NATIONAL POLITICS

RSS Ideologue K.R. Malkani on BJP as the Nationalist Party Par Excellence

In the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP emerged as the largest single party. However, we have a government that includes every party but the BJP- on the specious ground that it is not secular.

The Muslim League had demanded the partition of India along religious lines, something the Communists had supported. And the Congress had acquiesced in that demand. But today, ironically, they are all "secular"; and the BJP, whose ideological guru, the RSS, had opposed partition is "communal".

Secular Tokenism

From time to time, the Congress and its pseudo- secular allies have indulged in cheap publicity stunts. They carved up Malabar district just to create the Muslim-majority district of Malappuram. They banned Satanic Verses-even before Pakistan or Arab countries had done so. They negated the Supreme Court judgement giving relief to Muslim divorcees in the Shah Bano case, just to pander to communal reactionaries. On the eve of elections, they even thought of Sarkari salaries for poor Imams-but not for poor priests or pujaris. There are states where even if there are only two Muslim students in a class, the whole school get half a day off on Friday- to offer namaz. And, of course, it is routine to run up to Jama Masjid to salaam its Imam. While they have indulged in all this tokenism, they have never done anything for the education and modernization of Muslims -on which alone depends their progress. However, when the BJP points out the utter insincerity of it all, it is dubbed "communal".

BJP Progressive-non-communal

Indeed, everything that the BJP says or does - whether it is cow protection, deletion of Article 370, adoption of a uniform civil law or end of Bangladeshi infiltration or Ayodhya is viewed in a communal light. The courts have interpreted this article to mean that aged or disabled bulls can be slaughtered. Taking advantage of this loophole, cattle are being maimed, "certified" as disabled and slaughtered. No wonder in the years from 1976 to 1992, beef sale has gone up from 70,000 tonnes to over 11 lakh tonnes. (This) not only goes against the grain of this country, but it is making cattle scarce and milk expensive. The BJP would like to amend this article to explicitly ban all cattle slaughter. What is communal about that?

The BJP feels that (Article 370) fosters a separatist psychology in J&K. It would, therefore, like to amend the Constitution and delete this Article, as and when it has the necessary two-thirds majority. What is communal about the demand for its deletion?

As regards the uniform civil code all that BJP-and even the CPM- wants implementation of Article 44. Two of the more important features of such a law would be a ban on polygamy and instant talaq. This will not only give greater security to Muslim womanhood, but also prevent irresponsible Hindu males from embracing Islam just to be able to marry more than one woman. We could have a commission of jurists to work out a model civil law for all Indians. And meanwhile polygamy and instant in Pakistan under Ayub Khan's Family Laws Ordinance. talaq could be banned - even as they already stand banned particularly since 1971, millions of Bangladeshi Muslims. What is communal about that? Over the years, and have... come over. These people have no legal or moral right to come this side. Their flooding the labor market depresses wages in India. This influx of Muslims poses a great potential threat to the unity and integrity of India.

The rationale behind the VHP's demand for a Ram temple in Ayodhya is that during the medieval period thousands of temples had been desecrated and destroyed. They have requested the restoration of three of the more important sites in Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura- as a symbolic rightening of medieval wrongs. If the Nehru government could decide on the reconstruction of Somnath, which had been destroyed by Mahmud Ghaznavi, why not Ayodhya desecrated by Babar?

As regards the unfortunate incident of December 6, 1992. I can only describe it as a "a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma." We don't know who did it!

Not Kar Sevaks but Pakistani Agents

Was Pakistan (responsible)? Or did it have other accomplices, local and/or foreign? Only history can tell.  But obviously it was the handiwork of forces that wanted to try to destabilize India- and to see four BJP state governments dismissed.

What the BJP wants is the implementation, in letter and spirit, of the Indian Constitution. Its position is national and not communal.

Was there a foreign dimension to the recent gang-up against the BJP? There is nothing communal or unsecular about the Islamic Salvation Front of Algeria, the Welfare Party of Turkey or the BJP of India. All of these are nationalist parties... In country after country. promote the unity, identity, sovereignty and development people are throwing up nationalist forces to protect and of their respective countries. And they are being subverted by "secularists" reinforced by foreign forces.

 (Source: The Times of India, 22 July, 1996)

Meenakshi Jain's Comments on Malkani

Will the real BJP step forwards. Is the Hindu agenda on or off? All along we were told it was a struggle for the reassertion of Hindu civilization. Then comes a thunder-bolt. The revised Malkani thesis. I am of your flock, he now informs his detractors, just a shade less dark. I merely wish to implement your stated policies. A uniform civil code because Article 44 of the Constitution says so: abolition of Article 370 for Nehru himself had hoped it would 'erode away', Ayodhya merely as a follow-up of Somnath. The other items on the list also smack of rationality, he assures. Ban on cow slaughter for shortage of cattle raises the price of milk; check on illegal immigrants for such an influx 'depresses wages' in India. Nothing religious about it. So, admit me into the fraternity, I can no longer shoulder the non-secular tag.

Islamic Tradition

What is one to make of this new found obsession for a fair name? Is dilution of issues a workable solution? Our past experience is a guide to the dimension of the problem. There is a whole Islamic tradition to contend with.

Whatever one may think of Hindu insensitivity to power, Muslims are alive to all its nuances. Finally, that alone explains their conduct during the freedom movement, their veto of the composite secular nationalism propounded by Congress which threatened their political existence but left intact the notion of an integrated community.

Muslims who opposed the League and stayed back followed the separatist tendencies of their faith in all else. They were very clear about it. Their religion did not permit otherwise. So the jockeying for position. The willingness to align with SP, BSP, JD, anyone who promises them a fair share of power. The question is how does cultural nationalism deal with the situation. Is avoidance the best form of defense?

Which brings us to the piece de resistance of the Malkani manifesto. 1992 was trumpeted as the Year of Ayodhya. A sure sign that the Hindus were finally arriving. So, one waited on the sidelines with bated breath. Only to be told, four years on, that the moment of triumph was the handiwork of Pakistani agents provocateurs! Is this equivocation or the final party position? The answer "a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma". But thereby hangs a civilization.

So many have openly asserted that without Hinduism there can be no future for India. "I do not mean Hinduism narrow, unenlightened, dogmatic; I mean Ancient Hinduism, enlightened, intellectual, fall of vigor and strength." (Annie Besant). Complete transparency. No subterfuge. No hemming, no hawing.

 (Source: The Times of India, 28 June, 1996)

N. Ram on BJP and Power

The three-way, or even four-way, fragmentation which has occurred in the polity has provided the party of the Hindu Right its main chance. However, the very process (made up of long term as well as immediate factors) that has enabled the BJP to emerge as the number one party has ensured its containment and its ideological and political isolation.

Certainly, over the last decade, no other all-India player has made more rapid electoral gains than the party of Hindutva. From a one-fourteenth share of the national vote in 1984 (when a hugely abnormal election was held), the BJP climbed, in three steep steps, to a one-ninth share in 1989 to a 1/5th share in 1991 to a 1/4th share in 1996. In contrast to its status of half a decade ago, it is widely recognized today as a potential party of Central government. The BJP might be dreaming of a one-third share in the next general election, whenever it comes...

The BJP is India's party of the new Right, comparable in some ways to the new Right parties of Europe, including neo-fascist organizations. It is the chief political vehicle of an ensemble of organizations and players for whom the command centre has always been the RSS. Aggressive Hindutva is, above all, a political mobilization strategy. It is a response to an overall national situation where the dominant party has become decrepit, the system has been downgraded, and 'de- institutionalization' has proceeded apace.

"Hindu Rashtra' is an emotional-ideological platform which has been systematically and cynically constructed at the mass political level from 1986. With its repertoire of fascist ideology, transparent myth, false history and cold-blooded communal politics and with its mastery of tactics and timing, it has been able to gather force in a menacing way. It has a proven capacity to unite against and prey on the weaknesses and contradictions among its opponents. The whole movement strikes at the root of communal harmony, secularism and democratic values in India as it moves towards the twenty-first century. It deliberately mixes up religion and politics and targets minorities. It denies the pluralistic and diverse character of India's history, civilization and present. it defies the writ of courts, flouts the rule of law, and endangers the constitutional edifice. It spreads the dangerously fundamentalist and reactionary idea that matters of 'faith', as determined and exploited by fanatical anti- secular organizations and leaders, must prevail over the jurisdiction of courts, Parliament and other democratic- secular institutions. The BJP and the Hindu Rashtra project suffer from a number of weaknesses and contradictions, but they pose a live and present threat to secular, democratic and progressive India.

(Source: The Frontline, 31 May, 1996)