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Vajpayee's Laxman Rekha

When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was Pakistan's prime minister in the seventies, I asked him what his country's ethos was. He did not say Islam. By then the 90 per cent Muslim Bangladesh had seceded from West Pakistan. He argued that the very existence of Pakistan for 25 years gave its ethos.

It is debatable whether the mere length of time provides a country with its ethos. I have no quarrel with those who believe so. But the characteristic spirit, as of a people or institution, constitutes ethos. It is an ideal, universal quality.

I feel this is what is under attack in India at present. Our ethos was firmed up when the country was fighting its battle for Independence. The national movement knew no religion, no caste and no language. It was a war in which all participated with one purpose: to throw out the alien rulers. The ethos, the distinctive feature of the struggle, was togetherness, the spirit of understanding.

That was precisely the basis of our Constitution which, among other things, enunciated in the preamble: 'Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship." Although India, after Partition, had some 82 per cent Hindus inhabiting it, yet it did not declare itself a Hindu country. That was not the ethos. The freedom movement kept religion separate from politics. So did the Constitution and the government under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Some who did not believe in that ethos embarked on their agenda to convert India into a theocratic state from the day the British left. But Mahatma Gandhi's assassination at the hands of a Hindu fanatic gave such a jolt to the nation that it asserted itself to regain the territory which the communalists had usurped. Hindu chauvinists ran for shelter. India heaved a sigh of relief for almost 45 years.

For the last decade the same people, who are opposed to the country's ethos, have reappeared in the shape of different outfits at different places. And they are trying to undo the country's sense of tolerance and its composite culture. Liberty of thought and expression, which the Constitution guarantees, is their first target. The rumpus they have created over the shooting of the film Water is a warning given by them that they and they alone are the custodians of Hindu culture or whatever they interpret. (Home Minister L K Advani was a party to the permission given to the film. He was reportedly against a close scrutiny of the script).

How one wishes if the Hindu zealots would concentrate on the removal of ills in the Hindu society, whether that of caste or that of widows' death-like-living? But they are not interested in reforms. Their purpose is to convert a secular state into a conformist society, with their own interpretation of religion and their own narration of history. What defeats them is the diversity of Hindu society, its real strength.

It is a sad comment on the working of the National Democratic Alliance, which has 22 parties which do not believe in the BJP ideology. But when the chips are down, the writ of the Sangh Parivar runs, not theirs. They have helplessly watched how some persons at Varanasi got away after destroying the costly sets of the proposed film. Again, even the socialist-inclined parties have seen how some others at Delhi have got away with the withdrawal of two history volumes relating to the freedom struggle. Some at the helm of affairs, who were nowhere when the war for Independence was fought, do not like the credit given to those who participated in it.

Chief Editor Gopal has rightly questioned the withdrawal of the two volumes when he had authorised their publication. History cannot be distorted to suit the wishes of ruling parties or personalities. But Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi does not appreciate the point. Nor do certain social forces which are trying to change the ethos of India.

Joshi and the Sangh Parivar should realise that India's ethos is not Hindutva. (In his biodata, one of the qualifications he has listed is his belief in Hindutva!) If some people at some place can be worked up some time, as it happened when the Babri Masjid was demolished, it does not mean that they have forsaken tolerance for good. The heat generated cools down quickly because people are basically accommodative and secular. This was proved by the defeat of the BJP in UP and Madhya Pradesh in the assembly elections, which were held in the wake of the Babri mosque's demolition.

Before the demolition, the Muslims too showed their repugnance to the frenzied pitch they had been taken at the time of the Shah Bano case where the Supreme Court intervened to grant the payment of maintenance allowance to a divorcee. The government legislated to circumvent the court's decision. Still once the emotions settled down the Muslim community realised the futility of converting the maintenance issue into a religious warfare.

Communal poison, which has been dripping into Indian politics -- both Hindus and Muslims are guilty -- is destroying India's ethos. Leaders of different parties have taken communalism into the mainstream of Indian politics. The result is the roots of tolerance are weakening day by day.

Those believing in secularism should have worked in the field to inculcate the attitude of keeping religion separate from politics. They were naïve to think that the poison to communalism would disappear the moment the country was free. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India's first education minister, says in his book India Wins Freedom that once the British left, the differences between the two communities would go. But he realised after Independence that the problem was not so simple.

I visited Afghanistan in the sixties to meet Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi. He said that when they were fighting for freedom under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, they were confident that after the departure of the British, the issues they would have to deal with would be economic, not religious. He was shocked to learn that Ahmedabad was the scene of communal frenzy.

Had he been alive today, he would not have believed that Gujarat, the BJP administered state, is the laboratory of the Sangh Parivar. Whether it is the question of conversion or that of membership of civil servants of the RSS, the experiment is made in the state to see the reaction in the rest of country. The strategy is modified accordingly.

It is a pity that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the only BJP liberal, has not done so. He at times makes you feel that what BJP ideologue Govindacharya has said is correct: Vajpayee is only a mask.

Maybe, Vajpayee does not want to join issue with the RSS. When he said that it was a cultural organisation, he probably indicated his Laxman Rekha, beyond which he cannot go. What he does not realise is that the RSS or his equivocal attitude clouds India's ethos of togetherness and tolerance. Temporary advantage maybe with communal parties. But the nation is sure to return to its ethos -- and repudiate what some political parties are doing to gain power or to sustain it.

Kuldip Nayar