May 3, 2014

The BJP Fringe

An election campaign on development has done nothing to change its Hindutva core.

he Narendra Modi-for-prime minister campaign has been

managed so tightly with a single-minded focus on development that many observers have been surprised that in
recent weeks there has been a sudden resurgence of Hindutva
voices sending out messages of violence and hate. First, there was
the speech by the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) Uttar Pradesh
in-charge and Modi loyalist, Amit Shah, calling upon the Hindu
voters of western Uttar Pradesh to take revenge on those who
had violated the honour of their womenfolk (which is normal
Hindutva code for Muslims). This was followed by Mukhtar Abbas
Naqvi claiming that the BJP will build the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Then BJPs Jharkhand and Bihar leader, Giriraj Singh, warned
that once Modi becomes the prime minister, all those who oppose
him (referring to the Muslims, yet again, but also to secular
Hindus) will be sent off to Pakistan. If former BJP president
Nitin Gadkari shared the stage with Giriraj Singh while he made
these comments, Narendra Modi himself smiled benignly in
Mumbai when Shiv Sena leader Ramdas Kadam called Muslims
traitors and warned that they will be taught a lesson once Modi
assumed power. There have also been exhortations that if Hindus
do not vote for Modi this time then their existence is threatened.
The media outing of the speech of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader
Pravin Togadia calling on Hindus in Bhavnagar to usurp Muslim
property was yet another example of an anti-Muslim tirade,
even if it was not part of Modis election campaign.
It must be remembered that while these statements have taken
the focus away from the development slogan, Modis election
campaign has always existed on a bedrock of Hindutva support.
The makeover of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi from
aggressive Hindutva icon to a proponent of development can
be traced back to about 2007. That was when the international
public relations firm APCO was hired by the Gujarat government
to market the state as a preferred destination for capital and
to promote Modi as business-friendly development-oriented
administrator. It was thereafter that the line of top Indian
industrialists started the Modi-for-PM chant. Not surprisingly,
each of those who joined this chorus had received exceptional
incentives from the Modi dispensation in Gujarat land at
throwaway prices, government support in clearing environmental and labour protection rules, tax breaks, etc. Already, by the
2009 elections, there was a demand that Modi be nominated as
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

may 3, 2014

vol xlix no 18

the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, but it was still not
strong enough to steamroll opposition within the party.
Over the last five years, the Modi campaign (which, it must be
remembered, is distinct from that of the BJP) has worked with a
single-minded focus on making the Gujarat chief minister the
unquestioned candidate of the BJP and building enough of a
push from outside to get him the prime ministership. One of the
central strategies of this campaign has been to mould Modi as a
political leader focused on development and to put up Gujarat
as the model state for development. Gone was the Narendra
Modi who justified the killing of Muslims in Gujarat through the
Newtonian action-reaction metaphor, who (in)famously spoke
of the refugee camps of the riot victims as child producing
factories, who launched the Gujarat Gaurav Yatra to instil
pride over the defence of Hindu honour in the 2002 riots.
Despite this development makeover, Modi has never disowned
his Hindutva politics and his campaign has tried to use communal
violence and prejudices to consolidate Hindu votes (successfully in Muzaffarnagar and not as successfully in Kishtwar). It
has been a fine balancing act, with Hindutva consolidation
being conducted largely below the media radar while the
official message, amplified through a hundred talking heads
on television and thousands of sponsored accounts on social
media, has continued to state that development is above
religious affiliation and that the rising tide lifts all boats. It
may not be too much of an exaggeration to state that Narendra
Modis campaign for prime ministership has been Indias first
public relations curated, media-driven operation.
The recent shrill Hindutva rhetoric has alarmed many of
those who had bought into the Modi propaganda and has led to
calls to rein-in the fringe and control the extremists. Five
years of Modi-for-PM public relations and many seem to have
forgotten that Hindutva has always been, and remains, the core
of the BJP and Narendra Modi. It is talk of development and a
certain liberal veneer that is the fringe, masks which Modi and
the BJP have put on to make themselves electable, to get the
non-Hindutva voters to believe that they have abandoned, substantially if not symbolically, their violent, sectarian ideology and
politics. It would be foolhardy to forget that the BJP remains
wholly under the control of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), pursuing an agenda set by it. The RSS had to officially
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EDITORIALS

forsake politics in order to placate Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel into

lifting the ban on it in the aftermath of Mahatma Gandhis
assassination. It was a consequence of that tactical withdrawal
that it started doing its politics through the Bharatiya Jan
Sangh. The Jan Sanghs inheritor, the BJP, continues to be the
electoral front of the RSS, just like the Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad is its students front, the Bharatiya Mazdoor
Sangh is its trade union front and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is

the front for organising those at the margins of Hindu society

through the mediation of religious figures. The BJP winning
elections means that the RSS will control governmental power
and state institutions, nothing less.
The slipping of the Modi-for-PM campaigns development
sheep-skin is perhaps only an indication that the election race is
now in its final laps and the limitations of focusing only on the
liberal fringe are beginning to slow it down.

may 3, 2014

vol xlix no 18

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