India elections: The ascendancy of political Hinduism

[mota bhai 2,675]

Jason Burke
The Observer, Saturday 19 April 2014 17.27 EDT

From a distance, the scene is as colourful as any in India. Men dressed as Hindu deities, with tinsel crowns and tridents, wait for their turn on the stage. Teenagers saunter by trucks carrying effigies of mythological heroes and listen to speeches.

Yet a closer look reveals elements that are less picturesque. The speakers are repeating well-worn slogans common among hardline elements of India's religious right. The young men are armed, some with ceremonial swords of little use, but others with combat knives and heavy-bladed hatchets. "This is our tradition," one says. "We are showing that we, too, are strong."

The young men are from the Bajrang Dal, a youth organisation dedicated to advancing a rigorous and revivalist version of Hinduism.

...

"The others are always showing their strength. Now it's our turn," said Nala Kumar Thakur, an 18-year-old student from south Delhi, demonstrating slashing strokes with his sabre. "All Hindus should know that their culture is under threat."

The teenagers of Bajrang Dal believe they may soon have something else to celebrate. With the Indian election moving into its final weeks – the process of balloting 815 million eligible voters takes nearly two months – their favoured candidate appears set to take power in this troubled emerging economic power of 1.2 billion people.

Narendra Modi

That candidate is Narendra Modi, the 63-year-old who leads the opposition Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The Bajrang Dal is among the most militant of the many nationalist and religious organisations active in India that come under the umbrella of the Sangh Parivar, which has been linked to a variety of violent acts over the decades. The BJP is perhaps the most moderate. Positioned somewhere between the two is the vast Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS – National Volunteer Association), which Modi joined around the age of 10.

...

Quite how much the RSS, which was formed in 1925 to encourage a resurgence of Hindu culture in the face of British colonial rule, is helping Modi's campaign is hard to detect in crowded major cities such as Delhi. But in places like the small temple town of Vrindavan, a scruffy collection of shrines, ashrams, potholed streets and tenements 120 miles east of the capital, the depth of the collaboration is clear. This region, on the margin of the vast northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is the Hindi heartland. Political strategists know the road to power in Delhi lies through the rough, poor state's cities, towns and multitude of villages. It is here that the BJP has made its biggest effort, with the RSS in the vanguard.

Every morning a score of local men gather at 6am for the drill session that is the principal ritual of the RSS. They meet yards from the temple complex in Vrindavan built where Krishna, one of the most popular gods in the Hindu pantheon, supposedly spent his childhood. As monkeys play in the trees and rickshaw drivers sip tea at stands nearby, they sing, pray to "Mother India", drill and do exercises. Simultaneously, across the entire country, another 40,000 such meetings are taking place.

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After the drill session, the men spread out through Vrindavan, which goes to the polls this week.

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"We tell people to vote for Modi," said Harish Bhartia, a 47-year-old small businessman.

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RSS activists and officials say they do not discriminate on the basis of religion ... But many claim Indian Muslims are loyal to Pakistan rather than India, are attempting to win a "demographic war", and support terrorism. Both the Muslim Mughal dynasty, which ruled much of south Asia from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and British imperialists are seen as foreign invaders who between them destroyed a perfect Hindu rural society.

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Every evening, outside the Vrindavan headquarters of the RSS, around 30 boys sing, pray and drill in front of a saffron flag. They are between eight and 13-years-old, around the age of Modi when he first joined the organisation. At the end of an hour, their right arms crossed over their chests in the organisation's salute, they chant a hymn to Mother India, the beloved Himalayas, the Ganges river. They swear lifelong devotion to "this blessed place" where they were born.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/19/india-elections-hardliners-narendra-modi

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Their party is named after a lentil stew?

[mota bhai 2,675]

Their party is named after a lentil stew?

No, different word.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Oh, all right.