‘Hindu’ Nationalism & ‘Ethnic’ Democracy are today Outdated Premises | Radhakanta Barik

Book Review

India’s Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy
by Chrstophe Jaffrelot

Westland Publication, Chennai, 2021

POLITICS IN INDIA needs a perspective to have an analysis. It is unlike politics of Europe where economic forces work behind political event. Here economic issues occasionally enter into politics but politics has autonomy which does not get disrupted because of bad economy. Here social structure plays an important role in politics but not always. Sometimes, this explains the social forces working at the level of social structure and disrupts politics. Cultural factors play a definite role but it is not a single culture but it is a multi-cultural society. It is a multi-religious society. It cannot be reduced to any ‘Ethnic’ state that implies dominance of one ethnicity; nor can any ethnicity hope to dominate over another. The question of any ‘ethnic democracy’, therefore, does not arise in India, unlike in Germany of the 1930s-40s, where ethnic Germans dominated over Jews.

India is a country where there is no single ethnic group and no dominant ethnic group. Yes, there is a dominant religious group, which cannot simply be defined as ‘Hindutva’. Hindutva is a political ideology that has no association with Hinduism. It is a philosophy that encompasses the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a political grouping, which developed during the British time. It is influenced by the politics of colonialism, uniformity, dominance and subservience, the politics of then India and Veer Savarkar’s idea of what a ‘state’ should be, influenced by B S Moonje’s tête-à-tête with Mussolini. Savarkar was a leader of the Hindutva group, who wrote a letter to the British to get pardon as he was incarcerated for his political utterances. He then became a leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, the sister organisation of the RSS. India’s prime minister today, Narendra Modi, has claimed his political legacy from Savarkar.

Both worked in a legal system where both vacillated very often to violate the Rule of Law. Savarkar supported the British rule and Modi is committed to falsehood and versions of ‘truth’, not based on facts. His alleged involvement in large-scale communal riots made him a leader of Gujarat. The Gujarati Business class is the greatest supporter of the Hindutva philosophy, and this class sponsored Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate.

Predictably, he turned into a prime minister who worked for the corporate houses; two of them specifically, Ambani and Adani, became world business leaders because of his support. They turned into multimillionaires through bank frauds and bought national property at throw-away prices. They control India’s air, earth and sea by buying ports, airports and railway segments which resulted in them becoming global capital’s leaders they encouraged Modi to adopt religion as a medium of mobilization. It is a clear case of I scratch your backs and you scratch mine.

This kind of capitalist politics resulted in communal mobilisation of the Indian people and created division among people. The RSS backed Bharatiya Janata Party has created a double-engine sarkar which allowed police bureaucracy to work for Hindutva. As Chrstophe Jaffrelot points out in his book, India’s Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Modi has turned into the ‘emperor of Hindu hearts’. However, actually this never happened. He is rejected by the majority of Hindus; Hindutva is an ideology that suits the interests of a fascist state but not Hinduism.

Washing Machine Politics

The best example are the Cow Vigilantes, who reportedly got indoctrinated in Nehru’s old house, the Teenmurti Bhavan, which is being controlled by the BJP government today. They were allegedly trained by police officers from Haryana and ideologues of the Hindutva politics. They got training in how to attack innocent Muslims. These people are trained to create ruckus in the name of beef or cow trading – which were ‘legal’ in the Indian system – (though cow slaughter is banned in many States) but not in States like Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Such groups explain the character of Hindutva politics and they play mischiefs from the back door, not from the front door.

Politics of ‘Hindutva’ does not appeal to the poor Indian. When the BJP had occupied 303 MP-seats in the Lok Sabha in the aftermath of the 2019 general elections by raising the bogey of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Phulwama, anti-Pakistan slogans helped them to get the number.

Noteworthy, that they did not get a simple majority in the 2024 general elections, when they used the Ayodhya Ram Mandir as the primary prop. According to a survey conducted by the CSDS, less than one percentages of people accepted the Ram temple as an important talking point and Modi’s slogan of 400 seats did not get realised. A greater humiliating factor was that the BJP candidate lost to the local Samajwadi Party from Ayodhya. This explains that ‘Hidndutva’ cannot really be a political ideology or the platform for political mobilisation to win elections.

The BJP-led government has money power and muscle power and they know how to trouble Opposition leaders; they misuse the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and Income Tax departments for raiding, accusing and creating fear in Opposition leaders. They arrest the Opposition leaders on the charges of corruption, but as soon as some buckle under pressure and join the BJP, they turn into honest leaders. This is known as the Washing Machine politics. Despite inciting great fear and terror the BJP-RSS lobby could not win absolute majority in the latest general elections in the country.

NaMo, as a political phenomenon, got created by the godi media and the corporate houses who have aptly used this extremely right-wing politician to the hilt. The state is suffering from high degree of economic inequality which threatens the social fabric of society as the young suffer from high degree of unemployment. A large mass of young people have been pushed into the poverty trap today.

The welfare measures started by UPA government, like Rural Employment Guarantee Act, has been getting less money during the BJP rule. Peasant classes are agitating for years, demanding rise in Procurement Price for their produce, and version 3 of the Modi government has not yet acceded their demands. It is an anti-framer, anti-worker government.

Modi’s mismanagement of Covid killed millions of people although the government provides low figures. India is suffering from a high rate inflation with lower GDP. This reflected in the 2924 general elections, where Modi got less than the simple majority despite manipulation of the voting machines. Two independent studies conducted by the Association for Democratic Rights and Vote for Democracy found that the BJP coalition got almost seventy nine seats more than ADR-VD calculations, because of the large scale manipulation by the Election Commission.

Playing with the RSS

Modi’s legitimacy is questioned by the INDIA alliance led by Rahul Gandhi and also by the RSS. We can only try to explain the position of Modi in his third term as having ‘lack of legitimacy’. This viewpoint is supported by Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s article in The Indian Express of 29 September. ‘What has emerged, however, is a much deeper crisis. A government barely a few weeks into a new term is acting and behaving as if it is a lame duck government on its last legs.’ This is going to result in a situation where Modi may lose power to someone from his party or the Opposition.

Constitutional democracy is strengthened by debating and discussing the Constitution, crafted by the leaders of India’s national movement where Nehru and Ambedkar played a decisive role in integrating social justice into our fundamental rights by creating a secular state. Modi is questioning Nehru today although Nehru was the representative of the national movement who articulated the social agenda in framing the most radical Indian Constitution.
Modi is being challenged from the outside and the inside. He has no escape route and he cannot leave the chair in the guise of a fakir with a bag. Even small matters become monsters standing at Modi’s doorstep like the collapse of a Shivaji statue in Maharashtra. The Hindutva politics is so queered that the Opposition parties are challenging Modi over his expression of regret. It was built six months ago by a ‘Gujarati contractor’ and be it the new Parliament House or the new Ram Mandir – all suffer from poor construction and water seepage, just like the Shivaji statue. There are posters in many places now that say, ‘Do not give the contracts to Gujaratis’.

After the 2002 riots in Gujarat, Modi wanted to satisfy his rich supporters, and since when he became prime minister, most contracts in the country go to Gujaratis. They lack ethics however, and all these symbolic statues are now falling down like a pack of cards. Such incidents are now being linked to ‘Gujarati Asmita’ and lead to questions over Modi’s performance as the prime minister. These questions are raised by all, not only the Opposition. Ten years of misrule has not pushed Modi to apologise for Demonitasation, which killed more than hundred people. To satisfy his two corporate friends, he wanted to bring agricultural laws and seven hundred people have died during the protests. These are serious matter for which Modi needs to seek people pardon.

The RSS is questioning Modi for declaring himself as God and they are demanding his head over the issue. Politics has overwhelmed the Prime Minister who, not long ago said in Parliament, ‘My neck is being squeezed by people belonging to the Opposition’. He is now in a dilemma, like a Shakespearan character, ‘to be or not to be’.

Politics in India has gone ahead of Modi’s imagination and has put his political survival in jeopardy. Pressures from the Opposition groups are his pressures from the outside and pressure from within the RSS is his pressure from the inside. All these pressures have pushed Modi to the brink of a political no-fly zone. In political theory, the concept of political legitimacy very much exists. It tells us that the legitimacy of a ruler does not depend on the support of the majority only; and it is subject to a moral and ethical monitors also. Modi has come back to power in his third term but it looks like he has lost legitimacy and people no longer look at him as the know-all, be-all.

This is making Modi avoid campaigning for the State assembly elections and be abroad during such elections. Before Modi came to power, every government, union or State, was measured in terms of its achievements. ‘Human Development’ was the measure of everything. Today, God is the measure of everything. With building of the Ram temple, Modi gave a slogan of a 400-seats win in a House of 543. This is an absurd expectation and thus, today there is a call for the prime minister to answer for the Ram Mandir seepage to the new Parliament House seepage. Modi has clearly lost his way, like Mary’s sheep; he is speaking of a Uniform Common Civil Code in a diverse country; at the same time he is claiming to be a ‘non-biological’ person.

Christophe Jaffrelot’s book needs a thorough revision and is in need of a reworked analysis of the emerging political situation in the subcontinent. His articles are from newspapers, that are now about five years old, and appear without any coherent logic behind his premises, as time has overtaken them. Such a voluminous work, due to lack of its reality-check, has pulled Jaffrelot down in the academic scale where his other books on Indian politics placed him on a pedestal.