INDIA’S RELIGIOUS POLITICS: TRUTH OR TREACHERY?

PARIVARTAN: IS NARENDRA MODI JUMPING OFF THE RSS TIGER'S BACK?

One lie is a lie, two lies are lies, but three is politics! -Yiddish Proverb

Is India witnessing a history-making parivartan (transformation) of its inscrutable Prime Minister and (mama mia!) his political party? If Shri Narendra Modi truly means business about his recent public commitment to religious freedom, could truth triumph in our troubled land?

Or is it all eyewash leading to business as usual, which will become evident before too long.

Shri Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha campaign was a U.S. presidential style personality campaign, conceived after more than a decade of tough rule in Gujarat. Analysts have compared Modi to Margaret Thatcher — Britain's PM who achieved the near-impossible by changing the mind-set of a socialist, outdated England. Modi’s ballot seemed to represent a demand for a similar modern mind-set to desperate Indian voters.

Such a politician is unlikely to be anybody’s stooge unless an ideology is firmly shared.

I am reminded of Andrew Sullivan, author and former editor of ‘The New Republic’ who asks: “How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?”

If Hindutva has become a religion for Mr. Modi as it is for the Sangh Parivar – India is in big trouble.

Communism as an ideology was a major force for violence for more than 100 years, because violence was built into its ideology, as it appears to be in Hindutva.

Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephen, authors of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict researched the success rate of violent and non-violent resistance movements and found that the non-violent ones succeeded 75% of the time and the violent ones succeeded 25% of the time. Their study refutes the cliche that violence never works, and that non-violence always works – but non-violence seems to have a better success rate.

Does the BJP think that thoda sa hinsa (some violence) with thoda sa ahinsa (some non-violence) will work as they cleverly implement their true political agenda?

Steven Pinker author of The Better Angels of our Nature, observes: “There are a number of things that make particular ideologies dangerous. One of them is the prospect of a utopia: since utopias are infinitely good forever, and can justify any amount of violence to pursue that utopia, the costs are still outweighed by the benefits. Utopias also tend to demonise certain people as obstacles to a perfect world, whoever they are: the ruling classes, the bourgeois, the Jews or the infidels and heretics. As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide.”

Ram Rajya is the name of the Hindutva utopia and the Sangh Parivar has already shown India what their private army is capable of doing to usher in such a rule.

Is our Prime Minister’s turnaround as Chandrahas Choudhry writes in www.oregonlive.com about Modi’s convenient new religious freedom – “For him, this is merely the first of many such cycles of religious provocation and political bad faith that will unfold during his tenure, never to be decisively dealt with, always to be finessed. For him, the words "economy" and "development" will serve both as part of a progressive agenda and as a screen for his shortcomings in other spheres – this when he, once a Hindu nationalist pracharak, knows better than anyone else that man does not live by bread alone.”

Disinclined as I am to cast doubt on what was probably one of the finest moments in Indian politics – a Prime Minister boldly upholding India’s constitutional promise to protect the rights of its minorities to live with dignity and full rights of citizenship, here’s my reluctant hunch.

Shri Modi is faking it – unless he is bravely revolting against the RSS because he is personally transformed in a radical way, and no longer believes in imposing Hindutva to make India a Hindu Rashtra.

If that is not the case, then it’s only a matter of time before the Sangh Parivar subterfuge unravels – Modi could not have made that speech without it being vetted by the RSS high command for strategic reasons.

Is it a continuation of the same carefully employed strategy that saw to it that not once during the Lok Sabha elections did the Prime Minister mention Ayodhya?

Is Narendra Modi going to be India’s salvation or the country’s curse?

I cannot set aside Gujarat 2002, but from what I have researched about Modiji, this is a man with strong spiritual leanings – only one cannot tell if they lean to Satyamev Jayate – India’s bold (though yet to be proven) espousal of the truth or to a perverted belief in the religious supremacy of Hindutva.

A Rediff.com article by Sheela Bhatt asks: 'Is Modi a good actor, or is he really so genuine?' Bhatt did an exclusive interview with Dr Kalindi Randeri, co-author of The Man of the Moment: Narendra Modi, who divulges some never before revealed details of the Prime Minister's early life. “If you visit his village, lots of neighbours will tell you stories about how Narendrabhai was not interested in the material life, I mean Sansar, because he wanted to serve society. Everyday Narendra would do Jaap (chant mantras), meditating for hours. When he was about 13, a sadhu examining his Kundli (horoscope) predicted to Heeraben (Modi's mother) that he would be either like a Chakravarty Maharaj (emperor) or he would be like Shankracharya, an important sadhu.

I referred to radical transformation in my last column – it is fascinating to observe in an individual and I would rejoice if the process of ‘satya’ is at work in Shri Modi.

But I have a question for Prime Minister Modi: How far will you go to rein in the Sangh Parivar? Can you make it clear there is no place for a state religion? That RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s declaration that "all Indians were Hindus," and his organization’s intent to "reconvert" Christians and Muslims to Hinduism is bizarre? That ideas like Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj’s call to make the Bhagavad Gita the national scripture are counter-productive? That the Hindu Right campaign to celebrate January 30, the anniversary of the death of Mahatma Gandhi, as "Heroism Day" in honour of Gandhi's assassin, Nathuram Godse is high treason? Can you demonstrate that you are not beholden to hardliners pushing the Hindutva agenda and you will not tolerate activities like Ghar Vapsi, which will make a mockery of your commitment to religious freedom and pluralism?

Anil Kant's video on Ghar Vapsi (www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiNNg97CVro) should make intelligent Indians understand that conversion or reconversion is not genuine if it is forced. I am convinced when people discover that sin’s grip can be broken, they will not settle for any lofty religion that complicates life and brings no deliverance - they will seize the truth if it finds them.

Mr Modi, is your recent public stand on religious freedom a tamasha of the truth?

Are you pretending to practice truth to be seen as a noble leader by the people or will you genuinely uphold the right of every Indian citizen to be free?

In Delhi, Nellie, Meerut, Bhagalpur, Hashimpura, Kandhamal, Gujarat, Gopalgarh, Muzaffarnagar, etc., thousand of vulnerable Indians have been targeted for their minority status. In each situation the government machinery has been biased, subverting its duty to protect, to prosecute, and to give justice to citizens.

Will this stop once and for all?

One day, soon, can India legitimately claim Satyamev Jayate -Truth Alone Will Triumph?

I dare you to make it happen and get off the RSS tiger’s back – you alone cannot tame the beast, but if the people are with you, what an India, what a Prime Minister, what a legacy that will be!

Frank Raj is the founding editor of the 22 year old magazine, 'The International Indian' and the author of 'Desh Aur Diaspora.'