“By imitating the right-wing, secular parties are not only giving legitimacy to the Hindu majoritarian politics and Hindu supremacy, they are also losing respect among the public that is averse to the politics of hatred.”
Last year, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was impressive in the way that it started from scratch and gradually caught the imagination of the people across the country for its appeal to secularism, communal harmony and brotherhood. It put the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and its right-wing bandwagon on the back-foot by setting a new narrative.
Gandhi’s sequel – Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra – is just as disappointing. Rather than setting the narrative. It has been a clumsy reaction to the Hindu majoritarian frenzy and the hype built up after prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram temple. Instead of focusing on the message of ‘unity’ and ‘justice’ that this East to West campaign was expected to have espoused, Gandhi has chosen to pivot his second long march to showcasing his Hindu identity. In Manipur, he complained of not being allowed inside a temple. In Jharkhand, he was seen in silken robes and tilak smeared forehead while performing Hindu rituals inside a temple.
For decades, Congress leaders have ignored the sanguine advice of intellectuals and analysts – that they cannot beat Hindutva by adopting soft Hindutva. After the success of his Bharat Jodo Yatra, one had expected that Rahul Gandhi would break free from his party’s tradition of repeating this error of hurtling back to imitating the right-wing. In doing just the reverse, he is not only giving legitimacy to the Hindu majoritarian politics and Hindu supremacy, but he has also lost both his originality and respect among the public that is averse to the politics of hatred.
The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it, said Friedrich Nietzsche. But the manufactured glamour of the temple politics of the right-wing has blinded the Congress and other political parties into believing that the test of their patriotism requires them to wear their Hindu religion on their sleeves rather than question the Modi-government on its multiple failures like the sagging economy papered over with fudged data and silences, rampant unemployment, and weaponizing state’s institutions like Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax in a witch hunt against opposition leaders and critics.
In this election year, with very little time left to squander over foolish knee-jerk responses, the political parties that profess to be secular need to ask themselves a question. Do they really believe that their religious ritualism would result in some divine intervention to stall this terrifying descent of democracy, the placating of a Hindu majoritarian state, the broken edifices of all democratic institutions, the crackdown on freedoms and the deepening penetration of hatred in the society? An affirmative answer to this question can only mean that they have already conceded defeat.
This open surrender is an affront to the aspirations of millions of Indians who are repulsed by the new India of hate, toxicity and irrationality that has been thrust on them. While there is an India that Hindu right-wing brand of politics has woken up manifest in the ugly amplifications of hatred and mob violence, there is an India that is appalled by this. It has been left unrepresented.
Not so long ago in the winter of 2019-2020, when the ordinary Muslim women of Shaheen Bagh came out in protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens – laws that are aimed to reduce Muslims to second class citizens or strip them of citizenship – the moment inspired a nation to move out on the streets with rallies comprising liberal minded and secular people flooding the streets. They were out to prove their Indianness. Neither the women of Shaheen Bagh nor the millions they inspired felt the need to flaunt their religiosity in public. They stood there as equal citizens demanding that the values of equality, liberty and fraternity as enshrined in the Indian constitution be upheld.
A year later, there was a swell of support for the farmers from north India when they hit the streets in protest against unjustifiable agriculture related laws compelling the Modi-government to go back on its decisions.
India has a history of communal violence and strife. But its history of syncretic culture and shared spaces is far older, richer, and organic. These two narratives in India have co-existed for centuries and battled against each other. There are lessons in this rich and complex history to reflect upon. The battle against the present streak of communalisation cannot be won by a sense of defeat or by adopting its subtler versions.
For it to be defeated, the India of secular beliefs must stand up and speak. The least the so-called secular groups can do is to speak for this India in one voice, not join the noise.
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