Modi's 'Bharat Jodo' distorts India's diversity

Why didn't Modi mention either Baba Amte's Kashmir to Kanyakumari march or Rajiv Gandhi govt's 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' campaign?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to every Indian citizen to lead a 'Bharat Jodo' Andolan (Unite India Campaign) in his July 25 Mann Ki Baat radio talk show is duplicitous. He asserted, "It is our duty to ensure that our work helps closely knit, bind our India which is filled with diversity." It is outwardly an epitome of good intentions. In actuality, it aims to showcase himself as a leader committed to constantly harnessing the nationalist spirit.

However, Modi did not clarify if he now accepts that contemporary India and its civilisation contain multitudes of people, communities, and faiths. Or that he no longer adheres to the long-held Hindutva definition that India is a nation based on Hindu culture.

Without this elucidation, Modi's call is essentially a call to citizens to rally behind the narrow idea of India that his party and its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, have espoused for almost a century.

The prime minister's advocacy to "resolve that the country remains our primary faith, our topmost priority" comes in the year this regime has marked as Amrit Mahotsav in the run-up to next year's 75th anniversary of India's independence. However, it also comes amid the consistent disparagement and slander of India's religious minorities, Muslims and Christians chiefly.

Modi has paradoxically given the call for 'Bharat Jodo' even while foot soldiers of his party and its ideological affiliates routinely ask minorities to subsume themselves in the nation's dominant cultural stream. If unwilling, they should be ready to face the possibility of Bharat Chhoro, or leave India, hollered at them.

Additionally, during the Covid-19 pandemic, this government has further intensified its campaign to heighten prejudice against minorities by a series of actions. To name a few, the vicious accusations against Tablighi Jamaat in March 2020 to the latest moves of the Uttar Pradesh and Assam state governments targeting Muslims by introducing new legislations ranging from restricting the number of children per family to impeding inter-faith marriage and restricting trade and consumption of beef. Each of these actions is little but representative of dog-whistle politics.

Even if, at face value, we accept Modi's call as a reach-out to all, after all, there's nothing wrong for citizens to work for socio-political unity, how do we read the almost simultaneous antagonistic assertion of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat?

At a function on Eid-ul-Zuha in Guwahati, the capital of a state that is one of the renewed Hindutva experimental centres to force religious polarisation, the sarsanghchalak declared, "planned efforts" were made since 1930 to increase the Muslim population in India.

The RSS has long campaigned that "adherents of Indic religions (Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism) will become a minority in India by the year 2061." After 1947 when the RSS began pushing its paranoid views on religious demography, it argued that illegal migration took place in India in border areas, especially into Assam, West Bengal and some north-eastern states.

The RSS viewpoint was that the likely change in demography would render Hindus into a minority in several regions of these states, which would imperil national security. The RSS also waved a red flag at activities of Christian missionaries in the north-eastern states and argued that religious conversions were the root cause of separatist sentiment among some sections of the populace in these states.

Some scholars associated with the RSS propounded, after purportedly analysing the 2001 Census, that the increase in Muslims and Christian populations was due to illegal migration and higher birth rates among them.

KS Sudarshan, the sarsanghchalak preceding Bhagwat, claimed Hindus will be reduced to a minority in "their own land". The statement was driven by the RSS sentiment that Hindus had a greater claim on India and that adherents of Islam, Christianity and other non-Indic religions could not say this land was "theirs". In 2015, under Bhagwat, the RSS also adopted a resolution calling for "demographic balance". Modi has also said that a small family was an expression of patriotism.

The RSS claim of a higher Muslim growth rate as conspiratorially driven is neither evident in the actual intent of the community nor by the population data. The slanderous campaign also disregards that Muslims (and Christians) are not a homogenous community and have as many divergences as Hindus (even Sikhs) on caste and community lines.

What is the nature of India, that is Bharat, that Modi wishes to unite? Would it be a nation that is inclusive and recognises the diversity of this land, its people, their cultures and their faiths? Or would it be the nation that believes, as the Sangh Parivar has repeatedly advocated, that every citizen of this country is a Hindu, irrespective of their religion - that there can be a "Muslim Hindu" and "Christian Hindu".

In the aftermath of the Babri Masjid's demolition, an RSS ideologue insidiously argued in the organisation's official organ, Organiser, for renaming India as "Hindudesh" as thereafter the nationality of everyone would be Hindu. In recent years, beginning with his three-day lecture series in New Delhi in 2018, Bhagwat has been considered to have signalled a significant comedown on the Sangh Parivar's Islamophobic campaign.

Bhagwat's assertions, like Modispeak, that the country's linguistic, social, cultural and religious diversity was inescapable, however, reverses the old notion of Unity in Diversity, paying more significant emphasis on unity and de-emphasises the country's plurality. For countless Indians, including this writer, there are multitudes of Indians, each with their way of expressing their sense of belonging to this nation.

Despite this disparity, they remain loyal to the country. For Shashi Tharoor, this is a "thali" theory of nationalism. Like a thali, we are a collection of different items in different bowls. Since we are in different dishes we don't necessarily flow into each other, but we belong together on the same platter and combine on your palate to give you a satisfying repast.

According to the Thiruvananthapuram MP, the Modi or Bhagwat idea of India is a "khichdi theory of nationalism: we are one dish, with many ingredients mixed up and cooked together. Yes, individual pieces might stand out in the mash, a carrot here, an aloo there, but they are nothing other than parts of the meal."

History for Modi or others of his ilk serves little purpose if it does not agitate the majority community against the minorities. In Mann Ki Baat, he introduced the idea of every Indian taking the lead in 'Bharat Jodo' Andolan as if it was his original contribution to the national discourse. Consequently, he discounted the fact that social reformer and activist Baba Amte had in 1985 embarked on a 5000 km plus march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to re-infuse the spirit of national integration at a time of growing cynicism and communal strife was beginning to rear its head in India. Three years later, he embarked on the second leg of his voyage, on this occasion, from Assam to Gujarat.

For a leader who refers to tales of numerous others, why did Modi not mention either Amte or the iconic musical campaign played after then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi delivered the independence day speech in 1988 - Mile Sur Mera Tumhara? Simply because Modi, Bhagwat, or other Hindutva votaries do not emphasise the vibrant pluralism that went into making a unifying song.

The Bharat that Modi wishes to unite or knit would be where all other identities, barring one, get encompassed into a gigantic indistinct entity. Modi disparages khichdi sarkar (coalition governments) to make a case for a strong leader like he at the helm. But in the process, he is pushing the case for divesting Indian of its vibrancy and diversity and make it one uniform broth. The 'Bharat Jodo' Abhiyan is yet another endeavour in this direction.

(The writer is an NCR-based author and journalist. His books include The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin)