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Background to what's happening in India and esp. Gujarat....... by Saima Alvi 24 April 2002 20:06 UTC |
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Posted from http://www.tehelka.com/channels/currentaffairs/2002/apr/24/ca042402vaj.htm Indian polity is a stage for the RSS ==================================== The Vajpayees, Advanis and Narendra Modis are simply actors working towards the RSS dream of a Hindu Rashtra, says Zafar Agha New Delhi, April 24 The country had watched Prime Minister Vajpayee unmasking himself in Goa with a sense of disbelief and shock. After all, the country had nursed a different image of a poet -turned-politician to whom the nation had turned in its moment of crisis in 1998 after a disastrous brush with the Third Front alternative. A huge majority of Indian liberals had then turned to Vajpayee hoping that he would defang the BJP of its communal poison and transform it into a moderate alternative to the Congress that had decayed after its four-decade long stay in the corridors of power. In that sense, Vajpayee is no ordinary prime minister. He had arrived at a historic moment on the Indian political scene when the country was looking for a new turn to begin its journey into a new millennium. It was looking towards Vajpayee hoping he would not only transform his own party but also give a kickstart to Indian politics with a new-look BJP that could leave the mistakes of the Congress behind its back. Vajpayee could perhaps transform the BJP, whose stint in power did open up an opportunity for the party to put behind its gory past with events like the demolition of the Babri masjid still fresh in peoples' memory, but he never was nor is in a position to transform and change the Rashtrriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that ultimately pulls the strings. The RSS is not a political party. It is a platform with a committed agenda to transform India into a Hindu Rashtra. The Sangh at no point of time has either vacillated or wavered from its commitment. All its energies during its over 75-year-long existence have singularly been devoted to its commitment to Hindu Rashtra. Both individuals and organisations have only been a means for the Sangh to its end. Vajpayee or Advani, Ashok Singhal or Narendra Modi, all of them come and go for the Sangh that brilliantly uses them in its march towards its goal. Even parties and institutions are just a means for the Sangh to move ahead towards its goal. After all, the Sangh dumped its old favourite Jan Sangh in 1977 to merge with the Janata Party that was then a means to dent the Congress. Then, the Sangh revived the BJP in 1980 with a Gandhian label to hoodwink the voter and the middle classes. But soon after the mid-1980s, the Sangh took another turn and decided to shed the BJP's soft image to prepare it for hard-selling Hindutva. The RSS initially let the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) test the waters for the Ram temple issue. Eventually L K Advani was thrust ahead to lead the BJP towards carving a Hindu vote bank. Advani did his job well. He brought the BJP to the level from where it could leapfrog to power. But still the BJP needed to cobble an alliance to get the magical 232 figure that eluded the party in Parliament during its 13 day stopover in power This time, Vajpayee was paraded as a liberal face of the BJP with a definite gameplan to hoodwink the intelligentsia and the Hindu middle classes that were still apprehensive of the hard Hindutva agenda. His task was to rope in the allies who were still undecided about the BJP and its communal agenda. Vajpayee played his role well and lulled the vast segments of Indian liberals. Vajpayee fulfilled his mission with finesse and shed his mask when the allies were left with no option but to sink and swim with the BJP. Leaders like Chandrababu Naidu, Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav are now thoroughly discredited. If they ditch the BJP now, they will simply be out of power losing the next round of elections as well. So Vajpayee has done his job well and brought the BJP to the point where the Sangh feels that the BJP is ready to go alone with its hard Hindutva agenda and openly work for the Hindu rashtra. But all through this brilliant game of changing party labels and playing up and down individuals and issues, the RSS was acting only from behind the scenes, paving the way for its ultimate goal of transforming India into a Hindu rashtra. And, all along the Sangh was essentially playing a game of deception in which the Vajpayees and Advanis were just doing their bit. But then Gujarat happened. The Gujarat mayhem was engineered with a definite political goal. With Gujarat, the Sangh has decided to make its Hindu Rashtra goal public. But it has shocked Indian liberals who were taken in by Vajpayee's one-time Nehruvian rhetoric. They are shaken with Narendra Modi's crude and crass communal politics. But the RSS has made up its mind and has decided to clear the confusion, right from Bangalore, where it virtually announced that the time had come to openly speak about the status of Indian Muslims as second-class citizens of a Hindu Rashtra. The RSS executive resolution telling Muslims that they "need to earn Hindus' goodwill for their own safety" was nothing but a subtle statement of announcing that the Sangh, with all its institutions and actors, was ready to openly work for the Hindu Rashtra. Actors like Vajpayee were left with no option but to fall in line and shed their masks in Goa. Well, there is no more confusion about the Sangh and the BJP's game plan. Both are now publicly and openly working to build a Hindu Rashtra. Gujarat is essentially a statement of intent of the entire Sangh Parivar. It is a statement that clearly underlines the fact that Muslims can only live as second-class citizens. The minorities will have to live at the mercy of the majority. It was the same sentiment that Vajpayee echoed in Goa when he said: "No one should preach us secularism. Don't forget that we have allowed the minorities to offer their prayers…." Even the subtle distinction of moderate and hawk is now blurred between the Sangh and Vajpayee as both are now speaking the same language.
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