Samagra Hindutva: Why Amit Shah’s plan to counter mahagathbandhan politics could go either way
The party wooing SC-ST-OBC communities energetically could annoy its traditional upper caste voters
The ‘mahagathbandhan’ of Opposition parties is yet to become a reality, but if you talk to voters in Uttar Pradesh’s rural areas, many who don’t want to vote for the BJP will say: “gathbandhan ke del jai (we will vote for the gathbandhan)”.
Thus, in the minds of many people, the mahagathbandhan seems to have already taken shape. And it’s not just voters. Even in the minds of politicians, a perception of the mahagathbandhan has been formed, even though we have no idea what shape the actual alliance will take.
BJP president Amit Shah was reacting to this perception when, recently at the samanway (coordination) meeting of BJP and RSS in Lucknow, he spoke of “Samagra Hindutva”.
Shah told the meeting that “Samagra Hindutva” — a term he seems to have coined — would be their instrument to counter the mahagathbandhan.
An RSS pracharak I spoke to said: “In the RSS, we talk about ‘samagra gram vikas’ and ‘samagra samaj’, but ‘samagra Hindutva’ is something Shah has come up with. We use ‘ekatm manavvad’ (integral Hinduism), as propounded by late Deendayal Upadhyaya, to denote the oneness of entire humanity.”
From what Amit Shah explained in the coordination meeting, the ‘samagra Hindutva’ approach will mean that the BJP will try to integrate OBCs and Dalits into the Hindutva fold. Shah reiterated in the meeting that the government was working to reach out to OBCs and SCs through its policies, and there was a need for continued dialogue with the communities to bring them into the Hindutva fold.
Thus, Shah envisions a grand social alliance of SCs, OBCs and General castes under the flag of the BJP, to counter the similar political coming-together that is the mahagathbandhan. Numerically and politically, this ‘saffron’ SCs-OBC-General caste alliance may be heavier than the OBC-SC tie-up proposed by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati.
Therefore, while ‘unite all Hindus’ has always been the RSS’s agenda, now, politically too, the BJP needs a consolidated Hindu backing to defeat the mahgathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh in 2019.
To go about it, the party will try to take credit for reinforcing the SC/ST atrocities Act during campaigning in SC/ST-dominated areas. The central government is also planning to extend the Ujjwala Yojana (free distribution of gas connection), for now only available to SC/STs, to OBC communities soon.
Thus, the government is strategically and systematically wooing SCs, STs, and OBCs towards the BJP ahead of the 2019 elections.
Indeed, at the samanvay meeting, Shah reportedly told BJP and RSS members that “our government is already working to create ‘samagra Hindutva’, and the party too should work on that line”. For this, he suggested that party workers keep interacting with these communities and explain to them the programs and policies that the government has designed for them.
Apart from policy-level initiatives, the BJP is building Ambedkar memorials in Delhi and London, and an Ambedkar center in Delhi, to integrate Dalits into the Hindutva fold. Celebrating Dalit heroes like Suheldeo and Daldeo Pasi is another step in the same direction. Even the RSS has started keeping photo of Ambedkar in many of its programs. One can now find Ambedkar photographs in various RSS offices.
These are planned efforts to change the BJP’s image of a savarna-led party to a party in which SC-ST-OBC communities and causes feature prominently. ‘Hindutva’ as a term includes all Hindus. But the addition of the prefix “samagra” is a conscious broadening of the BJP’s avowed philosophy.
If the BJP succeeds in bringing a significant section of these communities in its fold, it can effectively counter the politics of mahagatbandhan. But these policies may end up annoying its traditional vote base of General castes and business communities.
Also, the party will have a tough job fighting the aggressive negative campaign the Opposition will launch about it among these sections.
As elections come closer, let’s see how the BJP balances politically our fragmented social communities.