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Modi conveniently appropriates Buddha and Gandhi who riled Hindutva icon Savarkar; Rahul quixotically takes potshots at Savarkar, endangering his party’s alliance in Maharashtra
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s statement on V.D. Savarkar and what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Lord Buddha recently represent the differing approaches of the two key antagonists of contemporary Indian politics.
“My name is not Savarkar. My name is Gandhi. And Gandhis don’t apologise,” Mr. Gandhi said on March 25, referring to a letter of apology the ideological father of Hindutva V.D. Savarkar had written to British authorities. Mr. Gandhi’s statement rattled the Congress’s alliance with the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra, the State where Savarkar is considered a national hero. The Shiv Sena took umbrage, and NCP leader Sharad Pawar said there was no point discussing Savarkar now. The BJP launched a campaign, accusing the Congress leader of insulting all Maharashtrians.
In fact, when Mr. Gandhi’s grandmother Indira Gandhi was in power, the Centre commemorated Savarkar on the occasion of his 87th birth anniversary. The brochure that went along with the stamp referred to the author of The Indian War of Independence, 1857 as “Veer Savarkar” and talks about his association with the Hindu Mahasabha in the context of the “removal of untouchability”.
While Hindutva celebrates Savarkar and his philosophy, on several key issues, its leaders have erased his legacy — on cow protection, Buddhism, and M.K. Gandhi to name some. Savarkar was forceful in his views against the cow protection movement since he considered it irrational. Hindutva organisations have found in cow protection the easiest route to communal mobilisation. Savarkar considered Buddhism a key obstacle to the formation of nationality in India. “He (Savarkar) positioned Buddhism as the nemesis of Indian nationality,” writes historian Shruti Kapila in the book Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age. Savarkar also considered M.K. Gandhi’s non-violence “sinful”, but current day proponents of Hindutva have appropriated him. Buddha and Gandhi are part of India’s civilizational diplomacy around the globe under the Hindutva regime.
Portrait of Veer Savarkar. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 20 this year said that the world was facing the most trying time of the century due to war, economic crises, terrorism, and climate change, and all these contemporary global challenges can be addressed through the teachings of Buddha.
Over the years the Sangh Parivar has appropriated a range of figures into its own pantheon, from B.R. Ambedkar to Sardar Patel. It either ignores or refines the positions of Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar along the way. All its alleged ideological stubbornness apart, proponents of Hindutva come across as flexible.
The Congress has been late waking up to the legacy of Ambedkar and has nearly lost the legacy of Patel to the BJP. Savarkar and Gandhi were in a way, two principal proponents in the imaginings of the Indian nation in the early 20th century. Mr. Gandhi wants to maintain that in the 21st century. It is a courageous act of deep political conviction, but it is fraught: there are Savarkar fans that want to defeat the BJP by allying with the Congress, and there could be other problematic positions or statements by leaders of the past that might put the Congress on the defensive. Positions taken by 20th-century leaders who had varying vantage points and intellectual resources left a complex mix of legacies. The success of the Congress for many decades has been in keeping itself as an ideologically fluid platform. Could the Congress revive with more ideological purity?
It is not only Savarkar’s, but also Dravidian movement leader Periyar E.V. Ramasamy’s views on Brahmins, B.R. Ambedkar’s on tribespeople, and Gandhi’s on the varna system that have been critiqued. While those discussions are extremely enriching for our understanding of how we got here, they might not be good determinants of ethical politics of the present. More so for electoral politics. That is the Big Picture.
Federalism tract: Notes on managing Indian diversity
Rahul Gandhi | Photo Credit: ANI
Focus on the middle
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent statement on the skewed representation of various caste groups in positions of power was unprecedented for a party that walks on eggshells on any question related to caste. The issue will resonate among a large section of the population, though Congress’ ability to turn that into any electoral advantage is a different question.
A renewed debate on caste
In a conversation moderated by journalist Sobhana K. Nair, Amit Ahuja, and Mona G. Mehta — two scholars who have worked extensively on the issue — discuss how current developments compare to the high noon of Mandal mobilisation in the late 1980s and 1990s. Read the excerpt here and hear the podcast.
Stalin-Pinarayi make common cause on Governors
Governors of Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been delaying assent to Bills passed by their respective State legislatures. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his Tamil Nadu counterpart M.K. Stalin have joined hands to take this up.
