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After Gujarat — II

By Radhika Desai

Any political force which sees the middle class constituency as a significant part of its support base will either fail (to check the Sangh Parivar) or succumb to soft Hindutva.

MOST ATTENTION had focussed on Central Gujarat, around the "epicentre" of Godhra, where the BJP made the most spectacular gains. Perhaps the most important point to note is that while the BJP has indeed "harvested hate" in this election, it was not responsible for the victory. That was based on an underlying solidity of a Hindutva constituency among the upper and middle classes and castes — the Brahmins, Banias, Upper Kshatriyas, Patidars and upper sections of the OBCs — which was perhaps most plainly revealed in Yogendra Yadav's pre-election opinion poll for NDTV and Frontline, the most accurate predictor of the results. The focus on the BJP sweep of Panchmahals, Dahod and Vadodara districts, and near sweep of the rest of central Gujarat, surrounding the "epicentre" of Godhra is misleading: even if the BJP gains in this region are cancelled, and the last election's position added to the reduced seats it won in South Gujarat, North Gujarat, Kutch and Saurashtra, it would have won a majority, if a reduced one. Any demurring on this is simply a refusal to face the facts of the electoral record.

The other important fact remains that the Congress won one seat less than it had won in 1998 and on a reduced percentage of the votes cast. For all the noise about the "anti-incumbency" factor, the Congress could not benefit from it. Even in the rest of the State, Congress gains were fewer than the seats the BJP managed to hold on to, and even gain. Godhra is also trotted out as an explanation for this. But surely outside central Gujarat, and even in that region, Godhra and post-Godhra cannot be full explanations. If the BJP could incite and beguile certain sections on the basis of these, there were more who would have responded positively to the opposite appeal. How come the Congress failed to mobilise on this issue? If anything, Godhra should have been the explanation of a Congress victory, not this ignominious defeat. If it is made an explanation of its defeat, it amounts to writing off Gujaratis morally in toto. While many among them have shown themselves to be such write-offs, there is no evidence that this applies to all of them. The Congress never gave them a real alternative.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the "epicentre" losses of the Congress. The key factor which lost the Congress all its seats in Panchmahals, Dahod and eastern Vadodara was the mobilisation of tribals against Muslims who have been an important trading community in this region. This is an entirely post-Godhra development and appears to follow the usual pattern of prosperous Hindu propertied groups — in this case local Banias — using riots and Hindutva against Muslim competitors. Though the region had long been Congress territory, it failed to arrest or undo this pattern. Some commentators are hopeful that the communalisation of the tribals is superficial and temporary. Were this merely a matter of the tribal culture and mindset, one could possibly be sanguine but not while there are important material interests which benefit from this communalisation.

As far as Central Gujarat outside the tribal areas — the urban areas in particular — is concerned, the sway of terrorism and anti-Pakistani sentiment among the propertied and "educated" sections, the BJP's "natural constituency" cannot be underestimated. The communalisation of the upper and middle classes and castes is deep and pervasive and the expression of caste superiority and contempt for minorities part of accepted polite discourse. Finally, there is the effect of the Narmada waters reaching these areas under the BJP Government to consider. No other issue has the sort of holy cow status which the Narmada project enjoys in Gujarat politics: between those who know they will benefit — mainly urban and industrial users of water and electricity and rural users in South and Central Gujarat — and others who have been made to believe that they will — as far out as North Gujarat — there is a near unanimous support for the Dam.

Misinterpretation also plagues the results of all the other regions which one may take one by one. If one plots the results — seats held and gained respectively by the BJP and the Congress — on a map of Gujarat, one sees much more than just the gains made by the BJP in central Gujarat.

In Kutch, the BJP lost in the four major cities — Mandvi, Bhuj, Anjar and Rapar — which the BJP had not been able to rebuild after the earthquake, earning the ire of the very middle class which forms its constituency in the rest of the State and which had formed its constituency before. All four cities were Congress gains, previously BJP seats, while the BJP gained one rural seat from the Congress and held on to the other.

The Congress did make most of its gains in Saurashtra and North Gujarat, where Sankarsinh Waghela's Kshatriya magic had its best chance. They were also areas which were relatively untouched by the riots and where the anti-incumbency factor was expected to weigh in. But these gains were paltry, nowhere near a majority of seats. Indeed, though the BJP made only three gains west of Mehsana and Ahmedabad districts (excluding Kutch), it managed to hold on to a majority of the seats.

Finally, we come to South Gujarat, south of Vadodara district. The Congress did better here but not, as some news reports had it, because of Surat's commercial ethos. In Surat city as in other cities — Valsad, Navsari and Bharuch — the BJP won, on the whole. What gave the Congress its edge were the tribal areas of the Dangs, along with adjoining similar areas of Valsad, Navsari, Surat and Bharuch districts. These tribal areas are in one important sense very different from those in Central Gujarat in that they have been the scene of years of missionary work, and lately political mobilisation in the face of anti-Christian attacks, of which the Congress was the passive beneficiary.

On the flip side of this record of BJP victory one can read the conditions of Congress advance, both in Gujarat and elsewhere. The first and most important maxim is that Hindutva cannot be fought by soft Hindutva. It is the majority of the electorate, which voted against the BJP or was too disillusioned to vote, that the Congress, or if Congress proves to be too captive to its old habits, any other force which seeks to combat Hindutva must seek to forge into a new electoral constituency. This is the section of the population which has been dished out nothing but empty populist slogans in election after depressing election. If they are offered something better, they can be the constituency on which to build an immovable obstacle in the path of Hindutva. The corollary is that any political force which sees the middle class constituency as a significant part of its support base will either fail or succumb to soft Hindutva. While there are all too many honourable examples of individuals from these class backgrounds who actively oppose Hindutva, they are electorally insignificant.

(Concluded)

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