Book on Hindutva wave in 2019 elections launched

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, January 15

A book titled “India’s 2019 Elections: The Hindutva Wave and Indian Nationalism” was released at the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) in Sector 38 here today.

The book launch was followed by a session under the Prof Randhir Singh Memorial Series on “Legitimisation of right-wing politics in India: Redefining the secular space”.

The event was organised by the IDC, in association with Chandigarh University.

The book was the sixth in a series on Indian elections and is said to be the first to critically analyse the 17th Lok Sabha elections.

An amalgamation of region-based case studies on electoral politics in the country, the book critically explores underlying factors such as the absolute dominance of extreme nationalism based on majoritarian religious identity as well as the increased participation of women and the marginalised sections of Indian society.

The book had been edited by Paul Wallace, Professor Emeritus at the University of Columbia, Missouri, USA. “Politics creates problems and the only way to resolve these is politics,” he said.

Gurbachan Jagat, former Governor of Manipur, launched the book along with Dr SY Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner, and Prof Pramod Kumar, Director, IDC, Chandigarh.

The former Manipur Governor underlined that changes in politics and political behaviour did not happen in a jiffy. These required insights and tremendous efforts by the contesting political groups.

He said a lot of effort by the BJP and its mother organisation, the RSS, had been put behind the 2019 General Election. They have been waiting for this day for the past 50-60 years. They organised it right from ‘shakhas’ to upward, he noted.

He said preparations for the 2019 elections did not begin in 2014 and the preparations for the 2014 elections did not start in 2013 but a long time ago. The process of radicalisation of various sections of society had been happening for a prolonged period. It was now growing at a much faster pace as they were in power now. He said universities, NGOs and intellectuals were being targeted. Many organisations were under a threat, he added.

Prof Pramod Kumar said the legitimisation of right-wing politics had historically evolved. Most of the alliances in post-globalised economy were on the right side of politics. He gave an example of the alliance between the Congress and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in 2019.

The central objective of the session as redefining the secular space was contested and discussed exhaustively and concern was raised on how liberal, rational, nationalist and secular thoughts were being targeted under the right-wing political arena.

It was highlighted that the space of nationalism redefined by the BJP was being resisted by a formidable section of society. There was a need to revisit Gandhian prescription. It was also reiterated that with the introduction of the third interjection i.e. the Constitution, minorities got a licence to consolidate their identities in the secular space and appropriation by politics lead to polarisation.

Views were also expressed at the event by Prof Harish Puri, who retired from the Department of Political Science, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar; Prof Ujjwal Kumar Singh, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi, New Delhi; Prof Ronki Ram, Department of Political Science, Panjab University; Prof Rajiv Lochan, Department of History, PU; Prof Lallan Baghel, Department of Philosophy, PU; and Swaraj Bir Singh, Editor, Punjabi Tribune.