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Precept and practice

IN HIS MUSINGS from Goa, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has once again spoken in a tone quite distinct from that of the revanchist elements in his own party and the various Sangh Parivar outfits. The message Mr. Vajpayee has sought to convey to Pravin Togadia and his ilk is that "Hindutva is liberal, liberating and brooks no ill will, hatred or violence among different communities". The reality, however, is that there is a yawning gap between Mr. Vajpayee's precept (on Hindutva) and the manner in which Hindutva has been (and continues to be) put into practice by his associates in the Sangh Parivar. Their campaign over the years has been aimed at constructing a strong resentment among the Hindus against the religious minorities. The experience in Gujarat recently and the instances in the past couple of decades (in most small towns across the country where the religious minorities live in substantial numbers) of violence against members of the religious minorities and their institutions were indeed the consequence of this agenda of hate being put to play. The BJP too had played a role not different from the other Sangh outfits and Mr. Vajpayee cannot be oblivious to what Hindutva means on the ground.

The Prime Minister's description of Hindutva as an inclusive idea seems an ideal that the Sangh Parivar outfits are moving away from. Hindutva, in the lexicon of the Sangh, is certainly not the same as the synthesis of the various interventions, reforms and different traditions brought about over the years. This synthesis is what makes the Hindu religion a way of life wherein eclecticism is the cornerstone. Such eminent men as Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda (on whom the Prime Minister leans so heavily in his musings) represented this very synthesis and hence had nothing to do with the majoritarian worldview as presented so consistently and aggressively by M.S. Golwalkar and the other ideologues of the Sangh since its foundation. While pluralism and a strong commitment to eclectic values have been central to those whom Mr. Vajpayee has quoted so liberally, Hindutva as a concept was an idea that emanated (along with the emergence of the RSS) as part of the Sangh's attempts to redefine Indian nationalism in a manner that was distinct from, and opposed to, the mainstream nationalist thought in the context of the struggle against colonialism. Hence, Mr. Vajpayee's conclusion that secularism and the pluralist values integral to this nationalist thought process owe it to Hindutva is clearly without basis. Hindutva as espoused by the Sangh was integral to its majoritarian political agenda — out of which the notion of nationalism as a cultural category was constructed — and was indeed as inimical to the guiding principles of Indian nationalism as was the demand and movement for Pakistan as a separate nation. If India remained secular (with a Constitution so firmly rooted in pluralist and republican principles), it was because the national movement had confronted and marginalised the Hindutva agenda from the mainstream political discourse at that time.

For all the unexceptionable sentiments, Mr. Vajpayee as Prime Minister has refused to put his own precepts into practice while dealing with the people whom he accuses of projecting Hindutva "in a narrow, rigid and extremist manner". It was certainly not the Vajpayee of the Goa musings who went about explaining the actions of those who vandalised churches and other institutions run by Christian missionaries in the Dangs (in Gujarat) or took up Mr. Modi's brief in the course of his campaign in Gujarat recently. If Mr. Vajpayee's concerns against the majoritarian agenda of the Sangh should be taken seriously, the imperative for him as the Prime Minister is to establish that such distortions will be dealt with firmly. The larger question, of course, is that any attempt to find a basis for Indian secularism in any religious tradition is bound to be divisive. Secularism rests firmly on the Constitutional values, particularly of equality and fairness, rather than on any religious text.

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