2009/7/15 Salil Tripathi <[email protected]> > Between 1984 and 1991, the following things happened, which began to > sour the mood among many Hindus, which forms the kernel of my > argument: > > 1. The Shah Bano judgment, following which the Government took away > Muslim women's right to seek maintenance from the courts. > 2. The ban on The Satanic Verses (1988), which angered many > free-speech fundamentalists. > 3. The decline of the Soviet Union and its bloc (1987-1991), which > made people question "non-alignment." > 4. The diminished value of "socialism", as Gandhi made first attempts > to liberalise the economy. (India was broke by 1991) > 5. Ergo: why not question the third Nehruvian tenet, "secularism"? > 6. The national TV network telecast programs like Ramayana and > Mahabharata (1986-1989), which provided a narrative of Hindu heroism > in a simplified form. (See Rajagopal's excellent book on that topic). > 7. The BJP formed an alliance with the Shiv Sena, making its militancy > look more respectable, compared to the Thackerays'. (1988) > 8. And the Babri Masjid, of course, which emerged as a galvanising > issue for many Hindus. (the first marches were in 1990, leading to the > collapse of the VP Singh Govt after Laloo Yadav arrested Advani). > 9. And lets not forget the Kashmir insurgency, and the Mufti > capitulation over Rubaiya Syed affair in 1989, and the Pandit exodus > from the Valley to the plains of northern India. > > These factors were not so relevant pre-1984. (You could also argue > that the Emergency had broken the "pact" between Indian voters and the > Congress, as a centrist party, and the Khalistan insurgency had made > many Hindus feel they were "vulnerable" in India. > > This coalescing of events strengthened the Hindu resolve, forcing some > Hindus towards greater militancy, into supporting the BJP. Its net > addition, I think, is about 6-10% of the vote beyond the core RSS > support base. It is of course, utterly insufficient to win nationwide, > a point Modi and others have consistently failed to grasp. > > Hope this clarifies.... The book doesn't examine these issues in great > detail, but you will find stuff about it.
Thanks Salil. I've always nursed the idea that Hindu fundamentalism's continued rise, the reasons you've stated notwithstanding, is due to a blind rejection of some (valid?) concerns of Hindus. It has to an extent become fashionable to categorize the BJP as a party of bigots, which it maybe in part, but it shifts the discussion away from those concerns. Acknowledging and addressing them will go a long way in eliminating the fodder that the fundamentalists prey on to infect the minds of even those Hindus who left to themselves may never subscribe to such ideas. Many of them have nothing to do with Muslims or Christians, but in the search for a common enemy, these minorities become easy targets. Couple this with the class struggle due to increasing income disparity and you have the nice little cocktail of hate, which can now even be directed at Hindus albeit the more urbane and westernised ones. Kiran
