Book Review: Unpacking The Contradictions Of The Rise Of Right In India

How to deal with a socio-political force that thrives on majoritarianism, ironically getting its strength from an engineered perception of victimhood, and a leader who enjoys supreme authority and yet charms people as he plays the victim? How to defeat a ruler who also looks to claim the opposition space, asking the main opposition party to answer for their 바카라�past sins바카라�? Are the opposition forces unknowingly helping the spread of the Hindu cultural nationalists with their incorrect responses?

These are among the questions that political scientist Ajay Gudavarthy바카라�s latest book 바카라�Politics, Ethics and Emotions in 바카라�New India바카라�바카라� provokes. Gudavarthy, an associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and a columnist, in his 220-page book takes a deep dive into the socio-political changes and upheaval that India has stood witness to since Narendra Modi바카라�s rise in the national political scene ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Emotions and ethics have been two major driving forces of political campaigns and Gudavarthy sets his focus essentially on these two in the current Indian context to identify the sources of Hindu nationalist forces바카라� success so far. This is how he attempts to 바카라�find an entry point바카라� to fight an ecosystem that is built and thrives on a set of almost ironic contradictions, to outsmart a force that speaks with a hundred mouths and blurs the border between the fringe and the mainstream to keep people suspended in a state of perpetual confusion.

The book examines the contradictions in the approaches of both the Hindu nationalists, represented by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) family, and the so-called secular-progressive camp represented by various opposition parties and civil society groups. It asks if opposition forces have a proper understanding of India in the first place and even raises uncomfortable questions like 바카라�whether the current populist regime 바카라�constructs바카라� or 바카라�manufactures바카라� a consent or 바카라�represents바카라� a public morality that is organic바카라�.

While asking if the current secular-progressive politics is sufficiently responding to India바카라�s underlying reality, Gudavarthy draws attention to BR Ambedkar바카라�s remarks that 바카라�constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment바카라� but one that 바카라�has to be cultivated바카라� and that 바카라�democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic바카라�.
바카라�Would it be right to then argue that merely criticising and resisting the RSS-BJP combine alone would be misplaced, without doing something about the underlying social muck that is allowing for the majoritarian surge?바카라� he asks.

He discusses Modi바카라�s image-making process in detail and says it entailed 바카라�wanton destruction of everything that came in his way바카라� and that such destruction and centralisation of authority did not come without large-scale social consent. It would, however, be wrong to blame the consent on fear alone. Acts of honouring and celebrating those directly involved in violence, including their electoral victories with big margins and bagging of ministerial berths, 바카라�is a positive affirmation of the violence바카라�.

바카라�Consent and authoritarianism emerged as two sides of the same coin based on mobilising everyday emotions and ethics. It demonstrated how fragments of emotions and slices of ethics can be arranged and rearranged once you have won over the collective trust,바카라� he writes.

He suggests that the consent to the Right has to be made sense of through a compassionate prism, taking into account the 바카라�facelessness of the neoliberal model바카라� that has made the 바카라�regressive-traditionalism of the Right more comforting than unfair바카라�. While remaining alert to the 바카라�injustices and totalitarianism it will inevitably unleash바카라�, it is also necessary to address 바카라�the legitimate anxieties that are pushing people towards the Right, without necessarily agreeing with how those anxieties are being articulated by the Right바카라�.

While discussing the public psyche behind the trend of voting for regional welfare/service-oriented parties in assembly elections and for Modi in the parliamentary election, with special reference to Delhi, he writes that the electorate 바카라�do see that the BJP is playing foul, but they also see this as a necessary retributive measure to rein in unruly behaviour and to keep in check unwarranted assertion by the religious minorities. They agree without necessarily believing what BJP does바카라�.

바카라�Public ethics are fractured, diabolical, and flexible,바카라� he opines, 바카라�They can move seamlessly between lofty idealism and rugged pragmatism; they can move between shared ethos and empowerment, and blind faith and submission; they can move between compassion and consent to violence.바카라�

This is why the opposition needs to find answers to questions like how wide and deep is the circle of consent and what will arouse the collective conscience of the society.

바카라�If we do not unpack the irony of how contradictory processes are being combined into a seamless process, mere moral critique of the process would be inadequate, if not irrelevant,바카라� he argues, and adds that the secular-liberal critique, in fact, 바카라�further justifies the cultural nationalist project enabling it to take more majoritarian proportions.바카라�
Does he mean that the opposition should not try criticising the blatant majoritarianism of the Hindu nationalists and focus on issues involving the economy and social justice? His answers are yes and no. According to him, the fight against Hindutva is complex because one has to look for 바카라�the correct kind of an entry point, which is not readily available but has to be created by political resistance that includes the majority that has conflicting interests바카라�.

바카라�One way to stall the spread of the Hindutva brand of politics is actually to take the question beyond Hindu-Muslim and the secular-communal rhetoric,바카라� he suggests. He hopes that rebuilding a robust welfare state, with a focus on a free and compulsory common school kind of education system, and a wider engagement of the gender issues, could serve as the 바카라�entry points to bring back the social question in northern India, the traditional stronghold of Hindutva forces.
But this alone would not be enough. Instead of disallowing it the space it is demanding for itself, Hindu mobilisation can be neutralised by 바카라�providing for different social and political spaces for the Hindu identity,바카라� he suggests.

He identifies 바카라�unevenness of social locations바카라� as among factors that 바카라�produced confused subjectivity that often borders on self-hatred바카라�. He cites as example ideas like the 바카라�poor Brahmin바카라�, the 바카라�mobile OBC바카라�, and the privileged women as 바카라�quotidian modes of unevenness바카라� that 바카라�end up creating a lack of clarity, complexity of purpose, and confused relation to others바카라�. These are some of the social faultlines that the Right has exploited and their opponents need to give careful thought to address them convincingly.

The book, published as part of the Samruddha Bharat Foundation바카라�s Routledge Reshaping India series, also has fodder for thought for the Hindu Right. It provokes questions like whether the saffron camp바카라�s dependence on the image of one person, Modi, and the centering of power around two persons 바카라�Modi and his closest aide, Home Minister Amit Shah바카라� is weakening one of the BJP바카라�s core strengths, the party바카라�s internal democracy, as opposed to the dynasty politics that the Congress and most opposition parties, barring the Left, have been associated with.

This inner democracy itself allowed the rise of Modi as the prime ministerial candidate despite Rajnath Singh being the party president in 2013 and Lal Krishna Advani still in the picture. 

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(This appeared in print as "Unpacking the Contradictions".)