The recent elections in five Indian states – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoram – have somewhat paused the Hindutva tide for the first time since Prime Minister Modi assumed office in 2014.
Three of the states – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan – in the Hindi heartland, where the ruling BJP had held sway for several years, have suddenly warmed up to the Congress party despite the rising extremist Hindutva rhetoric against Muslims, incessant support for the protection of the cow and a rising clamour for the construction of Ram Temple in place of Babri Masjid. The growing support for the BJP was followed by an unprecedented rise in public and officially-sanctioned Islamophobia, recurrent anti-Muslim pogroms, mob lynching and wide-scale demonisation of Muslims, their cultural practices and political preference throughout the media.
The latest election results have, for the first time, put up some serious challenge to the Hindutva groups. Before this election, the BJP held power in 19 out of 29 provinces – seven on its own and the other 12 in coalition with other parties. The results, particularly from the three Hindi-speaking provinces, also known as part of the country’s ‘cow belt’, have put a severe dent on the BJP’s dominance and promises, and punctured its cow-dominated rhetoric that has been employed so lavishly and violently as a vehicle to garner votes.
The lost Hindi-belt seats will have quite a huge impact on the incoming national elections next year for these provinces hold a large chunk of territory that was dominated by the BJP. Besides, these states have 65 parliament benches, accounting for more than ten percent seats. In the past, the party that won the assembly elections also took the parliamentary elections that followed a few months later. Therefore, these results will certainly bring a lot of worry for the BJP, more so particularly because the anti-Muslim rhetoric and politics of the cow suddenly seem to have lost lustre; they were the main weapons in the BJP’s election campaign armoury. Commenting on the defeat, BJP parliamentarian Sanjay Kakade accepted that his party focussed too much on Ram Mandir, name changing and the cow, and forgot about development.
For the last several months, as the state elections were drawing near, and in preparing the ground for next year’s national elections, Hindutva groups had amplified their divisive narrative and attacks on Muslims and Muslim heritage. The BJP’s star campaigner Yogi Adityanath, who is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a province with a population greater than Pakistan, addressed more than 50 election rallies in these states making wide-scale promises that mainly hinged on changing names of various historic places associated with the Muslim past of the country. Many other BJP leaders and lawmakers also promised name changes for Muzaffarnagar, Secunderabad, Karimnagar, and Hyderabad.
In one of his election speeches, Yogi castigated the Mughals, his favourite target from the past, for being anti-Hindu. “The Mughals tried to abolish our culture, specifically the Hindutva. We are working towards saving our culture. The BJP is moving ahead with that goal only.” While campaigning in Telangana, the UP chief minister even threatened Assadudin Owaisi, a prominent Muslim parliamentarian from the province and the president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. “If the BJP came to power in the state”, boasted Yogi, “Owaisi will have to run away from Hyderabad, just like the nizam [of Hyderabad]”. Owaisi, known for his tough spirit against the growing anti-Muslim violence, responded fearlessly by saying that they would have to fight him as “our thousand generations will live here”. Luckily for everyone, the BJP was completely trounced earning only a single seat in a legislature of 119, down from the five that it had gained in the past elections.
Although anti-Muslim violence is usually a sure earner of public support, it has started to get out of control. Earlier this month, the mob lynching in Bulandshehar in Uttar Pradesh reached a new milestone. For the first time, a Hindu – and that too a serving police officer – Subodh Kumar Singh, was lynched to death by a violent mob after a riot broke following rumours about the presence of a cow carcass at a nearby farm. The officer, who was killed alongside a 20-year old Muslim youth, had also received a bullet to his head that apparently caused his death. What was disturbing was that the shot was allegedly fired by a serving soldier who was stationed at Kashmir. This raised an alarm that extremism was spreading across the board and with dangerous consequences for even Hindus.
That the BJP showed no remorse and the UP chief minister called it an accident led to large-scale outrage among a considerable part of the Hindu population. This as Hindutva extremism becomes more militant and tries to take over public life with ruthless conviction. But this does not mean the end of the Hindutva project and its will to perpetuate violence – both on the ground and through the structures of the state.
Spreading hate against Muslims and dehumanising them has become a new normal as an increasing number of people – from street thugs to teachers and politicians to journalists – seem determined to chip in against their self-proclaimed common enemy. Only last week an LLB exam paper at a Delhi university asked students: “Ahmed, a Muslim kills a cow in a market in the presence of Rohit, Tushar, Manav and Rahul, who are Hindus. Has Ahmed committed any offence?” Terming it bizarre, Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia, who belongs to the moderate Aam Aadmi Party, ordered an inquiry while claiming it was an attempt to disturb the harmony of society.
Post-script: Among the BJP’s defeated is Otaram Dewasi, India’s first dedicated cow minister in the province of Rajasthan. He lost to independent candidate Sanyam Lodha by a margin of more than 10,000 votes. Dewasi had introduced tough laws to protect cows including a cow-tax and a ten-year jail term for killing the animal. During his campaign, he had even promised tougher laws and more cow shelters but this could not save his fate. Ironically, under Dewasi’s watch, hundreds of cows had died due to starvation at state-run shelters.
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