Earlier, too, the apex court had sought the view of the Odisha government on Dara’s Singh’s early release but the state government had sought 45 days’ time. The deadline is almost over.

The Spine-Chilling Incident

Staines, along with his two minor sons, was burnt alive to death inside a station wagon vehicle on the night of January 22-23, 1999. The horrendous crime had stunned the entire world.

Reporting on the unspeakable act from Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district had somehow remained shrouded by various interpretations as the then media, except two platforms, could not reach the spot on January 22, which is roughly 150 km from the capital, Bhubaneswar.

However, this reporter, then representing a leading national electronics media channel, along with another national channel drove to Manoharpur at the dead of the night negotiating arduous tracks through thick forests.

It was almost past midnight when we reached the village, which was palpably bathed in a perplexing silence. The silence was too disturbing.

As we passed through the row of houses flanking the pathway, we could see men and women sitting on their verandahs, each a picture of shock and mental torment.

On our right hand, we saw what we had heard. The sight was flabbergasting and rendered each of us speechless. The station vehicle was still on fire from below and its deflated tyres were still in smoldering. Fumes were still emanating from inside the vehicle.

Australian missionary Graham Staines with his family. His two minor boys were burnt alive along with him in 1999 in Odisha, by Bajrang Dal activists led by Dara Singh. (File photo.)

A little away from the vehicle, we could catch a glimpse of the charred remains of three bodies, simply indistinguishable and nerve wracking. Two small corpses and one that of an adult.

The police had already reached the site of the crime and were preparing to send the mortal remains in a police van to Bhubaneswar.

Before that, the perpetrators of the heinous crime, led by Dara Singh, the main accused and his accomplices, had fled chanting ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ as if self-cheering the horrendous act.

We gathered from the benumbed villagers that when the vehicle, stuffed with hay stacks, was on fire, the gang led by Singh, armed with weapons, did not allow any villager to come near the burning vehicle.

The villagers saw two little hands faintly visible, desperately banging the windscreens for help. But the screams were lost in the din of ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ chants by the killers.

It was late evening on January 22, 1999, and Staines was reportedly holding some kind of formalities or feast after some conversions to Christianity. As we could gather from the villagers, mostly from the tribal community, Staines had been active in Manoharpur and in a few adjoining pockets for seeking conversions.

That night was different. Little did Staines realise that a plan was being hatched by a gang of about 20 people led by Dara Singh to attack him. The missionary, perhaps, had no inkling of it and had brought along his two sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6).

The seething vengeance of Dara Singh and his accomplices nearly exploded into a massacre. They stuffed haystacks underneath the vehicle in which the three were sleeping and set it on fire. A few men and women of the village told this reporter how a rage of revenge became cataclysmic when three live human beings (including two minors) were burnt to death alive before the entire village. Humanity was literally shamed.

The perpetrators stood on guard till the indescribable end. “We had no courage to dare the armed gang and douse the inferno where three souls were being charred to death”, I recall a senior villager called Suresh Hembram confiding to this reporter.

“We felt guilty that we were made mute onlookers despite the heart wrenching sight when, from a distance, we could faintly make out the movements of the three caught in the blaze inside the burning vehicle, banging the windscreens for help” whispered Sebati Majhi, an old woman of the village in who was in tears and panic-struck by the horrific scene.

Dara Singh alias Ravindra Pal was known to be a Bajrang Dal activist who worked in that area against cow transportation to other states because cow slaughter was banned in Odisha. Singh, as per the government counsel, often resorted to brutal ways to punish cattle-laden truck drivers.

After committing the crime in Manoharpur, Singh went underground for a month before being arrested.

Singh, the main accused in the triple murder, was convicted and sentenced to death by a CBI court in 2003. The Orissa High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in 2005. The decision of the High Court was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011.

Many human right activists expressed their annoyance after the High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment for such an unforgivable crime considered as “rarest of rare”.

He (Dara) promised to “give back to the society” through “service-oriented actions”. He submitted that he had undergone more than the qualified period of sentence of 14 years under the April 19, 2022 remission policy in Odisha.

According to Wikipedia, Dara Singh was a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).  He was also an activist of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).

The police reported that Dara Singh was an active member of the ‘Go Suraksha Samiti’, an initiative financed and implemented by VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

We drove to Balasore 150 km from Bhubaneswar a week after the tragedy to meet Gladys Staines, wife of Graham Staines, who politely received us and was looking completely crest fallen. At times, she appeared numb and would walk inside and come back after washing her face.

The substance of her reaction was “what can I say, and from my side I simply forgive him (the killer)”. The bereaved mother and wife sounded spiritual.

Now that the apex court has sought the view of the Odisha government,  which is “presently under the BJP rule, it seems a bit likely that the person behind of world’s one of most brutal acts in the history of crime, may get a nod for premature release”, Rabi Das, who as a journalist has been working on human rights also, told this reporter.

“Let’s wait. It would be premature at this time to predict the Odisha government’s response to the apex court’s query on the premature release of Dara”, said Aravinda Satpathy, a senior advocate of the High Court of Orissa.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Odisha with over 40 years of experience in the profession.

Courtesy: Newsclick

The post Odisha: Graham Staines’ Brutal Murder; Mystery Hangs Over Dara Singh’s Release appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Representational image. Photo credit: Reuters

The biases and misconceptions about conversions and population growth have been used by communal forces to divide the society. This became apparent once again when Minister of state of Home, Kiren Rijuju tweeted that that Hindu population is decreasing in the country as Hindus don't convert and that minorities in India are flourishing unlike in the neighbouring countries.

Threat of decline in Hindu population and increase in population of minorities is being propagated time and over again. As per the data of 2011 census figures, Hindu population now stands at 79.8 % and Muslim population at 14.23%. “The data on Population by Religious Communities of Census 2011 show that between 2001 and 2011, Hindu population grew by 16.76 per cent, while that of Muslims by 24.6 per cent. The population of both communities grew faster during the previous decade, at 19.92 per cent and 29.52 per cent, respectively. As a long-term trend, say demographers, the communities’ growth rates are converging.” This means that the decadal rates of growth of both communities is declining and converging closer to each other.

This is pointer to the fact that while charting out the future projections it is important to keep in mind that the rate of growth of Muslim population will be falling and will stabilise closer to that of rate of rise Hindu population. In the total population Muslims will remain a religious minority for the times to come. Interestingly, the population increase of Hindus during the period of 2001 to 2011 has been 133 millions, which is close to the total population of Muslims in 2001. The scare being spread through word of mouth campaign and through social media about Muslim population taking over the Hindu population holds no water, as there are clear trends of decline in the decadal rate of growth of Muslim population as well.

The demographers point out that the higher rates of fertility are due to lack of education and poor health facilities. Muslims in Kerala have a lower fertility rate than many Hindu communities in North India and even in Kerala. The economic profile of Kerala Muslims is much different than the Muslims in Assam, West Bengal, UP and Maharashtra for example. If we broaden this point we will see that the rise in population among Dalits (Schedule castes) and Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes) is much higher as such . As per the 2011 census STs are 8.6% while they were 6.23 % according to 1951 census. SCs now are 16.6%, while as per 1951 they were around 15%.

As such the whole truth will show us that the propaganda of communal forces has nothing to do with reality of society and deeper causes of the same. It is in this background that the likes of Praveen Togadia who said that two child norm should be imposed, while the likes of Sakshi Maharaj and Sadhvi Prachi have been extolling the Hindus to produce more children.

BJP president Amit Shah has given the 'Look North East' call to raise the scare about the Christian population in the North East. This primarily tribal area saw an increase in percentage of Christians in the decades of 1931-1951. The rise in percentage of Christian population has a lot to do with the spread of civil administration with Independence and also with the spread of education in the region. Countrywide we can see that the percentage of Christians has been static over the last few decades.

If at all, it has declined and stabilised. If we see from 1971, we see that Christian population was 2.60% (1971), 2.44 (1981), 2.34 (1991), 2.30 (2001) and 2.30 (2011).

In the meanwhile the propaganda of missionary activities and increase in the number of Christians has dominated the scene. Anti-Christian violence came to public attention with the ghastly murder of Graham Stewarts Staines (1999). Dara Singh of Bajrang Dal, which is affiliated to RSS, incited the local people that the pastor is doing conversions which is against Hindus.

Wadhwa Commission which investigated pastor Staines murder concluded that he was not involved in conversions and that in Keonjhar, Manoharpur Orrisa where the pastor was working, there was no increase in the percentage of Christian population.

Similarly Kandhmal anti-Christian violence was unleashed on the pretext of murder of Swami Laxmananand. Gujarat also saw anti-Christian activities again due to propaganda that the missionaries are converting. At the same time we see that the national population of Christians remains static. Some people do allege that conversions to Christianity are there but the converts are hiding their religion, this is again a matter of conjuncture and nothing definite can be said. Any way it cannot be a large number in any case.

As such conversions have been a part of the agenda of Hindu nationalism times and over again. During freedom movement two parallel processes of conversions were going on. One was Tanzeem, which was to convert people to Islam, the other was Shuddhi which was aimed at those who were supposed to have left their 'religion-home' and were converted to alien religions.

The premise was that conversion to other religions has made them impure so they need to be brought back through a process of purification. Last several decades RSS-VHP-Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram have been active in what is called Ghar Wapasi (returning home) to bring back the Dalits and adivasis who it is alleged have been converted through force (to Islam) and allurement or fraud (to Christianity). This Ghar Wapasi campaign has been undertaken through many newly devised rituals like bath in hot spring or rituals around fire. This has been rampant inAdivasi areasand in slums-villages.

Adivasis are animists, while RSS claims they are Hindus. To Hinduise them Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram now runs a growing network of schools and hostels in large numbers in North East. Such assertions and accompanying activities have more to with politics rather than social welfare as such. The attempt of RSS combine is to link religion with nationalism.

(This story was also published on People's Voice).

The post Why the ‘hum paanch, hamare pachees’ canard against Muslims is a myth appeared first on SabrangIndia.

If Laxman tells us that the BJP president determines the policies of the party, he must explain how when Vajpayee was the BJP president and talked of ‘Gandhian socialism’, other leaders of the BJP were openly hobnobbing with Gandhiji’s assassin, Nathuram Godse and the RSS mouthpieces, Panchjanya and Organiser, were singing a different tune.

If Laxman really has a different attitude to India’s minorities, why has he not uttered a single word about Christians who are the main target of the sangh parivar today? As a part of India’s minorities, I would say that if Laxman really wants to take Muslims into confidence, he should first of all win the confidence Christians. To do that convincingly, he will have to openly condemn the Bajrang Dal and the VHP for targeting Christians.

Besides, a BJP MP from Orissa is openly raising money for Dara Singh’s defence. The concerned MP should be immediately expelled from the BJP. And finally, on the Babri Masjid issue, is Laxman prepared to make an unequivocal statement that he will ensure that the BJP respects the court’s verdict.

We do not expect any satisfactory answer from the president of the political wing of the RSS. Therefore, the only conclusion is that Laxman is making these statements merely to hoodwink some Muslims. Basically, all that the BJP is interested in is some ‘bonus’ Muslim votes for its own political benefit.

In my view, just as hostility towards India is the very basis of Pakistan’s existence, the BJP is founded on anti–minority sentiments. How can either be expected to undermine the very foundation of their edifices?

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 7

The post Why hasn’t Laxman uttered a single word about Christians, the current target of the sangh parivar?’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

For Indians who truly  value tolerance, every  passing day sounds a  death knell. The ground  is slipping swiftly; we are  sinking fast into the  quicksand of brazen manipulation. Such outlets for articulating grievances that still exist are severely proscribed by the rapidity of events and happenings. Institutions for the affirmation of inalienable basic rights are limited by an apathy that is compounded by a piece–meal response to events. 

Courts, the police, the legislature and the executive are all crippled. Either because of a self–inflicted tunnel vision that refuses to recognise the calculated plan or pattern behind the systematic build up of the climate of hate in which violence appears ‘legitimate’, or because of calculated indifference, driven by bias. 

We are all witness to the wilful flouting of the rule of law, daily. As it has been happening since the mid–eighties before their formal grip on political power, and more so since 1998, after the BJP’s rise to power, the fundamental freedom of faith and the identity of Indians who are not Hindu has been a constant target. 

Constant intimidation through verbal barrage and frequent acts of violence against a section of Indians — Muslims and Christians — have come to be accepted as facts of life. Vicious utterances, that go unrestrained and unchallenged by the guardians of law, have accorded them a sinister legitimacy. The statements by the leaders of the BJP/RSS/VHP/Bajrang Dal/SS, inciting hatred and violence and acts of violence themselves, are being highlighted by the mainline media every other day. 

As the cumulative outcome of the carefully cultivated climate of coercion, other basic freedoms — right to life and liberty, of personal security of and the right of association — of thousands of Indians stand severely curtailed. Churches are attacked; copies of the Bible desecrated and burnt. A Christian priest is forced to worship inside a temple; adivasis are ‘re–converted’ amidst much fanfare but told to worship in separate shrines thereafter.

Physical attacks and intimidation of minorities have re–surfaced with a vengeance. Incidents in the past three months alone — between April and June 2000 — have crossed the three dozen mark. Christian religious persons running educational institutions or health centres have been singled out for murder or other forms of mistreatment. In every instance, mob rule and intimidation has overpowered the rule of law, with the local police reduced to wilful impotency. 

Every attack has been preceded by systematic distribution of hate spewing pamphlets (see box 2). Since 1996, media reports have drawn repeated attention to such hate campaigns. But all the vitriol has suspiciously escaped police action under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Gujarat, and now Uttar Pradesh, are living examples of life for Indians under ‘Hindu rashtra’.

Senior officials in the police, like the DGP of Gujarat, CP Singh, have stated on record that “organisations like the VHP and Bajrang Dal are clearly behind the violence” (see CC, October 1998). Concrete evidence in specific cases points clearly to the moral and ideological backing that the sangh parivar renders to the assailants. But our watchdogs and institutions fail to make the connection or see the pattern.

Four months ago, the newly appointed RSS Sarsanghchalak, KS Sudarshan, declared that an ‘epic war’ was in progress in India between Hindus and ‘anti–Hindu forces’; in Mumbai, Bal Thackeray’s Saamna is once again spitting venom with a vengeance against ‘anti–national’ Muslims (See page 25). And yet, we resist drawing the links. 

What is responsible for this selective amnesia? How is it possible for us to react to rights’ violations in individual cases but turn a blind eye to the bloody and devious design that underlies them?

One fine day, a Bajrang Dal leader, Dharmendra Sharma, sah-sahayojak for the Braj region, makes front page news declaring that Christians are now “bigger enemies” than Muslims. (The Times of India, June 23, 2000). Clarification, if any were needed, that Muslims remain the Bajrang Dal’s and the VHP’s enemies! “Maar peet to kya, hum sab kuch karne ke liye taiyar hain” (“We are prepared to use violence. There is no limit”), said Sharma, leaving no room for any confusion. 

The remark prompted an expression of outrage from India’s attorney general, Soli Sorabjee. He opined that such elements should be put behind bars. The National Human Rights Commission demanded details of attacks on Christians from the central and state governments. But only weeks earlier, the remark of the all–India Bajrang Dal convenor, Dr. Surendra Jain, calling for “a second Quit India movement” to drive away Christian missionaries had passed unnoticed and unchallenged. (The Afternoon Despatch and Courier, May 27, 2000).

Life in Gujarat for a Muslim or a Christian today is a suffocating reminder that he or she no longer enjoys the precious privilege of being regarded as an equal Indian. Muslims residing in ‘cosmopolitan’ localities in Gujarat are forcibly evicted; Muslim children have to compulsory attend school and even give examinations on Id day. Discrimination and bias has insidiously crept into the marketplace of ideas, avenues of livelihood, educational institutions, the administration, the police, the judiciary. All in all, the quality that we used to proudly describe as Indian values is fast eroding. 

What more will it take to force us to recognise the extent of corrosion? Mumbai’s classrooms, at the university level, reflect this public sanction to brazen bias in their own style. A professor advising students on how to write an essay for the All India Open School examination elaborates: “Write about how the British exploited this country. And how before that the Muslim rulers, thanks to their love of the good life, robbed this great wealthy land of all its wealth. Muslims have always loved the good life and it is this greed that has looted our country that used to be a sone ki chidiya (a golden bird). 

There is a clever and calculated plan behind every campaign launched, sustained and developed by the RSS and its faithful followers. In the eighties, the campaign for a glorious temple in the name of Lord Ram at Ayodhya fired 18,000 villages to participate in the shilanyas in 1990, and over 5,00,000 kar sevaks to be witness and participants in the demolition of a mosque in Ayodhya two years later. Clever double entendre accompanied the campaign for a temple at Lord Ram’s legendary birthplace. The justification in the nation–wide effort was through the demonising of Mughal emperor Babar. Muslims in India today, ‘Babar ki aulad’, were crudely told again and again, that they had trampled on all that is decent Indian, read Hindu.

With the campaign for the construction of a Ram mandir at Ayodhya now in the process of being actively revived, the anti–Muslim underpinnings of the campaign are also re–surfacing in subtle and not–so–subtle forms. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), nudged by an encouraging human resources development ministry under none less than Murli Manohar Joshi, is busy excavating 46 Indian historical sites, including UNESCO–protected World Heritage sites like Fatehpur Sikri. Objective? To establish that Hindu or Jain temples exist below Mughal (read Muslim), monuments.

There is a brazenness that underlines the physical assaults and intimidation whereby the assailants present themselves as victims acting in self–defence. Of late, the Bajrang Dal has publicly started arms training for its cadre in order to prepare them for ‘defending’ Hindus and Hinduism from the demons being resurrected — Muslims and Christians. The daily violators of law and those who condone verbal assaults, physical intimidation and murder are the first to point to Pakistan’s ISI as the real culprit! Union home minister, Advani also concurs, seeing a foreign hand behind the attacks on Christians. The result: the nitty–gritty facts behind those responsible for the assaults and violence in each of the cases, where culprits inspired by or belonging to the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the VHP have been identified, are glossed over and the police just do not act. The guilty not only escape the arm of the law but enjoy government protection every time. 

Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee and his strongman, Union home minister LK Advani, have once more declared that there is “no communal twist to the recent incidents”. The liberal mukhota of the sangh parivar is useful for the saffron bandwagon at ticklish moments like this. 

Vajpayee’s admirers, who simply refuse to believe him capable of legitimising hatred and selective murder, saw his recent bowing before the Pope at the Vatican as a “master stroke”. That the pontiff raised the issue of increasing attacks on Christians at his meeting with the PM and yet again, three days later, is seen as simply a passing hitch in international relations. 

Graham Staines’ murderer, Dara Singh is today a man lionised by the literature emanating from the saffron camp. He proposes to fight the next election. For the moment, the Hindu Jagran Sammukhya, backed by the RSS, is busy distributing thousands of copies of a 16–page booklet Mu Dara Singh Kahuchi (I am Dara Singh speaking) in Manoharpur, Orissa. The booklet focuses on the activities of the Staines’ family and proclaiming that since “Staines was the killer of our culture, so his killing was necessary”. 

The officially–appointed Wadhwa Commission implicated Dara Singh in the triple murder case but despite the evidence of police officers and counsel before the Commission, it exonerated the like BJP, RSS, VHP and BD. An example, yet again, of a resistance to examine the ideological backup that allows a Dara Singh to flourish and grow in popularity.
Vajpayee has been of consistent use to the hate–driven parivar. Eighteen months ago, on New Year’s Day 1999, after visiting the southern district of The Dangs in Gujarat, that had suffered systematic violence against its minuscule resident Christian community (ruining traditional Christmas celebrations), Vajpayee spoke to the national media. Without a single word on the violence and intimidation suffered by Dang Christians, he called for a national debate on conversions! 

Union home minister, LK Advani, used to be the BJP’s most eloquent leader on every issue pertaining to minority–majority relations in the country in the eighties and nineties — before he took an oath swearing allegiance to the secular and democratic tenets of the Indian Constitution. Today, he has mastered the art of keeping a conspicuous silence. He does surface on appropriate occasions only to issue clean character certificates to the Bajrang Dal and the VHP every time their name gets associated with criminal incidents. 

Following the triple murder by burning of Graham Staines and his young sons, Advani was quick to absolve the VHP and Bajrang Dal of any involvement in the crime. He knew these organisations well, he said, adding that they were incapable of criminal acts! It is a well–programmed symphony in operation, being played out by the different organs of the sangh parivar every day. That the Vajpayee–Advani duo is right on top of the political pyramid, ever ready with alibis, helps a great deal. 

That the BJP and its supporters within and outside the sangh parivar rely heavily on Vajpayee’s liberal mask is more than understandable. What is not, however, is the wilful blindness of the secular components of the NDA, leaders such as the TDP’s technocrat, Chandrababu Naidu, the Trinamool Congress’ firebrand, Mamata Banerjee, and the ever–reasonable socialists, George Fernandes and Jaya Jaitly. 

Equally difficult to appreciate is the failure of individuals within other secular political formations to categorically affirm that the basic rights and freedoms of every Indian, regardless of religion, caste, creed or gender is inalienable. (Remember a state minister from the ‘secular’ Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra, personally welcoming criminals allegedly associated with the Bajrang Dal on their release from the Nasik jail. They were charged with the vandalising a girl’s hostel in April. The deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Chhagan Bhujbal, later justified the minister’s behaviour).

Most opinion polls conducted to gauge public opinion indicate that only about a quarter of the Indian population backs the BJP and not all the support is for communal reasons. The rest of India, which naturally includes minorities, Dalits and other Hindus within it, remains opposed to Hindutva’s antics.

The hitch lies, however, in the lack of translation of this opposition into organised protest and outrage. The ignominies of rights abuses and oppression of minorities, women and Dalits notwithstanding, there is an innate reluctance to accept, acknowledge and rise in unison against these horrors. One of the reasons is our refusal to abandon the prevalent myth of Indian civilisation as the most ancient, the most non-violent, and the mSost tolerant in the world.

Only the creative explosion of that myth will help rid us of our false cocoon of comfort and galvanise us into articulation of outrage that is long overdue.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2000, Year 7  No. 60, Cover Story

The post Blinding Reality appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It was an embarrassing moment for many secularists in India watching Bihar’s Laloo Prasad Yadav’s response on Star TV, prime time, as election results from his state pronounced the near rout of his party in Bihar. “Mr Yadav, do you think this is due to the voters’ disenchantment with the government for lack of any development in the state”. “No”, replied Yadav bravely, “the issue in the election was secularism, not development”.

 Can secularism ever be a one–point agenda unrelated to other concerns of people?  
In the midst of the election campaign in August, a Muslim petty trader, Rehman, was burnt alive at a village market in Orissa. One of the eyewitnesses told the police that Dara Singh — the man charged with the torching alive of Graham Staines and his two sons, in the same state earlier this year — was the man responsible for the latest incident. A week later, a Christian priest, Fr. Arul Doss, too, was done to death in the same state. 

The Bajrang Dal, the RSS and the BJP were quick to condemn such brutal killing of minorities in Congress–ruled Orissa. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad even issued a press statement, maintaining that whoever was responsible behind such killings “could not be a Hindu”. But, ironically, the Congress party — the party that swears by secularism, the only party capable of challenging Hindutva on a national plane, the party that depends crucially on minority votes — maintained a deathly silence. 

Is secularism a mere mantra  — to be enshrined in the party manifesto and chanted reverentially on convenient occasions — which has nothing to do with issues like the security of life and property of all citizens, irrespective of their faith? 

Was secularism an issue at all in the Lok Sabha polls of 1999? To begin with, what does one mean by secularism — not in the academic sense but in terms of how it relates to the lived experience of people?
In the 1991 polls, with the Shiv Sena as its only ally, the BJP secured 120 Lok Sabha seats. With three more allies on its side in 1996, the Akali Dal in Punjab, the George Fernandes–led Samta party in Bihar and the Haryana Vikas Parishad (HVP) in Haryana, the BJP’s tally climbed up to 161. Having emerged as the single largest party, the BJP was invited to form the government and given two weeks to prove its majority in the Lok Sabha. 

But it was still a different India three years ago where the BJP was a political untouchable for most politicians. In the 13 days that his government lasted, Atal Behari Vajpayee and the rest of the saffron stalwarts were unable to win over even a single MP to their side. Leave alone party politicians, even those who had fought and won as independents were unwilling to shake hands with the party whose manifesto contained ‘contentious issues’ — 

Ø Building of a Ram Mandir where the Babri Masjid once stood in Ayodhya; 

ØRemoval of article 370 from the Indian Constitution which grants a special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir;

Ø Introducing a Uniform Civil Code (to replace the different existing personal laws for different religious communities).

Until the BJP’s electoral drubbing in the Assembly elections in UP and elsewhere in late 1993, then BJP president, L.K. Advani, used to revel in the ‘majestic isolation’ of his party. But the acute isolation of 1996 confronted the BJP and its sangh parivar with a difficult choice: retain ‘ideological purity’, remain a political untouchable and make a solo bid to power by hard–selling Hindutva. Alternatively, adopt tactical flexibility and put ‘contentious issues’ on the backburner so as to break out of political isolation.

Since the prospects of coming to power on the strength of its own divisive agenda seemed remote, at least in the current scenario, the BJP and its parivar deviously chose the latter. And reaped rich dividends in the elections of 1998 and 1999. 

The BJP entered the electoral arena for the Lok Sabha polls in February 1998 with 18 allies. Thanks to the alliances, the party improved on its own tally of seats — from 161 in 1996 to 182 in 1998 — and, more importantly, headed a coalition government. But the wafer–thin majority of the BJP–led coalition made Vajpayee hostage to some of his mercurial allies — Jayalalitha being the most obvious. 

On the eve of the 1999 polls, the BJP made yet another quantum leap. In June this year, the Janata Dal, which formed the core of the ‘Third Front’ (the Congress and the BJP being the first two), disintegrated with virtually the entire bulk of the party choosing to ally with the BJP. Leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav, who for years had shouted themselves hoarse at the communalism of the BJP, suddenly had no qualms rallying behind the saffron bandwagon. 

The acceptance of the BJP by virtually the entire political spectrum today is as comprehensive as its political isolation was stark in 1996. If it was Jayalalitha’s AIADMK which teamed up with the BJP in 1998, this time it’s the DMK in Tamil Nadu. If Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference decided to extend support from the outside to the Vajpayee–led government in 1998, this time it fought elections as part of the NDA and is now a part of the government at the Centre. The Telugu Desam Party’s Chandrababu Naidu fought against the BJP in the 1998 polls, agreeing to extend support to the Vajpayee government from the outside only subsequently. This time, the TDP and the BJP jointly fought the Congress in Andhra.

The BJP, which led an 18 party alliance in 1998, now counts on 24 allies. In theory, it now has to lean on many more parties to stay in power. But in practice it also means there are over 300 MPs behind Vajpayee in the Lok Sabha against the precarious figure of 273 in a House of 544. 

What does this augur for secular politics in India?  
Even for some secularists, the present political arrangement is not such a bad thing after all. With only 182 seats of its own — exactly the same number that it had in the last Lok Sabha – the BJP depends crucially on people like Chandrababu Naidu, M. Karunanidhi, Mamata Bannerji, Ramvilas Paswan, Ramkrishna Hegde and others. None of them can afford to ignore minorities’ votes in their respective regions and constituencies. The continued dependence of the BJP on these leaders and parties for their continued hold on power also means, according to these secularists, that issues like Ayodhya, article 370 and the Uniform Civil Code continue to be kept in abeyance. Such a grand alliance also means strengthening the ‘moderates’ and the ‘liberals’ and weakening the hold of the hawks within the sangh parivar. 

If Ayodhya, article 370 and the Uniform Civil Code was all that Indian secularism was about, there may have been some merit in such wishful thinking. But the ‘evil genius’ of the sangh parivar lies precisely in its ability to have, for all practical purposes, reduced the issue of India’s secularism to the BJP’s postponed agenda. 
Be it the reporters who raised questions at BJP’s press conferences during the electoral campaign, or TV anchors and even unsympathetic expert commentators who quizzed BJP leaders before and after the election results, or political parties who in their electoral campaign charged the BJP with playing communal politics. Hardly anyone went beyond asking the BJP to state for how long the issues of Ayodhya, article 370 and the Uniform Civil Code would remain postponed. 

Responding to these queries was, at the worst, a little awkward. Being past–masters in the art of double–speak, different leaders of the BJP and different segments of the sangh parivar said different things at the same time; or the same leader said different things at different points of the electoral campaign. The net result of this was Advantage BJP – the statement of one general secretary, Venkaiah Naidu, convinced the ‘liberals’ and the fence sitters that the BJP is turning ‘moderate’; the statements of another party general secretary, K. Govindacharya, reassured the core supporters of Hindutva that the party remains committed as ever to the Hindu Rashtra ideology.  

Neither the avowedly secular political opponents of the BJP, nor the print and electronic media thought it necessary to educate the voter how in the brief tenure of the BJP at the Centre and in states like U.P. and Gujarat —
Ø Life has come to mean endless anxiety, at best, for Christians and Muslims in Gujarat for nearly two years. After several independent fact–finding teams sent by civil liberties organisations and the National Minorities Commission had established numerous instances of attacks on minorities in Gujarat, Prime Minister Vajpayee, the most ‘liberal face’ of the BJP, visited the state only to return with a call for a “national debate on conversions”.  

Ø There is a sustained effort to infiltrate, capture and pack educational and cultural institutions with men and women known primarily for their commitment to RSS ideology. One such RSS leader, who is now going to decide what children should be taught in schools, proudly asserted in his autobiography how he killed a Muslim woman in 1947 because too many Hindus wanted to enslave her for their own lust! (See Pg. 22). 

Ø For the sangh parivar, Kargil became a convenient pretext to communalise the Indian armed forces.

Ø Attacks on minorities have continued before, during and after the present polls in Gujarat, Orissa and Kanyakumari by votaries of Hindu majoritarianism.

Ø It is not for nothing that both in the previous government and yet again, the home ministry (crime and punishment), the human resources development ministry (education and culture) and the information and broadcasting ministry (mass communications) were retained by the BJP at the insistence of the RSS. 
There can be no doubt that through Vajpayee’s earlier tenure as Prime Minister, and now, the saffron project continues to be advanced through other means, even while ‘contentious issues’ have been put on the back–burner — postponed agenda. Avowedly secular parties, political pundits and the print and electronic media have no perspective of building mass campaigns to raise public awareness on these very concrete issues that directly concern people. They could also be used to mount pressure on many of the BJP’s allies who still claim to have nothing in common with saffron politics. Otherwise, secularism will be progressively reduced to a mere chant, while the sangh parivar increases its stranglehold over society, and state. In preparation for the future Hindu Rashtra..

Archived from Communalism Combat, November 1999, Year 7  No. 53, Polls 99 1

The post Secularism: a mere mantra? appeared first on SabrangIndia.