BJP’s Flag March

The religious right has always given
birth to political wrong, God help us!

Inksight By Mehmood-ur-Rashid


From Kashmir Satyagrah to Tiranga Yatra things in, and bout Kashmir have gone too far. On 11th May 1953 activists of Bharatiya Jana Sangh headed by Dr Shayama Prasad Mukarjee tried to enter the limits of Kashmir without a permit. According to the account given by L K Advani, “all of them courted arrest, faced police brutalities and made sacrifices for the cause of India’s unity and integrity.” BJS, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, and now BJP, was protesting against the special status of J&K that was expressed through its slogan, “Ek desh mein do vidhan, do pradhan aur do nishan, nahin challengai”. It meant that Kashmir must assimilate into the Indian Union, not to speak of asking for any special status. Dr Shayama Prasad Mukarjee was arrested by Sheikh M. Abdullah’s government and he died in jail. Conflicting accounts about his arrest and death follow us even now.
As if history has completed full circle that Sheikh’s grandson, Omar Abdullah has avowedly put his foot down on the proposed Tiranga Yatra to be undertaken by BJP on 26th of this year. What will happen this time is only days away. But Omar of today is not the Abdullah of those days. Nevertheless it has again highlighted the central character of the Kashmir dispute. What kind of political formations this question has the potential of engendering is once again exhibited by the Tiranga Yatra – BJP’s march into Kashmir to unfurl Indian national flag – tricolour- on the clock tower at Lal Chowk, main city square.
Apart from the immediate interest that this march has generated in Kashmir as also outside, there are deeper concerns that hit the minds. Looking from that angle BJP’s Kashmir politics has wider expanse and must be probed into with an academic discipline rather than with a timely journalistic anxiety to underline the
superficial clash between various political parties.
Political movements rooted in ideas and inexorably fed by the logic-of-the-ideas are in any case to be taken very seriously. Regardless of their failure or success the magnitude of impact felt by the people encircled by such movements has always been enormous. For those who fall within the physical proximity of such movements the concern is only grave by more notches.
The contemporary history is a standing witness to how political movements fuelled by ideas took monstrous shapes devouring populations. The most dangerous among such movements have been the ones based on a unilateral, non-negotiable interpretation of past and
an uncompromising notion of future. The content of peril has been directly proportional to the amount of emotion and expectation stuffed into human minds through the generality of the idea.
The lethality of this politics has become diffused when religion became the matrix of the idea and a religious denomination was hooked onto the state power through their presumed relation with that idea. The Muslim religious right in Pakistan, and in her Western depth, is known to the contemporary world as it is known to it; we all know what it brought
to the peoples and the countries, and to itself, while relentlessly serving the idea that created it. The more people resign themselves to volitional, compulsive or confused silence on this, more the land beneath them will slide devastatingly. Placing the study of this phenomenon in the realm of neutrality, guided by responsibility, and completely distancing the mind from the sly schemes of current
powers that purposively find an enemy in this religious right is one way of redeeming the Muslim lands from the unimaginable devastation that is in store. Excusing the murderous blunders of religious right just because there is a possibility of outsider-assaulter taking an advantage of it is self inflicting in the end. It is akin to a situation where a drowning man fears to bob his head above the water just because his enemy might spot him. By deepening suicidal tendencies can the death be defeated! It’s oxymoronic. Seen alone, and not in the company of exploitative politics unleashed by superpowers, the religious right of sub continent has been dominantly about destruction than anything else.
With this background take a look at BJP and the entire Sangh Parivar. The politics promoted by the Hindu religious right of India is driven by same anxieties as its counterpart across the border. Just a cursory look at what BJP has been consistently demanding. They have been openly saying that once they get a majority of their own in the parliament they will take the necessary steps for the
realisation of those demands. Mainly they have three demands. One, abrogation of Article 370 to merge J&K into the Indian Union like all other states. Two, implementation of Common Civil Code so that the societies and communities in India turn into a kind of monolith. Third, construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya to emphasize the cultural nationalism of India.
Whatever the way of explaining these three demands, it’s not difficult to discern that they are produced by the idea of a Hindu past and an imagination of a Hindu future. Though no people in this world can be denied the right to express itself but the problem with such a vision is to impose an idea of history and a shape of future on others as well. This is where it becomes monstrously dangerous. We have seen how such politics has performed in other parts of the world, and we know for sure that it cannot unfold differently in India.
The Tiranga Yatara is a grim reminder of how some people in Pakistan would shout in public rallies that one day they are going to hoist their flag on Lal Qila. What happened later is for all to take lessons from. This is the central concern that shapes up on all such occasions like BJP’s Tiranga Yatra. Writing about the Religious Right, in 1999, Eqbal Ahmed underlined his deep fears in a striking way that is all Eqbal’s: an intellectual with his hand on the pulse of contemporary issues. He predicts that the future of “movements and parties” that fall in the category of religious right is “limited and dim.” Here are his reasons why he made up his mind about “fundamentalism” as conclusively as he did. “Their links to the past are twisted. Their vision of the future is unworkable. And their connections to the contemporary forces and ideas are largely negative or opportunistic.” The challenge posed by the politics of religious right is not only daunting, it’s complex too. If these forces succeed they will only bring loads of destruction, but if they don’t they will still wreak havoc. Again in the words of Eqbal Ahmed: “Yet in their limit lies the reason for us to fear. Between their beginning and the end, right-wing movements are known to have inflicted greater damage upon countries and people. So help us, God!” (Feedbak at mrvaid@greaterkashmir)

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