Since India is going to face the 2014 general elections, today I would like to write a short retrospective history of the major opposition party, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party - Indian People's Party) and of the ideology that supports it. Founded in 1980, this can seem a relatively young party, but actually one has to consider it as the new "politically correct" form of an old ideology in indian contemporary politics, namely the Hindu Right.
Dating back at the time of indian Indipendence, there was a strong opposition to the democratic and secular idea of India endorsed by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Indipendent India. Contrary to this modern ideology, many cultural and political traditionalist groups began to emerge in the public debate.
The most influential of this groups is the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
- National Volunteer Organization), which had already been founded in
1925 but tragically hit the headlines in 1948, when Mahatma Gandhi was
killed by Nathuram Godse, a brahmin associated with the organization. The RSS, officially a cultural association, is a paramilitary organization imbued with conservative values and a strong and hierarchical structure .
The ideology that is behind the RSS is known as Hindutva (translatable as "hinduness"), a concept which relates nationalism with hinduism, stating that the real indian identity is only the hindu one. Developed by V. D. Savarkar, a conservative ideologist, this concept is in deep contrast with any secular and inclusive idea of India - like that of the Indian National Congress - because its main aim is that of the preservation and protection of hindu value system. The kind of hindu culture designed by Hindutva polarize it against other social and religious components of indian nation, especially from the Muslim, creating and stirring up disorders and communal violence.
Under the aegis of RSS, during the decades an entire universe of associations and movements has been formed, all united under the collective name of Sangh Parivar (Family of Associations). The core groups of the Sangh Parivar are - in addition to the RSS - the VHP (Vishva Hindu Parishad - World Hindu Council) and the BJP (nowadays, whereas in the past other political parties were part of the association, like the Bharatiya Janata Sangh). In short, in the Sangh the RSS is the cultural branch, the BJP is the political one and the VHP is the religious arm.
To sum up the ideology of Hindutva, I think this quotation by D. R. Goyal's history of the RSS is very telling and meaningful:
Hindus have lived in India since times immemorial; Hindus are the nation because all culture, civilisation and life is contributed by them alone; non-Hindus are invaders or guests and cannot be treated as equal unless they adopt Hindu traditions, culture, etc.; the non-Hindus, particularly Muslims and Christians, have been enemies of everything Hindu and are, therefore, to be treated as threats; [...] those who talk of national unity as the unity of all those who live in this country are motivated by the selfish desire of cornering minority votes and are therefore traitors; the unity and consolidation of the Hindus is the dire need of the hour because the Hindu people are surrounded on all sides by enemies; the Hindus must develop the capacity for massive retaliation and offence is the best defence; lack of unity is the root cause of all the troubles of the Hindus and the Sangh is born with the divine mission to bring about that unity.
Source: Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: the History of the World's Largest Democracy,
Macmillan, 2007, p. 646
During the decades, Hindu fundamentalism has gained more and more strength, especially among the uneducated masses and the new emerging middle class - who had abandoned the Congress socialist model of economy in favour of more market-oriented policies - that were looking for a political representation built upon identity lines. The reasons for this rise are plenty and context-related. Between them, the most striking one is the parallel decline of the National Congress in the late 80s and in the 90s, when the newly-formed BJP was building and consolidating political consent thanks to both propaganda and violent actions.
The turning point in this process was the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the final act of a long dispute about a sixteenth-century mosque in the Uttar Pradesh town of Ayodhya. To shorten this long story, is enough to say that the VHP, with the complicity of right-wing hindu parties, had for long begun to allege that the site of the mosque was the Ram janmabhumi (the exact place of birth of hindu god Rama) and therefore started to mobilize people in order to protect this holy site from muslim presence. Their activities have been conducted up to the demand for the demolition of the mosque, event that was finally achieved on 6th December, thanks to the connivance of the government of Uttar Pradesh, led by Kalyan Singh, a BJP politician.
From then on, the BJP has showed an hidden dual identity. On the one hand, the party is a democratic organization, loyal to the values of the Republic and open to the political debate. But on the other hand, in the background, it's working in order to polarize the nation on communal lines, stirring up the grivances of many parts of the hindu community, using other religious community (especially muslims) as scapegoats.
The other shocking anti-muslim action orchestrated by the BJP is known as the 2002 Gujarat riots. It was triggered by the Godhra train burning, caused by an explosion which occurred soon after a trivial argument between a group of hindu boys and some muslim street vendors at the station platform. Even as the investigations has proved that the explosion was not malicious but accidental and not related to the argument, some RSS members started to spread the rumour that the explosion, in which 58 people lost their lives, was the outcome of an attack carried out by muslims against hindus. The effect of this false rumour was a wide and sudden burst of communal violence against muslims, which lasted for weeks and extended to all north-west India, claiming thousands of lives. At the time the Chief Minister of Gujarat was Narendra Modi, a BJP politician raised in the ranks of RSS, who has been accused of connivance in the event.
It's curious that Mr. Modi is now the ufficial candidate for premiership at next 2014 indian general election representing the right-wing coalition, the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) led by the BJP. Contrary to his recent political history, now he has been presented by his party as the pure and polite face of hindu right against the Congress, portrayed as corrupt and scandal-hit.
