I can honestly see that I detest Narendra Modi, and have done so for a while now. Yet in spite of being a beef-eating non-observant atheist who self-identifies as a Hindu, in the last general election in 2019, I still held my nose and voted for the BJP-led NDA alliance despite promising myself not to do so. The main image I remember from my polling booth in the Mylapore constituency is repeated attempts at pushing the button for the Congress-led UPA and seeing Rahul Gandhi’s face, hearing his Hindu-phobic vitriol and promptly pushing my finger for the NDA. This was despite repeated attempts by Rahul Gandhi to play the Hindu card, hopping from one temple to another and having his party spokespersons claim that he was a “Janeudhari Brahman”.
Now, if a contradictory and non-observant Hindu, such as myself, feels utterly repulsed by Rahul Gandhi’s attempts at “soft Hinduism”, then imagine how the public feels — in general, being quite religious and very observant. Yet, as is typical of the Congress under Rahul, it never seems to learn. Now it turns out that his sibling, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has decided to trod the same beaten path and I have a feeling that despite all the media hype this too will come to naught.
The problem here is four-fold. First is a demand-side problem: The Congress has veered so far left and has become so militantly anti-Hindu that any attempts at soft Hinduism are seen as outright fakery. The second problem is a supply-side problem: The sheer inconsistency of the siblings’ opportunistic Hinduism, believing as they do that occasional tokenism will reverse months (if not years) of open and blatant Hindu hatred. The third problem is an audit problem: The echo chamber that the siblings have constructed around themselves — a cabal where every banal and infantile action by the siblings is lauded and pliant presspersons write fawning appreciation pieces lulling the Gandhi siblings into a placebo shorn of any realistic feedback. This either thwarts or skews any cause-effect/opportunity cost calculation the siblings may undertake.
The fourth problem is one of Isomorphic mimicry — assuming what works in post-religious, industrialised, Western countries, would work in a developing pre-industrial state. This cut-and-paste model of politics, imported from Europe, is completely out of touch with India. Much of the blame there falls on Sonia Gandhi who did a wonderful job raising two European Social Democrats, but failed to raise two Indian National Congress persons. This is problematic because a European Social Democrat usually has an anticlerical French “laicite” style approach to secularism, a very different beast from India’s non confrontative “dharma-nirpeksh” style of secularism. This is compounded by the fact that in Europe “nationalism” is a dirty word, while in India, it was the very basis of the INC’s grip on power.
All of this is exploited to the hilt by the BJP. Of course, the BJP has a significant first-mover advantage here, being the default for anyone who prioritises being a Hindu. After all, the entire point of the RSS’ social engineering was to end caste division and create a Hindu identity that subsumed caste. Is it any wonder then that the BJP has moved from being known as the “baniya party” to having its voter base primarily amongst OBCs and is increasingly identified by Schedule Caste voters as their vehicle for social emancipation within the Hindu whole.
In fact, given that a vast majority of Dalits and a vast majority of Sunni Muslims occupy the same marginal economic spaces, resource and influence competition between the two communities is inevitable, evidenced from Dalit-Sunni violence. Here Dalits are faced with two choices. First, join the Hindutva bandwagon that expressly calls for an end to caste discrimination and is going about empowering and enabling the weakest sections of society with a vengeance through electrification, toilet building and bank accounts. Or, second, chose an amorphous secular-socialist congress ideology that has failed to bring home the bacon for 70-odd years and whose perceived Muslim appeasement seems to be a case of hunting with the hounds and running with the hares.
This is where the other aspect of the Gandhi siblings’ attempts at soft Hinduism — separating Hindutva from Hinduism — have failed spectacularly. This works well with a Western press, constantly on the lookout of victimhood and oppression narratives, but for the average Hindu — accustomed to seeing a feudal and violent Muslim polity since 1857 — he takes either as an attempt to marginalise him or ignores it given the ground threat he perceives. No matter how many articles the Gandhi inner circle writes, they essentially paraphrase the same theme separating something called “Brahminism” from “Hinduism”, attributing regressivism to the former and inclusivity to the latter — it requires a certain unrealistic vanity to believe that the Congress can succeed in a decade, where Buddhism failed for a thousand years.
Finally, we have the “one bird in hand versus the two in the bush” existential dilemma of the Congress which will always restrict its ability to outflank the BJP on Hinduism. With Punjab now possibly lost, the windfall of 10 Lok Sabha seats from Tamil Nadu not to be repeated given the pendulum nature of Tamil Nasu politics, with Muslims finding a better racehorse in the Samajwadi Party in UP, the only Muslims looking up to the INC as a national alternative to the BJP are Kerala Muslims.
This too is beset by problems, because as much as they see the INC as opposing the BJP in the Centre, they voted for the CPI in Kerala state — and it is in control of the states that the real power comes. In what few Congress loyal Muslim pockets that remain — Asaduddin Owaisi (believed by several Congressmen to be a BJP front) has whittled away the vote. Combined with a slow but steady homogenisation of the diverse Indian Muslim, the Congress has a far greater need to mouth off inanities to keep the diminishing flock, but can’t afford to be as strident as Owaisi for fear of losing what few Hindu votes it gets.
As much as the press talks up her “connect with the people”, never forget, Priyanka’s campaigning hit rate is actually worse than Rahul’s. Her “Hinduism” is even more farcical than Rahul’s. Consequently, we just have to assume that Rahul and Priyanka’s token spasmodic Hinduism is an attempt not at changing the status quo, but rather at preventing any further erosion of what remains.
The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. The views expressed are personal.
October 12, 2021 at 02:16PM
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