Weekly Selection/INDIA: Fundamentalist Shadow Over Republic Day

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dev Raj

NEW DELHI, Jan 30 1999 (IPS) - India celebrated its 49th Republic Day, Jan 26 with right-wing, Hindu fundamentalism casting a shadow over the ideals of religious secularism promised in the Constitution.

President Kocheril Raman Narayanan as India’s first citizen pointed out in his customary, Republic Day address to the nation how far it had strayed from the Constitution promulgated half a century ago.

In his televised speech, Narayanan reminded the nation of the preamble of the Constitution which pledged ” liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship.”

“The flag tells us,” he said, to work for a free, flexible, compassionate, decent, democratic society in which Christians, Sikhs, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, will all find a safe shelter,” the President said.

When Narayanan’s speech was recorded for telecast, he had not yet heard of the gruesome immolation alive in eastern Orissa state, on Saturday, of Australian-born Graham Staines and his two young sons, Philips, 10 and Timothy, 8, by Hindu fanatics.

Staines, a Baptist Union Church missionary who worked among lepers for three decades, paid with his life and that of his sons for allegedly converting Santhal tribals in the heavily forested Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts.

Although the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum denied involvement, it issued a press statement, Monday, blaming the incident on a plan by Staines and other Christian leaders to convert young Santhal couples in jungle camps.

“In these camps both sexes were allowed to mix up and at the end of the camps they were converted and allowed as married couples, which the Santhals disliked,” the VHP statement said adding, “VHP is against bribe and conversion, it condemns this inhuman act.”

Narayanan bolstered his plea for a return to the religious tolerance prescribed by the Constitution with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi who wrote that he did not expect India to develop one religion which was “wholly Hindu, wholly Christian or wholly Mussalman, but I want it to be wholly tolerant.”

Gandhi, who led India to independence from colonial rule from British rule in 1947, was himself shot dead in 1949 by Hindu fanatics owing allegiance to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) – which was then banned.

The RSS was afterwards rehabilitated and several of its members are now in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), most notably Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

Run on a military pattern, complete with drills and parades in khaki knickers, the RSS provides the mind and the muscle for the BJP and is the most important constituent of the Sangh Parivar – an umbrella organisation which also includes the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena (army of god).

The Sangh Parivar helped the BJP’s spectacular rise to power by running a campaign to demolish the mediaeval Babri Masjid in the Ayodhya town of northern Uttar Pradesh state and replacing it with a temple dedicated to the Hindu warrior god Ram.

After the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 by mobs led by the Sangh Parivar, communal riots broke out across India but especially in Mumbai city with most of the victims being Muslims.

By April, last year, the BJP was finally in power – although only leading a coalition of uneasy regional parties opposed less to its fundamentalism than to the monolithic Congress party which now leads the Opposition.

But to the dismay of the allies the Sangh Parivar has used the opportunity to forward its fundamentalist agenda, dictating key government appointments and even policy.

The murders have stretched the patience of the allies to its limits and several of its leaders including Mamata Banerjee, chief of the Trinamul Congress and Jayaraman Jayalalitha of the AIADMK have demanded a ban on the Sangh Parivar.

“Such acts (the murders) go against India’s secular nature and it is time that fundamentalist parties whether these be the Shiv Sena or Bajrang Dal are banned in this country,” Banerjee said.

Chief Minister of southern Andhra Pradesh state, Chandrababu Naidu reminded Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that the support of his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was ‘conditional’ and warned that it would be withdrawn unless action was taken to curb fundamentalism.

In fact, the main common condition demanded of the BJP by the allies (including the Lok Shakti party in southern Karantaka, the Samata Party in eastern Bihar state, the Akali Dal in northern Punjab and the Haryana Vikas Party in northern Haryana) was that the party abandon the fundamentalist agenda.

Stung by the criticism but fearful of the Sangh Parivar the BJP has taken the position that the murders were the work of common criminals. “I have known these organisations (the RSS and the Bajrang Dal) they do not have criminal record,” Advani said.

On Tuesday, the influential Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which runs state governments in West Bengal and southern Kerala, said in a press note that Advani’s statement “amounted to protecting communal fanatics.”

The CPI-M noted that, after preliminary investigation, police in Orissa had found the elements of the Sangh Parivar, notably the Bajrang Dal, involved in the premeditated immolation of the Staines in their station wagon.

Said Congress party leader Madhav Rao Scindia “while people were being roasted alive all that the Priem Minister and the Home Minister can say is that the Bajran Dal is not involved.”

According to Advani, a political conspiracy was afoot to topple the BJP-led government by linking the party and the Sangh Parivar to the murders.

Conspiracy or not, with some of the BJP’s allies rethinking support for the Vajpayee government and the Congress party assured backing for an alternate secular government by left wing and regional parties in the Opposition, a change could well be in the offing.

“Toppling games are considered unprincipled but this has really gone beyond limits. It is high time the PM packed his bags and left. It cant be accepted anymore,” Scindia said.

Since his return from the site of the killings, Scindia has been pressing for an ouster of the BJP by the Congress party which has been content to sit in the Opposition following last year’s inconclusive elections.

“This ghastly incident has suddenly made it clear that fundamentalism is the gravest threat – it has brought everything into harsh perspective,” Scindia said.