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Harvest of hatred

THE STUPENDOUS VICTORY the Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi has registered in the Gujarat Assembly elections clearly suggests that its strategy of retaining political power through deliberate and aggressive communal polarisation — brought about by the Sangh Parivar outfits' no-holds-barred anti-Muslim campaign post-Godhra — has indeed paid off and this is borne out particularly by the fact that the region hit most by the communal rights has returned a sizable number of its candidates. Even a cursory look at the numbers and their regional distribution would show that the impact of the hate campaign has been so overwhelming and sweeping as to drown the admittedly strong anti-incumbency sentiments. Nor do the widely perceived negative factors such as factionalism and the `pique' of the influential Patel community (on account of Keshubhai Patel's replacement as Chief Minister by Mr. Modi) seem to have made any material difference to the party's overall performance. What the BJP has harvested now are verily the fruits of hate which it chose to spread assiduously and aggressively in pursuance of its agenda of majoritarian communalism. As such, the poll verdict, which is already being gloatingly characterised by the Sangh Parivar camp as a major success of the so-called `Gujarat experiment' — distinguished as it is by the `Modi brand' of Hindutva — is not merely unfortunate but extremely ominous for the country's future as a truly secular and pluralist polity and, therefore, a matter of grave concern for the millions of people who remain committed to the liberal democratic values enshrined in the Constitution.

There need be no illusions about what the BJP stands for or about the likely response of its leadership, both at the organisational and governmental levels — not just in the State but at the Centre too — to the latest Gujarat vote, which marks a new alarming stage in the steady march of communalism of the majoritarian variety as a strategy for political mobilisation over the past decade and more. The RSS and the VHP which has made Mr. Modi a cult figure to the point of juxtaposing him with the BJP veterans are certain to push for the hard Hindutva line exemplified by the `Gujarat model', the core elements of which were in full play during the state-abetted genocide carried out against the Muslims post-Godhra and during Mr. Modi's `Gaurav Yatras' and poll campaign wherein he stereotyped the traumatised Muslims as anti-national and insinuated that all those who do not favour the Hindutva line are traitors. Nothing could be more naive than to expect the BJP's central leadership — which had given Mr. Modi a free hand in running the elections and allowed him to decide the strategy — not to go along with the Modis and the Ashok Singhals, although whether the `Gujarat experiment' could be replicated elsewhere with the same degree of success is a moot question.

The Gujarat poll outcome, undoubtedly a setback to the fight against the Hindutva forces, has a lesson for the secular-minded partners in the ruling National Democratic Alliance at the Centre, who should feel more uncomfortable than ever before. In fact, the argument that their presence in the coalition would act as a brake on the BJP in pursuing its majoritarian communal ideology — too facile a theory to hold water in the first place — stands totally refuted after the developments on the Gujarat front. The paramount need at this critical juncture is one of the secular democratic forces getting their act together by rising above their narrow partisan differences and forging a political platform that reflects their manifestly uncompromising commitment to the secular values. No less imperative for them is to be unflinching in their resolve to operationalise that objective and this primarily implies the formation of an inclusive non-BJP coalition, a count on which the Congress and other parties had failed in Gujarat. And the fight against Hindutva has to be carried far beyond the electoral arena and well into the social and cultural spheres where the shrill communally divisive calls of the Sangh Parivar engendering an anti-minority mindset have come to find a disturbingly growing resonance.

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