[Marxistindia] Modi Campaign: Venomous Communal Polarisation

[news from the cpi(m)]

Article appearing in the forthcoming issue of People's Democracy' dated
April 29-May 05, 2019

 

Modi Campaign: Venomous Communal Polarisation

Sitaram Yechury

 

WHILE the working people the world over express their solidarity with each
other in their struggles to end exploitation on May Day, the BJP and
Narendra Modi are preoccupied with disrupting such unity and solidarity
through their venomous campaign of communal polarization.

 

The first three phases of the 17th general elections saw the electorate
voting in 302 seats out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. The ruling BJP has 113
sitting MPs from these constituencies.

 

In the next four phases ending on May 19th, the electorate will vote for the
remaining 241 seats. Of these the BJP currently holds 161 sitting MPs. That
is two-thirds of these seats. It is clear that if the BJP is unable to
retain these seats, its desire to form the next government simply falls
through. This is because in the first three phases, it is universally
admitted that the BJP will not be able to retain at least 50 per cent of its
sitting seats.

 

It is precisely this realisation that has prompted the BJP leadership to
consciously adopt an aggressive campaign led by Narendra Modi to rouse
unscrupulous communal passions as the only means left to garner votes. Its
dismal and disastrous record of government, gross betrayal of all promises
made in 2014, the ruination of Indian economy and the untold misery imposed
by unleashing unprecedented economic burdens through demonetisation, GST and
deepening intolerance through the spread of hate and violence particularly
against Muslims and Dalits has built up a formidable anti-incumbency against
this government.

 

The RSS/BJP, on the one hand, seeks votes by invoking the valour of our
armed forces and seeking to project itself as the only force capable of
taking on the struggle against terrorism and Pakistan (We had dealt with
this aspect in the last issue).

 

On the other hand, they seek to garner votes by rousing communal passions in
a strident way to further deepen communal polarisation. It had already
brought back in its manifesto, its core Hindutva agenda to be implemented,
if it is returned to power. These include the building of the Ram temple at
the disputed site in Ayodhya; the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A of the
Constitution concerning the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir and a uniform
civil code. Additionally, it has promised to enact the citizenship amendment
bill, a blatant exercise to deny citizenship to Muslims and introducing
religion as a criterion to confer Indian citizenship in complete violation
of our Constitution.

 

ROUSING RABID COMMUNAL HATRED

In line with this, under the leadership provided by Narendra Modi, all BJP
leaders are currently indulging in speeches rousing communal hatred. They
are thus resorting to the worst form of vote bank politics consolidating the
Hindu communal vote bank. Strangely, the Election Commission is yet to take
any action against Narendra Modi for the unbridled communal passions that he
is rousing. This is ominous for the health of Indian democracy.

 

As an expression of its efforts to consolidate the Hindutva communal vote
bank, the BJP has fielded Pragya Singh Thakur, an under trial terror
accused, currently out on bail on medical reasons, as its candidate from
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Endorsing this choice, Narendra Modi hailed Pragya
Singh Thakur as the "symbol of our civilisational heritage".  

 

On her part, Pragya Singh Thakur emboldened by Modi's endorsement, used this
political platform being provided to propagate her brand of communal
bigotry. She castigated the martyrdom of  Hemant Karkare, a valiant IPS
officer who as the head of the 'Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad' laid down
his life in the line of duty. Pragya Singh Thakur was being investigated by
Karkare, who successfully charged her for terrorist crimes in the Malegaon
bomb blast case. This BJP candidate now claims that Karkare died because of
her 'curse' for having the audacity to investigate a self styled 'Hindu
religious leader' in a 'Hindu country'! Karkare according to her earned
'divine wrath' and hence was naturally destroyed. That Karkare was the
primary target of the anti-national terrorists during the 26/11 Mumbai
attack and was shot dead, is of no concern or relevance to such communal
bigots. 

 

A group of former civil servants of the all India central services wrote to
the President of India expressing their disbelief and dismay with her
candidature by the BJP and particularly the 'enthusiastic endorsement by no
less a person than the Prime Minster of India'. They also appealed to fellow
citizens to reject the pervading atmosphere of "hate and divisiveness" and
to "celebrate our unity and diversity and recall that, together, we have
given ourselves this Constitution". The letter is titled 'Our heritage is no
act of terrorism' and seeks appropriate action on Modi.

 

Narendra Modi went further to make an amazing statement that Hindus can
never be violent! In his urge to retain his Prime Ministership, he erases
Indian history replete with gruesome battles and wars. Strange for an RSS
pracharak, who preaches that our epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata replete
with conflicts and violent wars is the only source of our history. Recollect
that the king of India's first empire- 'Mauryan' - that ruled from the
Hindukhush to the Bay of Bengal, Ashoka, remorseful after his bloody
conquest of Kalinga embraced Budhism. It is only after denouncing Hinduism
and adopting Budhism that Ashoka found his reverence for life through
tolerance, compassion and peaceful co-existence. He spread his message far
and wide through his inscriptions in stupas, stating that, "I believe in
winning people over through Dharmma is much better than conquering by
force". In fact, his symbol Chakra today occupies a place of pride on our
tri-colour National Flag. It was his four lion stupa that is India's
official symbol. One of the inscriptions on stupa says, "Whosoever honour's
one's own sect and condemns other sects, out of devotion to one's own sect,
intending to glorify it, in acting thus injures his own sect the more."

The RSS/BJP behavior today is the complete opposite of what is inscribed on
stupas. 

 

"HINDUISE ALL POLITICS, MILITARISE HINDUDOM"

Though Modi is today crying hoarse that "Hindus cannot be terrorists" the
issue of imparting militant training to the Hindus has a long history.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar coined the term Hindutva, and gave it the character
of an ideological political project having nothing to do with the Hindu
religion. In order to achieve this, he advanced the slogan "Hinduise all
politics and militarise Hindudom". Inspired by this,  B S Moonje, mentor of
RSS, founder K B Hedgewar, travelled to Italy to meet the fascist dictator,
Benito Mussolini. The meeting took place on March 19, 1931. His personal
diary notes of March 20, 1931, reveal his fascination and admiration of the
manner in which Italian fascism was training its youth (red-storm troopers)
militarily.  Upon return to India, Moonje established the Central Hindu
Military Education Society at Nasik in 1935, the precursor to the Bhonsala
Military School established in 1937. Investigations have put this on the
terror radar. RSS's guru Golwalkar, in 1939, exulted Hitler's purging of the
Jews under Nazi fascism saying that it is "a good lesson for us in Hindustan
to learn and profit by". Much later in 1970, he says "Generally speaking, it
is a matter of common experience that evil forces (read non-Hindus) do not
understand the language of logic and sweet nature. They can only be
controlled by force".

 

FASCIST IDEOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON HINDUTVA 

In a seminal study published in Economic and Political Weekly, January 22,
2000, Marzia Casolari established through archival evidence, the fascist
ideological influences on Hindutva forces. Italian fascism and German Nazism
both shaped their ideological projects. The author says that: "beginning
with the early 1920s, and up to the second world war, Hindu nationalists
looked at the political reality of fascist Italy, and subsequently of Nazi
Germany, as a source of inspiration. At the ideological level, the most
meaningful effect of the fascist influence is represented by the way in
which Hindu nationalism developed its own concept of diversity ,
transforming 'diverse' people into enemies. Of course, the concept of
internal enemy is already implicit contained in Savarkar's Hindutva.
Nevertheless, the continuous reference to German racial policy and the
comparison of the Jewish problem in Germany with the Muslim question is
India reveals the evolution of the concept of 'internal enemy' along
explicitly fascist lines". 

 

This conclusion established by the wealth of archival material quotes Moonje
on the question of establishing the future of India on the basis of Hindu
Dharam Shastras as saying, "But the point is that this ideal cannot be
brought to effect unless we have our own swaraj with a Hindu as a dictator
like Shivaji of the old or Mussolini or Hitler of the present day in Italy
and Germany..But, this does not mean that we have to sit with folded hands
until (sic) some such dictator arises in India. We should formulate a
scientific scheme and carry on propaganda for it. It is perhaps no
exaggeration to assert that the Sangh hopes to be in future India what the
'Fascists' are to Italy and 'Nazis' to Germany. In 1934, Moonje, started to
work for the foundation of his own institution, the Bhonsla Military School.
For this purpose, in the same year he began to work at the foundation of the
Central Hindu Military Education Society, whose aim was to bring about
military regeneration of the Hindus and to fit Hindu youths for undertaking
the entire responsibility for the defense of their motherland." 

 

Savarkar, the then president of the Hindu Mahasabha, is shown through this
archival material to emulate Hitler's anti-Jewish policy. The paper shows
that: speech after speech, Savarkar supported Hitler's anti-Jewish policy,
and, on October 14, 1938, he suggested the following solution for the Muslim
problem in India:

"A nation is formed by a majority living therein. What did the Jews do in
Germany? They being in minority were driven out from Germany. In Germany the
movement of the Germans is the national movement but that of the Jews is a
communal one". 

 

And later Savarkar is quoted as saying: "Nationality does not depend so much
on a geographical area as on unity of thought, religion, language and
culture. For this reason, the Germans and the Jews could not be regarded as
a nation". 

 

IMPERATIVE TO DEFEAT BJP

Does this leave any doubt as from where the inspiration of Narendra Modi and
his recent outbursts come from? 

It is this Machiavellian ploy, to defend terrorists in the name of 'Hindus'
to seek electoral advantage, that is the most evil expression of vote bank
politics. This needs to be defeated for safeguarding, "India, that is,
Bharat".    

 

 

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