Can Modi be India’s ‘Saffron Nehru’?

Modi Saffron Nehru

The Sangh sees Modi as a catalyst in its efforts to transform the old Nehruvian secular India into a religious-cultural republic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking at Bhoomi Poojan of Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5, compared the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation to India’s freedom struggle. It was quite audacious for a Prime Minister to compare an agitation that led to the illegal demolition of Babri Masjid, the deaths of thousands in communal riots and the beginning of the construction of Ram temple at the site where the mosque stood for over four centuries to the country’s freedom struggle. But it was not a slip of a tongue. 

A few days later, Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, a former BJP leader, wrote an article in The Indian Express in which he repeated this comparison. What the Prime Minister, the Vice President and countless other Sangh supporters are trying to do is to create a new narrative about the idea of India and its foundations. 

RSS and freedom struggle

Modi himself had said in the past that with the BJP in power with a majority on its own, India was finally emerging out of “1,200 years of servitude”. The argument is that neither the BJP nor its ideological parent, RSS, considered India gained full independence in 1947. The RSS played practically no role in the national movement. V.D. Savarkar, who wrote multiple mercy petitions to the British and promised the British authorities that “the Hindus” won’t join protests against the imperial government, is the Sangh’s greatest “freedom fighter”. 

M.S. Golwalkar, the second Sarsangh Chalak of the RSS, had described in one of his books of the Sangh’s founder, KB Hedgewar, telling youth in Nagpur to work to strengthen the Sangh instead of joining the fight against the British. The real independence the Sangh conceptualised is the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra, a cultural nationalist republic with Hinduism being its centre. After two back-to-back majority election victories, the Sangh sees a major opportunity in this direction under Modi’s leadership.

The Nehruvian state

The India founded by the country’s forefathers after political independence was antithetical to the Sangh’s Hindu Rashtra concept. As Sangh leaders did not have any major influence in the national movement, they couldn’t exert any influence on the foundation of the new republic either. While Pakistan chose to become an Islamic republic, India, under the leadership of the Congress, opted for a secular, democratic existence. 

Nehru was understandably the face of this new India. He was a cosmopolitan, secular, modernist, who was loved across the country. A staunch anti-imperialist as well as anti-fascist, Nehru was the architect of India’s non-aligned foreign policy, which allowed the country to punch above its weight, especially among the newly independent countries, at a time when the world was divided into two superpower blocs. And he was Prime Minister till his death. Nehru left power after leaving an indelible mark on India’s history.

For the Sangh, Nehru was its number one enemy. The Sangh has tried to appropriate many Congress leaders, from Gandhi to Patel. They didn’t even spare Ambedkar. But the one leader they can’t appropriate is Nehru. They had a complicated relationship with him — they were ideologically opposed to Nehru but at the same time jealous of his stature in the making of modern India. They think the Nehruvian era continued in the course of history till the BJP was elected with a majority on its own in 2014. The job of the new government was to fast-track the unmaking of the old republic and rebuild a new one. It started in 2014, but August 5, 2020, was a pivotal moment in its bid.

In the old Nehruvian constitutional republic, it would not have been possible to destroy a 400-year old mosque through vandalism and build a temple at the same site legally, without any political cost. The bhoomi poojan made what would have been impossible in the past possible today. That’s why Modi compared the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation to the freedom struggle.

Modi’s state

Like Nehru laid the foundations of a modern secular republic, Modi is laying the foundations of a Hindu Rashtra. Contrary to the popular narrative, Modi’s first term was not won on development alone. The 2014 manifesto of the BJP had promised all the core Hindutva agenda, from Ram temple to the abrogation of Article 370 and the citizenship amendment. 

But the BJP government was cautious in the first five years. But in 2019–by the time the economy was already struggling– they faced election only on the Hindutva agenda and won a landslide, which Sangh leaders saw as a green signal to expedite the Hindu nation rebuilding. Within 15 months of re-election, the Modi government had delivered on three critical Hindutva promises—abrogation of article 370, the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the beginning of the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. These moves would change the character of India forever until future leadership takes radical measures to reverse them.

Of these three, only the CAA triggered mass protests. The Kashmir move and the Ram temple building appear to be extremely popular among the BJP’s voter base. It is to be noted that despite a series of setbacks — the economy is in a serious crisis, China has redrawn the LAC and India is the third worst-hit country by the Covid-19 infection after the U.S. and Brazil — the Hindutva wave keeps the Modi government away from popular anger. 

Post-modern India

This will likely embolden Modi and the Sangh to move ahead with other items on the agenda — the introduction of the uniform civil code and banning cow slaughter across the country. After the Bihar election this year, the next major election the BJP would be fighting is West Bengal’s. The BJP would slowly move away from the promises on economy and to a full-swing Hindutva campaign. And Modi, like Nehru, seeks to remain in power forever so that he can continue changing the foundations of the republic.   

The Sangh loathes Nehru. But they want a Nehru from the Parivar. A ‘Saffron Nehru’ to demolish the Nehruvian state and rebuild India according to its worldview. That’s what Modi is for them. The maker of a post-modern India.

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