The recent developments in and around the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are indicative of their urge to work out an election strategy for the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. On the one hand they are consciously projecting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the symbol of growth and development attempting to woo middle class votes which they had lost due to their rabid communal agenda and on the other hand they are reviving the slogan of ‘Ram mandir’ in Ayodhya in order to consolidate their traditional vote bank. And its recently anointed President Rajnath Singh also seems to address regional sentiments of people of different states in his attempt to garner some support in states where they have no or nominal presence.
The BJP seems to be in Hobson’s choice between Modi and Mandir, as the development plank on which the Gujarat Chief Minister is projected requires mobilization cutting across communities and the revival of Ram mandir slogan is a crash appeal for consolidation of Hindu votes, but the party appears to be determined to ride on both horses simultaneously.
Recently Rajnath Singh took ‘holy dip’ in Ganga on the occasion of Maha Kumbh Mela in Lucknow and participating in the Marg Darshan Mandal of the Viswa Hindu Parishad there along with VHP President Ashok Singhal, he told the congregation of seers and saints that Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is a matter of faith for Hindus and hence the BJP is committed to build a Ram temple there. Further he said Hindus would not tolerate memorials for Babar or any Islamic cultural centres in Ayodhya. The VHP and the RSS have announced their preference for Modi as Prime Minister. When the BJP neared the power centre in New Delhi in 1996, the then Prime Minister A.B.Vajpayee cobbled an alliance of 24 parties only by putting to the back burner the three main demands of the Hindutva forces- Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uniform civil code for all communities and abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution which accords special status to the state, which however shrank to four parties following the communal pogrom in Gujarat in 2002.
That the recent controversy surrounding certain cultural issues was a cause of concern for the BJP should have surprised political observers as well as people. Talking to reporters in Chennai on February 7, (when the controversy over the film ‘Viswaroopam’ was in full blow here) BJP President Rajnath Singh has said that India has been a tolerant society for centuries when it comes to art, culture and music. Films, music, books and other creative mode of public discourse functioned as vehicles for promoting alternative ideas and they had to be given ample space to flourish. He called for a public debate over growing intolerance towards cultural issues. “Those who are opposed to these ideas have every right to raise their voice in dissent, but there should be no scope for hooliganism, blackmail and violence.”
The BJP leader tactfully chose Chennai to express these views on cultural intolerance and concern over relief, rehabilitation and empowerment of Tamils living in Sri Lanka, through diplomatic channels, apparently with eye on next Lok Sabha elections. Recently in the news were three different developments of cultural intolerance relating to Islamic fundamentalism, which have emboldened the leader of the most intolerant and monstrous gangs of communal vandals, the sangh parivar to counsel the spirit of tolerance. The incidents are the ban imposed on the film ‘Viswaroopam’ by Jayalalitha regime in Tamil Nadu, the threats issued to the first ever all-women music band from Jammu and Kashmir by Islamic clerics and fundamental elements and the ban imposed by Mamata Banerjee government to the entry of writer Salman Rushdie, the author of the controversial book ‘The Satanic Verses’. It should also be remembered that while Jayalalitha and Mamata Banerjee resorted to knee-jerk reactions , the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah was bold enough to assure safety for the three girls of the music band and initiated criminal action against those who threatened them.
But who are the original authors and perpetrators of cultural and communal intolerance? It is the Hindutva forces who started the hate campaign and resorted to attacks on minorities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in India and continue till date, the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and the post-Godhra pogrom in Gujarat remaining as indelible dark spots in the history of India.
All along it had been the multi-headed monster Hindutva forces which had been unleashing reign of terror against artists, film makers and even young men and women whose cultural values were different from the one they preach for the sons and daughters of Bharat. It was the RSS which propounded the theory of ‘Cultural nationalism’ and urge people of all faiths in India to fall in line with that concept lest they would be treated as aliens.
The internationally acclaimed great artist M.F.Hussain was hounded out of his motherland India by the saffron brigades that he had to seek asylum in London and breath last and buried there itself. They did not allow the film ‘Fire’ of Deepa Mehta featuring Shabna Azmi in lead character, to be shown in theatres in many parts of the country. They did not allow the shooting of Deepa Mehta’s another excellent movie “Water”, on the plight of Hindu widows, anywhere in India that she had to go to Sri Lanka and shoot the film. The moral policing resorted to by the RSS affiliates VHP, Bajrang Dal and many other Hindutva outfits attack young men and women celebrating ‘Valentine’s Day’ and visiting pubs, rave parties, music and dance programmes which they brand as alien to ‘Indian’ culture. Their cultural dictatorship has taken heavy toll of lives, properties castrated by force many budding artists of all hues.
The Hindutva forces have such an obnoxious record of communal and cultural intolerance, that the BJP President should be the last person to be concerned over the growing cultural intolerance. No sensible person will be moved by the wolf shedding tear for the lamb.
The BJP is understood to be of the firm thinking that the combination of the slogans of Modi and Mandir will ‘electrify’ voters in the northern and western parts of the country which will offset loss of Janata Dal (United) in Bihar. Are they taking the voters of this country for granted by presenting this ‘Modi’fied Mandir slogan instead of any meaningful programme? r
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