From: "Vrn Davan" Mailing-List: list vediculture@yahoogroups.com Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 22:55:50 +0000 Subject: [world-vedic] Hindutva: a liberating or confining force? Hindutva: a liberating or confining force? By MV Kamath Date: january 23, 2003 Publication: Samachar.com http://www.samachar.com/features/230103-features.html Tectonic changes are taking place quietly in Hindu society and hardly anyone seems to be aware of the phenomenon. Verbal battles are being fought in the media and dire consequences are being predicted should Hindutva win out in the end. Hindutva is equated with fanaticism, roguery, assault on minorities, political shortsightedness, majority dominance and every evil under the sun. Predicting doomsday one columnist wants to know whether anyone is thinking of the price India will have to pay if the VHP's version of Hindutva were to become the dominant philosophy of the ruling coalition at the Centre. According to him should this version get adopted first, India will forsake all the benefits, domestic an international, of being a secular democracy. Second, it will lose its moral right to hold on to Kashmir. Third it will lose the high moral ground vis-a-vis Islamic fundamentalists. Fourth, it will also lose ground in the tribal, predominantly Christian, North East. The question is asked: ``If minority-bashing becomes an accepted mode of political mobilisation, then why should they want to remain a part of India?'' Fifth, India will be catapulted from among the ranks of the modern states into those of the atavistic and ultimately rogue states. The question is asked: ``Does the BJP want India to join them?''. Thee rhetorical answer is thereafter given which goes like this: ``India will slowly become a pariah. Some early flyers have appeared. Non-NRI tourists, especially the high-end ones, have almost completely stopped coming in. Foreign investors are showing no interest whatever in the non-IT service sector.'' And then is predicted the ultimate disaster: ``Hindutva offers a future of economic stagnation with no jobs for its youth, global isolation and unending internal war. Since all these problems will arise from the unresolved contractions of the north, one day, in the not too instant future, the south will secede from the country. That will mean still more war. In the end Bharatvarsha will be re-established in the north and Hindutva will, like the Sikhs in Punjab, at last have a truncated homeland''. So boys, goes the argument, give up Hindutva, stick to secularism and then all will be well: tourists in the millions will come to visit us. Jobs will be available for every adult man and woman. Internal contradictions will cease. Foreign money will keep pouring in billions. Industries will rise and India will become the darling of every foreign investor. The New York Times, The Times (London), Die Welt, Le Monde, Izvestia not to speak of every leading paper in the world will sing hosannahs to Indian democracy and the streets of Mumbai will be paved with gold. There will be no more Godhras, no more attacks on Akshardham Temple, no killings of innocent Muslim girls because they are allergic to wearing burkhas, no cross-border terrorism. And peace and goodwill will reign in India and unity will be the watch-word. The secularism as our wise columnists see it is most seductive. It is wonderful to scare people out of their wits. Secularism is wisdom, Hindutva is madness. Secularism is a sign of maturity, Hindutva is a sign of intellectual adolescence. But no one has stopped to ask: ``What have we had all these fifty odd years of independence? Hindutva? Why has there been a stagnation in tourist traffic in India? Are we to attribute it to Nehru's brand of secularism? Why did India's economic growth crawl for almost four decades? Because we professed secularism? Why has the world been hostile towards us for half a century? Because we were guided by secular principles? Our secularists have no answer. Nor would they like to be told that the Togadias do not represent the BJP and that even Narendra Modi has said for the record that he is entirely in favour of the concept of Hindutva as proposed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. But why, in Heaven's name, are people suddenly conscious of Hindutva? The matter has been talked about for some years now soon after L K. Advani mooted the concept. It did not take off for years. How come people have suddenly come to be aware of it? Many reasons are adduced. The constant reference to secularism by the Congress and the Leftist parties started to become an irritations, especially considering that at no time have these organisations been particularly clean especially at election times. The masses can be conned for some time but in the end they come to see through Congress manipulations. In the second place for far too long had they been told to suppress their natural feelings and sentiments. The average Hindu has nothing against the minorities and as Ashutosh Varshney has noted in his excellent survey of civil conflict, riots have largely been an urban phenomenon, and that too, under special circumstances. But time and time again they had been exhorted to remain `secular' which they understood as meaning suppression of their innermost religious feelings. These feelings can be suppressed only that long but over the years the average Hindu has been feeling that he has been taken for a ride, that it was all right for a Muslim to be a stern Muslim, for a Christian to be a Christian but all wrong for a Hindu to be a Hindu. For years the revolt against secularism has been brewing with no one being any the wiser for it. It started to explode during the agitation for the take-over of the Ram Janmabhoomi site. There is no need really speaking for the agitation. The demand of the Hindus very well, say one section of the Hindus, could have been politely, wisely met and there the matter would have happily ended. As has been noted by Dr Rafiq Zakaria, the Babri Masjid was a Shia mosque and the All-India Shia Conference had shown willingness to have the mosque relocated at another site. But the mosque and its surrounding land had been taken over by the Sunnis who showed lamentable lack of understanding of the Hindu psyche. Worse, the so-called secularists kept egging them on to take an unbending stance. The resolute should have been anticipated. Even political Hindus who wouldn't have hurt a fly came to the conclusion that something is basically wrong with the secularism as practised by the Congress and the Left-leaning parties. The Congress secularism aptly described as ``pseudo-secularism'' stood exposed. Since then there has been no turning back. Godhra was something waiting to happen. It merely confirmed gathering Hindu opinion that there has to be a stop to the eternal pandering to the Muslim electorate. What subsequently happened was an explosion of long-pent up feelings. No Narendra Modi, no L. K. Advani, no Sonia Gandhi, no intervention of Armed Forces could have controlled the ire of a frustrated people. Is this a temporary phenomenon of no major consequence? Will the anger and frustration fritter away in the months to come? That seems highly unlikely. The huge outflow of support shown by Mumbai's citizens when they foregathered at Shivaji Park recently to hear Narendra Modi is an indication of not only how deep is the support to Hindutva howsoever defined among ordinary people but of a qualitative change in their thinking. The pseudo-secularists may, like the columnist quoted above, rant and rave but the turn-over to Hindutva seems irreversible. A giant has been awakened. Hindus across the country, irrespective of caste, creed, community, language, even political affiliation have been roused. The tide of anger cannot be turned. This is an entirely new development, unforeseen but now, it seems, inevitable. Those who voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Gujarat elections came from all classes of society, including, much to the shock of our pseudo-secularists, tribals as well. There are many who wonder whether the BJP's electoral success in Gujarat can be replicated elsewhere. That is an open question. Madhya Pradesh, for instance, or, for that matter the three other states which will be holding assembly elections in a short while, is no Gujarat. They cannot be. But that does not mean that people feel differently. The feeling of revulsion against secularism is so deep that it is unbelievable. What is happening today is something that was unthinkable a decade ago. It is Hinduism not just Hindutva resurgent. This resurgence needs to be understood and properly canalised, not condemned or laughed at. And this also be said: the more it is belittled and besmirched, the more it is going to thrive. Our pseudo-secularists do not know what force they are confronting, let alone understand its significance. Never in the past has Hinduism been united. That is happening now, right in front of our eyes. It is not going to brook any insult and it is there to stay. Significantly it is a force with a very positive content. It is by no means anti-minority. That supercilious charge made by ignoramuses cannot withstand scrutiny even for a will turn out to be. Hindutva is going to release forces that will take India to the pinnacle of glory. Those with petty minds will continue to cavil. But they cannot stop Hindutva's momentum which, like a mighty or oceanic wave will sweep everything before it. There have rarely been instances of Hindu resurgence in the past. We are seeing one now in action. And it is dazzling.