Over 72 days of his campaign, Narendra Modi mentioned Mandir-Masjid and bigotry lashed issues 421 times and Pakistan, Muslim and minority came from his mouth 224 times. This is Brahmanic Hindutva’s strategy to capture political power through its well learnt divisive political approach. But this approach is not always straightforward. Historically, Brahmanism has been able to rule over the society through both coercion and assimilation methods. These two methods were openly visible in the 18th Lok Sabha election, where BJP at one time used communal clashes tactics by weaponizing the emotions of the Hindus against the Muslims using its state power, and on the other hand, it projected itself as the true secular party and well-wishers of the minority religions, when things were going against it.
Right from its birth from Jan Sangh, BJP has always played these tactics with both arms. During the Ram Janmabhoomi disputes, BJP stated that Hindus cannot be communal. Under the cover of the debate between pseudo-secularism and real secularism, the ruling classes laid red carpet for the entry of monopoly capital’s new economic policies. The use of religion to centralize and divide the votes, is the technique used by the ruling classes in the semi-feudal society frequently and with the advent of ‘neoliberal’ phase of capitalist-imperialist identity based politics has escalated to counter the revolutionary movements across the world. In this election, RSS-BJP pinned its hope on Ram Temple, CAA-NRC, abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A, “bulldozer justice”, triple talaq, and many other communal policies.
Among them, the propaganda of the construction of Ram temple by the Modi government was profusely utilised with the help of its juggernaut propaganda machinery. Whether in the real world or in the virtual world of social media, the fascist forces kept abusing the minority, progressive, democratic sections, along with the opposition parties, in the name of Ram temple. During the consecration of Ram temple, Modi sidelined the Ved gurus (Jagat guru Shankaracharyas) of the Hindu religion and kept himself as the main guru or priest. Messages and statements on social media started to flow from the BJP leaders that Modi is not a human being but an incarnation of Hindu god Vishnu on Earth. Hoardings of Ram and Modi were on every corner of streets of India. Modi himself stated during the election rallies, that Ram was brought back in Ayodhya after centuries of slavery.
This kind of Hindu nationalist stridency was not seen since 1990s. This rise is attributed to the ongoing general crisis of imperialism. It is clearly evident that imperialism needs fascists and far-right communal and racist parties to loot the natural resources, markets and labor-power of the people to come out from the crisis. The slogan of ab ki baar 400 paar (this time, cross 400) by the RSS-BJP was formulated to replace the constitution, which formally declares in its preamble India to be a secular, democratic and socialist country. But in fact, all are contradictory ideologies and does not suit Indian constitution. Indian constitution promised “Sarva Mata Sama Bhavana” (All religions are equal) and government does not represent any one religion. This has never seen in its Amrutkaal. The constitution promises the right to have assets and it has written Socialism in its preamble. These are all nothing but to fool the Aam Aadmi (common man) in the prevailing socio-political situation of the world.
Brahmanic Hindutva forces have always resented these terms, calling it as a congress’ imposition. During the freedom movement, the freedom fighters and the oppressed classes and sections aspired the country to be a democratic, secular and socialist country but the ruling classes perceived these terms as antagonistic to their class interests and kept them limited to the pages of the constitution. Even the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru was called as “Socialist Nehru” with a red rose flower in his tie. All his economic policies were in direct opposite to Socialism. As a fascist Party, BJP has to implement its mother organ RSS’ agenda to transform the country into an age old reactionary-fascist Hindu-Rashtra (Nation), and it perceives the formal presence of these terms as blockade to its ideology of Hindu-Rashtra. But as the days proceeded with lot of venomous speeches hurled by the messenger of God, Narendra Modi very well grasped the pulse of people, who already expressed their rage against RSS-BJP’s agenda by voting in huge numbers against it in the earlier phases. To save his skin, Modi turned his tongue, in a damage control manner, he started preaching that no one can change the Indian Constitution, even Babasaheb Ambedkar takes birth once again on the earth. Such unbound “love” for the Constitution and Babasaheb Ambedkar by the RSS-BJP was neither seen nor heard in history.
The mandate that came out on June 4, was a big blow on the face of RSS-BJP’s politics of Brahmanic Hindutva. It was a major disapproval of Hindu-Rashtra and communal politics of the duo. It has been pulverized in Uttar Pradesh, the laboratory of Brahmanic Hindutva politics outside Gujarat. The BJP lost Faizabad (Yogi government changed its name into Ayodhya), the Parliamentary seat that houses Ram temple. The seat of Faizabad was won by a Dalit candidate from Samajwadi Party (SP). ‘God’ Ram did not even permit him to worship his caste people in the temple, but now voters ‘worshiped’ him with their votes. Apart from Ayodhya, BJP also lost Muzaffarnagar, another epicenter of Brahmanic Hindutva fascist politics. In Manipur, the RSS-BJP was completely decimated. Religion was never a big issue that dominated either in the election discourse or any other critical juncture from the people’s perspective. It was always on the mouth of the BJP and its lap dog, the corporate media. Through this mandate, the people of India send a message that for them religion is a private matter and the use of religion in politics will be vehemently opposed if time comes. In the name of building of Ram mandir, the BJP forcefully acquired lands from the small and medium farmers, destroyed thousands of homes and small shops. The people of India in general and of Ayodhya in particular, realized that the temple politics of BJP is its modus operandi to divert from the masses from its pro-imperialist and pro-corporate policies to numb their minds with religion to cover the unbearable results of that policies. People across the religion and castes, voted against the BJP and Modi in large numbers. This led to the loss of vote share of the BJP from the earlier Lok Sabha election. One interesting thing is that the Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims together opposed the Hindutva. In Brahmanical Hindutva Chaturvarna system these toiling communities which cover not less than half of the Indian population are not part of it.
Conclusion
What this says for the revolutionary politics? The people are seriously looking for alternative party and alternative development model which the parliamentary parties could not provide it. They are tired from the dominating Hindutva politics of BJP-RSS and the opportunistic politics of Congress and several other regional parties including left. In the past 75 years, the people of India have witnessed many elections, heard numerous false promises, from remove poverty (garibi hato) to corruption-free India, even in these elections. Indian Defence Minister one of the bitter Brahmanic Hindutva element Rajnath Singh promised to root away poverty in next 15 years. The Indian people have seen leaders putting either caste or religion in the forefront, rather than the efforts to annihilate it to bring social harmony and brotherhood between the people. Now they are expressing their intent for radical changes in society. The real, radical cure for the Brahmanic Hindutva fascism, would be its abolition. For the revolutionary politics, this is the most favorable ground to consolidate the masses with revolutionary politics and to take revolution to a new height to make success the New Democratic Revolution.
