Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Ideologies of the Indian RightBy: Swapan Dasgupta (2019)
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History tells us of a time when Indian soft powers ruled beyond their lands. Indian (read Hindu) way of living was the only way to live to the East of the land irrigated by the Sindhu Saraswati river systems. The nearest advanced culture to them was the Persians. Now they had an issue pronouncing 'S'. They did not have 'S' in their spoken language but used 'H' in places occupied by 'S'. Hence, the people living around the Sindhu Valley became known as 'Hindus', and their way of living was Hindu.
The perplexing thing is that from an era when the whole world was imitating their culture whilst the rest of the world was in the dark ages, at the time of its independence, it was a nation quite apologetic to its way of life and its history. What gave?
Perhaps it was the repeated invasions and trans-generational traumas with a tinge of Stockholm Syndrome. Still, the bulk of Indians, during their independence from the British colonial masters, had a very low esteem of themselves. They tended to look at other civilisations as superior and scorn upon their own way of living. Maybe because they had missed the bus of the first and second Industrial Revolution and the mercantile type of economy ruled the world, the socialist-minded Prime Minister and his ruling party thought it was pertinent they should be followers, not leaders of the world. They even refused a UN Security Council seat. Government-sanctioned leftist historians reinforced Western false narratives.
The 1991 Indian general elections must have been a watershed moment in the right-wing movement. Even though they did not win the elections, they sowed their idea of a Ram Rajya (Hindu nation) in the Indian psyche. Their election promises to rebuild the old Ram Mandhir in Ayudhya fascinated the population at large. Just about that time, archaeological excavations revealed that a mosque indeed built atop the site considered the birthplace of the much revered Prince Rama of Ayodhya.
With widespread news of corruption and mismanagement, the 2014 general elections saw the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), headed by the Indian Congress Party, lose to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a coalition headed by BJP. BJP, on its own, secured a majority, surpassing the much-needed 272 seats.
The right-wing Hindu parties have always been in the bad books of the Indians. Ever since Godse, a Hindu nationalist, assassinated MK Gandhi, RSS, the social arm of BJP, and other Hindu parties have been painted with the same brush. The anglophilic apologists and leftist historians have created a centre stage for a dichotomy of anglophile 'intellectual elites' versus homegrown saffron politics.
In the late 1960s, Congress weakened, and a wave of anti-Westernisation swept through the nation. The public was uncomfortable with the outward display of modernity and the intellectual move towards the West. They started reminiscing about the alternative intellectual ecosystem initiated by Hindu nationalist bulwarks like Tilak, Aurobindo, Savarkar and more. The new BJP-RSS combo was not anti-Western and anti-technological development but would use technology to improve administration quality.
After much deliberation, Modi was put forward as the PM material for the 2014 election. His economic success story in Gujarat worked in his favour. The naysayers, including the Western media, were rapacious in putting him as the villain in the 2002 racial riots. The foreign press went on a rant that he was bad news for Indian harmony. His visa to the US, UK and EU was denied as he was deemed too controversial.
Tired of the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic brand of politics with ineffective leaders in the Nehru's descendants, in 2014, NDA with BJP as the majority was voted in to rule the biggest democracy in the world. The going on till the time of writing of the book, at the end of BJP's first term, has been anything but smooth sailing. Quickly, many day-to-day issues can be made out to be big deals, even though the general public is not too bothered by them. The politicians and their desire to create a mountain out of a molehill are the root of the problem. After all, historically, India has a reputation for embracing all cultures, including Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity and more. They had played host to many refugees.
A simple recital of a national independence hymn like Vande Mataram can become a national issue. Muslim leaders refuse to allow their people to chant this old anthem as it is considered not secular. Cow protection on one side and insistence on beef-eating as a birthright without compromise is another thorn in the Hindu-Muslim relationship. Even though the Indian Constitution bans cow slaughtering, occasional skirmishes and lynching continue. This is not a new problem. Even in 1966, Sadhus demonstrated in front of the Parliament to criminalise cow slaughtering unsuccessfully.
It is all right for a country to be ruled by Christian, Islamic or even Jewish ideologies. However, it seems Hinduism is not compatible with modern democracy. So says the rest of the world. The colonial masters even thought it was pertinent to emphasise in the Constitution that India is a secular country. In the mind of the right-wing Hindu politicians, Sanathana Dharma is secular. In the eyes of the world, Hindutva is a bad word, implying combative fundamentalism. In reality, it just denotes Hinduness.
In the understanding of the right-wing Hindu leaders, a Hindu is someone born in India, with the cultures of India, bowing to the nation of India. So, in their understanding, a Muslim or a Christian is a Hindu. It is wrong, say a Muslim to have allegiance with their religion and show reverence to an external force whilst turning his back to Bharat.
The book tries to clear many misconceptions started by the colonial masters and the subsequent Anglophile Congress leaders who just held the helm on their behalf. They try to allay the misinformation that RSS and BJP are anti-intellectuals or are lacking intellectual depth. They try to break the mould of slave mentality among the citizens and rewrite the distorted Indian history penned previously by leftist historians to maintain the hegemony of the colonial masters over their subject.
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