A billboard depicting Hindu deities Ram (left) and Hanuman is displayed along a street in Mumbai on Jan. 17 ahead of the opening of a temple to Lord Ram in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya. (Photo: AFP)
The upcoming consecration of Ram temple in Ayodhya on Jan. 22 is reflective of a new India that is fast transforming from a 'Nehruvian vision' of liberal democracy to political Hinduism as propagated by Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS).
This sociopolitical shift in a country of 1.4 billion people, the majority of them Hindus, should not be viewed simply from the perspective of electoral politics.
It’s important to first grasp the roots of this change.
The British colonizers left in 1947 and began the Nehruvian Era, defined by the leadership of first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
A DPhil holder in modern history from the University of Oxford, Nehru, based the new India on the Western concepts of democracy, secularism, and liberal socialism.
India has been trying to come out of this colonial shadow and Nehruvian idea under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite Indian liberals criticizing it as a Hindu hardliner move.
"For the past nine and half years, they have been challenging Nehru’s policies of left-liberalism"
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its parent organization, the RSS, have been keen on reviving political Hinduism for decades now. It got a real fillip when Modi became prime minister.
The new assertive India under Modi’s leadership wants to re-establish India’s rightful place in the world with its thousands of years of civilizational history, not just as a nation that emerged after the British left seven decades ago.
In the new scheme of things, Hindi is preferred to English, Indian laws are reworked giving them Hindi titles, and the Hindu religion and culture get the upper hand on the socio-political platform.
"Narendra Modi and his party have been in power since 2014. For the past nine and half years, they have been challenging Nehru’s policies of left-liberalism. Jan. 22 will mark its end and the establishment of political Hinduism," says political observer Ashutosh Talukdar based in the northeastern state of Assam.
What does this mean for the future, of India and the BJP?
Electorally, the ruling BJP may reap benefits in the parliamentary poll to be held around May and the opposition Congress may further lose its voter base, especially because of its decision to keep away from the temple consecration in Ayodhya.
But the real challenge will be to ensure that the moral perspectives, or mindset, of the Hindus stay reasonable. The Ram temple, built on the debris of a 16th-century mosque, should not become a new symbol of hatred.
Lord Ram is revered by Hindus as "Maryada Purushottam" or the ideal man who stands as the symbol of good virtues that all humans need to imbibe. This is easier said than done.
"Christians, the second largest religious minority after Muslims, also may feel awkward and 'unsafe'"
Ironically, Ayodhya, the birthplace of Ram, is being viewed with a sense of helplessness and agony by Indian Muslims. There’s also an element of insecurity. Appeals are being made to Muslims to exercise caution from Jan. 20 to Jan 25.
A prominent Muslim leader from Assam state suggested that Muslims avoid traveling and stay at home on those days. He was criticized by BJP leaders who want Muslims to move on from the 1992 riots days linked with Ayodhya.
The nationwide Hindu-Muslim riot killed some 2,000 people after Hindu mobs tore down the 16th-century Babri mosque, claiming it was built by Muslim invaders on the ruins of a Ram temple.
Christians, the second largest religious minority after Muslims, also may feel awkward and "unsafe" because RSS and its affiliated hardline Hindu groups have time and again targeted them under the guise of so-called forced conversions and foreign funding.
It is argued that Christians and Muslims are originally Hindus who converted to “foreign religions.” None other than RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has asserted this, claiming that all Indians are ideologically Hindu.
“All those who are in Bharat [India] today are related to Hindu culture, Hindu ancestors and Hindu land… Some people have understood this, while some are not implementing it even after understanding it because of their habits and selfishness. Also, some people have either not understood yet or forgotten it,” he said at an event last year in Nagpur, the headquarters of the RSS.
BJP national vice-president M Chuba Ao, an indigenous Naga Christian leader, agrees. "Christianity has never asked Christians in India not to be patriotic or not to love their own country," he said.
But RSS senior leader Indresh Kumar has a pre-condition — conversion to Christianity must stop. “Conversion causes differences. It causes hatred, it creates conflict... so if we want to make the world conflict-free, there is a need to respect all religions,” he said.
"No country can hope to attain greater heights with two major religious groups in constant suspicion of each other"
Christian leaders argue that accusing Christians of using fraudulent means to convert is denigrating people's intelligence and maintain that matters of faith are best left to individual choice.
Will the likes of Bhagwat and Kumar gain precedence in the future scheme of things in a new Hindu India?
BJP leaders say the ruling dispensation is well aware of its responsibilities as rulers of the world’s largest democracy.
Amid the ongoing national jubilation over the “triumph of Hindus” over the invaders, the prime minister has suggested more than once that a new era has begun in the country.
“After the 1947 partition and creation of Pakistan, India has seen numerous Hindu-Muslim riots, including in Gujarat, the native state of Modi. No country can hope to attain greater heights with two major religious groups in constant suspicion of each other. All this should end after the inauguration of the Ram temple,” says Tushar Bhadra, a political observer based in Varanasi.
Bhadra feels the Ram temple is an indicator that a BJP-dominant political system had firmly established itself and the RSS’ ideological worldview would gain further traction in India.
How this will unravel in the coming days is anybody’s guess at the moment, though one thing is certain — political Hinduism is here to stay.
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
