Hindu Rashtra does not mean it has no place for Muslims. The day it is said that Muslims are unwanted here, the concept of Hindutva will cease to exist”.

Does it mean that the Hindutva of contemporary RSS is different from Savarkar’s Hindutva, which cherishes India as the fatherland (pitribhu) and the holy land (punyabhu) of Hindus? Does it also mean that Indian Islam, and for that matter, Indian Sufism, could legitimately be called an Indian religion since this land is also revered as a holy land by these religious traditions? We do not find clear answers to these questions.

The BJP’s adherence to Hindutva is well-known. However, one finds a strange ambiguity here. The party leadership uses the term Hindutva very carefully. Unlike the older generation of BJP leaders like L K Advani or Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who defined Hindutva as a form of cultural nationalism, senior BJP leaders, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, avoid any direct discussion on this issue. A speech delivered by the PM in 2018 is relevant to clarify this point.

He said, “Hindutva…is a rich heritage… this Hindu knowledge is so profound … so vast, and so ancient…No one can claim that he or she has complete knowledge of it. Even the sages never claimed to have full knowledge of Hindu and Hindutva”.

This statement, in a way, underlines the fact that the contemporary BJP leadership is interested in producing an open-ended meaning of Hindutva. This might be the reason the term Hindutva is not mentioned in the Party’s Constitution. It is also not described as a constituent of the BJP’s political philosophy. This relative openness gives space for accommodating programmes such as the party’s Sufi outreach. It goes well with the party’s Pancha Nishthas (five principles) which also includes “positive secularism”. After all, the party has shown a great interest in the figure of Dara Shikoh in recent years.

This brings us to our second question. The electoral success of the BJP after 2014 is inextricably linked to the party’s professional attitude and its adherence to the idea of winnability. The BJP leadership, it seems, is very aware of the strengths, weaknesses and even limitations of its aggressive style of electoral campaigning. Relying on the figure of Narendra Modi, the BJP has created and nurtured an effective constituency of committed voters. The party, in this sense, faces two kinds of challenges. First, it has to protect the constituency of committed voters; and second, it has to expand its social base.

CSDS-Lokniti surveys show that the BJP gets around 8 per cent to 9 per cent Muslim votes at the national level. Although it is correct that the Muslim perceptions about a Modi-led BJP are not homogeneous or one-sided, initiatives like the Sufi outreach will not give immediate electoral advantages to the BJP, at least in this round of elections. However, the BJP establishment is fully aware of the nature of its support base. The “committed voters” of the BJP come from different socio-economic, religious and cultural backgrounds. The anti-Muslim narrative produced and sustained by a section of the media does not necessarily attract those voters of the BJP, who do not want to be associated with any hate campaign. The Sufi shrines, on the other hand, are very much part of the religious universe of Indian communities. It is possible that a committed voter of the BJP might be a committed devotee of a particular dargah. The BJP establishment is keen to protect this kind of support base simply by creating a possible configuration in which the politics of Hindutva and Sufi devotion could survive without any confrontation.

The writer is associate professor, CSDS