Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998, Page 19

Three Views

MUSHROOM CLOUDS OVER SOUTH ASIA

An Indian Diplomat

Most Indians Are as Critical Of Hindu Jingoism as Are People Outside

By Kuldip Nayar

An unfortunate fallout of the tests at Pokharan is the contorted image that India has come to acquire. Very few are talking about the country’s traditional values, or its spiritual heritage. It is now being seen in the worst possible light as a Hindu fundamentalist state out to silence critics within the country and around the world.

The fact is that the BJP has only 180 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. Without consulting the other 100 who give the BJP a majority in the House, the party has hijacked the many strands of conciliation and tolerance. What the Rashtriya Sewak Sang-backed BJP is projecting is an aggressiveness which is alien to the country. BJP is not India and India is not just the BJP.

It, is, however, unfortunate that the world, barring a few countries, is beginning to perceive India as any other fundamentalist state which will go to any lengths to justify its chauvinism. Comments by the West, thoroughly irresponsible, suggest that India, a Hindu-majority state, has exploded the bomb to create awe in the rest of the world. They castigate New Delhi for finding a novel way of bombing their way into the Security Council.

On top of that, when Home Minister L.K. Advani suggests a new situation in Kashmir after the bomb, and when the prime minister’s political adviser, Pramod Mahajan, provokes China, international opinion cannot make sense of such rhetoric. It begins to infer that the BJP-led coalition is itching for a fight.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is considered a liberal who is opposed to Hindu fundamentalism and war-like postures. But it appears that he has no control over ministers like Advani. The very fact that Pramod Mahajan denies any difference between the prime minister and the home minister confirms the impression that the two do not see eye to eye.

Things may have changed now, but the two have been poles apart…It is Vajpayee who was projected by the BJP as the prime minister during the Lok Sabha polls. The message was that, given a chance, the BJP will rise above obscurantist views and give the country a secular, not Hindu, government. The 13 parties had given their support to Vajpayee, not Advani or the other hard-liners. Were the prime minister now to take a back seat, that would amount to violating the confidence of voters and allied parties.

Vajpayee should at least shut up the lunatic fringe of Hindu fundamentalists, like Vishva Hindu Parishad, which gets its blessings from the RSS. Ashok Singhal, heading the Parishad, has advocated the establishment of Hindu Raj in India and a war against Pakistan. India is not a Hindu state. Neither its constitutions nor its functioning point to such a narrow denominational attitude.

After partition in August 1947 India, with 82 percent of Hindus, could have declared itself as a Hindu state. But the national struggle, including leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Maulana Azad and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, had a free, democratic and secular India as its goal, The creation of such a state after independence was logical and met the ethos of the fight for independence.

The West and other countries are equating India with the BJP-led coalition. Most Indians are as critical of Hindu jingoism as the people outside, Their abuses and provocative observations may drive Indians to the wall where they may be forced to say: good or bad, it is my country. Do not treat it as a pariah because that would be counter-productive.

New Delhi, somewhat better in its pronouncements than before, cannot take other countries for granted. Washington, however arrogant in its attitude, has real fears because India’s tests can lead to Iran, Israel and some others making their nuclear options explicit. The entire effort to restrain nations from going nuclear has come to naught.

Given the history of relations between India and Pakistan, Islamabad’s security perceptions do not allow New Delhi to become too powerful. Then when some responsible BJP leaders like Jaswant Singh urge Pakistan to go nuclear, they should realize they arc playing with fire.

The first remark made after the demolition of the Babri Masjid was that the Two Nation Theory was proved right, underlining that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations. Some hooligans took it upon themselves to raze the Masjid to the ground and the BJP state government remained inactive. Does this mean that those hooligans represent the entire Hindu community?

True, India has not yet become a truly secular country. True, there are Hindu-Muslim riots. True, the police and the authorities have often been found communal. Still, great efforts are being made at every level to see that the virus of communalism is eliminated and that equality before law is never undermined.

The fact that the BJP has progressed from eight seats in the Lok Sabha to 180 in the last 18 years is of great concern to the people. Still it had to give up its program to build the Ram temple, to enforce common law and to shelve the amendment to Article 370, which gives special status to Kashmir, to form the government.

This article first appeared in the June 5, 1998 edition of The Nation, a Pakistani daily newspaper. Reprinted with permission.