Driving Them Into the Enemy's Arms

After the emphatic Modi (BJP?) win of 2014, some fear that Hindu fanaticism is now in the driver’s seat. Some of the events fueling that feeling/fear are ghar vapasi (re-converting back to Hinduism), the campaign against love jihad, ban on beef in a few states, introduction of the Gita in curriculum, appointment of Sangh-linked people in educational bodies and attacks against churches.

Are these events real? Absolutely. But do they mean that we are getting Talibanized or becoming similar to the Islamic countries? That’s highly debatable. (It is one thing to say that we are heading down that road; but it’s nonsense to say that we are already very similar to them).

In fact, such gross exaggeration actually has a negative impact. Here’s why. The folks who don’t believe we are anything even remotely like the Islamic countries (not yet anyway) then wonder why even a small to moderate bad act of the Hindu is treated at par with the worst of Islam. From there, it’s a short drive to that feeling of pseudo-secularism.

It would be good for the anti-Hindutva group to ask themselves whether they unintentionally help give rise to the Hindutva whirlwind. Like when they never call the Muslim kissers and Sikh killers as being communal (e.g. the Mulayam’s, Laloo’s, the Left and the Congress). Because then the word “secularism” begins to sound like a “ploy to prevent the BJP from coming to power”, as KG Suresh puts it.

By exalting secularism to be the only goal in governance, the anti-Hindutva group inadvertently allows a UPA to rule without any governance and with scams galore because, hey, the UPA may have actually come to believe that the only thing the majority wants is secularism! This worship of secularism at the cost of everything else alienates another set who care about good governance, economic growth and job opportunities; something that Modi tapped on to so spectacularly well.

The anti-Hindutva group may well be right in fearing where things are headed, but if they don’t realize that the way they act, the way they turn (or appear to turn) a blind eye to all wrongs other than Hindu communalism, then they will keep driving another set of Indians into the arms of an entity that promises to fulfil the other important needs, even if its pound of flesh is to whip up Hindu nationalism. And then the anti-Hindutva group will be left hoping and praying that those entities doesn’t get to be in power long enough to change the DNA of India altogether.