People's Democracy

Togadia And His Hindutva

 Sheetla Singh

HAPPY and overwhelmed by the results of Gujarat Assembly elections, Praveen Togadia, general secretary of the VHP has remarked that India will be a Hindu rashtra in the next two years. Onkar Bhae, his close associate, announced that the whole country would soon be transformed into Gujarat. He warned prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that in case he does not like Modi and the fine breeze of Hindutva, then he must know that he too is not acceptable to us.  These leaders claim that in Gujarat the ideology of Hindutva has emerged victorious. They consider secularism hypocritical. In their opinion, some people are creating confusion in the country under its garb.

May we ask in what sense these people want to transform this country into Gujarat? Gujarat is known for its prosperity, sustained improvement in the standard of living of the common people and enterprise of the business community. If the country is to be transformed into Gujarat in this sense, then who will like to oppose it. If Gujarat is to be identified with the ideology of Gandhi and Patel, with compassion, love, sympathy for the suffering people, and freedom from exploitation, then the people will gladly accept it. But if Gujarat is to be identified with communal hatred, animosity, violence, plunders and arson, then people will certainly object to India being transformed into Gujarat.

Since the Gujarat assembly elections were held under the provision of the Indian Constitution, it is irrational to call BJP’s victory as the victory of the Hindutva.  During these elections, Hindutva was characterised as the anti-Muslim propaganda and those who associated with it have won the elections. The recent Gujarat elections could be easily compared with the storm which uprooted many trees but this is not a phenomenon that would last forever.  In these elections, it is beyond doubt that communal feelings have won. These feelings were created among the people for a long time and during elections they were further aroused for electoral gains. Winning 126 seats in an assembly elections is definitely not a victory of some ideology. After all once even the Congress had secured 141 seats in Gujarat assembly.

As far as Hindutva is concerned, if it is to be adopted in this country, it has to be concretely defined. At present going by the interpretation of the Supreme Court, Hindu is one who claims himself to be a Hindu.  For Hindutva, scriptures, faith in god and specific religious rituals are not required because three of the six shastras, namely Shankhya, Nyay and Vaisheshik are agnostic and atheistic. Similarly, Buddha is one of the ten avatars. However, Buddhism is considered to be an agnostic philosophy. Various shastras, Brahmanical scriptures, Puranas and Smritis have followed different approaches.  Hence they cannot be regarded as the basis of Hinduism.  According to earlier Brahmanical approach, women and shudras were not allowed to learn Vedas. Will present day leaders of the BJP and RSS muster courage to endorse this viewpoint? Now Shambook cannot be beheaded for his religious pursuits. Cutting of Ekalavya’s thumb is no longer an indicator of Hindutva. Now an individual’s deeds are of importance, his birth is no longer of any consequence. One of the ten tenets of dharma refers to the worship of god or worship rituals.  All liberal minded people follow these tenets of dharma. Hinduism believes in equity, tolerance, liberalism, love and brotherhood and thus it cannot approve of pogrom. The base of Hinduism is quite extensive. It considers the whole world as one’s own family. This concept of family does not remain confined to Gujarat or a particular region.

In the whole Indian sub-continent we have so many diverse faiths, worship rituals and philosophies. In this country even an atheist like Charvak has been designated as Maharishi. Even now so many tribes inherit this country who have virtually no faith in the Vedas, Upanishads, Shankaracharyas, and the dharam sansad of the VHP. After all in what category they will be placed. Will Togadia and others of his ilk decide a new standard for Aryans, Dravidians and post-Aryan races and will approval of those be required on who it will be meant to be imposed?

In modern times rapid changes are taking place due to expanding frontiers of knowledge, science and technology which in turn are affecting our thinking, behaviour and philosophical approach. This is clearly reflected in overall thinking of the people. Now concepts like untouchability, elitism and communal superiority are acceptable only to some people. The Indian constitution and people by and large do not recognise these outdated concepts. It is the same constitution to which both prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the darling of Hindutva Brigade, Narendra Modi, have proclaimed allegiance while taking oath to assume offices in the governments.

For Praveen Togadia Hinduism implies anti-Muslim activities. This approach is thus not different from that of Jinnah as both believe that the two communities cannot live together. Does it not mean that Togadia and persons of his ilk are creating conditions for another partition of the country? Will our country accept this partition? After all the country cannot be partitioned on the basis of the electoral verdict of the voters of a particular state or region. Moreover, rights of the citizens of India cannot be abridged in this manner. Those who wish to do that by resorting to violence and force must know that in that case any attempt in this direction will amount to terrorism and no one in this country would allow it. Hence the kind of Hindutva Togadia and Bhae wish to bring to this country is not acceptable to the people of this country. If they think that the hate and animosity would be a contributory factor in realising their objective, then they must know that these things are in conflict with our culture and constitutional provisions.

People who are delighted and overwhelmed by the electoral success in Gujarat assembly elections must remember that those who made religion as the basis of their two-nations theory, their own country did not survive as a single unit. After all East Pakistan is now an independent country -Bangladesh. The assertion of the people of Bangladesh is that their language and nationality are different from those of West Pakistan. Thus the old theory that led to partitioning of the country would not work now.  No state government is competent enough to determine new constitutional principles. Despite their conservatism, no Hindutva protagonists, including Modi, would succeed in partitioning the country whatever be his formula because the people of this country will never approve of it. This is the reason why the edge of the movement of the VHP gets blunted in other parts of the country notwithstanding its electoral success in Gujarat.