Smriti Irani may have alienated BJP's Dalit vote
Has Union human resource development minister, Smriti Irani, earned for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the wrath of the Dalit community by invoking a textual Smriti - with the prefix of Manu? The Manu Samhita or Manusmriti, has been the rallying call for long of the most iconic face of contemporary Dalit politics, Mayawati, who dubs all other parties and leaders as Manuwadi.
Clearly intended to be a cuss word, allegiance to this Sanskrit code of law is presented as adherence to a patriarchal caste order dominated by Brahmins at the top of Hindu pyramid and where ati-Shudras or Dalits are the bottom. So has Smriti Irani in her parliamentary exuberance alienated the Dalit vote?
It is more than 40 days since 27-year-old Rohith Vemula committed suicide in Hyderabad University. From the beginning, the party not just failed to clear its name of charges that it added to woes and frustration of the anguished Dalit scholar, but it also went out of the way to question his identity. Senior leaders of the party repeatedly questioned his Scheduled Caste status and alluded to him having forged documents to claim benefits of reservation.
The BJP made a hash of things by attempting to use the so-called "anti-national activities" of Vemula and his radical band of students to justify Rohith's victimisation that forced him to take his life. Instead of wriggling out of the situation created by letters of Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, the party and government tried to brazen it out. This attempt was led to a great extent by Irani. Other party leaders and the Sangh attempted to retrieve the situation by making reassurances on continuing with the reservation policy but with little effect.
Coming three weeks after the tragedy in Hyderabad, the incident in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) provided the BJP with an opportunity to convert its majoritarian plank into an ultra-nationalist platform. The strategy, despite unifying opposition against it, also enabled the BJP to close its ranks. The party realised that the incident could be used to extricate itself from the tight spot of being labelled as anti-Dalit and showcase its nationalistic credentials.
The JNU episode was converted into a no-holds barred battle - with a fair share of vigilantism - against everyone ranging from liberals, social democrats, communist and ultra-leftists. They were all depicted as anti-nationals and being in league with terrorist groups and their supporters.
Somewhere down the line in their exuberance to paint every form of political activism in JNU as anti-national - and this campus has a long tradition of even debating quaint lost causes, BJP introduced retired defence personnel into this discourse. The Army - and other forces - are truly secular and to identify them with one form of nationalism is extremely dangerous and adventurous. But this simply emboldened Smriti Irani who had to tackle a second "campus issue" within a short period.
In her speech in Parliament, Irani introduced the issue of Goddess Durga and Demon King Mahisasur into the debate. She argued that a group of JNU students' act of organising a programme to observe Durga Puja as the Mahisasur martyrdom day indicated that the university was breeding ground for anti-national thought and activity.
In her verbal fury she forgot several important matters, the first of them being that this was no public meeting but a speech in Parliament where proper decorum must be maintained regardless of being a member of the Treasury Benches. In the event, she received a rude snub when her comments - the portions that she read out from a purported pamphlet distributed at the programme - were ordered to be expunged by vice president Hamid Ansari.
This programme was also previously attended by BJP Dalit MP from Delhi, Udit Raj - also an alumnus of the university. When this was recalled by people, and he was quizzed, he expressed disapproval of Irani's arguments and contended that he considered "Mahishasur as a martyr" and that he attended this function in 2013 when he was not part of BJP. But, he added, "I follow the ideology of Dr BR Ambedkar, who considered Mahishasur as a messiah of Dalits, how can I go against him."
Evidently, Raj, a significant political figure even prior to joining BJP, felt that there was nothing wrong in participating in the meeting and this demonstrated that Irani's argument was attempting to invoke sentiments which should not be part of a secular discourse.
Secondly, while Indian laws provided for action against hate speeches and activity that hurt sentiment of any religious community, no section of our criminal code lists this offence as an anti-national or unpatriotic act. No God or Goddess of any religious community can be likened to the nation.
Additionally, there is no constitutional obligation on citizens to consider the nation as a Goddess or Bharat Mata. "India that is Bharat," is the farthest that the Constitution goes to Irani's shrill cry that she would allow anyone in universities and elsewhere to weaken Bharat Mata. The nation as goddess is the ideological premise of only the Sangh Parivar and not the "official version" of the country or the belief of other parties.
Thirdly and finally, Smriti Irani ignored that Hinduism does not have one mythology but is as pluralistic - if not more - as India itself. From basic tales and who is considered a God or a demon, there are differences, both dramatic and nuanced. While sections of Hindus view Ravan as villainous character, others deify him.
In an article, Devdutt Pattanaik, the prolific writer on Indian mythology, has pointed out that in the Vedas, "word 'asura' does not mean demon, or villain, but quite the opposite, a divine being. It's a title given to Indra, Agni, Rudra, Varuna, and to most Vedic deities." He adds that the story of Durga came into being almost 1,500 years ago when the narrative introduces an asura who secured from the Gods a boon that he could not be killed by man, animal or devas. Because he forgot to seek protection from women, the idea of Durga was introduced in Hindu mythological texts.
Irani has treaded into a potentially self-destructive terrain by invoking Durga as the universal Goddess. Because of the Brahminical association of dominant Hindu mythology, she has alienated Dalits and will severely affect BJP's attempts to widen social base.
One can almost hear Dalit leaders like Mayawati thundering that the BJP after imposing its rule of law and discriminatory practices, the party is now taking away the gods of the Dalits and forcing the Manuwadi Gods down the throats of the Bahujan.