Modi leads the big pushback against efforts to divide Hindu society

THE COMMON REFRAIN BY SUNSET ON JUNE 4, 2024 was that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had come close to losing power due to its own miscalculations. That was, of course, far from the real reason why the party that had governed India for a decade had come close to grief. Months later, when the political dust had settled and when Prime Minister Narendra Modi began talking about “Ek hain to safe hai (safety in unity)”, that it became apparent how mobilisation of Muslims had been weaponised and how close divisive tactics had come to unleashing mass ferment in India.

There are two stark examples in this context that illustrate the shocking precision with which such tactics were used to de­feat BJP at the hustings: One is the Malegaon model, and the second is the Mumbai North Central project that defeated Ujjwal Nikam. The minority-dominated Malegaon Central As­sembly segment played a crucial role in ousting BJP’s two-time MP Subhash Bhamre and ensuring the victory of the Congress candidate Shobha Bachhav in the Dhule Lok Sabha constitu­ency, which comprises Dhule (rural), Dhule (City) Shindkheda, Malegaon (Outer), Malegaon Central, and Baglan.

Bachhav had the allegiance of 1,98,869 voters in Malegaon Central, the highest in any Assembly segment among all the candidates. Bhamre had a vote base of only 4,542 here, in com­parison, the least for either candidate, cutting across the six constituencies. In all the other five Assembly seats, Bhamre commanded a significantly larger voter support, with 1,39,721 in Dhule Rural, 1,11,849 in Shindkheda, 1,27,454 in Malegaon Outer, 1,00,166 in Baglan, 93,262 for Dhule City. Despite this, the consolidation of Muslim votes across six Assembly seats, specifi­cally in Malegaon Central, eroded his lead and ensured victory for the Congress candidate. The winning margin: a princely 3,800 votes. In the Malegaon Central Assembly segment alone, Bachhav chalked up over 1.9 lakh votes and that catapulted her to victory in the Dhule Lok Sabha constituency.

The defeat of the BJP candidate in the Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha seat, though, was more brutal and punishing. Mum­bai, one imagines, would be indebted to the party candidate Ujjwal Nikam—the man responsible for successfully pros­ecuting jihadi terrorist Ajmal Kasab who, along with his gang of 10 Pakistani terrorists, had unleashed a lethal attack on the Maximum City in November 2008. At that time, there were disclosures that some Mumbai residents had helped the ter­rorists in the horrific exercise. During the Lok Sabha by-polls, Muslim voters, who account for 25 per cent of the electorate in the Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha seat, resorted to vote consolidation to back the Congress nominee Varsha Gaikwad, thus ensuring for her a stunning margin of 16,514 votes against Nikam. Gaikwad, backed by Shiv Sena (UBT) and reinforced by the solid support of minority voters across the seat, became the only Congress candidate to win in the entire Mumbai Metropoli­tan Region. Though the names of both candidates were declared late (BJP replaced the sitting MP Poonam Mahajan), Nikam had taken a big lead over Gaikwad initially.

The lessons learnt from Lok Sabha poll losses in Maharashtra and the telling setbacks in Dhule and Mumbai North Central made it essential for BJP to counter-consolidate the votes of OBCs and Dalits and unite Hindus electorally behind the Mahayuti alliance. This led to its heavyweight campaigners borrowing the sentiment from Yogi Adityanath’s now popular slogan ‘Batenge Toh Katenge’

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MORE THAN THE defeat itself, what shocked BJP though were subsequent statements from hardline ele­ments in the Muslim community on how they ensured the defeat of Nikam for his act of representing the state as the special public prosecutor in cases against terrorists who had held Mumbai in a vice-like grip for four nightmarish days. The poll results spelt the resounding return of the Muslim veto in elections and the revival of the politics of minorityism.

On October 1, almost four months after the results of parlia­mentary elections had been declared, with dates for the upcoming Assembly elections yet to be announced, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis proclaimed in Kolhapur: “Vote Jihad was the sole reason why the Maha Vikas Aghadi [MVA] won in 14 out of 48 Lok Sabha constituencies. The consolidation of Muslim votes was why the Mahayuti was dealt heavy losses in the Lok Sabha elections.” In all, MVA, despite the splits in both Shiv Sena and NCP, raked in an impressive 31 Lok Sabha seats compared with only 17 for BJP and its allies.

Fadnavis’ comments were instantly criticised as an effort to spur Hindu consolidation behind the Mahayuti. It was also ar­gued that the BJP leaders were singling out Muslims although Dalits, Adivasis and Marathas had also consolidated behind MVA in many constituencies. The consolidation of the Muslim community to ensure the defeat of NDA and the victory of its rivals, though, was not judged by the same yardstick or held up to any critical scrutiny by those opposing BJP. Exposing their hypocrisy patently is the fact that it was hailed, even if only co­vertly, as an example of strong secular values ingrained in the voters and as enshrined in the Constitution.

The statement by Fadnavis turned the strobe lights firmly on the dubious act of Muslim vote-bank consolidation to defeat BJP and its allies in a strategically calculated manner. This has become all the more crucial in Maharashtra’s Assembly elections and also to map how the dynamics of the Muslim vote bank plays out in the state. Of the 288 Assembly constituencies in the state, Muslim voters comprise anywhere between 10-40 per cent of the total voters in 30 seats, making an honest dissection of this kind of mobilisation imperative.

Fadnavis’ statement that vote jihad was the sole reason why the Maha Vikas Aghadi won in 14 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra turned the strobe lights firmly on the dubious act of Muslim vote bank consolidation to defeat BJP and its allies in a strategically calculated manner

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The lessons learnt from Lok Sabha poll losses in Maharashtra and the telling setbacks in Dhule and Mumbai North Central made it essential for BJP to counter-consolidate the votes of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Dalits and unite Hindus electorally behind the Mahayuti alliance. This led to its heavyweight cam­paigners borrowing the sentiment from Uttar Pradesh Chief Min­ister Yogi Adityanath’s now popular slogan “Batenge toh Katenge (Divided, you will perish)”, a slogan first coined in August in the context of minority Hindus being attacked in neighbouring Ban­gladesh after the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as the clarion call in the western state after Deepavali. On October 5 (the day Haryana voted in Assembly elections), addressing a rally in Thane, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised, “Agar hum batenge toh bantne wale mehfil sajayenge” (If we remain divided, those who plot to divide us will rejoice at our downfall). On the same day, in Rajasthan, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called for Hin­du unity and consolidation in the wake of heightened concerns that unless a counter-strategy was urgently devised to stem elec­toral setbacks, challenging MVA could become tough.

As the sentiment gathered momentum among voters in the run-up to Maharashtra Assembly elections, posters replicat­ing the “Batenge toh Katenge” slogan appeared in many parts of Mumbai. Towards the end of October, RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale endorsed the sentiment at Mathura, hold­ing that a Hindu society divided on caste, language and regional lines would be decimated both at the social and electoral levels. The implication was that there were forces bent on dividing Hin­dus and exploiting these fault lines in order to weaken them. Adityanath’s message of Hindu unity, amplified by Prime Minister Modi at Thane, resonated with voters in Haryana in the first week of October, contributing to BJP’s unprecedented return to power for a third term, defying all odds. Muslim con­solidation in constituencies like Nuh, rocked by communal vio­lence that had spread to neighbouring Gurugram, saw Hindu counter-polarisation in favour of BJP. In the final tally, BJP won 48 Legislative Assembly seats against the Congress’ 37. This was despite a vote percentage gap of less than one percentage point between the two, a clear indication that the message urging an undivided Hindu vote to checkmate Congress had worked, radi­cally changing the tailwinds for BJP. Rahul Gandhi and Congress had pitched heavily for a caste census in Haryana, both during the Lok Sabha and the Assembly election campaigns, in a bid to decisively woo OBCs and Dalits. This was aimed at trouncing BJP in seats like Ateli and Mahendragarh, part of Haryana’s Yadav-dominated belt that encompasses 11 Assembly seats. The average vote share of BJP in these seats was 41.79 per cent as compared to the Congress’ 16.96 per cent. BJP won both seats convincingly on October 8.

But what sharply honed and ratcheted up the Hindu consoli­dation pitch for the Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, going to polls on November 20, is Narendra Modi’s precision strike aimed at the sentiment of the average Hindu voter. On November 8, while addressing a mammoth rally in Dhule—part of the very same Lok Sabha seat where massive consolidation of Muslims in just one Assembly constituency of Malegaon decisively erased the close to 2 lakh margin of the BJP candidate—Modi told his audi­ence in his inimitable style “Ek hain, toh safe hain (Stay united and you will stay safe)”. In his stump speech, he repeated “Ek hain…” even as an energised and bullish crowd roared as one “toh safe hain” for him before he could finish the slogan.

THIS WAS MODI’S hardest-hitting response to the thesis of the so-called liberal academia and its backers in the po­litical arena that India has remained a stable democracy mainly on account of it being a “coalition of its diverse castes and communities.” In the name of respecting diversity, a whole school of thought had emerged that placed a premium on cel­ebrating the fissures and fault lines within Indian—primarily Hindu—society. It is one thing to argue that underprivileged and downtrodden individuals and communities be given justice but something entirely sinister to claim that India can remain democratic only if it remains divided. There is no consideration of the consequences of such divisions, especially in provinces that are difficult to govern and where social order can crumble if such divisions are pushed beyond a point. At one time, fis­siparous tendencies and violent separatism were restricted to provinces in India’s physical periphery. The theory of ‘democ­racy by division’ will bring disorder to one’s doorstep in settled provinces like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Perhaps, that was the goal all along. The mountain of literature dug up by the adherents of this school of thought on ‘Why and How Democracies Survive’ claimed that “cross-cutting cleavages” have helped India remain a democracy and did not plunge it into chaos like other countries that gained freedom around the same time in the wake of decolonisation after World War II.

James Madison argued the nature of factions would be a mechanism for political stability because no group can align all members along a single cleavage. In effect, the people who frowned upon the effort to cleave societies were now gloating over what they called a trait that ensured fissures and divisions among Hindus

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Cross-cutting cleavages are perhaps the most heavily referenced in political philoso­phy. James Madison’s commentary on the concept in his essay ‘Federalist No 10’ con­tributed substantially to the development of the idea of cross-cutting cleavages. Madison argued the fractious nature of factions would be a mechanism for political stability because no group can align all members along a sin­gle cleavage; they would instead be forced to build a broad base of support by seeking the approval of many different factions.

In effect, the very same people who frowned upon any real or alleged effort to cleave societies and communities were now gloating over what they called a trait in Indian society that ensured fissures and divisions among Hindus. If it were not divided along the fault lines of caste, language and region, the proposition was that Hindu society would have been a monolith because of its sheer nu­merical weight. According to the proponents of this theory, that would have undermined India’s political stability. Stripped of the aca­demic gobbledygook, the thesis amounts to heralding, inciting and perpetuating divi­sions among Hindus to ensure that the mono­lith of their nightmare does not arise.

Sample this deceptively facile, even specious, argument: a University of Pennsylvania study by Caroline Cohn asserts “… not the least significant in terms of national political stability is the tremendous amount of diversity that has been and remains present within [India]…” Listed are the race, linguistic, religious community and geographical diversities. Also, prominently, the divisions on caste, class, language, regional, cultural and other diversities within the majority Hindu community itself. “India has had success in achieving political stability due to its diversity existing as “crosscutting cleavages”, a characteristic of society that is associated with political stability. A society with cross-cutting cleavages is a society in which political, ideological, ethnic, racial, religious, socio-economic, or linguistic divisions cut across one another “such that individuals on opposite sides of one divisive issue are often allies on another issue”. And India, “with [its] mul­tiple cleavages of religion, caste, tribe, region, and language slic­ing across each other,” is indeed commonly considered to be “an outstanding example” of such a society.

While the liberal academia’s literature is of recent vintage, attempts to introduce divisions and aggravate those that ex­isted predate this. Author Sandeep Balakrishna maintains that Bishop Robert Caldwell (who landed in Madras in 1837 before establishing himself in Tirunelveli as a missionary) floated a groundless theory of linguistic differences, as well as an equal­ly spurious racial theory to support his linguistic theory. The Christian missionary apparatus almost immediately lapped up Caldwell’s formulations to their advantage. A whole new history was created. Hot-air balloons like “the Shaiva Sid­dhanta was not a part of Sanatana Dharma but had its roots in Christianity” were floated. Srimad Ramayana was turned on his head with Ravana as its hero. In his book The Tinnevelly Shanars, Caldwell wrote that Vedic Hinduism had been imposed on the indigenous culture of the Dravidians by Brahmins, who were of Indo-European roots and radically overturned the social con­figuration of the South, while ensuring their own position at the top of the social pyramid. By claiming that Dravidians were of a different race and had their own linguistic and cultural moor­ings distinct from the Brahminical identity, he was essentially building a smooth four-lane highway of apparent rationale for the conversion of the Shanars (Nadars) to Christianity, throwing off the yoke of so-called Brahmin oppression. Prior to Caldwell’s ar­rival, German missionaries had been spreading Christianity in the region in a sort of top-down way but he is credited with improving mani­fold on the zeal by learning the local language, customs and rituals and effecting transformation on these from within.

By claiming that the Dravidians were of a different race distinct from the Brahminical identity, Bishop Robert Caldwell was essentially building a highway of rationale for the conversion of the Shanars to Christianity

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History records increasing social tensions and strife in the region at that time between upper-caste Hin­dus, especially Brahmins, and the missionary zealots and neo-converts in society, with entire villages con­verting to Christianity. The bitter iro­ny is, a century after Caldwell’s land­ing in Tirunelveli, his views fuelled the Dravidian, anti-Brahmanical movement in the South. Tirunelveli district is today home to a large Chris­tian population.

The cross-cutting cleavage thesis was carried forward from the 1970s with vigour by arguing that a coali­tion of OBCs, Dalits, tribals and mi­norities could counter upper-caste forces. That could have been viewed as a very majoritarian argument if it were not pitched by the very people who enjoyed privilege and respect­ability at the top of the social hierar­chy. In a warped sense, this fact ap­parently lent the argument further credence for, indeed, how could the socially privileged posit an argument and strategy for their dethroning unless they truth­fully endorsed social justice? The flawed argument ensured, significantly, that it did not attack caste hierarchy in Islam clearly because one of the main objectives of this project was to allow Muslims to continue to enjoy, if not fully but substan­tially, the clout that they had in British India. The bankruptcy of the standards set by the liberals were exposed as they did not extend the scrutiny they trained on dissonance in the Hindu society to Muslims (ignoring the reality of the Pasmandas suf­fering under upper-caste Muslims) or even Christians, among whom Dalits suffer societally. It is the Hindu society alone that is their bugbear.

This led to Modi later posing a very pertinent question ad­dressing the elephant in the room: why are those obsessed with castes among Hindus living in denial of the hegemonic control wielded by upper castes in Islam? The term Pasmanda Muslims refers to the most oppressed and most marginalised in the commu­nity, belonging mainly to the socio-economically very backward Dalit, and tribal communities. They are estimated to make up around 85-90 per cent of the total Muslim popula­tion in India, and yet few self-styled liberal or progressive political voices have given them adequate represen­tation or addressed their specific concerns, exposing their hypocrisy.

A macabre theatre of identity politics is being played out in In­dian society by the so-called pro­gressives, not just among OBCs and Dalits but also among the Adivasis. In Jharkhand (the first phase of polls there was conclud­ed on November 13), where the JMM-Congress is fighting a des­perate battle to keep its hold on power in Ranchi, Chief Minister Hemant Soren is framing his poll pitch to Adivasi voters, particularly Santhals, Ho, Munda, Oraon and Kharia, within the construct of the Sarna code in order to differentiate them from Hindus. The same script of motivated division of society was played out earlier in Punjab when Sikhs were asked to decouple them­selves from Hindus in defiance of the practice enshrined and sancti­fied by the great gurus, thanks to which every Hindu family tradi­tionally sent one of its children to join the Khalsa Panth. Jharkhand, with 81 Assembly seats, is a state where there has only been one non-tribal chief minis­ter so far. In a bid to counter JMM’s divisive rhetoric forcibly cleaving off Adivasis from the umbrella of Hindu society, a re­surgent BJP has focused instead on the tribal versus non-tribal and the tribal versus illegal immigrant discourse, positing both ‘love Jihad’ and ‘land Jihad’ by the latter as central to tribal concerns. In the mining town of Chaibasa in West Singhbhum district, Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained that im­migrants into Jharkhand would steal their “roti, beti aur maati” if tribal voters did not rally behind BJP. All eyes are on the 28 Scheduled Tribe-reserved Assembly seats in Jharkhand.

Bangladesh has a long history of persecution of Hindus, pushing the population of the minority community down to just 8 per cent today from 24 per cent earlier. Despite all the romanticisation of the 1971 war as one fought over Bengali identity and language, the fact is that the cost of the war and Pakistani barbarity was overwhelmingly borne by the Hindus

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THAT THE SELF-STYLEd liberals and progressives practiced duplicity was always known. But what has turned the spot­light on it again are the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Narendra Modi, despite being repeatedly caricatured by this ca­bal as a Hindu majoritarian supremacist, made it a point for his government to not discriminate against communities or caste groups while delivering on welfare schemes, some of which were novel and others that stood out because of sheer scale such as the continued distribution of free foodgrains for a staggering 80 crore beneficiaries. But if anyone thought this would encourage some among Muslims to look more favourably upon Modi, this was belied in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

There is reason to believe that external issues such as the ghastly attacks on Hindus next door in Bangladesh may have swayed the decision of voters in states such as Haryana, in the aftermath of Yogi Adityanath’s “Batenge toh Katenge” slogan. The country has a long history of persecution of Hindus, push­ing the population of the minority community down to just 8 per cent today from 24 per cent earlier. Despite all the roman­ticisation of the 1971 war as one fought over Bengali identity and language, the fact is that the cost of the war and Pakistani barbarity was overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, borne by the Hindus even though they were far fewer in numbers compared to their Muslim counterparts. In Maharashtra’s Washi village, Yogi Adityanath expanded on his earlier brazenly candid slogan with “Ek hain toh nek hain”—in effect, that Hindus could become sitting ducks for their arch-enemies if they did not unite and defend their own community.

These developments have more than confirmed that a potent new ideological battle is being fought over the frontiers of Hindu solidarity. With ordinary people at the vanguard. How it plays out in Jharkhand and Maharashtra is still to be seen, but more ordinary Hindus than ever before are going to sit in judgement on the thesis dished out thus far by liberal academia and their backers. Their haranguing decrees to the community such as “give up caste denialism”, “admit it, it’s real” will no longer go un­challenged. But this time, it will not be done by top-down precepts and be dominated by lit peers of other persuasion. This time, the ordinary Hindu will write the script.

About The Author

PR Ramesh