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Snubbed on the economic front, Sangh turns on the Hindutva heat

George Iype in New Delhi

Even as international attention on the increasing attacks on Christians embarrasses the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is being forced by the Sangh Parivar to bring its cultural agenda into the national mainstream.

BJP insiders disclosed that by whipping up violence against the minorities and raking up the issue of conversion of tribals and backward classes in rural areas, the Parivar has sent a clear message to the prime minister: list Hindutva as a government-sponsored policy.

The Parivar leadership is upset with Vajpayee for rejecting its demand to incorporate its economic nationalism plank in his government's policies.

"Having failed to force the prime minister to toe its economic agenda, some leaders in the Sangh are now pressurising him to act on the cultural nationalism agenda," a BJP member of the Lok Sabha told Rediff On The NeT.

He said Vajpayee's call for a national debate on religious conversions and his soft-pedalling on the increasing attacks on Christians in Gujarat are therefore to be seen as "concessions to the Sangh Parivar".

But he added that if extremist elements within the BJP and the hard-core Hindutva forces step up their campaign against the minorities, the prime minister will be left with no option but to ask them to shut up.

In December, Vajpayee won a major battle with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its economic wing, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, when he refused to accede to their demand to shelve the proposed Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill.

Many in the BJP believe that by digging up the pitch at the Ferozeshah Kotla stadium to protest against the proposed visit of the Pakistan team and stepping up their campaign against Christian missionaries, organisations like the Shiv Sena and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have given notice of their intention to forcibly implement the Hindutva ideology.

Liberal leaders in the BJP now feel the government is being forced to walk on a double-edged sword on the issue of the attacks with the incidents sending out unpleasant signals to the outside world.

While United States Ambassador Richard Celeste has already lodged a strong protest with the government, envoys of other countries like Germany, Britain, France and Sweden are expected to meet Foreign Secretary K Raghunath soon to take up the violence against Christians.

Foreign ministry officials fear that the US could twist the government's arm by listing the attacks in the office for international religious freedoms in the state department's human rights bureau and the European parliament could adopt a resolution against India. The European Union had adopted such a resolution against Pakistan's Shariat Bill.

Vajpayee has advised his foreign policy aides to send out the message that the attacks on Christians is India's domestic issue and no country has the right to comment on it. But officials say it could easily become the second biggest diplomatic hurdle for the government since the May 1998 nuclear tests.

Church groups in India have already told the Vatican and other Western nations that the attacks were the work of a small minority of high-caste Hindu extremists, who fear that the Church's work among the poor and the downtrodden will erode their status.

Western diplomats are taking keen interest in the unrest in Gujarat because Hindu-Christian disharmony and conflict in India is unprecedented.

Though Vajpayee has begun fire-fighting exercises with the Sangh Parivar to rein it in and tone down the controversy, he is unsuccessful as yet.

BJP sources said Vajpayee has already met RSS chief Rajendra Singh and joint general secretary K S Sudershan and VHP leaders Ashok Singhal and Vishnu Hari Dalmia and told them not to whip up a communal frenzy on the incidents in Gujarat.

But the adamant Hindutva brigade told the prime minister that representatives of Christianity and Islam are propagating their religions in India to such an extent that people of other religions are finding it difficult to survive.

They submitted to Vajpayee reports of the demographic composition of places like the Dangs in Gujarat where the population of Christians has shot up to 40,000 in 1998 from a mere 50 in 1947.

They also told Vajpayee that it is only under a BJP government that the Sangh's cultural nationalism can be implemented seriously.

A senior BJP politician who attended Vajpayee's meetings with the Sangh leaders said it is a tightrope walk for him now. "He is facing more problems from within than from our coalition partners," he conceded.

The politician claimed that the root problem in a state like Gujarat is the turf war between the Christian missionaries and organisations like the VHP. "It is a battle to win over the tribals who are on the fringes of Hinduism," he explained.

The Christian attacks

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