Congress’ Bajrang Dal gambit

Rajesh Ramachandran

AN ignorant blunder or a shrewd gamble? The jury is still out on the Congress’ big political statement in its Karnataka manifesto equating Bajrang Dal with a banned Islamist secessionist organisation, the Popular Front of India (PFI). Cow vigilantes calling themselves Bajrang Dal members or by any other name have wreaked havoc on rural economy, making cow breeding an economically impossible proposition. Marginal farmers doing back-breaking work in the sun are not sentimental about what happens to their cattle once they are sold. Only city slickers can afford to turn animals into moms and aunts and make political capital out of them. Even in an overwhelmingly vegetarian state like Haryana, the farmers are letting loose their cattle outside government offices in protest against cow vigilantism that has criminalised the cattle trade. For, the farmers know that the vigilantes are only after a fast lucre, and kill and maim to push a legitimate trade underground.

If the anti-incumbency factor continues to override the ‘hurt sentiments’ of political Hindus, the Congress would indeed heave a sigh of relief.

So, an attack on cow vigilantism as an election ploy will not be an unwelcome assurance. But to promise a ban on the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), which has produced Members of Parliament and important leaders of the ruling BJP, is a giant leap for the Congress’ anti-Hindutva polemics. For instance, the founder-president of Bajrang Dal, Vinay Katiyar, has been a Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha member and had headed the BJP in its all-important state of Uttar Pradesh. To ban Bajrang Dal is like banning VHP or any other Sangh Parivar outfit or even the mother ship, the RSS. It is in this context that the question is asked: is it a stupid mistake arising out of someone’s desperate need to please Rahul Gandhi or is it a clever attempt to consolidate 13 per cent Muslim votes? Even if the latter is the case, it is an extremely risky venture fraught with many imponderables. Something that could go either way.

The Congress was clearly ahead in the run-up to the polls with the BJP battling a very bad anti-incumbency backlash. The slogan of “40% Sarkar”, referring to corruption allegations of heavy commissions in government projects, had deflated the BJP’s politics of polarisation. When it is all about choosing the lesser evil, the incumbent is always up against public anger. No wonder the BJP had to drop several sitting MLAs to overcome people’s apathy at the constituency level. The election lacked an overarching theme and, as it happens in such situations, caste became the predominant political factor swaying the electorate. Local caste arithmetic and hyper-local factors were adding and subtracting to the poll accruals, leaving the BJP sweating to retain its hold on the dominant Lingayat community, while trying to expand its social base without a clear outcome.

That was the scenario in which the Congress introduced the Sangh Parivar factor — promising to ban an organisation that spawns BJP leaders. It may not impact the angry floating voter but it can definitely influence the voter loosely aligned to the Parivar ideology. The Sangh Parivar is a cadre organisation that has committed voters and also a large chunk of sympathisers. In an election with a predominantly anti-incumbency trend which has no issue poking the cadre’s core ideology, the sympathisers angry with corrupt ministers, MLAs and local functionaries can simply decide to sit it out. All these unenthused or unhappy sympathisers have now been poked by the Congress manifesto’s reference to the VHP’s youth wing. But for Rahul Gandhi’s vanity, there can only be one good reason why the Congress could have polarised a favourable poll situation (yes, by naming and equating the Bajrang Dal or the Sangh Parivar with an Islamist secessionist organisation, the Congress has introduced a polarising factor in the polls).

In the communally polarised constituencies of coastal Karnataka, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), a political outfit often accused of being the overground wing of the PFI, normally picks up a few thousand votes. It might soothe the nerves of Islamists who are hurt by the ban on the PFI to hear the Congress equating the Bajrang Dal with the PFI, or they might possibly feel vicariously avenged by the promise to ban a Sangh Parivar outfit. The SDPI cannot seek revenge on its own, nor can Asaduddin Owaisi’s party or any other Islamist outfit; so, such a promise can lead to the consolidation of Islamist votes along with the Congress’ traditional Muslim vote bank. This ploy can at best avoid the split of Muslim votes between the moderates opting for the Congress and hardliners seeking out Islamists. But the flip side is a Hindutva consolidation, which may hurt the Congress badly.

Then, theoretically, it is problematic to equate a Hindutva outfit with an Islamist organisation. India, after all, was already divided on religious lines. Yet, Islamists like the PFI want to turn India Islamic in the next 25 years, bringing it under Sharia. The Sangh Parivar has been in power intermittently for 15 years — the last almost nine with a simple majority. But for the Anglo-American press claiming this to be a dictatorship, there are no signs of a “second-class” role for the minorities or a Hindu Rashtra in Punjab in the north or Kerala in the south or West Bengal in the east. If at all the BJP is winning, it is because the primary Opposition party is blundering. And wherever the Opposition has the organisational heft to take on the BJP, it is succeeding. The best example is Himachal Pradesh. The conclusive victory of the Congress in the Assembly polls and now the Shimla municipal polls only proves that the party can defeat the BJP where it has its organisation intact.

Karnataka is one such state where, despite a three-cornered contest, the Congress could have become the single largest party and even come to power. If the anti-incumbency factor continues to override the ‘hurt sentiments’ of political Hindus, the Congress would indeed heave a sigh of relief. If not, this blunder would cost it dear in the coming days.

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