Will hardcore supporters push BJP more towards Hindutva?

The end of policies aimed at humiliating the Muslims and excluding them from the mainstream, is a frightening spectre for the BJP’s hardcore supporters

The scale of the Congress victory in Karnataka was a surprise, but this time, even exit polls conducted by news channels perceived to be in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) predicted that the Congress would win.

What then explains the shock after the results in WhatsApp groups set up in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi? Groups committed to voting him in as Prime Minister again were first set up before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in every parliamentary constituency. In Mumbai, for instance, there are more than 50 such groups, comprising BJP members and supporters, who forward messages to all other WhatsApp groups they are a part of, thereby ensuring they reach thousands of Hindus.

Even explanations by BJP leaders that the loss is not a catastrophe, because Karnataka has a history of voting out the ruling party, and the party’s vote share has reduced only marginally, haven’t alleviated the distress evident in these WhatsApp groups. It’s not just disappointment at the defeat; what has them worked up are the reasons for the loss.

Not for them the commonplace factor of anti-incumbency, which has dominated discussions on the Karnataka elections. For them, Modi is invincible. After all, they argue, how can a leader so committed to Hindu interests not win when most of the electorate is Hindu!

Many Muslims seem to have understood this characteristic of Modi well. Hence, though they may take rations, housing, and other subsidies from a BJP government, Muslims don’t “sell themselves” to vote for a “Hinduwadi” Modi (this according to a viral video doing the rounds in the above said WhatsApp groups).

Alas! A common lament in these groups is that it is only the Hindus who haven’t understood that their religion is safe only if Modi is in power. One message doing the rounds breaks it down to this: ‘only three type of voters can defeat Narendra Modi: the lazy Hindu (who does not go out to vote); the imposter (secular) Hindu, and the greedy Hindu, who sells himself/herself for freebies. Many messages curse the Hindus who voted for the Congress without a thought about the consequence: the Muslim takeover of Karnataka.

Videos by the dozen, including obviously fake videos, are being posted in these groups as evidence of this alleged ‘takeover’ that is supposed to have already started. Foremost is the one where Karnataka Wakf Board chief Maulana Shafi Saadi demands that the Congress appoint Muslims to the posts of Deputy Chief Minister, Home Minister, Revenue Minister, and Education Minister, as quid pro quo for Muslims having voted en masse for the party, in accordance with what he claims was a pre-poll agreement. The implications the of Muslims heading these ministries are spelt out in a Hindi lecture by a Delhi-based advocate, who describes the Muslims as a community that prefers madarsas to modern education.

Just last month, a Muslim girl topped the Std XII Arts Board exams in Karnataka, but facts that contradict their claims hardly matter to ideologically-driven WhatsApp groups. In the same way, none of the messages mention that Saadi has been the BJP’s man; the saffron party backed him in the November 2021 election for the post of Wakf Board chairperson. The state law minister had then hoped that Saadi’s appointment would “bridge the gap” between the party and the Muslims.

By then, the Basavaraj Bommai government had passed the anti-cattle slaughter Act (which extended the existing ban on cow slaughter to all cattle); BJP MP Tejasvi Surya got Muslim COVID-19 volunteers in Bengaluru sacked; and assaults on Muslims by members of Hindutva outfits, be it on suspicion of cow slaughter or as moral policing, had increased.

Far from being bridged, the gap between the BJP and Karnataka’s Muslims only widened after that, as the hijab ban, the ban on Muslim vendors in temple fairs, and the anti-halal campaign took off.

What the Hindutva supporters who make up these WhatsApp groups fear is that these measures will be reversed. The end of policies aimed at humiliating the Muslims and excluding them from the mainstream, which had become the hall mark of the Bommai regime, is a frightening spectre for the BJP’s hardcore supporters. They find it inconceivable that any Hindu can oppose such measures; hence the assumption that only the lure of freebies made Karnataka’s Hindus ditch Modi. The absence of such policies spells ‘appeasement’, and for them, appeasement of the Muslims will eventually result in Gazwa-e-Hind or the establishment of Islamic rule in India, and in Karnataka, to the revival of the banned PFI, which was founded in the state. Compounding their fears is the Congress’s poll promise of banning the Bajrang Dal.

In keeping with its ideology, the BJP didn’t field a single Muslim in the assembly polls. The nine who won all belong to the Congress, and comprise not even 5 percent of the assembly’s strength. Given these facts, what are the implications of the paranoia being spread through these WhatsApp groups? Interestingly, a few messages ask the BJP to “pick its side”, and mock the party’s ‘Pasmanda’ outreach, and Modi’s ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ slogan.

Will these committed supporters push India’s ruling party towards an even more extreme Hindutva? Or will it learn a different lesson from its Karnataka defeat?

(Jyoti Punwani is a senior journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.