"In
God We Trust" : Hindutva's War on Terror
Ratna Kapur
Three recent events in India have reminded us of the fact that
the Hindu Right, or Hindutva agenda is still simmering at the
altar of secularism and the protection of the rights of religious
minorities, especially the Muslim minorities. The first is the
killing of over fifty Hindus returning by train from a visit to
Ayodhya, purportedly by Muslims in the town of Godhra in Gujarat.
The second is the subsequent slaughter of over 700 Muslims as
acts of revenge for Godhra and the simultaneous passing of the
Prevention of the Terrorism Act linking the killings in Godhra
to acts of terrorism and threats to the nation's security. And
the third is the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's (VHP) march on Ayodhya
and its renewed call to construct the Ram Temple at the spot where
the Babri Masjid once stood. I analyze each of these events in
turn and argue that the supposed fissures amongst the rank and
file of the Hindu Right, is in fact strategic. Appealing simultaneously
to the discourse of secularism, terrorism and victimization, are
all consistent with and correspond with the Hindutva agenda of
casting the Muslim `Other' as intolerant, suspect in terms of
his loyalty to the nation and his threat to the security of the
Hindu majority.
In February and March, the VHP sounded the drum roll of the
Ram Mandir movement, a movement whose primary objective is to
construct a temple on the very spot in Ayodhya where the mobs
of the Hindu Right tore apart a 16th mosque with the bare hands
ten years ago. The VHP has declared that the mosque stood precisely
on the spot where `god' was born and is determined to carry out
its objective of constructing the temple in pursuit of the broader
Sangh Parivar mission of establishing a Hindu State for a nation
which consists primarily of Hindus. In preparation for the event,
their foot soldiers visited the site of the now cordoned off area
to pay respects and prepare for the bhumipuja (grand prayer).
While some of these participants were returning from the site
in the Shatabdi express, allegedly shouting god chants and hail
ram rajya slogans, their bogey was purportedly set alight by mobs
of Muslims as the train moved through Godhra station in Gujarat.
The carnage that followed left fifty-eight Hindus dead.
This event ignited the second catastrophic event - the slaughter
of over seven hundred Muslims throughout the state of Gujarat
within sight of the state's law enforcement officers, who simply
stood by as witnesses to the massacre. The Chief Minister, Narendra
Modi, a pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS)(the ideological
lynch pin of the Right), responded with a deliberation that left
many questioning his leadership and accountability to the state
of siege to which the Muslims were subjected. For Modi the response
to the Godhra killings was completely understandable. He stated
that the killings in Gujarat were nothing more than a `Newtonian
law in action', a view that is founded on the belief that the
Muslim do not belong to India, in much the same way as Hitler
thought the Jews did not belong in Germany, as White supremacists
state that non-whites do not have a right to live in countries
ruled by whites. Hareshbhai Bhat, the vice president for the Bajrang
Dal, and one of the architects of the Bajrang Dal (a virulently
anti-Muslim party) in the 1980's in Gujarat, stated in a press
interview: "There was no rioting. This was just an expression
of the way the majority community has felt … Most of the
shops and establishment burned down do not belong to Hindus. People
wanted their revenge for Godhra and they go it. The Chief Minister
added that "It wasn't merely a communal riot, but something
like a mass agitation. There was already great anger against terrorism
and anti-national activity. The Godhra episode symbolized that".
While condemning the massacre, the RSS also stated that the violent
aftermath of Godhra was "natural and spontaneous." The
RSS further pointed out in its all-Indian general council resolution
that "Muslims are safe if they win Hindu goodwill".
Even the Prime Minister recently endorsed this position, stating
at the recent National Executive Committee meeting of the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) in Goa, that the massacres in Gujarat were
a direct fall out of the Godhra killings. He stated, " Who
lit the fire? How did it spread? (Aag lagayi kisne? Aag faily
kaise?) Thus the killing of the `karsevaks 'in the Sabarmati Express
was projected as a very calculated and premeditated action on
part of the Muslim community in Gujarat and served as a reminder
to the insecurity of Hindus within their own country.
It is important to understand the context in which the riots
in Gujarat occurred,- that is, they coincided with the defeat
of the BJP in the state elections at Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), Uttaranchal,
Punjab and Manipur. This is about the same time as the Governor
of U.P. recommended the imposition of President's rule in U.P.
In Uttaranchal the BJP secured only 19 out of the 70 states. In
Uttar Pradesh it won 107 seats together with its allies out of
a total of 403. In the case of Punjab, the defeat of the Akali
Dal, an ally, was another blow to the Centre. These recent election
results exposed a crisis in the party at the democratic level.
It was indeed precisely at this moment that violence erupted in
Gujarat, the last bastion of the BJP, and deflected attention
from its massive defeat of the BJP in state elections.
The casting of the Hindus who were killed in Godhra as martyrs
and the Muslims as terrorists and rioters, was played out in several
responses to the riots by both the State and the Central government.
Modi ordered that the victims of Godhra, the Hindus, be awarded
twice the amount of compensation than the Muslims who have been
slaughtered in the subsequent rioting. Secondly, although over
700 Muslims have been killed in the state, over sixty Muslims
have been arrested under the recently enacted Prevention of terrorism
Act. Not a single Hindu has been arrested or detained under these
provisions. They have been primarily detained under the provisions
of the Indian Penal Code, where their rights to due process and
a fair trial are assured. Indeed, the Godhra killings were used
as an opportunity for the government to rush through the enactment
of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, which was due to expire
in April. The fact that only Muslims have been arrested under
its provisions in the context of the Gujarat riots speaks to the
concerns that many human rights and civil liberties groups expressed
during the debates on introducing such legislation - that it would
be used against minorities and other groups that the government
does not like or wants to eliminate. In the current climate of
that elusive and ill-defined "War on terror", the Hindu
Right has at hand the rhetoric and justification for enacting
such legislation, in the name of the security of the nation and
protection of the citizens (read Hindu) from the dangerous `Other'
(read Muslim).
While tensions remained high with the state calling in the army
to contain the situation, a third significant event occurred.
The VHP continued doggedly with its plan for March 15th- to conduct
a bhumi pujan (grand prayer) at the site they had unilaterally
declared to be the construction site for the temple. In Uttar
Pradesh, the temple issue at Ayodhya has been foremost in the
agenda of the BJP. The party has not succeeded in making any headway
in the fight for temple construction. However, U.P has witnessed
a saffronisation of education at the school and university level
as a result of the increasing influence of the RSS in lobbying
for the inclusion of Hindutva philosophy in textbooks and the
promotion of RSS sakhas on educational campuses.
The Supreme Court intervened at the behest of petition filed
by members of a Muslim body, and directed that no prayers or other
rituals would be conducted in any part of the `disputed area',
in conformity with the Court's 1994 judgement in the Ayodhya case.
In a brief interim order passed at the end of a heated 90-minute
hearing, the Bench directed that ''no religious activity of any
kind by anyone either symbolic or actual including bhumipuja or
shila puja shall be permitted or allowed to take place'' on the
67 acres acquired in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition,.
The Bench comprising Justice B.N. Kirpal, Justice G.B. Pattanaik
and Justice V.N. Khare also put on hold the Centre's controversial
plan to hand over 43 acres out of the acquired land to the Ram
Janma Bhoomi Nyas, in accordance with a 1994 apex court judgment
(the Ayodhya decision). The judges, recalling the events of 1992,
said that the UP Government and organizers of the destruction
of the mosque had violated the undertakings they had given to
the court. ''What is the guarantee that the undertaking of the
Central Government and the parties concerned to maintain law and
order will not be violated this time'', they questioned. Further,
the Bench said ''no part of the aforesaid land shall be handed
over by the Government to anyone and the same shall be retained
by the Government till the disposal of this writ petition nor
shall any part of this land be permitted to be occupied or used
for any religious purpose or in connection therewith''.
It should be recalled that the Ayodhya decision upheld the constitutionality
of the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act 1993, rejecting
that it in any way violated the constitutional principle of secularism.
The Court praised the principle of religious toleration found
in the Hindu scriptures while concluding that `a mosque is not
an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam and
Namaz by Muslims could be offered anywhere, even in the open.
Therefore, the Court, in particular, Justice Verma held that there
was nothing to stop the State from acquiring the land where the
mosque once stood. The Court completely failed to consider the
profound threat that the religious minorities were exposed to
by Hindutva, and that the tearing down of the mosque was but one
step in the war waged by Hindutva to force minorities to assimilate,
or to suffer obliteration of their distinct religious and cultural
identity.
The Aydodhya decision marked the first step in the Courts approval
that a legitimate dispute existed between the different communities.
In the current moment the government has ceded all authority to
determine this issue to the Court, that is, to determine one of
the most powerful challenges the Indian state and the edifice
of secularism. The political establishment is waiting for the
Court to resolve the dispute and it is up to the clerics on both
sides to determine if it will honour the decision. In March the
VHP held the country hostage while it determined whether it would
abide by the Supreme Court decision not to conduct prayers at
the disputed site. The dispute has been reduced to one of property,
and hence fails to address the extraordinary ideological implications
for both the meaning of secularism as well as the protection of
the rights of minorities in India. In the process of this dispute
the religious voices are being amplified, so that the views of
Ashok Singhal, Pravin Togadia, Giriraj Kishore, and Paramhans
are more significant than those of the political leadership.
Nevertheless, the ideological and religious wings of the Sangh
Parivar, that is, the RSS and the VHP could not be prevented from
pursuing their objectives. Soon after the judgment, the VHP President,
Ashok Singhal declared that an indefinite hunger strike to press
for lifting of curbs and restoration of road and rail traffic
to Ayodhya. The Court directed the administration to take up preventive
measures that would ensure that the law and order situation in
the state was not disrupted by the violence of karsevaks. The
Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas Chairman, R. Paramhans threatened to commit
suicide if he was not allowed to carry out the puja.
But as the Supreme Court remained steadfast in its decision, such
threats withered away. The VHP was unable to muster the support
required to carry out its threat to begin construction of the
temple. Deeming it unwise in this instance to be cast as violators
of the law, the VHP backed down, and instead in a symbolic gesture
handed over three pillars of the so-called Ram temple, to be kept
in the safe custody of the U.P. administration, until such future
time when the actual construction was to begin. It was a symbolic
victory, yet a reflection of the tension that has erupted between
the more moderate elements of the BJP and the militant monster
that it is implicated in creating and nurturing.
The Ayodhya controversy must be understood within the broader
context of the rise to power of the Hindu Rights and its success
in pursuing its Hindutva agenda in and through liberal rights
discourse. The ascendance of the Right is deeply troubling and
insidious because it is being achieved through democratic processes
and institutions. Unlike fundamentalist forces such as the Taliban,
which imposed it's will through brute force (and hence would inevitably
be removed through brute force) the impact of the Hindu Right,
and it's ideology of Hindutva, cannot be eliminated by bombs and
bullets. Yet the Right wing will not fail to resort to more militant
and provocative means when democratic means appear to have exhausted
their potential.
It is precisely such a situation that explains the VHP declared
plans to take the ashes of all the "victims" of the
Godhra train killings to 750 different places in the country as
a tribute to the VHP karsevaks who were killed for the cause of
temple construction. The resort to such highly charged and emotive
gestures marks the counter to the current impasse which has been
reached where the project of Hindutva is unable to proceed apace
through liberal rights or democratic institutions as long as it
is contained within the agenda of the NDA. As the temple building
issue at Ayodhya could not be resolved through constitutional
and democratic means, provocative acts such as throwing ashes
of dead people all over the country, have been deployed to reinforce
a sense of insecurity amongst Hindus who must now live in fear
of a Muslim minority.
These recent events have serious implications on the protection
of the rights of the religious minorities. The BJP and its counterparts,
the RSS and the VHP, have developed a clear political agenda -
which is the return to Swadeshi as a way of life and establish
the nation along the principles of Hindutva. As they did not emerge
victorious ion the last national elections, they have compromised
on their political agenda. In their political manifesto, they
have mentioned expressly "the BJP is convinced that Hindutva
has immense potentiality to re-energize this nation and strengthen
and discipline it to undertake the arduous task of nation building".
And one way in which to energize the nation is by removing the
threat posed by those whose loyalties lie elsewhere. Namely the
Muslims and the Christians, whose holy land lies outside the borders
of India and hence are not to be trusted. The treatment especially
of the Muslim varies, from a resounding call to join the mainstream,
to surrender the `special privileges' and become a part of the
Indian (read Hindu) polity, to moves that cast the Muslim as a
dangerous `Other', a threat to the security of the nation, who
must be incarcerated or annihilated. These positions are played
out in and through the terrain of law - through the discourse
of secularism and through law and order mechanisms such as the
Prevention of Terrorism Act which has been recently enacted.
Other attributes of the BJP agenda, such as a repeal of article
370, the adoption of a Uniform Civil Code and the construction
of the temple at Ayodhya were put on the back burner in an effort
to build a political alliance in 1999 that governs at the Center
today. But the religious wing of the Hindu Right is constantly
deployed to remind us that these demands remain present even if
not achieved, as demonstrated recently during the VHP demand to
deliver the pillars of the Ram Temple to Ayodhya. The BJP philosophy
stresses the importance of secularism, but argues this ideal through
an assertion of the formal equal treatment of all religions. Hindutva
in other words becomes the normative ideal, as secularism is built
along the principle of tolerance, and since Hinduism is the only
religion that is tolerant (because unlike Christianity and Islam
it is not proselytizing) it is the only religion that can be truly
secular. Hindutva stands for the idea of reconstructing the glorious
past, which had a cultural tradition that accommodated within
its fold, all other differences. In its glorified state, it ensures
peace, tolerance and respect for all citizens. In other words,
it is based on the idea of the assimilation of all other religions,
a move that will lead to the complete erasure of the identity
of religious minorities.
This understanding of secularism received the Supreme Court's
approval in 1995 in the Hindutva cases. The Court held that appealing
to Hindutva was not an appeal to religion (which would violate
the provisions of the Representaitons of Peoples Act), but constituted
the life of the people on the subcontinent. Justice Verma's Bench
observed that it is a "fallacy and an error of law to proceed
on the assumption that any reference to Hindutva or Hinduism in
a speech makes it automatically a speech based on Hindu religion
as opposed to other religions, or that the use of the word Hindutva
or Hinduism per se depicts an attitude hostile to all persons…it
may well be that these words are used in a speech to emphasize
the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian cultural ethos."
The judgement gave enormous strength to the morale of the BJP
who connected Hindutva with "spiritual secularism".
Recent events suggest a interplay between the Right's use of
democracy and liberal rights to pursue its agenda and the resort
to violence (which it casts as legitimate anger) should the forces
of democracy not prevail in its favour. Every action has a carefully
calibrated response from the forces of the Hindu Right. India
is witnessing the study erosion not only of the secular space
through the refashioning of the meaning of secularism in and through
the discourse of the Right, but also through the steady erosion
of the rights of religious minorities, through the rhetoric of
the War on Terror, and the assertion of the `other' as a threat
and danger to the security of the nation.
There is an urgent need to harness the strength of the country
which lies in its diversity. Diversity is the strength of a liberal
democracy. Salman Rushdie refers to a ludicrous attempt at enumerating
the total number of gods presently existing in India, of all varieties,
from the most minor tree god to the daunting images of Prophets,
Messengers and Messiahs. The number recorded was approximately
330 million-"about one god for every two and a quarter humans".
And no matter where you go, there they are! These vast multitudes
of deities co-exist with the vast multitude of people. You bump
into them on the streets, trip over them on the sidewalk, they
sit with you in taxis and attend street parades where they are
the constant cause of traffic jams. Nothing could be more obvious
and more a part of every day life in India than this fact of diversity.
Yet today this very diversity is at risk, at peril. In the hands
of the Hindu Right diversity is being re-fashioned as a weakness,
as a fracturing of society, as a threat to the whole rather than
what constitutes the whole. This is where the battle lies, in
retrieving and revitalizing this value in cultures where the religious
right is shaming people for their defects and differences, and
where the assertion of difference is not merely about belief,
it is about the very right to exist.
_______________________________________________________________________
Ratna Kapur, is the Director of the Center for
Feminist Legal Research, New Delhi, India and currently a visiting
professor at Georgetown Law School, Washington D.C., USA.
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