When tail wags the dog- Modis RSS challenge

--Ziauddin Choudhury
The news of a mob in Dadra, a UP village in India of beating to death an individual
suspected of cow slaughter would have been normally viewed just as another
communal incident. In the subcontinent often religious majority in any area pounce
upon the minority for perceived infractions of their religious beliefs. Communal
frays happened from small to big infractions such as ringing of temple bells during
Muslim prayer calls from defiling of temples, mosques, or even interfaith marriages.
Most of the times the communal clashes are handled by the law enforcement and
the parties at fault are brought to book. Other times the incidents have grown to
riots with more far reaching consequences.
The latest lynching of a man in UP accused of cow slaughter, however, went viral
because of several reasons. One, it caught global media attention as it happened in
the back drop of politics surrounding demand by the strident supporters of the
ruling party in India, BJP, for a total ban on cow slaughter and trading of beef across
the country . (Presently 24 out of 29 states in India have ban on cow slaughter.)
Second, in a speech to Hindu spiritual leaders most recently the Indian Home
Minister had said that the government will use all its might to ban cow slaughter
in the country. Third, and this is the most crucial reason that the BJP diehards dwell
upon, a ban on cow slaughter is an election promise of Prime Minister Modi. In fact,
as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi had put a ban on beef trade in his state.
The incident in UP, therefore, took a political color when it drew little disapproval
from BJP leaders, least of all the Rashtriya Sevak Sangha (RSS) which had been
strident in its demand for total ban on cow slaughter. The vigilante action of a mob
for an alleged cow slaughter (even though it might not have been true) was to them
a pious peoples reaction to a sacrilegious act. In fact, in a written reaction to Indian
Express, Tanuj Vijay, an ardent supporter of RSS, expresses surprise at media
concern over the lynching calling it an accident and wonders why killing by a jihadi
of a Hindu national is not much discussed or denounced by the media.
BJP as a party and its leaders including Prime Minister Modi have been caught in the
wrong foot by the incident not so much for its communal connotation as for it
surfacing the inner struggle within the party. However much Modi and his cabinet
may like to show a secular face, the vociferous RSS will never relent in its quest to
establish its religious philosophy in India.
Taming RSS is not easy for BJP. A majority of the ministers in the Modi cabinet had
their political awareness molded by the RSS and its ideology. Modi spent his
formative years as a full-time volunteer in the group. BJP president Amit Shah and
several other members of Modis cabinet also joined the RSS in their youth. Home
Minister Rajnath Singh, who was once an RSS official and went on to lead the BJP, is
now pushing for a nationwide ban on cow slaughter. RSS provided the foot soldiers

for Modi campaign in 2013. For Modi and his BJP leaders, ignoring RSS would only
endanger their political platform.
The Dadra incident may be at one level a pure law and order predicament for the
Indian Government, but at a higher level it has unfurled for the BJP government the
basic issues of secularism and non-discrimination of Indians across religious
affiliation, the values which the Indian constitution stands for.
Inability of BJP leaders including the Prime Minister himself to denounce the incident
in strong terms has already infuriated the secular elements of the country. More
than 21 litterateurs, musicians, and other artists have recently refused to accept
national awards on grounds of Government failure to denounce the act. In fact, the
incident has suddenly turned into a trail blazer for unity of the countrys secular
forces.
India has the third largest Muslim population of the world. No political party in India
has been able to have a majority following in the Indian parliament without Muslim
support. Modi and his party are fully aware of this. Modi knows very well that what
he could do in small state of Gujarat cannot be achieved in the whole of India.
Among his many problems of winning over the whole country the fracas over cow
slaughter should be the least priority. Even economically ban on beef trade or cow
slaughter makes little sense since India since India was the largest exporter of beef
in the world in 2014 (albeit much of it was buffalo meat). For a business promoting
Prime Minister Beef trade is good business. He knows that. But what he probably
does not know how to rein in his crusading RSS wing and its wish to turn a secular
India into a religious India. Going forward that will be Modis biggest challenge.
Ziauddin Choudhury is a political analyst and commentator