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Can Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena give Hindutva a new meaning?

The Indian Express | 11 hours ago | 17-01-2023 | 05:40 pm

The Indian Express

11 hours ago | 17-01-2023 | 05:40 pm

The new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has adopted calculated cultural strategies to mobilise the lower strata of the society and has projected itself as a platform that offers inclusive participation to various marginalised social groups. With the politics of aggressive Hindutva nationalism under a maverick leadership and smartly packaged with social engineering, the BJP has emerged as a powerful political force against which the Opposition lacks strategic and ideological alternatives. However, in Maharashtra, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena is trying to advance a parallel version of Hindutva politics, distinct from the BJP’s model. It appears that the Sena is trying to rejuvenate Hindutva by adopting progressive religious-cultural ideas that endorse reformist-socialist values and challenge the hegemony of social elites.During the Independence struggle, Gandhi’s leadership over Congress was often criticised by Ambedkar for being pro-Hindu and for having compromising positions on caste inequalities. Gandhi neglected this criticism and used many motifs from religious and cultural traditions to build a strong ideological challenge to the colonial power. Importantly, Gandhi also stood firmly for the protection of the Muslim minority and distanced himself from the aggressive and violent methods that the right-wing political outfits, especially the Hindu Mahasabha, and later the RSS, were propagating. Often, the Gandhian method of using religion in politics is seen as ethical posturing to make power more responsible towards social duties and spiritual values.The right wing, on the other hand, has strong political motives and built its ideological position against Muslims, Western colonial culture and socialism. It was motivated to retain Brahmanical cultural and social values, while endorsing hyper-collectivist nationalism. Though it occasionally flagged reformist slogans against “untouchability” and caste-based discrimination, it never identified the upper caste domination of all the institutions of power as a problem. Instead, the right wing often showed uneasiness about the protective constitutional measures that the state offered for the empowerment of socially marginalised communities, especially the reservation policy.Both Gandhi and the RSS used Hindu religious identity and cultural symbols to mobilise the general masses. However, in post-Independence India, Nehruvian secularism emerged as the guiding principle of the new nation-state and relegated Hindutva to the margins and neglected Gandhian moral teachings. Till the late 1990s, the politics of secularism and social justice dominated the democratic sphere and the right-wing agenda remained a negligible third force in electoral battles. It was only after the demolition of the Babri Masjid that the BJP emerged as a significant political force, challenging secular social justice politics with its aggressive communal polarisation. Post-2014, with the arrival of Narendra Modi at the helm of power, the BJP has become an almost invincible force, especially in the north Indian states.The Shiv Sena under Bal Thackeray emerged as a regional, parochial and chauvinist outfit that would even resort to public hooliganism in order to create a political voice for the Marathi people. Thackeray’s militant strategies worked well and by the late-1990s, the Sena became the largest party in the state, while the BJP remained its deputy. In association with the BJP, the Sena detached itself from the progressive-reformist social movements (especially the powerful anti-Brahmanical traditions and the Dalit social movement) and continued harbouring hyper-communal politics besides projecting itself as the chief protector of the region’s dignity (Marathi Asmita).Today, the politics in the state revolves around multiple right-wing regional outfits (including the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena). They have similar political slogans and identical ideological orientations. It appears that Uddhav Thackeray has identified the problem of “excessive Hindutva” in the state and therefore was willing to bring a newer ideological orientation to his political party. Many have identified his change with his grandfather Prabodhankar Thackeray’s legacy, who was one of the important figures in the anti-caste, non-Brahmanical movement in the 1960s. The current rupture between the BJP and the Sena is also a battle to propose another popular meaning of Hindutva.Maharashtra has been the bête-noir of right-wing politics from the beginning. Although the state produced prominent figures of Hindutva politics like Tilak, Savarkar and Golwalkar, it remained distanced from communal polarisation for a long time. Importantly, on the cultural and social fronts, Dalit politics, farmers’ issues and social reformist movements dominated the intellectual and political domains and disallowed right-wing politics a recognisable space. Even Bal Thackeray often associated Hindutva with poor marginalised communities, especially the working classes of Mumbai and with the aspiring farming communities.It appears that Uddhav Thackeray wants to build Hindutva as a progressive, reformist force that would also adopt a socialist agenda to connect with the poor and the marginalised communities and challenge the traditional social and political elites. In the current context, the socially marginalised communities, working-class population and farmers are struggling as no political party has provided them with meaningful leadership. The Sena in its new avatar can emerge as a powerful platform.Political mobilisation on religious and caste identities has been a hallmark of Indian democracy. Gandhi and Ambedkar endorsed the use of religion and caste for humanist and revolutionary goals. The politics of religion will serve the social group that is the worst off and create an ethical unity. The Sena of Uddhav Thackeray, though not completely cut off from its earlier communal avatar, has shown the promise of being indifferent to communalism and connecting more to substantive issues of social justice, farmers’ questions and the rising difficulties of the working-class population. Such engagement can provide an ethical outlook to right-wing politics and make it more popular, maybe even surpassing the appeal of the existing versions of Hindutva.The writer is assistant Professor, Center for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi