NEW DELHI, Apr 12 (IPS) - The pro-Hindu Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), which led India's coalition
government between 1998 and 2004, has mounted
an aggressive challenge to the country's legal
and electoral system.
It has defied India's election law by distributing
inflammatory anti-Muslim material while soliciting
votes in this month's elections to the legislature
of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state and
the world's sixth most populous political entity
after China, India itself, the United States,
Indonesia and Brazil.
The material includes a compact disc (CD) which
vilifies Muslims and seeks votes for the BJP
by claiming it is the sole guardian of the interests
of the Hindus, and hence of India. But the BJP
feigns innocence and says it is not responsible
for the CD.
India's statutory Election Commission has objected
to the CD. The Commission, which is autonomous
of the executive branch of government, is empowered
to take disciplinary and punitive action against
any political party. Its decision will have
major consequences for the current assembly
elections.
Uttar Pradesh accounts for 15 percent of all
seats in India's Parliament. It lies in the
heart of India's Hindi belt and plays a trend-setting
role in politics. Of the state's 175 million
people 18 million are Muslims.
In recent years, new political alignments have
appeared in Uttar Pradesh, including the meteoric
rise of parties representing the lower orders
of society, including Dalits (former Untouchables)
and middle and lower castes (called Other Backward
Classes -- OBCs).
No government in Uttar Pradesh has completed
its full term for 40 years. The current elections
are also expected to produce a hung Assembly.
Which parties can form the next government will
be decided next month.
Many colourful personalities, including Rahul
Gandhi, son of Congress President Sonia Gandhi,
have entered the campaign with its hectic schedules
and cross-country trips on appallingly bad roads.
The CD in question was released by the BJP's
top leaders in Uttar Pradesh at a ceremony on
Apr. 3, four days before the first round of
polling in the seven-phase election, staggered
over a month.
But the party's officials hurriedly withdrew
it and claimed that they were not aware of its
content and had not approved it; it had been
unauthorisedly cleared and issued by an "over-enthusiastic"
junior functionary who has since been removed.
However, the commercial firm that was commissioned
to produce the CD says that top BJP leaders
were consulted "at every stage" of
its writing, modification and editing.
Campaigning based on hate-speech and on maligning
a religious group is explicitly banned under
Indian law. Just over 80 percent of India's
population is Hindu. But India also has the
world's second largest Muslim population and
its Constitution is solidly secular.
The CD can cause a serious setback to the BJP
if the law is properly applied. It depicts Indian
Muslims as treacherous "anti-Hindu"
citizens who will again divide India. It uses
a series of dramatised fictional sequences with
a script that says Muslims are duplicitous:
they kidnap, forcibly marry and convert Hindu
women; they deceitfully and illegally kill cows;
they run "anti-national" madrasas;
and are not loyal to India.
The CD's appeal for votes is unambiguously based
on stoking hatred towards Muslims. It says:
"(If) you don't vote for the BJP, disaster
will strike this country. The country will be
destroyed. The BJP is a party that thinks about
the country. It thinks about the Hindu religion.
? All other parties are agents of the Muslims."
"The CD is calculated to provoke a strong
reaction from Muslims -- and possibly a Hindu
backlash", says Achin Vanaik, political
scientist and author of a book on Hindu fundamentalism,
religion-based politics and threats to democracy.
"The BJP probably hopes that this will
prevent the erosion of its caste-Hindu support
and win it some ultra-nationalist votes."
Adds Vanaik: "This is a familiar tactic
of the BJP and its predecessor, Jana Sangh,
which are both creations of the secret society-style
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The BJP has
routinely tried to win votes by stoking hatred
on religious grounds. It's now doing so brazenly
and in a crude, rustic manner."
The CD is not the sole instance of such political
abuse of religion. The BJP has also taken out
lurid full-page advertisements in many newspapers
in western Uttar Pradesh, where polling is due
on Saturday.
These advertisements, emblazoned with the lotus
(the party's election symbol) and chief ministerial
candidate Kalyan Singh's picture, accuses the
BJP's opponents of shielding anti-national terrorist
forces, defending Islamicist-extremist education
in madrasas, opposing the symbols and deities
of "Hindu India", and appeasing Muslims.
The advertisement shows a neighbourhood with
Islamic flags hoisted from every housetop, with
a slogan that reads: "kya inka irada pak
hai?" (Is their intention pure?) This plays
on the Hindi/Urdu word pak (pure), which is
also shorthand for Pakistan.
Hindu nationalists have always maligned India's
Muslims, now numbering some 160 million, as
more loyal to Pakistan. For them, Pakistan is
India's main external enemy, just as Muslims
are its main internal enemy.
Amidst large-scale violence and a major exchange
of populations, Pakistan was created out of
India on the basis of religion when the sub-continent
was decolonised in 1947.
At the time of writing, the Election Commission
has not taken action against this offensive
advertisement, but may do so.
It is currently hearing the BJP's argument on
why it should not be de-recognised as a political
party for violating the election law and the
Indian Penal Code, which forbid appeals to religion
to gain votes, and prohibits/punishes the use
of inflammatory communal material.
Several sections of the Code prescribe severe
punishment for trying to create enmity/hatred
among religious communities and using inflammatory
campaign material -- on pain of disqualification
of the concerned candidate.
India's Election Commission also prescribes
a 'model code of conduct', which disallows such
practices.
The code's violation can lead to disqualification
or attract other punitive action. De-recognition
of a party by the Commission means it cannot
contest elections. At the very least, it cannot
use the symbol allotted to it by the Commission.
"There can't be the least doubt that the
BJP is guilty on all these counts in the present
case," argues Tanika Sarkar, a modern Indian
historian, and author of several papers on Hindu-nationalism,
propaganda and violence. "The CD is typical
of its propaganda methods, of spreading fear
and hatred, and fomenting violence."
The BJP produced a similar CD this past December,
during a meeting of its national office-bearers
in Lucknow. This too vilifies Muslims. This
was handed out to journalists in a media kit.
The party says it owns it up fully, but duplicitously
disassociates itself from the new CD.
"Double standards come naturally to the
BJP", adds Sarkar. "That apart, the
CD uses idioms and images that are the trade-mark
of the Hindu-nationalist movement. This movement
has shrewdly, and effectively, used audio-visual
material for more than 20 years to spread its
message. It uses such means to a far greater
extent than any other party."
Confronted with the Election Commission's notice
at a critical juncture in the electoral process,
the BJP has resorted to two tactics. It has
self-righteously pleaded innocence and claimed
it is being victimised. Secondly, it has tried
to turn the tables on the Commission by personally
targeting one of its three members, Naveen Chawla.
It accuses Chawla, a highly-placed retired civil
servant, of prejudice against it and of sympathies
for the Congress party. And it demands that
Chawla recuse himself from the hearing. The
Commission has not yet decided the recusal issue.
"These are low-level intimidatory tactics",
says Vanaik. "One can only hope that the
Election Commission does not cave in to the
BJP's bullying and sticks to the law by de-recognising
it. The BJP got away with murder in the past
because India's establishment failed to apply
the law of the land and pandered to Hindu majoritarianism."
Adds Vanaik: "This happened after the BJP
and its cohorts razed the 16th century Babri
mosque at Ayodhya in 1992, unleashing further
violence. It again happened during a pogrom
of Muslims in Gujarat five years ago. The BJP
has never been disciplined or punished for any
of these illegalities and its assaults on democracy.
It must not escape punishment now."
Millions of Indians await the Election Commission's
verdict as the second phase of polling in the
seven-phase election approaches. At stake is
India's character as a plural, multi-religious,
multi-cultural society. Whatever its content,
the EC's decision will have profound consequences
for the future of politics in the world's largest
democracy. (END/2007)
