Modi’s BJP is mere madness behind madness
The far-right Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party draws inspiration for its security policy from Hindu scriptures, where Hindu gods are masculine and mostly armed, and ancient epics such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in which India is reflected as a military and scientific power.
For instance, Uttarakhand ex-CM Ramesh Pokhriyal claimed in Parliament that,’ Today we are talking about nuclear tests. Lakhs of years ago Sage Kanad had conducted a nuclear test. Our knowledge and science do not lack anything.’
He also went on to support the claim made by Prime Minister Narender Modi regarding the presence of plastic surgery and genetic engineering in ancient India. Prime Minister Modi told a gathering of doctors in Mumbai in 2014, “According to Mahabharath Karna was not born out of his mother’s womb which means that in ancient India genetic science was present.’
He further added, ‘There must have been some plastic surgeon at the time who got an elephant’s head on the body of Ganesha and began the practice of plastic surgery.’
(According Hindu tradition Ganesha was the son of Shiva and Parvati. Shiva beheaded Ganesha when he came in between Shiva and Parvati. Upon Parvati’s hue and cry Shiva replaced his head with an elephant’s head.)
This sort of unscientific temper is not exclusive to India only but exists on our side of the border as well. India’s far right has a symbiotic relationship with the far right in Pakistan both have an ingrained romance for a past that never happened and a greatness that never existed. Even if it did, the way the far right draws inspiration from it in both countries gives birth to fascist tendencies, bringing South Asia to the brink of disaster.
Such an approach is not only disconnected from reality but from the vision of India’s first PM Jawahar Lal Nehru, who gave India a progressive secular edifice.
Pandit Nehru, while chairing the Indian Science Conference in 1937 said, “It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people.”
That address depicted the principles of Nehru’s philosophy and deep understanding of Indian society and the problems which it faces even today, where the solution he proposed was Science, not Hindutva or even Hindutva-zisation of Science.
As for erecting the secular edifice of India, Nehru faced considerable opposition not only from RSS but from within Congress
Since Independence, the Indian political elite kept the military apolitical and at arms’ length until the Modi era. Solely for his electoral benefits, he is politicizing the Indian Army which can have far reaching consequences on the Institution, Indian society and the region. Pandit Nehru reportedly dealt with the military distantly upon the advice of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy. Nehru took those who joined the Indian National Army, the Centro Militare India or the Indian Legion into the post Independence Indian Army. Unlike the British Indian Army, they were not mercenaries, but a militia with higher political ambitions who fought for the liberation of India. It would have been nearly impossible to insulate them from politics after Independence. Though their sacrifices were tremendous, in hindsight that approach of not letting them back in the post Independence Indian Army seems right as the Indian Military remained apolitical, leading to political and economic stability. But the Indian National Army, which was a true sense people’s army could have provided a parallel military model.
As for erecting the secular edifice of India, Nehru faced considerable opposition not only from RSS but from within Congress. It was Nehru vs Vallabhai Patel: Patel had a considerable tilt towards the right, even the RSS, as opposed to Nehru’s strict secular ideals.
The first major clash between Nehru and Patel occurred over the election of the President of India.Nehru wanted C.Rajagopalachari, the last Governor General, to be President. Rajagopalachari hailed from Madras and was a member of Indian National Congress presented the CR formula to remove deadlock between Jinnah and Nehru in 1944. CR formula accepted the right of Muslims to form a separate nation in exchange for the Muslim League’s participation in the Interim Government.
Though the Jinnah-Gandhi talks failed and the CR formula never really materialized, it eventually took a toll on his candidacy for President. The major opponent of CR’s candidacy was Patel who wanted Rajendra Prasad, and eventually succeeded in this.
Later the issue of the Somnath Temple came up and President Rajendra Prasad accepted the invitation to inaugurate it despite Nehru’s advice otherwise. Somnaath Temple was destroyed by Muslim invaders, and rebuilt many times by Hindu Kings. So Nehru felt that participation in such an inauguration by the President of India was against the core principles of ‘Secularism’.
What BJP has done over the years is to capitalize on the lacunae in Nehruvian secularism, which instead of establishing equidistant relations with all religious dominations tended to insulate religion from state and partly tilted towards minorities which led to the Hindu far right becoming an electoral success.
Senator Lt Gen (rtd) Abdul Qayyuum (Chairman, Senate Standing Committee on Defence Production) in a telephonic conversation,said, ‘The BJP-led Indian security policy’s main focus is to win BJP the upcoming general election instead of consolidating India against external and internal threats where its actions are jeopardizing regional security. In order to engage Pakistan at the border they are fatiguing their own equipment.’
India right now has reached an impasse. The damage the BJP already has inflicted on the social and political fabric of India will take half a century to reverse. The Aam Admi Party, which could have broken into the two-party system, failed in the last elections and though Congress is much better than the BJP, being a tried and tested option, owing to its family politics and corruption, it leaves space for Hindu far right to gain further ground whenever it comes to power. Vajpayee’s BJP had a method behind its madness where Modi’s BJP is mere madness behind madness and a serious threat to regional security which the world powers cannot afford and must not further ignore.