(interview by e-mail, Swarajya, 16 April, to questions by Shitanshu Shekhar Shukla)
Q. Do you
think the BJP is still in opposition, ideologically speaking? If so, what must
the party do to turn the tables on the secularists?
On economic
issues, the party has the advantage of the identification of its adversaries
with mismanagement. The Congress's return to socialism undid the high growth
rate India enjoyed at the end of the previous BJP government. However, the blind
adoption of American free-market policies is at odds with any Swadeshi
commitment the BJP once had, and is chasing away some important constituents.
On the
cultural front, the less said, the better. Even when in power -- no, let me
correct that: when in office, for "power" means the ability to change
things according to your own designs, and the BJP shows no signs of wanting to
change anything. So, even when in office, the BJP plays by enemy rules and even
thinks in the categories laid down by its enemies, with Hindus as an ugly
overbearing majority that needs to be kept in check, and the poor hapless
minorities as needing extra favours.
Everybody
could see this at the time of Barack Obama's visit. Fed hostile stories about
the BJP's "Hindu fanaticism" by the secularists, he berated this government for
injustice to the minorities. Instead of giving the arrogant US president a
lecture about India as a shining example in its treatment of religious
minorities and refugees, Modi swallowed the misplaced reprimand and reproduced
it himself to his own countrymen the next day. That was Hindu-bashing secularism
issuing from the mouth of the Hindu Hrdaya Samrat. It was Nehru speaking through
Modi.
Q. How will
you like to describe the volatile situation in India in the wake of incidents in
JNU? Is it rise of internet Hindus or that of angry India?
Freedom of
speech does include the right to make anti-national statements. If it doesn't
mean the freedom to offend, it doesn't mean anything. The Motherland is not
above criticism, even if misguided, just as the Prophet is not above criticism.
So I am sorry to break ranks with most Hindus, but I think these anti-national
slogans at JNU are much ado about nothing. It is commotion over mere words
illustrating a lack of action, of real steps towards more national integration.
Angry India should calm down and instead do the needful to fully Indianize
Kashmir.
Q. What do
you think the Modi government must do for the right without offending the
minority community? Especially when he has been knocked out of Delhi and
Bihar?
Where does
the minority come in? Apart from raising the Hajj subsidy, how has Modi harmed
any minority? At any rate, nobody should be harmed, not Akbar, not Anthony, and
not Amar either. You worry about not offending the minorities, but the majority
should not be offended either. In that regard, some constitutional, legal and
policy reforms are needed to undo the existing discriminations against the
Hindus, especially in education and temple management -- and all this without
diminishing a single prerogative of the minorities. But the Modi government is
not moving at all in this regard.
Moreover,
it is a bit rich to call Indian Muslims and Christians "minorities". Not only
are they more numerous than the population of many countries (say, Saudi
Arabia), but they are only the Indian branch of worldwide movements. They
benefit from international financial and media support that the Hindus cannot
even dream of.
More
fundamentally, the concept of "minority" is reprehensible in itself. Every
democrat can understand that the law should equally apply to all, regardless of
religion. Every Indian citizen may sociologically be a member of one or more
communities, but legally, he is just an Indian citizen. That is the minimum for
a state to be secular. India today is not a secular state at all. An Indian
political analyst or a foreign India-watcher outs himself as incompetent when he
asserts or implies: "India is a secular state." It is not.
Q. What do
you think should be roadmap for the BJP to return to power in next Lok Sabha
elections in 2019?
Right now,
the BJP is assiduously following a roadmap towards massive defeat. The BJP
secularists, dominant in the party's upper layer, claim that this government was
elected on a secular platform of development. But even charitably assuming
this, the party's inconsistent economic policies are chasing away several of its
natural constituencies.
In reality,
Narendra Modi was brought to power because the dominant hostile media had
successfully portrayed him as a militant Hindu,-- an image which the BJP itself
downplayed or denied. The often sceptical Hindu voters turned out in large
numbers because here at last they saw a man whom they expected to fight for
Hindu causes. Baba Ramdev spoke for millions of Hindus when he said: "I voted
for Modi, not for the BJP." But once in office, the BJP disowned the numerous
volunteers who had worked for Modi's victory and systematically let its Hindu
constituents down. Millions of Hindus will not return for the next campaign nor
even in the voting booth. And if they do, it will not be to support the
BJP.
Two factors
still work in the BJP's favour. One is the opposition's weakness. Its capacity
to unite and defeat the BJP, as in Delhi and Bihar, is harder to repeat at the
national level; and Congress remains impotent as long as it doesn't side-line
Rahul Gandhi. Second and most important, the BJP might still develop a Hindu
conscience. (A third potential factor is: winning an Indo-Pak war just before
the elections, as in 1999.)
Not that
these mindless time-servers will suddenly feel guilty about having betrayed the
Hindu cause. But politicians care about winning elections, and it might suddenly
dawn on them that the secular Vikaswallahs ("development"-ists) in the
government will never gain them a majority. These BJP secularists have been
useful in the BJP's bid for a pat on the shoulder from the Nehruvians (in vain,
but count on the BJP not to notice this outcome), but they are not the ones who
will do the campaigning for the party. Only Hindu volunteers, including many RSS
militants, will do that. I have plenty of criticism of the RSS, but I
acknowledge that its rank-and-file has its heart in the right place and is
willing to put in real work for the Hindu cause. However, if they don't get to
feel that this has been a really Hindu government, they will fail to show up in
2019. And without them, the BJP has no chance.
An insider
to the BJP's core group told me that that the AB Vajpayee government erred in
not doing anything visibly pro-Hindu at all. He admitted that this had been a
major cause of the BJP's surprise defeat in the 2004 elections. The proper
lesson would be to implement pro-Hindu policies this time around. Abolishing the
anti-Hindu discriminations in education and temple management would not ruffle
feathers among the minorities, all while being very consequential for the future
of Hinduism; so a pro-Hindu government should not waste time in taking these
issues up. (By contrast, enacting a Common Civil Code, while fully a demand of
secularism, would arouse a revolt among the Muslims.) However, that is not what
the BJP has in mind. All they want to do is to "keep the pot boiling": whip up
some Hindu emotions, but without doing anything. So, when visiting Dhaka or
Kathmandu, BJP dignitaries make sure to be filmed while visiting a local temple
in order to suggest a difference with the previous, secular government. That
costs them nothing and yields Hindu society nothing, but it looks Hindu. The cow
slaughter issue also came in handy, it arouses real feelings among the Hindu
masses. But in the long run, this is not going to save the BJP. You can't run
after the approval of your enemies (who will never vote for you anyway) while
spitting on your core constituency.
Q. How do
you look at serious negationism in India against the Islam?
The issue
should not be dramatized. It is only history. And of course contemporary Muslims
should be left free to distance themselves from the crimes of Ghaznavi or
Aurangzeb. But the true story must be told. However, after Murli Manohar Joshi's
failed attempt to rewrite the history textbooks ca. 2002 (a horror show of
incompetence), there is not even an attempt in this direction.
On this
front, the mendacious secularists have been gaining a lot of ground, in spite of
eating humble pie in the Ayodhya controversy. The attempt by the Eminent
Historians (and their Indian and foreign dupes) to deny the existence of temple
foundations under the Babri mosque has been completely discredited. Yet, their
underlying message that there never was an Islamic policy of temple destruction,
and that it emulated a similar pre-existent Hindu policy, has won the day. Thus,
when I speak about the Ayodhya affair, there is always someone in the audience
who asks whether that temple destruction wasn't but an imitation of what Hindus
had done. That belief wasn't around twenty years ago.
This shows
the systematicity of secularist propaganda. While the Eminent Historians thought
they could simply enforce their denial of Islamic iconoclasm, their American
sympathizer Richard Eaton understood that at least some iconoclasm had to be
admitted, but that the blame for it could be passed on to the Hindus. So he spun
the story that a few cases of "idol abduction" by Hindu warlords, who
re-installed captured icons in their own temples to continue their worship,
amounted to the same thing as the thousandfold Islamic cases of destruction of
icons. Immediately the secularists seized upon this story and propagated it
through all channels. By contrast, my paper refuting this story was completely
ignored by the Hindu militants, too smug and lazy to even take notice. The
result in a sizable anti-Hindu switch in public opinion, even among common
Hindus.
Q. The
Hindus are more individualistic. They lack collectiveness. Is it a death
instinct?
To some
extent it is a healthy attitude. The Indian Republic is very correct in giving
only a negative definition of "Hindu": any Indian who is not a Muslim, Christian
or Parsi. That is also the historical definition applied by the Islamic invaders
who imported the word "Hindu". A Hindu is just a normal person who happens to
live in India, whereas Christians and Muslims are defined by their adherence to
a superstitious belief. But yes, this common belief unites and mobilizes them,
whereas the Hindus have to do without this standard to rally around.
Q. Must the
Hindus in India have a media house exclusive to the community? Kindly
elaborate.
"A media
house exclusive to the community" is the kind of refuge that a minority would
seek comfort in. Hindus should be more ambitious, and wrest the leading media
houses back from the secularist stranglehold. They don't need to be exclusively
Hindu. Just fair to Hindu positions, open to Hindu contributions, free from
their present Hindu-bashing, that is good enough.
Exclusive
media support to one religion, like state support to religion, is a bad thing.
Long ago, I lived in Varanasi, and my landlord was Prof. Veer Bhadra Mishra, the
head priest of the famous Sankat Mochan temple. When, some ten years
ago, Islamic terrorists killed many worshippers at his temple, he gained a lot
of applause with his plea for self-control and against Hindu revenge. He made a
very important point on the need to keep religion and state separate: "A
religion that is supported by the state, will become weak." When I see
the religious landscape in Belgium, with a once-dominant Catholic Church
completely crumbling in spite of plenty of state support, I can confirm the
wisdom of Mishra's words. So, Hinduism does not need media houses of its own, it
simply needs a level playing field. And that is an achievable goal:
the anti-Hindu discriminations in the Constitution, the laws, policies and
media, should go. .
Dr.
Koenraad Elst (Belgium 1959), who deliberately calls himself an "Orientalist",
is the author of many publications on Indian religion and politics. Among them
is the book On Modi Time (Delhi 2015), evaluating how the BJP's
policies measure up to its erstwhile Hindu ideals.
Read more!