I have sent the following article for publication to Hindu in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots and needless to say, it was rejected. The idea is basically that any pro-Hindu party has to have strong convictions, in order to gain confidence of the Hindu majority. I find that some of the ideas in my article are echoed in Rajiv's.
India as a large Hindu democracy
Pakistan’s ISI has developed wide-spread tentacles throughout India and it is known to carry out its nefarious activities, all aimed at the destabilization of our country. Many of the thousands of legal and illegal madarasas, which have mushroomed all over India over the years, are known to provide logistic support to the ISI for carrying out its agenda.
Internal conflicts accentuated by religious discord and the attendant violence, such as those manifested recently in Gujarat, can be expected to be a recurrent feature from now on. A five-member study team of the Delhi-based Council for International Affairs and Human Rights has said that the Godhra carnage was an act of terrorism sponsored by Pakistan and was executed in connivance with "jehadi forces" based in the town. Pakistan is hell bent on creating instability in India and it will not rest until it achieves its ultimate goal of total disintegration of India.
How to thwart the evil designs of Pakistan? Is there any way by which this nation can be saved? The author of this article feels that there’s only one way and that’s to make India a Hindu nation.
The biggest problem facing India today is its huge population. Unless some harsh steps are taken even at this late stage, it will be very difficult to contain the upheavals that are likely to ensue in the Indian society in the coming years. As a result, India’s very existence as a unified nation is likely to be threatened. In short, unless the main problem facing India, i.e. population growth is dealt with an iron hand, there is no future for India.
Is it possible to undertake such an arduous task in the present political setup? Next to impossible. For reasons known to everyone, extreme measures, which are needed to contain the population explosion, such as common civil code, one-child policy etc. can not be implemented under the present secular model we have. The so-called secular parties such as Congress, CPI, CPM and some of the NDA constituents, with their petty vote bank politics will not allow such policies to be implemented. It is tragic that not a single political party even makes a noise about it, let alone pursues it. It is thus evident that all Indian political parties without exception have a terrible lack of vision or interest for tomorrow’s India. What then is the alternative? The only answer is that a new party with a radical manifesto should first come into existence and then strive to come to power to implement ruthlessly whatever is necessary to contain the population problem.
It is very difficult for any existing political party to come to power with a mandate, which is massive enough to make whatever amendments to the constitution are required. In these days of fractured politics, the voters will give a reasonable mandate to a party only if they are convinced that it is presenting them a new choice in the political arena. The party must have a manifesto, which makes a clean break with the past and which honestly presents an agenda, which is coherent and which proposes feasible and realistic solutions to the present day problems in a logical manner. As mentioned already, the manifesto must include among other things, issues like making India a Hindu nation, implementing a uniform civil code, a one-child policy, and last but not the least homogenisation of the social system among the Hindus. There are many other irritants, which are unpalatable to the majority of the population and so far they have had no opportunity to express their feelings, as no present political party gave them a choice. Examples are: Unchecked infiltration from Bangladesh, Special status to Jammu and Kashmir, state-funding of Haj travel, Non-regulation of Madarassas, etc. The new political party must address all these issues in unequivocal terms.
The ruckus over the Ram Janmabhoomi temple is totally unnecessary and portrays India in a very bad light, ranking it along side with the Islamic fundamentalist states, though the charge really is not sustainable. There are far more important issues involved here. The VHP, Bajrangdal et al. have taken up the Ramajanmabhoomi project just to demonstrate that Hinduism has to have supremacy in its motherland. This is borne out of the fear that Hinduism’s days are numbered. This fear may not be unfounded, if one takes cognizance of the following:
1. After the partition, the once sizeable Hindu minority in Pakistan has become virtually non-existent, whereas the Muslim minority in India has been growing at least at the same rate, if not higher, as the Hindus. 2. In the only Muslim majority state of Kashmir, the conditions are similar to those in Pakistan. Religious fanaticism aided by the cross-border terrorism is trying to make it a pure Islamic state, through ruthless killings and by driving the minority Hindus out of the state. 3. Large-scale infiltration of people from Bangladesh is changing the demographic character of certain states such as West Bengal and the North-Eastern States of India.
4. The Muslims, who constitute at present a mere 20% of the Indian population are able to wield excessive and skewed influence on the Indian polity, thanks to the vote bank politics practised by the so-called secular parties. What would be the state of affairs, if the Muslim population were to go up by another 10%? They will be a virtual majority as a collective group, thanks to the divisions among the Hindu population, with consequences disastrous to the majority community. 5. Of late, we have started hearing calls from across the border for a second partition of India. In his article “Homelands in Pakistan” in Rediff.com dated 26th April 2002, Claude Arpi tells as much, while referring to a commentary in Paknews.com, a Pakistani news Web site. In the Editorial titled ‘Thank God we have Pakistan’, which appeared on March 3, 2002, a call was given for the breaking up of India into several smaller countries, where minorities are in the government and are able to protect their rights. It further says that ‘”This idea of a second partition has again come up after 55 years because the underlying argument of 'Two-Nation Theory', which was basis of creation of Pakistan, a home and safe haven for Muslims is once again valid and applicable to India.” The Pakistani news website claims support to this new idea from ‘Information Times’, an American news Website. A look at the InformationTimes’ website reveals that it calls itself America's Daily Internet Newspaper and has one Syed Adeeb as its Chief Editor. 6. While the Muslims have a whole host of benefactors in the form of Pakistan, the Middle-Eastern countries, the Hindus have none. They have to set right their house on their own.
If the campaign for making India a Hindu nation is taken up in right earnest, the so-called Hindu fundamentalist groups can be made to see reason and drop the issue of the Ramajanmabhoomi. One can confidently say that there won’t be any negative fallout, if India abandons the secularism, as practised today. The reasons are as follows.
It is pretty obvious for anybody with an objective mind that it is inconsequential for the world whether India is a Hindu nation or a secular country. It is only the internal enemies, who with an eye on the vote bank, keep reciting the mantra that India will be a communal country if it becomes a Hindu nation. What is communal? Hinduism itself is a secular concept. It is a known fact that Hinduism respects all other religions, supports plurality and does not believe in conversion from one faith to another. What this means is that India can be a Hindu country and still remain truly secular.
Islamic countries like Malaysia, Turkey etc. are today seen to have a secular character, which, however, is debatable. On the other hand, countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc, which are Islamic to the core and which do not respect other religions, are treated on par with secular India. So what advantages has secularism conferred on India? None whatsoever.
If India were to become a Hindu nation, it is not difficult to see the consequences. Parties like Congress, the leftists, SP and some of the allies of the NDA etc. will not hanker after the Muslim vote but instead start wooing the Hindus, because they will come to realize that there is a new phenomenon called ‘Hindu Vote Bank’. The stridency in the postures of the Muslims will nosedive, because the parties from which they have traditionally derived support will abandon them. Countries like Pakistan, which want to break up India with the help of some of their Indian co-religionists will find that their games will not succeed in the new political environment.
In fact, the majority of the Muslims are fence-sitters and have no time or aptitude to needle the majority Hindus. It’s only a few fanatics among them, who harbour evil designs and who indulge in anti-national activities. Once these few elements lose their political support, they will cease to influence the thinking of the Muslims in general.
Thus the time has come for a paradigm shift in the political arena. A political party, which advocates a clear-cut agenda along the lines stated above, can derive considerable power from the majority of the population. Its presence and consequently, its clout in the Indian political scene will increase with time. If there were to be an increase in internal violence and terrorism-related activities, that would only contribute towards the raison d’etre and increased relevance of the new party. There will be a period of consolidation for the party, after which, it can initiate major reforms in all fields. It will receive support from all right thinking people, irrespective of their affiliation, because majority of the population wants peace and stability. The outside world too wants an India, where stability and social harmony prevail.
India can very well emulate the USA and many of the European nations. All these countries are democratic in character; all the citizens in these countries are bestowed with equal rights, irrespective of their caste, creed or religion. Religion is considered a private affair and there is no interference from the state. There is an unwritten code in all these countries; it is the majority, which decides how the country is run. Nevertheless, there is complete harmony between the majority and the minority. The minority does not adopt an aggressive posture or animosity towards the majority. It leaves the high ground to the majority, knowing that it gets whatever is its due.
As the Niyogi Commission remarked in the mid-50s, 'The best safeguard any minority can have is the goodwill of the majority community, and the right attitude of the minority is one of trust and confidence in the fair sense of the majority.'
-Satya
P.S. What I wrote above in 2003 or so is more relevant now than ever.
Rajeev - much as I admire you writing, you are mistaken here. I am not sure the Indian electorate is as neatly 'triaged' as you suggest. The elections in most places turns on minuscule proportion of the vote - 3 to 4% at the most. You only have to sway that much - not the 33% you suggest. Then, there are regional and state variations. Take the example of Karnataka (where this principle may apply) vs. Tamil Nadu (where the BJP does not have a ghost of a chance - Jayalalitha yes, but BJP no).
there is another fact that you have not addressed. When it comes to ally-catching the congress is now better than the BJP - not because it overflows with the milk of human kindness; but because in most regions it is constrained to playing second fiddle to the regional party. Regional parties like such allies - they do not like a cadre-based party like the BJP which may have strength of it's own and maybe a long term threat. The sun may not be rising on the BJP, but it is setting on the Congress - so partner with it. Case in point - look at how Lalu and Paswan are calling the shots and how Naveen Patnaik has walked away
Finally - the solution for the BJP is actually to be generous with seat sharing with allies, but build cadre based organisations from the ground up in every state. This is what they have done in Karnataka. for a long time they were content to let the Gowda's swagger - but they worked very hard to build faith-based organisation structures. These will last longer and pay higher dividends over the long run
I also think BJP suffers from lack of able communicators...Guys who can work a crowd and inspire them.. Narendra Modi is the only one I see who is capable of that Advani used to be.. he is now a pale shadow of the former.. Most of these folks are so apologetic about everything that they stand for..They want to be called as 'secularists' by the media..The ELM has done a great job brow beating BJP..
Triage strategy works only if the voters make informed decisions. In India since voters are generally ignorant, naive and uneducated it will not work.
For example if the fence sitters and anti BJP Hindus are able to access uncensored information, all about marxist Christian and Muslim doings in India, they will without become more aware of Hindu issues and vote along those lines.
So this is the main hurdle. The sangh has to embark having its own centre right media which reaches the far corners of the nation. Without the crucial support of the media, which the pseudo seculars have, it will be an uphill effort for BJP or any other member of the sangh parivar to broaden its appeal and obtain vital support from the ingorant fence sitters and the naive anti Hindutva, Hindu masses.
So the application of the triage can be successful only after ensure we have informed voters and that can be possible only if we have either genuinely secular media or friendly Hindu media.
One way or the other it all means we need to get going with a Hindu media at the soonest possible.
8 comments:
Excellent article. Correct strategy.
I have sent the following article for publication to Hindu in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots and needless to say, it was rejected. The idea is basically that any pro-Hindu party has to have strong convictions, in order to gain confidence of the Hindu majority. I find that some of the ideas in my article are echoed in Rajiv's.
India as a large Hindu democracy
Pakistan’s ISI has developed wide-spread tentacles throughout India and it is known to carry out its nefarious activities, all aimed at the destabilization of our country. Many of the thousands of legal and illegal madarasas, which have mushroomed all over India over the years, are known to provide logistic support to the ISI for carrying out its agenda.
Internal conflicts accentuated by religious discord and the attendant violence, such as those manifested recently in Gujarat, can be expected to be a recurrent feature from now on. A five-member study team of the Delhi-based Council for International Affairs and Human Rights has said that the Godhra carnage was an act of terrorism sponsored by Pakistan and was executed in connivance with "jehadi forces" based in the town. Pakistan is hell bent on creating instability in India and it will not rest until it achieves its ultimate goal of total disintegration of India.
How to thwart the evil designs of Pakistan? Is there any way by which this nation can be saved? The author of this article feels that there’s only one way and that’s to make India a Hindu nation.
The biggest problem facing India today is its huge population. Unless some harsh steps are taken even at this late stage, it will be very difficult to contain the upheavals that are likely to ensue in the Indian society in the coming years. As a result, India’s very existence as a unified nation is likely to be threatened. In short, unless the main problem facing India, i.e. population growth is dealt with an iron hand, there is no future for India.
Is it possible to undertake such an arduous task in the present political setup? Next to impossible. For reasons known to everyone, extreme measures, which are needed to contain the population explosion, such as common civil code, one-child policy etc. can not be implemented under the present secular model we have. The so-called secular parties such as Congress, CPI, CPM and some of the NDA constituents, with their petty vote bank politics will not allow such policies to be implemented. It is tragic that not a single political party even makes a noise about it, let alone pursues it. It is thus evident that all Indian political parties without exception have a terrible lack of vision or interest for tomorrow’s India. What then is the alternative? The only answer is that a new party with a radical manifesto should first come into existence and then strive to come to power to implement ruthlessly whatever is necessary to contain the population problem.
It is very difficult for any existing political party to come to power with a mandate, which is massive enough to make whatever amendments to the constitution are required. In these days of fractured politics, the voters will give a reasonable mandate to a party only if they are convinced that it is presenting them a new choice in the political arena. The party must have a manifesto, which makes a clean break with the past and which honestly presents an agenda, which is coherent and which proposes feasible and realistic solutions to the present day problems in a logical manner. As mentioned already, the manifesto must include among other things, issues like making India a Hindu nation, implementing a uniform civil code, a one-child policy, and last but not the least homogenisation of the social system among the Hindus. There are many other irritants, which are unpalatable to the majority of the population and so far they have had no opportunity to express their feelings, as no present political party gave them a choice. Examples are: Unchecked infiltration from Bangladesh, Special status to Jammu and Kashmir, state-funding of Haj travel, Non-regulation of Madarassas, etc. The new political party must address all these issues in unequivocal terms.
The ruckus over the Ram Janmabhoomi temple is totally unnecessary and portrays India in a very bad light, ranking it along side with the Islamic fundamentalist states, though the charge really is not sustainable. There are far more important issues involved here. The VHP, Bajrangdal et al. have taken up the Ramajanmabhoomi project just to demonstrate that Hinduism has to have supremacy in its motherland. This is borne out of the fear that Hinduism’s days are numbered. This fear may not be unfounded, if one takes cognizance of the following:
1. After the partition, the once sizeable Hindu minority in Pakistan has become virtually non-existent, whereas the Muslim minority in India has been growing at least at the same rate, if not higher, as the Hindus.
2. In the only Muslim majority state of Kashmir, the conditions are similar to those in Pakistan. Religious fanaticism aided by the cross-border terrorism is trying to make it a pure Islamic state, through ruthless killings and by driving the minority Hindus out of the state.
3. Large-scale infiltration of people from Bangladesh is changing the demographic character of certain states such as West Bengal and the North-Eastern States of India.
4. The Muslims, who constitute at present a mere 20% of the Indian population are able to wield excessive and skewed influence on the Indian polity, thanks to the vote bank politics practised by the so-called secular parties. What would be the state of affairs, if the Muslim population were to go up by another 10%? They will be a virtual majority as a collective group, thanks to the divisions among the Hindu population, with consequences disastrous to the majority community.
5. Of late, we have started hearing calls from across the border for a second partition of India. In his article “Homelands in Pakistan” in Rediff.com dated 26th April 2002, Claude Arpi tells as much, while referring to a commentary in Paknews.com, a Pakistani news Web site. In the Editorial titled ‘Thank God we have Pakistan’, which appeared on March 3, 2002, a call was given for the breaking up of India into several smaller countries, where minorities are in the government and are able to protect their rights. It further says that ‘”This idea of a second partition has again come up after 55 years because the underlying argument of 'Two-Nation Theory', which was basis of creation of Pakistan, a home and safe haven for Muslims is once again valid and applicable to India.”
The Pakistani news website claims support to this new idea from ‘Information Times’, an American news Website. A look at the InformationTimes’ website reveals that it calls itself America's Daily Internet Newspaper and has one Syed Adeeb as its Chief Editor.
6. While the Muslims have a whole host of benefactors in the form of Pakistan, the Middle-Eastern countries, the Hindus have none. They have to set right their house on their own.
If the campaign for making India a Hindu nation is taken up in right earnest, the so-called Hindu fundamentalist groups can be made to see reason and drop the issue of the Ramajanmabhoomi. One can confidently say that there won’t be any negative fallout, if India abandons the secularism, as practised today. The reasons are as follows.
It is pretty obvious for anybody with an objective mind that it is inconsequential for the world whether India is a Hindu nation or a secular country. It is only the internal enemies, who with an eye on the vote bank, keep reciting the mantra that India will be a communal country if it becomes a Hindu nation. What is communal? Hinduism itself is a secular concept. It is a known fact that Hinduism respects all other religions, supports plurality and does not believe in conversion from one faith to another. What this means is that India can be a Hindu country and still remain truly secular.
Islamic countries like Malaysia, Turkey etc. are today seen to have a secular character, which, however, is debatable. On the other hand, countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc, which are Islamic to the core and which do not respect other religions, are treated on par with secular India. So what advantages has secularism conferred on India? None whatsoever.
If India were to become a Hindu nation, it is not difficult to see the consequences. Parties like Congress, the leftists, SP and some of the allies of the NDA etc. will not hanker after the Muslim vote but instead start wooing the Hindus, because they will come to realize that there is a new phenomenon called ‘Hindu Vote Bank’. The stridency in the postures of the Muslims will nosedive, because the parties from which they have traditionally derived support will abandon them. Countries like Pakistan, which want to break up India with the help of some of their Indian co-religionists will find that their games will not succeed in the new political environment.
In fact, the majority of the Muslims are fence-sitters and have no time or aptitude to needle the majority Hindus. It’s only a few fanatics among them, who harbour evil designs and who indulge in anti-national activities. Once these few elements lose their political support, they will cease to influence the thinking of the Muslims in general.
Thus the time has come for a paradigm shift in the political arena. A political party, which advocates a clear-cut agenda along the lines stated above, can derive considerable power from the majority of the population. Its presence and consequently, its clout in the Indian political scene will increase with time. If there were to be an increase in internal violence and terrorism-related activities, that would only contribute towards the raison d’etre and increased relevance of the new party. There will be a period of consolidation for the party, after which, it can initiate major reforms in all fields. It will receive support from all right thinking people, irrespective of their affiliation, because majority of the population wants peace and stability. The outside world too wants an India, where stability and social harmony prevail.
India can very well emulate the USA and many of the European nations. All these countries are democratic in character; all the citizens in these countries are bestowed with equal rights, irrespective of their caste, creed or religion. Religion is considered a private affair and there is no interference from the state. There is an unwritten code in all these countries; it is the majority, which decides how the country is run. Nevertheless, there is complete harmony between the majority and the minority. The minority does not adopt an aggressive posture or animosity towards the majority. It leaves the high ground to the majority, knowing that it gets whatever is its due.
As the Niyogi Commission remarked in the mid-50s, 'The best safeguard any minority can have is the goodwill of the majority community, and the right attitude of the minority is one of trust and confidence in the fair sense of the majority.'
-Satya
P.S. What I wrote above in 2003 or so is more relevant now than ever.
Rajeev - much as I admire you writing, you are mistaken here. I am not sure the Indian electorate is as neatly 'triaged' as you suggest. The elections in most places turns on minuscule proportion of the vote - 3 to 4% at the most. You only have to sway that much - not the 33% you suggest. Then, there are regional and state variations. Take the example of Karnataka (where this principle may apply) vs. Tamil Nadu (where the BJP does not have a ghost of a chance - Jayalalitha yes, but BJP no).
there is another fact that you have not addressed. When it comes to ally-catching the congress is now better than the BJP - not because it overflows with the milk of human kindness; but because in most regions it is constrained to playing second fiddle to the regional party. Regional parties like such allies - they do not like a cadre-based party like the BJP which may have strength of it's own and maybe a long term threat. The sun may not be rising on the BJP, but it is setting on the Congress - so partner with it. Case in point - look at how Lalu and Paswan are calling the shots and how Naveen Patnaik has walked away
Finally - the solution for the BJP is actually to be generous with seat sharing with allies, but build cadre based organisations from the ground up in every state. This is what they have done in Karnataka. for a long time they were content to let the Gowda's swagger - but they worked very hard to build faith-based organisation structures. These will last longer and pay higher dividends over the long run
I also think BJP suffers from lack of able communicators...Guys who can work a crowd and inspire them..
Narendra Modi is the only one I see who is capable of that
Advani used to be.. he is now a pale shadow of the former..
Most of these folks are so apologetic about everything that they stand for..They want to be called as 'secularists' by the media..The ELM has done a great job brow beating BJP..
Furthermore, the BJP & Co really need to move their cadres into the media, to offset the fact that field is already so heavily infected by the Left.
Triage strategy works only if the voters make informed decisions. In India since voters are generally ignorant, naive and uneducated it will not work.
For example if the fence sitters and anti BJP Hindus are able to access uncensored information, all about marxist Christian and Muslim doings in India, they will without become more aware of Hindu issues and vote along those lines.
So this is the main hurdle. The sangh has to embark having its own centre right media which reaches the far corners of the nation. Without the crucial support of the media, which the pseudo seculars have, it will be an uphill effort for BJP or any other member of the sangh parivar to broaden its appeal and obtain vital support from the ingorant fence sitters and the naive anti Hindutva, Hindu masses.
So the application of the triage can be successful only after ensure we have informed voters and that can be possible only if we have either genuinely secular media or friendly Hindu media.
One way or the other it all means we need to get going with a Hindu media at the soonest possible.
To effectively implement triage..
BJP need a sensible and powerful conservative news channel..
duh.. why cant BJP invest in something like it....
of course that also means BJP needs to shed its trepidation at being called "communal"
BJP can take a leaf out of Piloo Mody's book and proclaim "yes, we are communal, if defending the interests of Hindus is termed communal".
-Satya
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