How long will India celebrate its secular constitution?

With Indian polity increasingly focusing on Hindu cultural nationalism, is the secular constitution under threat ? 

Are common people really happy under the Modi administration? Various sections of people, including religious minorities and farmers and teachers in some states, are unhappy with the way things are progressing. Still, an independent media survey by India Today said nearly 72 percent of Indians are happy with the government of Modi, whose policies, of course, have been largely revolving around building up a Hindu-only nation.

It is 72 years since India promulgated its secular-democratic constitution. The nation observed the anniversary on Jan. 26, just as in previous years, with a military parade in New Delhi. But an uneasy disquiet continues across the country. 

 Over the years, the parade added cultural tableaux from its provinces. Uttar Pradesh state's cultural tableau this year displayed the model of the Ram temple being built in Ayodhya town at a spot where an ancient mosque stood until 1992 when Hindu radicals demolished it. 

The temple has political connotations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has vowed to turn India into a nation of Hindu hegemony. The pro-Hindu party came to the national mainstream promising the temple in Ayodhya, their Hindu Lord Ram's birthplace.

Almost three decades after the demolition of the mosque, a major BJP promise is getting fulfilled. The government proudly displayed it at the parade celebrating the anniversary of the nation's secular constitution. That's the growth of Indian democracy! True to the character of any democracy, there is a paradox in India's polity today. While the Modi government returned to power in 2019 with an enhanced mandate and his BJP winning provincial polls, the country is gradually turning into a grieving and protesting nation.

However, the government's performance has done little to create jobs and ensure overall calm, amity and harmony. For the last two years, protests have been  happening around important national days.

During the last Republic Day, it was agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which is perceived to be discriminating against Muslims. This time the angry lot are the farmers.

Farmers across India are on the warpath against the government's three contentious farm laws. Thousands of farmers from two agrarian states — Punjab and Haryana — have been demonstrating near New Delhi since Nov. 26.

The protesting farmers laid siege to the national capital in a violent show of strength. The riot killed a farmer and injured more than 100 police personnel. Delhi police permitted farmers to have a tractor rally on Republic Day but the protesters deviated from permitted routes and sensitive places including the iconic Red Fort. Police resistance turned them violent.

The government enacted new farming laws in September 2020, purportedly to reform the sector. But farmers and opposition leaders say the laws are meant to help big companies exploit the poor and should be repealed. The violence came after several rounds of negotiations between the government and the agitating farmers' bodies had failed. 

The farmers' rally on Republic Day also highlighted a darker side of Indian politics and governance. At least 60 widows of farmers who committed suicide in Maharashtra participated in the agitation.

According to government data, an average of 14,000 farmers committed suicide each year between 1995 and 2015 to escape debt and poverty because of farm failures. Modi's government came to power in 2014 promising action to help farmers, but since 2015 it has stopped publishing the data about farmer suicides. That's an effective way to tackle the issue in a democracy!

In some states, even teachers are unhappy. In the northeastern state of Tripura, thousands of "dismissed" teachers have protested for the last two months after a court verdict rendered some 10,000 jobless. Several tribal teachers, including some Christians, have committed suicide out of desperation.

Bhagaban Das, a BJP lawmaker, said the teachers should not blame the government. He said the state's former communist government appointed them through a faulty policy and a Supreme Court order nullified the appointments.

"The protests against the BJP are politically motivated as opposition parties feel threatened by the good performance of the Modi government," he maintained.

Others say the BJP leadership is indifferent to people's agony as Modi wants to establish dictatorial rule. It is palpable that the rise of Hindu nationalism in the six years since Modi came to power has left Indian Muslims and Christians nervous and worried.

The main apprehension among religious minority leaders and a section of left-liberals has been that the BJP could change the constitution to discard its secular character and the parliamentary system. This fear is not new.

In the 1990s, Modi's mentor and veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani, a former deputy prime minister, floated the idea of a presidential form of government. Advani said the Indian constitution required a "fresh look." The new Modi regime has been functioning more in a presidential form where Modi is the ultimate and only boss.

There has been a raging debate over allegations that the government has made subtle attempts to subvert constitutional bodies such as the poll panel and Supreme Court to meet its ends.

The government has pursued such an agenda, and on Aug. 5, 2019, it abrogated Article 370 of the constitution that gave guaranteed autonomy to Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state.

In November 2019, the Supreme Court gave a mandate allowing the temple construction in Ayodhya, a move that certainly displeased Muslims.

BJP leaders in their election campaign always include temple visits and public prayers, accusing opposition parties and critics of being anti-Hindu. That has also resulted in Congress and other opposition leaders visiting temples, putting up a show for the media. The evaluation of secularism in India!

As political history progresses in India, the major question is this: how long will India's secular constitution remain intact, guaranteeing freedom of religion and expression to all citizens. That causes disquiet in many Indian minds.

(UCAN News, Jan 27, 2021)

Congress and other opposition leaders including likes of Mamata Banerjee visiting temples to put on a show for the media. 

Many say often Indian communists have shown tendency to play up religious card to woo voters. Notwithstanding protest, the Modi Government's grip on Indian politics remains undiluted.

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Master strategist Modi woos Indian Christians by meeting cardinals

New Delhi witnessed vintage politics when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met three Indian cardinals this week, but it went off more as a photo opportunity without any debated content.

For Modi and his pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Jan. 19 meeting was a sure piece of material to woo Christians in some key states where elections are due this summer.

At face value, Modi inviting and having an exclusive meeting with India's most senior Catholic leaders — Cardinal Oswald Gracias of the Latin-rite Church, Cardinal George Alencherry, major archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, and Cardinal Baselios Cleemis of the Syro-Malankara Church — denotes Modi and the BJP re-establishing strong links with Christians.

The BJP and Modi have been facing criticism for ignoring Christian interests amid reports of increased anti-Christian violence and harassment from Hindu fanatic elements, particularly in northern India.  

The meeting’s timing can easily link it to the fast-approaching state elections in the southern state of Kerala, where Christians are important stakeholders.

Numerically, Christians form some 18 percent of the state’s 33 million people. But in several constituencies, they are strong enough to turn the tables in favor of the BJP, which currently has only one seat in the 140-seat legislative house.

Hindus in Kerala, who form 55 percent of the state's population, have mostly voted for either left-wing parties or the BJP's national rival Congress. In the highly secularized state, the BJP hardly had any base until five years ago.

Kerala's political landscape began to change after Modi came to power in New Delhi in 2014, and particularly after his re-election in 2019. Emboldened by the BJP victory at national level and in several states, the party's state unit has been trying to befriend Christians.

In the last decade, the BJP has succeeded in winning sympathizers, politically and emotionally, among Kerala Hindus. With the backing of Christians, the BJP leadership hopes to gain politically. Politics, of course, is the art of the possible. The dice's throw, such as the cardinals' meeting, can often have consequences that are not easily visible. But master electoral strategists such as Modi can see what the cardinals cannot see.

The ruling BJP's chief electoral planners, Modi himself and his trusted lieutenant Amit Shah, the combative federal home minister, know well that the meeting with the cardinals can send a strong positive message to Kerala Christians.

The ruling dispensation in Kerala, led by the communists, depends on Hindu and Christian votes. The rivals are the Congress party and its partner Indian Union of Muslim League, a Muslim party.

Modi's BJP does not have much organizational presence in Kerala. Modi has been one of the most ambitious prime ministers of modern India, and his stint in New Delhi had seen a massive expansion of the BJP. The party has managed to marginalize opponents and wrest power in several states, including Christian-majority Nagaland and Meghalaya.

The cardinals reportedly discussed several issues at the meeting with Modi. But one of them will certainly stand out during election time in Kerala. The cardinals sought equitable distribution of social welfare funds meant for religious minorities such as Christians and Muslims, complaining that Muslims take away the lion's share.

The BJP, which looks to pitch Hindus and Christians against Muslims in Kerala, has a tool here. Between 2001 and 2011, Muslims increased from 24.7 percent to 26.5 percent of the state’s population, while Christians declined from 19 percent to 18.3 percent and Hindus from 56.2 percent to 54.7 percent.

It is important to note that the meeting with the cardinals happened at the initiative of S. Sreedharan Pillai, a Kerala BJP leader and current governor of Christian-dominated Mizoram state.

The BJP is clearly trying to woo Christians in Kerala amid criticism of the party unleashing a highly polarizing mission to establish a Hindu-only nation.

During election campaigns, the BJP softens its belligerent stand on religious conversion or cow slaughter with a keen eye not to offend Christians and Muslims. And many fall for it.

"One can call such Christians and Muslims political Hindus. They are useful during elections, and in the past Christians have embraced the BJP in states like Nagaland and Mizoram. Overall, they fit in with Modi's definition of a Hindu nation," says a Mizo Christian politician on condition of anonymity.

"In a narrow perspective, the Hindu nation concept is a highly personalized one in which Modi becomes a cult and a macho leader who pledges a strong and richer India."

Modi has befriended Christian leaders in the past, sometimes bringing electoral dividends. The BJP runs a coalition government in Nagaland, where native Naga Christian leader Y. Patton is the state’s deputy chief minister.

In Mizoram, too, on the eve of 2018 assembly polls, several Christian leaders, including former pastors, joined the BJP.

In Kerala, Modi made Catholic former bureaucrat K.J. Alphons a minister in 2017. Of course, in 2019, after he started a second term as prime minister, his mega 58-member Council of Ministers did not find a berth for any Christian leader.

It is now given that Kerala BJP leaders are going gaga over Modi's latest meeting with the cardinals. They project the meeting as proving Modi's keen interest in addressing the issues of the Christian community.

In 2015, a year after the prime minister took charge, Modi was strongly criticized for not speaking out against the Delhi attacks on churches or the “reconversions” of Christians to Hinduism.

It is also not much discussed that in 2017 Pope Francis had expressed interest in visiting India but the visit did not materialize as the BJP-led government chose not to invite him.

Generally, the BJP's election strategies have yielded dividends, notwithstanding the growing perception that the party has been against Christian and Muslim interests.

Modi and his party have brought methods and effective planning in drawing up election strategies. Wooing Christians is perhaps one of such many strategies. The cardinals’ meeting with Modi should be seen from this perspective. However, there is no reason to lambast the cardinals or accuse them of helping a political game.

If the BJP and Modi himself were working on a plan, the cardinals were in a difficult position. Could they have said no to an invitation from the prime minister? What purpose would it have served?

It is almost impossible to block Modi’s strategies.

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