Modi stuck between secularism and Sangh: Sudheendra Kulkarni

It is in the area of safeguarding secularism that Modi, his party and his government have a lot of work to do to allay the concerns and misgivings of not only India's religious minorities but also of secular- minded Hindus who constitute the majority within India's majority community.

Modi would surely be inviting trouble for himself if he chose not to remove these concerns. After all, his failure or unwillingness to do so would seriously threaten the Idea of India that guarantees our national unity and integrity.

And no leader, howsoever powerful, can govern India if his core beliefs and policies endanger the Idea of India; if he or she alienates the country's large population of religious minorities, especially Muslims.

Idea of India

What is the Idea of India? Why is it so fundamental to our national identity, unity, survival and progress?

India is, and has always been, a multi-faith nation. Freedom of religion, equality of all faiths in the eyes of the nation-state and all its institutions, equal respect for all faiths both in polity and society, and non-discrimination on the basis of creed or caste have been assured by the Indian Constitution. They are also embedded in India's age-old cultural and civilisational heritage, which celebrates unity in diversity. They together constitute the meaning of secularism in the Indian context.

The Partition of India in 1947 and the carving out of Pakistan as a separate "Muslim nation" on the basis of the spurious Two-Nation theory dealt a severe blow to this heritage. In subsequent decades, this Muslim nation further solidified its identity as an Islamic nation. The population of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in Pakistan shrank drastically. Their rights were severely curtailed. However, as far as the truncated post-1947 India is concerned, the founding fathers of our republic wisely desisted from making India a Hindu version of Pakistan; they created a Constitution that committed India to the principle of secularism.

It is true that the word "secularism" was not explicitly included in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution when it came into force in 1950. Opponents of secularism, most of whom are in the Sangh Parivar, often gripe over the fact that the word was incorporated into the Constitution as a preambular principle only later in 1976, when India was reeling under the Emergency rule (1975-1977) imposed by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

Their criticism does not hold water for two reasons. First, even though the word "secular" was not specifically used to describe the Republic of India in 1950, the content and essence of even the original unamended version of the Indian Constitution was incontrovertibly secular.

Secondly, no political party, not even the BJP, has demanded, after the lifting of the Emergency, that the Constitution should be amended once again to excise the word "secular" from its Preamble. In fact, the Janata Party government, which came into being in 1977 - both Vajpayee and Advani were prominent ministers in that government - annulled all the anti-democracy amendments to the Constitution that had been passed by Indira Gandhi's regime during the Emergency.

However, it kept the word "secular" intact in the Preamble. This means that, both in the post-1950 period as well as in the post-1976 period, there has been a rock-solid national consensus on secularism as a fundamental pillar of the Idea of India.Sadly, this consensus is sought to be broken, altered, or at any rate weakened by the BJP and its government now. Concerns on this score have arisen because of the Sangh Parivar's extreme discomfort with the secular core of the constitutionally endorsed "Idea of India".

In open defiance of the spirit and the text of the Indian Constitution, leaders of the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an affiliate of the RSS, have been saying more vociferously than ever before that India should be declared a Hindu Rashtra. This clearly means that, in their understanding of India, non-Hindus - especially, Muslims who constitute the largest minority in the country - have a secondary status, which is not on a par with the Hindus. When pressed to explain their position, RSS ideologues state that the word "Hindu", according to them, connotes culture and not religion, and therefore even Muslims in India should regard themselves as culturally "Hindus".

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RSS hair-splitting

This is nothing but deceptive verbal hair-splitting and conceptual obfuscation. By no stretch of imagination can the word "Hindu" be stripped of its religious connotation in today's India. Indeed, when the VHP describes itself as an organisation of Hindus worldwide, it clearly uses the term "Hindu" in its religious sense. All the religious leaders who congregate on the VHP platform are Hindu religious leaders; it has no place for Muslim or Christian religious leaders.

Obviously, the claim that India is a "Hindu Rashtra" is an assault on India as a secular nation. The claim is deeply offensive to Muslim, Christian and other non-Hindu Indians. Indeed, it also offends the patriotism of a majority of Hindus who are secular by nature.

A quick explanation is in order here even at the risk of a slight digression. It might be asked: If a majority of Hindus are secular, how did the BJP under Modi's leadership manage to secure a decisive mandate in the 2014 parliamentary election? The answer to this question is that most of the Hindus who voted for the BJP - Muslims hardly ever vote for the BJP in significant numbers - did so not because they were influenced by the Sangh Parivar's Hindutva ideology.

They did so principally because, firstly, they wanted to end the highly unpopular Congress rule which was marred by many corruption scandals; secondly, they were influenced by Modi's promise of ushering in development and better governance; thirdly, Modi was able to project himself as a "strong leader"; fourthly, the Congress party's new and young leader Rahul Gandhi failed hopelessly to match Modi's mass appeal; and fifthly, both Hindus and Muslims were disenchanted with the Congress party's self-serving and inconsistent espousal of secularism. Those who voted for the BJP solely because of its Hindutva ideology were only its core voters, whose number is small and who, by themselves, can never bring their party to power either in central or state elections.

Constitution and secularism

Let us return to the discussion on secularism. In a clear sign that the RSS was tightening its ideological control over the BJP, after the end of the Vajpayee-Advani era, the word "secularism" did not find even a cursory mention in the BJP's manifesto for the 2014 parliamentary election. This was not an oversight. Modi himself, as the party's prime ministerial candidate, had shown his disapproval of the word "secularism". In an interview given to Shahid Siddiqui before the polls, while answering a pointed question "Will you keep secularism as part of the Constitution or remove it?", Modi described secularism as an "imported" word.

The answer given by India's would-be prime minister was as baffling as it was disturbing. Secularism, understood as a non-theocratic state that shows equal respect for all faiths, is by no means an imported concept. If Modi thinks secularism is foreign to India, he should also declare parliamentary democracy to be foreign to India since it too is "imported" from the West!

It is worth emphasising here that BJP's own constitution, adopted when the party was founded in 1980 with Vajpayee as its founding president, shows allegiance to "secularism". If Prime Minister Modi believes that it is an "imported" concept, will he now get his party to remove the word from its constitution? Even if he does, he and his supporters should know that "secularism" cannot be removed from the Preamble to India's Constitution since it forms part of the "basic structure" of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has clearly, and wisely, curtailed Parliament's powers, under Article 368, to amend the Constitution when such amendment seeks to alter its very heart and soul. The basic structure can be changed only by a new Constituent Assembly. Neither the BJP nor any other party can bring a new Constituent Assembly into being.

Nevertheless, the prime minister's displeasure over "secularism" has helped create an intellectual atmosphere in which many of his supporters have taken to secularism bashing with no fear of being reprimanded. For example, the social media is awash with the abusive term "sickular" to describe the secular constituency.

To be fair to Modi, I must add here that in the same pre-election interview with Shahid Siddiqui, he had also spoken these reassuring words: "There is only one holy book for the Indian government, and that is the Constitution. I respect everything that the Constitution says." He is therefore duty-bound, and also bound by his own solemn assurance, to swear his allegiance to secularism. In practical and policy terms, this obliges him and his government to treat all religions and religious communities equally with no discrimination. His own party's pre-election promise of "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas" enjoins him to do so.

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Will there be a 'point of return'?

An important question arises here. As the prime minister of India, Modi has to scrupulously follow the Indian Constitution's commandment on secularism. His failure to do so will be the undoing of his premiership. Whether he likes it or not, whether his core beliefs permit him or not, he is bound by the Constitution to ensure that his government does nothing that violates secular ideals and principles.

Which means that his government cannot follow a majoritarian agenda, even though that is what many in the Sangh Parivar would like it to do. The prime minister's fairness and rectitude would be especially tested if, God forbid, India witnesses an outbreak of communal violence. The communal violence in Gujarat in 2002 was certainly a blot on his record as the state's chief minister. Indeed, it was also a blot on Vajpayee's prime ministership, besides being a major cause for his failure to lead the BJP to win a renewed mandate in the 2004 Lok Sabha election.

It is obvious, therefore, that Modi and his government - and also BJP governments in states as well as the BJP organization all over the country - must ensure zero tolerance both for communal violence and terrorist violence. Those guilty of aiding and abetting such violence, irrespective of their religious and political affiliation, must be punished as per the rule of law.

Zero tolerance for communal violence also entails no tolerance for communal and hate propaganda by Hindu, Muslim or other organisations. Naturally, this includes the RSS propaganda that India is - and should be declared as - a "Hindu Rashtra". So far, no BJP leader, not even Modi, has publicly criticised the RSS for this divisive advocacy even though some BJP leaders privately express reservations about the "Hindu Rashtra" concept.

However, with the passage of time, Modi and his colleagues in the government and the party will be forced to distance themselves from, and also actively curb, the anti-Muslim and anti-minorities propaganda by the outfits of the Sangh Parivar. They will also have to show at least some concern for the legitimate concerns, needs and demands of the Muslim community, even at the risk of being accused by Hindu communalists of following the "Congress policy of appeasing Muslims".

Modi is an astute politician and he knows that alienating a large section of the Indian population would create problems for his premiership - especially for his desire to win a second term in the parliamentary election in 2019.

All this will inevitably create tension between Modi and the Sangh Parivar. When such tension surfaces, the choices before him would be stark: either he allows himself and his government to be controlled by the Sangh Parivar, or he curbs and subdues the Sangh Parivar in pursuit of its majoritarian agenda. The former choice will spell doom for his government. Of course, there could also be other threats to his government such as failure to fulfil people's expectations and its own election promises related to development and good governance. If Modi makes the latter choice, he would be doing a big service to India.

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Acceptance after all?

In my opinion, making the latter choice - acceptance of the secular anchor of the Idea of India - would constitute for Modi and the BJP "the point of return" to the mainstream of national life.

Whether Modi and the BJP actually make this choice or not is difficult to predict but not beyond the pale of possibility. After all, there are many sensible and secular-minded people in the RSS and the BJP who care for India's future and who would be amenable to revising their own ideological beliefs. Electoral compulsions and the compulsions of retaining power will also force them to change their convictions, policies and conduct.

After all, India's democracy and our plural cultural civilisational heritage have the invincible power to ensure that only those who are, or become, faithful to the Idea of India will govern this great nation and shape its destiny.

In that power lies the hope for India.