Hindutva Will Not be a Factor in 2014: Veerappa Moily

Last week, Old Delhi was on the boil after radical Hindu groups gathered here to protest the building of a mosque at the purported site of the 17th-century Akbarabadi Masjid in Subhash Park. They shouted slogans and demanded that the "illegal structure" built by a section of the local population be razed. Muslims from the area were barred from entering the Subhash Park ground, which has been sealed in accordance with orders pased by the Delhi high court. A significant police presence on the streets prevented the situation from getting out of hand.

Around the same time the conflict in Kokrajhar between Bangladeshi immigrants, and the Bodos has also thrown up ghosts from India’s recent troubled past. Days after India installed its 13th President, there are signs that the politics of religion is making a slow and bloody comeback.

The repeated debates on Kokrajhar on national television, for instance, suggests that the Assam conflict has already been labelled a Hindu-Muslim issue. Returning from a tour of the affected areas in Assam, BJP leader Vijay Goel also made it clear that there was an element of communal acrimony in the Kokrajhar conflict

“Chief Minister of Assam and the Government of Assam never took any preventive steps due to their own indecisiveness. They were having Bodo Peoples Front on one hand as their coalition partner and on the other hand, illegal Muslim population from Bangladesh forms their core vote bank forcing Tarun Gogoi to maintain the silence,” says the BJP press release.

These two events suggest that communal polarisation could already be happening in the country, one site at a time. Could these incidents be an indicator that the 2014 elections could be fought on the lines of religion?

But a veteran Congress hand is sure that Hindutva and the politics of religion cannot make a comeback. Union minister for corporate affairs Veerappa Moily is of the view that the days of communal politcs in India are over.

Moily himself is an avid student of Hindu mythology and has written extensively on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. He is working on a book on Mahabharata wherein he has decided to focus on the significance of Draupadi, whom he calls the central character of the mythological work.

“The 2014 elections will not be fought on Hindutva. Its only a day dream (if anyone thinks such issues would find favour with voters),” says Moily. According to the minister, the politics in the country has matured and will not retreat towards fighting elections on communal lines.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is aware of this and it is the reason why the party has not raised the Ayodhya issue for a long time. The idea that Narendra Modi could lead the country one day is also prepostorous.

“Narendra Modi is only a byproduct of the Gujarat genocide. Such persons will not have a political future in this country,” he said.

The recent communal clashes are aberrations that will be sorted out by the government. The government cannot “drive away” the immigrants who have been living in Assam for decades one fine day. The only solution is to find a system of co-existence.

“For more than 5,000 years, India has been home to Hinduism. And the ancient texts say that there is a land that exists between Kashmir and Kanyakumari called Bharat. There is no word called Hindu mentioned anywhere The word is an inspiration from the idea of Sindhu (civilization).” There is space only for pluralism in India. “People know what the BJP are capable of. They have lost the faith of the people.”

The coming months would tell us whether the minister has read the cards correctly.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.