

It doesn’t happen often, but here I must totally disagree with David Frawley ( Read : Hindus Need Long Term Political Strategy And Dharmic ). Or should I say: with the Sangh Parivar, for this is the standard argument I have heard from them for more than twenty years. The central refrain is “unity”. This is code for: “Don’t criticize us” — as it was in the Soviet Union and other unpleasant regimes.

The choice apparently is: either take a principled position and end up too fragmented for achieving anything, or practice unity behind the party and still achieve nothing because the BJP has firmly chosen to do nothing. In that event, I would rather take a principled and honourable stand to end up with nothing, rather than toe the party line against better counsel and still end up with nothing. The first choice may at least point the way for others in the future.

Patience is good advice in the event that one is trying. If the BJP were working for any Hindu causes, the Hindus could put up with the sight of setbacks and difficulties, for those are honourable reasons not to have results to show yet. But the BJP is not trying. If you sow a seed, you need patience before you can see a plant sprouting and growing up. But if you don’t sow a seed, no amount of patience will make you ever see that result.

David asserts that the BJP is taking many initiatives for remedying the many discriminations Hindus face. He would have sounded more convincing if he had summed up a few of those initiatives, as well as the incredibly tough resistance that the enemy is putting up against those. The enemy is alleging many governmental pro-Hindu initiatives too? For as long as I follow this, I have heard the secularists repeating that same refrain.

It was not true back then and it is not true now. And it is at any rate not a good sign for the BJP to be in the same boat as the secularists: both serve their own interests by asserting that the BJP has its many tentacles frantically active in promoting Hindu causes, whereas any non-involved party (which includes serious Hindus, who have no say in government policy and don’t even get a hearing) can see that nothing is being done.

Ah, but first we need “development”! There is nothing in remedying discriminations that comes in the way of development. Discriminations are harmful for society and therefore, remedying them *is* a form of development. Workload is certainly not the issue: don’t tell me all those hundreds of BJP men in parliament are involved full-time in “development”. The development wing inside the BJP, in unison with the secularists, claims that development is what brought this government to power.

I wonder if anyone really believes this. Even the BJP leadership tried to keep Narendra Modi with his Hindu image away from the PM seat, and only accepted him when his charisma turned out to arouse the masses. The secularists whipped up his Hindu image to mobilize the minorities against him, but thereby also mobilized the Hindus around him.

They will try that again in 2019, but that time they will have to contend with actions rather than words. The minorities will still be made to believe that Modi is a militant Hindu, but the Hindus will judge him by his lack of Hindu action. They will simply not show up to militate or vote for the BJP. The “development” wing will have to do it. Yes, that will be a repeat of 2004, when AB Vajpayee unexpectedly lost.

David asks what the Hindus gained by abandoning Vajpayee. OK, what did Vajpayee gain by abandoning the Hindus, except defeat? What is this government going to gain by abandoning the Hindus, already with dogged persistance for two years? What sign is there that those who took David’s advice and exercised “patience”, will be rewarded with any results of a policy that doesn’t exist yet?

Hindus need Dharmic awakening? Rather, the BJP needs Dharmic awakening. Hindus need a long-term strategy? Rather, it is the BJP that remains emphatically defective in developing any strategy. Some independent Hindu groups are developing a strategy, but they will make little difference as long as the governing party remains smugly inert.

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