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Friday March 29, 2024

Fringe is the mainstream

By Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
March 23, 2017

The decision of Indian Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  and his Hindu nationalistic party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to appoint  hardline Hindu priest, Yogi Adityanath, as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state where the party  secured   a jaw-dropping victory on March 11 stunned admirers and detractors alike.

While the response of his critics is more or less understandable, the reaction of supporters to the Yogi’s appointment, especially middle-of-the-road liberals drawn to the party for the hope that Modi generated, is most   striking.

Their dismay over the choice of chief minister stems from Adityanath being no benign Yogi. Instead, he is the undisputed mascot of rabid, vitriolic and abusive supporters of Hindu sectarianism.

For the major part of his two-decade-long political career, the new chief minister has been BJP’s enfant terrible and often remained unrestrained, even when party leaders wished to sheath their swords.

Adityanath has violated party discipline in the past and established a separate vigilante group, Hindu Yuva Vahini. He put up candidates against the party in state elections in the past and in the recent elections.

Despite this, his appointment provides perhaps the best indication of the BJP’s future political strategy.

Within hours of the Yogi being named chief minister, news websites      strung togethercollections of his most divisive statements. Targets of his hatred are diverse, from Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Apostle of Peace, Mother Teresa, to the King of Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan.

In October 2014, the Yogi spearheaded a campaign against Muslims claiming they had launched “love jihad” against Hindus by training Muslim youth to seduce Hindu girls.

Modi’s liberal backers are disappointed because, in their assessment, the prime minister has wasted an opportunity to put the state’s economic development on overdrive.

The fear is that Adityanath’s appointment  sends a signal to BJP cadre that the state government will prioritise Hindutva-centric promises in its election manifesto.

These include imposing legal ban on the practice of oral divorce among Muslims, forming “anti-Romeo” police squads to prevent Muslim youth from wooing Hindu girls, shutting down mechanised abattoirs and illegal slaughterhouses, and, of course, speeding up processes to remove hurdles to build a temple deifying Lord Rama in Ayodhya, epicentre of independent India’s longest lasting political dispute and so on.

These measures will add to the disquiet of already anxious Indian Muslims who comprise more that 14.2 percent of the population according to census figures of 2011.

In the  biography of Modi,    which I wrote before he became prime minister, a chapter was titled - “Janus - The March Begins”, denoting his two-faced personality.

During his tenure as Gujarat chief minister, and even thereafter, he has been at ease proclaiming India’s development was his primary objective while promoting   politics that sharpened social prejudice.

In comments after the Yogi was inaugurated in office, Modi referred to Uttar Pradesh as Uttam Pradesh, the Hindi for “finest state”. It has been Modi’s tactical brilliance that he has kept both detractors and followers confused over which face to believe in: the “emperor of Hindu hearts” or the “development man”?

For several months, Modi looked the other way as cabinet colleagues used abusive language against adversaries, allied organisations organised controversial “reconversion” programme to bring Muslims “back into the Hindu fold” and when churches were desecrated.

Because of his dual-trait, it would be early to fear the demise of development-based governance in Uttar Pradesh. Critics, however, will conclude that a polarised India, where Muslims lead quasi-ghettoised lives, constantly under social suspicion and state watch is the “New India” that Modi promised.

Modi can yet again turn his government’s wheels towards developmental programmes, using the Yogi as a shield to ward off fringe forces.

The trouble, however, is that with Adityanath becoming chief minister of India’s most politically influential state, the fringe has become more mainstream than ever before in Modi’s India.

 

This article has been excerpted from: ‘A ‘new India’ where fringe is the mainstream’.

Courtesy: Aljazeera.com