Social transformation in India – Being ‘fanatic’ a neo-fashion statement; finding faults with Hindus remain the supposed basis for Intellectualism
New Delhi:
India is perhaps creating a new elite that is basically provincial, pro-Hindi and pro-Hindu.
The result: no one would be apologetic about being fanatic.
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“This is the new social order now. We may not see the kind of major upheaval or social destabilisation. But in India, in the name of anti-elitiism, what we have is anti-intellectualism and to be precise anti-Left Liberalism. This is bringing in a contest and the political class is playing a catalyst,” says West Bengal based-social analyst Ramakanto Shanyal.
The issue is the new ruling-political class under the patronage of a century-old Sanghparivar fountainhead, RSS, has “less regard” for India’s development as a secular and pluralistic nation since 1947.
There is another twist. This ‘gradual’ cultural transition perhaps started under Atal Bihari Vajpayee – Modi’s predecessor as a BJP Prime Minister.
On May 11,1998, India conducted nuke tests. Jingoists had celebration time. India became both a ‘perpetrator’ and a ‘victim’. These arguments have carried forward only under Modi.
The Indian bureaucracy and the entire political governance system under the country’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in a general sense used to “think in English and think global”.
So, South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement or what happened in Vietnam formed part of intellectual debates among students and media persons in Delhi or in Kolkata.
It is no longer the case perhaps. There is a gradual push towards provincialism. This section perhaps thinks more in an ideology guided by ‘Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan’.
And hence, the recent West Bengal assembly polls was seen more as a contest between native Bengali culture as against the ‘Hindi and Hindu only’ push by the BJP.
According to political observer, Tushar Bhadra in PM’s constituency Varanasi, “The media and political opponents of Modi are also responsible for this. The entire focus in last six-seven years has been on communalisation of India. Perhaps that is also true; but what is more concerning is the new way the ruling class and top officials in centre and in states think today”.
“This phenomenon is not being grasped properly and as a result Indians could soon be in a battle between Bharat (traditional Hindu name of the country) and India. Many top officials in the new dispensations either in UP or Delhi have not studied abroad as used to be a normal thing in the past,” he adds.
Thus, what we have on hand is a challenge as this could lead to the ‘fall of modern India’ that has been built up in the
last seven decades. Earlier, PMO had one or two top Babus who were products of St Stephen’s College in Delhi.
“The new generation is a changed lot. They think communal. My cousins and their children in Siliguri in West Bengal are touchy about facts like who are the labourers working in their garden. They discourage Muslim labourers, this was unthinkable in communist-ruled Bengal in 1990s,” says Shanyal.
There is actually an emergence of the ‘Hindu-intellectual’ phenomenon and youths in many places take pride in this ‘transition’.
Some of it could be attributed to the influence of RSS.
“In Tripura, which was once a Left bastion, today BJP is in power. In West Bengal polls, not a single communist state legislator or parliamentarian has been elected since 2019. Indian youths are turning neo-nationalists and generally discard the Leftists,” says 25-year student Tuton Biswas from northeast India.
Others also agree that ‘dilution’ of communists' influence in Indian politics has led to the rise of fundamentalism.
On August 5, 2019, the Modi government abolished Article 370 that gave some functional autonomy to India’s only Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir. On August 5, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi laid the foundation stone for a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya that would come up at a place where once Babri Masjid stood.
Essentially these are not just socio-political events. In fact in the last two years and more so perhaps in the
last six and half years since Modi became Prime Minister of India – there is a latent but very strong ‘cultural transformation’ if not a silent revolution in India. A ‘transformation’ that seems anti-English and anti-elite.
But it is creating a new elite that is basically provincial, pro-Hindi and pro-Hindu.
The result: no one would be apologetic about being fanatic.
“This is the new social order now. We may not see the kind of major upheaval or social destabilisation. But in India, in the name of anti-elitiism, what we have is anti-intellectualism and to be precise anti-Left Liberalism. This is bringing in a contest and the political class is playing a catalyst,” says West Bengal based-social analyst Ramakanto Shanyal.
The issue is the new ruling-political class under the patronage of a century-old Sanghparivar fountainhead, RSS, has “less regard” for India’s development as a secular and pluralistic nation since 1947.
Every evening TV debates in popular English and Hindi channels these days would openly make blistering
attacks on the Left-liberals trying to portray them as a decaying ideology and also at times ‘anti-India’.
Even the other day, there was a huge controversy after some Left leaders including veteran Marxist Sitaram Yechury
went for a virtual webinar organised by the Chinese embassy to mark 100 years of Communist Party of China.
These are telling changes, which should not be put under the carpet.
It makes a huge political sense not to ignore these facts of social life in India.
Prime Minister Modi and BJP have also legitimised use of Hindu-political metaphors.
Therefore, post-election in Assam, one major decision taken by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has been to
restrict cow slaughter and cattle movement. Sarma himself is a former Congressman and thus it is a case of an ex-Congress leader turning ‘more Hindu’ than the Hindu colleagues in BJP.
Opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi makes temple visits a must during elections. Other parties have
done so in West Bengal and communists took pro-Hindu line in Kerala.
There is also a gradual acceptance of vegetarian culture for gastronomy.
One knows of Christian tribal leaders from northeastern states who having joined BJP have turned ‘vegetarians’; and at least given up beef and pork eating –ostensibly citing the health ground and age factors.
The BJP leaders would, however, readily deny these.
One Naga BJP office bearer told UCAN: “The real issues are not appreciated in the media. The BJP has become
an acceptable political party today among Christians because Congress has failed. You know in Nagaland, where Congress ruled for 60 years, just because they are out of power, they do not field 60 candidates for state assembly elections.
The voters have to make a choice and the power factor is a magnet”.
In 2018, assembly polls for 60 seats, Congress put up only 20 candidates citing ‘fund crunch’, and today, the country’s oldest party Congress does not have any legislator in Nagaland, Delhi, Tripura and also West Bengal.
But the change is undeniable for Indians who are in their mid-40s and 50s. This generation has been
hardly concerned about caste and religion, but in ‘New India’, these are important and decisive identities.
Muslims and northeastern tribals (because of their food habits) face numerous problems when it comes to house hunting in Delhi, Mumbai or Ahmedabad.
Today, unfortunately for younger people and also people in positions of power in corporate sectors,
government offices and even in the media, the ‘thinking’ begins with religious identity.
There is another factor responsible for this. And that is a dominant one – called the ‘Modi factor’.
Essentially, this means ‘Modi’ has been a polarising protagonist. Either you like him, or you dislike him; and those who say they belong to the ‘middle path’ are either shy or scared of sharing their genuine feelings.
This also reflects a transformation, if not a revolution.
UCAN report
India becomes 'unappologetically' Hindu
August 5 marks the second anniversary of the constitutional amendment initiated by the Narendra Modi government to take away the functional autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.
A year later, on the same day in 2020, the prime minister laid the foundation stone for a grand Ram temple at Ayodhya on a plot of land where once stood the Babri mosque before its demolition by frenzied mobs of Hindus in 1992.
The two events aren’t mere sociopolitical developments in the recent history of the country but can be seen as symbols of the latent but strong cultural transformation India has undergone ever since Modi became prime minister in 2014.
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This transformation has pitchforked a new elite who are basically provincial, pro-Hindu and pro-Hindi. They detest English and prefer the Hindi language, and proclaim their Hindu identity.
The end result has been the rise of an unapologetic fanatic.
“This is the new social order now. We may not see major upheaval or social destabilization. But in the name of anti-elitism what we have got is anti-intellectualism. More precisely it is anti-liberalism,” West Bengal-based social analyst Ramakanto Shanyal said.
“The new generation has changed a lot. They think communal,” Shanyal said while narrating how his cousins and their children were now touchy about mundane things like employing laborers to work in their garden.
“They won’t employ Muslims. This was unthinkable in communist-ruled Bengal till the nineties,” Shanyal added.
The new ruling political class, under the patronage of its century-old Hindu fountainhead called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has no regard for India’s progress as a secular and pluralistic nation since it gained independence in 1947.
The gradual transition perhaps started under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the first prime minister to lead a federal government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
It was Vajpayee who conducted India’s nuclear tests on May 11, 1998, triggering jingoistic celebrations across the country that are being carried forward now under Modi.
The bureaucracy and governance system under Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first PM, was generally believed to “think in English” as part of India’s place in the world community.
That has begun to change slowly. So, South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement or the Vietnam War are no more part of intellectual debates among students and media persons in Delhi or Kolkata. The debates now are veering towards provincialism guided by the Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan ideology.
Thus, the recently held state elections in West Bengal became an open contest between native Bengali culture versus the "Hindi and Hindu only" approach of the BJP.
“The media and political opponents of Modi are also responsible for this scenario. The entire focus in the past six-seven years has been on the communalization of India,” observed Tushar Bhadra, a political observer from Modi’s constituency in Varanasi.
He said this phenomenon is not being grasped properly and hence a battle between Bharat (India's traditional Hindi name) and modern India could ensue in the coming years.
Many top officials in the national capital Delhi or in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh have not studied abroad or at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, unlike their predecessors, Bhadra pointed out.
Thus, the real challenge could be the undoing or fall of modern India built over the past seven decades with the emergence of the Hindu intellectual in the past seven years or so.
“In Tripura, once a left-wing bastion, the BJP is in power today. In West Bengal, not a single communist legislator or parliamentarian has been elected since 2019. Indian youth is turning neo-nationalist and discarding the leftists,” says Tuton Biswas, a 25-year-old student from northeast India.
Others agree that the diminishing communist influence in Indian politics could have led to the rise of fundamentalism.
Popular English and Hindi news channels openly portray it as a decaying ideology that was also anti-India.
Recently, they even castigated leftist leaders for attending a webinar organized by the Chinese embassy to mark 100 years of the Communist Party of China.
These changes in the national attitude are telling. They cannot be ignored.
Prime Minister Modi and his BJP have legitimized the Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan political metaphor to such an extent that even a seasoned politician like Himanta Biswa Sarma, after becoming chief minister of Assam recently, announced restrictions on cow slaughter and cattle movement.
Sarma, a former Congressman, perhaps wanted to prove himself more Hindu than those originally from the pro-Hindu BJP.
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Even Rahul Gandhi, the Congress MP and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, makes it a point now to visit temples during elections.
One also knows of Christian tribal leaders from the northeastern states joining the BJP and suddenly turning vegetarians, or at least giving up beef and pork eating — of course citing health grounds or the age factor.
Some communists are turning pro-Hindu in their lone stronghold of Kerala.
There is no denying that Modi has changed the political discourse in India by successfully polarizing the electorate on the basis of religion. Every political discussion is now viewed from the prism of the Hindu religion.
Everything that is not popular among Hindus is scorned and opposed tooth and nail. Citizens have come to associate themselves and others more and more with religion and language.
A silent social transformation is underway in contemporary India.
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