Such campaigns, it is being argued, should stop forthwith since they will derail the BJP-led government’s development and reforms agenda. Also, these campaigns and statements are being seen as an own goal by those BJP leaders who are either raising the issue of religious conversion as a threat to Hindutva or supporting the so-called Ghar Wapsi programme aimed at reconverting Muslims or Christians into Hindus all over again. And then there is the general plea that Mr Modi should intervene and stop such BJP leaders from hijacking his development agenda because it was in response to his development-centred poll campaign only that the people had voted him to power.
There are several misconceptions that seem to have triggered such analyses. It is important to understand the real motives behind these campaigns and place them in the context of the BJP’s overall politics. Not doing that, and instead believing that the ruling party’s top leadership is being held to ransom or simply cornered by the more fundamentalist elements in the Sangh Parivar (which includes outfits such as the RSS and VHP), would be failing to see the BJP’s larger political game-plan to ensure its spread and dominance across the country.
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What are these misconceptions? One, it is wrong to believe that the Modi vote was earned only on the strength of its development agenda. The talk of development and economic reforms was only part of a larger strategy, to widen the BJP’s appeal to large segments of the urban and semi-urban electorate whose concerns about the party’s hard-core Hindutva agenda had in any case become a little muted in the wake of an economic slowdown. The BJP leadership must have sensed the growing saffronisation of the Hindu middle class and did its best to exploit that trait.
It is also true that BJP’s Hindutva agenda was never the face of its election campaign, but the party neither repudiated it nor did it make any promise of having abandoned that platform. Promoting the development agenda was a tactical need to woo the urban and semi-urban middle class voters. But it was also clear to the BJP’s leaders that these voters were not unduly worried by their Hindutva agenda as long as they delivered growth that helped the voters meet their economic aspirations. What certainly helped the BJP’s cause during its election campaign in early 2014 was the listless performance of the Manmohan Singh-led government that allowed itself to be identified with corruption and policy paralysis undermining growth and resulting in a complete collapse of governance. The middle class lost all hope in the Congress and looked for an alternative in the BJP that offered development as a promise, but without rejecting its Hindutva agenda. So, why should Mr Modi be worried about recent religious campaigns of the Sangh Parivar, or even intervene?
Two, the disruptions caused by the religious campaigns during the just-concluded winter session of Parliament must have disappointed those who wanted the government’s reformist bills to become law so that they give a much-needed boost to economic activities in the country. But why should that be seen as an own goal by the BJP? On the contrary, such religious campaigns only further the party’s agenda in a different area. It will be an act of folly to measure everything that the party does by the yardstick of whether it promotes reformist economic policies.
The resurfacing of the debate over religious conversion and the launch of the Ghar Wapsi campaign help achieve a specific BJP goal: to widen the ambit of its political influence in the country. Whether they succeed or not is a different issue. But this cannot be seen as an own goal just because it threatens the government’s economic policy agenda. There are important leaders of the party entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that the government’s economic reforms programme is implemented. But it is clear by now that the implementation of such an economic reforms programme cannot be achieved at the cost of its larger political goal of spreading its Hindutva agenda.
It is time India’s electorate and, more importantly, the opposition political parties understood the duality of BJP’s approach to governance. Development or economic reforms are an important goal, but at no point should these be subordinated to its broader political goal, promoted and supported by the Sangh Parivar. Mr Modi or any other BJP leader would hardly see any conflict between the two goals. For them, both are important and neither can be sacrificed at the altar of the other. The protests and disruptions in both the houses of Parliament in the last few weeks indicate that the opposition political parties will not take the BJP position lying down. It will, therefore, be a difficult and long haul for the BJP — and trying times for the nation, as it struggles to preserve its secular governance structure.