Corporate Capitalism, Hurt Pride, and Hindutva

At the heart of the Sangh Parivar’s strategy is an irreducible contradiction between a modernity that augments high-end capitalism best symbolized by the rhetoric of growth and the bullet train and a politics that systematically destroy the social form necessary for capitalist growth. This is a tension that will effectively decide the future of Right-wing political mobilization in India.

One way to read this growing contradiction is to argue that the Right under BJP is attempting to tie both ends of the spectrum. In other words, they are laying roads to fast-paced corporate globalization and neo-liberal reforms and also mobilizing the growing discontent against it. This in effect seems to be the global current with the election of Donald Trump in the US. He is the first ‘White President’ symbolizing the ‘white backlash’ of the countryside that has struggled to cope with the consequences of two decades of neo-liberal reforms.⁶¹ That is precisely the reason that more the discontent with neo-liberal capitalism, the more pro-corporate governments are put in place by the electorates.

In India too, the discontent began with the poor implementation of welfare policies such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) by the Congress. However, the electorate chose a government that in effect cut funds for such welfare schemes. What we have today is a right-based politics that both introduces corporate globalization and also provides its antidote. We have the rhetoric of development but also a rise in the so-called fringe groups that mobilize against the very modernity necessary for capitalist development, including principles of rule of law, civil liberties, right to privacy and dignity, diversity, and contractualized social relations. In effect, these are the principles that challenge and undermine the communitarian sensibilities.

Capital, by its very logic, displaces community through the processes of individuation and consumerism. The insecurity of communitarian sensibilities is mobilized through growing protests against films such as Padmaavat catering to Rajput pride, Love Jihad, and countering demands for criminalizing marital rape, among others.⁶² Majoritarianism is being constructed by disallowing the same communitarian sensibilities of the religious minorities, such as the Muslims, by legislating on Triple Talaq, raising the issue of Pasmanda Muslims, and further sharpening the conflict in Kashmir. Exclusion of the Muslims and disallowing a monolithic imagination for the religious minorities is to by default allow the majority to consolidate.

Modern Capitalism and Communitarian Hindutva

Further, the Right, therefore, lays emphasis on constructing a monolithic Hindu Community by taking up or inventing issues such as beef or sanctity of the cow as a common practice among the Hindus across the nation, which also sharpens the divide with the religious minorities.⁶³ The tension between the two-pronged strategy of Modern Capitalism and Communitarian Hindutva is reflected in the anxieties of the liberal elite’s concern about the image of India globally and its impact on global investments, which compels the Prime Minister to issue a warning against the ‘cow vigilantes’ being a mafia that cannot be allowed, but without any follow-up action against them.⁶⁴ The Prime Minister also issues statements in favour of freedom of press and rule of law, even as some party men issue threats to artists, journalists, academics, students, and anyone who opposes or critiques the current political dispensation. The critique is signified through the discourse of nationalism, in effect equating the party, and the leader of the nation. Further, the electorate is mobilized against any effective critique through the discourse against corruption. Corruption and nationalism are the two ‘empty signifiers’ that tie up the loose ends in the two-pronged strategy.

Three Strategies of the Sangh Parivar

The Sangh Parivar’s strategy of forming a monolithic/majoritarian ‘Hindu Rashtra’ is operating through three distinct but inter-related strategies. Through these, they are attempting to go for a monolithic-majoritarian Hindu nation. The first of their strategies that is potent is to flare-up a ‘hurt pride’.65 The Parivar is raking up the hurt pride, what Ambedkar referred to as counter-revolution of the forward castes. As part of this, we have witnessed the mobilization of the Patidars in Gujarat, Jats in Haryana, Marathas in Maharashtra, and a generic victimhood psyche of the Brahmins.

There is a massive insecurity among these castes comparable to that of Dalits and Muslims today. These castes suffer from an insecurity of losing the hold on political and bureaucratic power, and as a result, a sense of suffocation of their social power that they wielded so long. Due to the sustained agrarian crisis that is the result of corporate capitalism, these caste groups, in a relative sense, are losing out. Even if they continue to be far ahead of Dalits, OBCs, and Muslims, they feel that they have lost out for not staking a claim in the modern economy, government jobs, and higher education. They are also projecting the valid problem of the poor among these castes, which remained unaddressed in the political discourse of the secular-progressive forces.

On the basis of this somewhat legitimate claim, they wish to either push themselves into the bracket of the OBCs or question the very validity of reservations on the basis of caste. Secular-progressive forces have no ready political strategy to deal with this political phenomenon where you have Brahmins who are economically weak and socially conservative. These social groups, reflected recently in the language of political mobilization of Marathas that is increasingly turning anti-Dalit in its rhetoric, are holding on to their old-time prejudices. Similar is the case of Kashmiri Pandits, who are in a sense, victims of displacement but socially continue to hold on to an ultra-nationalist discourse close to the RSS strategy. Here too, the Sangh can invoke the history of Muslim rule; excesses on the Hindus, such as the role of Razakars that are indefensible; and the fact that Muslims come across as a more united lot in comparison to the Hindus who have divided more actively along caste lines. Even Ambedkar argued that while Muslims are a nation, Hindus are not.⁶⁶ This kind of a political logic readily available in the public domain generates its own set of anxieties among the majority Hindu community.

De-Brahmanized Hinduization?

The second is the strategy of the Congress-style accommodation. The RSS has moved towards what could be referred to as a process of de-Brahamanized Hinduization, wherein it does not adopt the old type of overt justification of discrimination along the lines of Manusmriti but a more covert and accommodative form of inclusion. Here, RSS is willing to support the reservation of the Dalits, and one need not be surprised even if they make a Dalit or an OBC as their chief pracharak. They, in a sense, have already made that move in anointing Modi as the prime ministerial candidate as against the essentially Brahaminical old guard represented by Advani and Vajpayee. Further, the Modi government made a new policy of offering `2.5 lakh for marrying a Dalits, encouraging inter-caste marriages.⁶⁷

It is again important to point out that the old-time secular-progressive forces made no distinction between Brahmanism and Hinduism, but a more representative Hinduization seems to be a possibility. It is again in tune with the demands of Dalit-intellectuals who have time and again raised questions such as whether a Dalit can be the head priest of Tirupati.⁶⁸ Political representation without directly challenging social hierarchies is a possibility in the way liberal democracy has operated in India. In much of UP, if one travels the rural hinterlands, it’s not uncommon to find in the Dalit households pictures of Ambedkar hanging next to that of Lord Ram and Krishna. Conversion to Islam or Christianity has not yielded any results for the Dalits, and in today’s context, one wishes to claim to be a Dalit rather than try and escape it through conversion. For the purposes of claiming reservations and remaining politically/ electorally potent, remaining a ‘Hindu-Dalit’ makes more sense. In this sense, the policy of reservations, ipso facto reinforces the Hindu-identity of the Dalits.

Extra-Institutional Violence

The third strategy appears to be of fear and extra-institutional violence. Here, one can cite the violence of the gau rakshaks; Muzaffarnagar riots; attacks on Dalits in Una; and, finally, the case of the disappearance of Najeeb in JNU, right from the heart of Delhi.⁶⁹ Also foisting of cases such as in the case of Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar—falsity, rumours, morphed videos, false evidence, and brazen use of state machinery.⁷⁰ The case of former Delhi police commissioner Bassi and his flip-flops followed by his re-appointment by the current dispensation as a member of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is a case in point.

The mainstream media has already fallen in line. Journalists in India are less free than 135 other countries, according to an index of press freedom by a global media watchdog.⁷¹ Some have in fact claimed that 2017 was perhaps the worst year for freedom of the press in the post-independence period.⁷² It also includes creating a sense of fear among academics, artists, activists, and all those who can potentially raise their voice. Even vice chancellors, such as those of Allahabad University, appointed by the current government, can be implicated in cases or inquiry initiated against them if they do not side with the political regime.⁷³ Here, issues of institutional autonomy, merit, and qualification of those appointed that we discussed in some detail in the previous chapters, make very little sense in the Sangh strategy. The overall strategy appears to be that of high-intensity growth combined with low-intensity communalism, accommodation, and double-speak combined with more blatant attacks against the Muslims and the Dalits. Each of these strategies is being deployed in tune with the other. Where ready-made social cleavages are available, they are being used for counter-mobilization; where there is space for accommodation, it is being acknowledged. Secular-progressive forces will not only have to address each of these strategies but also need to make better sense of the distinct political atmosphere being created in the way they are being combined.

Hindutva and Its Counter-Narratives

How long can the Right hold on to this two-pronged strategy of propelling corporate capitalism on one hand and containing its effects by mobilizing communitarian anxieties on the other? There have been chinks in the script laid out by the Right in the recent past in relation to the dip in the GDP as a result of the populist policy of demonetization, issue of employment on account of the model of jobless growth, and discontent among traders with the effects of GST, as far as the economy is concerned. These are the inherent limitations of capitalism itself. However, there have been other kinds of counter-mobilizations erupting when community concerns have been raised, not as issues of culture, identity, and recognition but as issues of social backwardness and economic opportunities reflected in the rise of opposition from the Patidars, Jats, and Marathas with relation to the demand for reservations, or those of the Dalits such as that of the Bhim Army in Uttar Pradesh, or the movement lead by Jignesh Mevani in Gujarat demanding land and social mobility.

The Right, in effect, has no plausible strategy to accommodate such demands, except to opt for downright intimidating tactics that we referred to as the third strategy of the Sangh Parivar, alongside raking up hurt pride and de-Brahmanized Hinduization or releasing videos and implicating the representatives of these political movements. In this context, it is important to note that the Bhim Army chief Chandrasekhar was arrested, on accusation of spearheading riots in Saharanpur, while he was, in fact, working towards better relations between the Dalits and the Muslims.⁷⁴ The situation would not be very different if Rajputs were to raise issues related to social and economic mobility in place of community pride.

Right-wing mobilization correctly identifies communitarian and cultural anxieties in order to articulate anxieties that have neither historical nor sociological reasoning but have investments in the collective memory, imagination, and undirected emotions. These strategies are less effective when it comes to hard and more visible issues of social and economic mobility, where the Right, at best, is unimaginative, and at worst, mediocre.

National and Regional Parties

How long will the two-pronged strategy work also depend on the counter-narrative of the opposition parties? The Congress is playing a waiting game. Its imagination and strategy are driven by a belief that it is the only default alternative to the BJP at the national level. It, therefore, is in no hurry to script a counter-narrative but emerges as a natural alternative out of the discontent that they understand best gets accumulated in a country with vast diversity and deep economic and social inequalities. Regional parties are playing the game of collective bargain, given the fact that they have local compulsions to cater to. While in the case of Nitish Kumar, who has no independent social base, he opted to undo regional competition by switching sides; with Mamata Banerjee, she is allowing space to the BJP in order to undermine the Left in Bengal. She assumes the BJP will take time to grow, but meanwhile, the Left would go into terminal decline.⁷⁵ Between the strategies of the waiting-game and collective bargain, there is no effective emphasis on a counter-narrative.

The space for the narrative too has shrunk with the collapse of social democracy in Indian politics. What remains is hard number crunching and who does it in a more disciplined and organized manner is what matters, unless some of the political movements that are working beyond the pale of pragmatism begin to have some impact on regional and national parties as signposts for a counter-narrative, which at the moment needs a fair stretch of imagination and optimism to be believed in. In effect, Indian politics is caught between the pragmatism of the opposition and as it appears, dependence on mass violence as a legitimate mode of containing the inherent contradictions within the emergent Right-wing strategy that are held together by what we have referred to as Right-wing populism represented by the BJP and the Sangh Parivar.