This realization, however, counters the Sangh Parivar’s concept of cultural nationalism, whose motto is “one people, one nation, one culture”. It is the drive to impose the idea of “one culture”, which, ipso facto, means Hindu culture, which motivates the gaurakshaks, the Rana Pratap warriors and the anti-Valentine’s day mobs.

Unfortunately, even the judiciary has recently been articulating this saffron point of view by calling for declaring the cow as the national animal or describing the animal as mother or God although no community other than a section of the Hindus subscribes to this reverence for the bovine species.

It is the divergence between what some Hindus believe and the outlook of the rest of the community which has led to the present contretemps over the consumption of beef. For the BJP, the problem has been compounded by the fact that its views on the forbidden meat in its eyes are not shared by the Hindus and the followers of other religions living in Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and the north-eastern states.

As long as the BJP’s influence was confined to northern and western India, it could happily propagate its preference for vegetarianism. But now that the party is trying to secure a foothold elsewhere in the country, it has entered regions where its dietary fetishes are not appreciated. Hence, Rajnath Singh’s unwillingness to tell the people “what to eat, what to wear”.

Only time will show whether his decision will be accepted by the party’s and the Parivar’s rank and file. For the moment, however, it appears that the home minister’s announcement will be difficult to implement if the observations of some of the BJP chief ministers are taken into consideration.

While the Chhattisgarh chief minister, Raman Singh, cheerfully prescribed the death penalty for any killer of a cow (latkadenge) – no rarest of rare exceptions in this case – the Gujarat chief minister, Vijay Rupani, has not only vowed to turn everyone in the state into a vegetarian, he has also said that the cow protection law in Gujarat, under which the killer of a cow will be imprisoned for life, is intended to “re-establish the culture to make Bharat Mata conquer the world one more time”.

According to a blog circulating in the cyber world, the Vedas say that “meat leads to Rakshasa spirit entering the body and over a period of time we acquire maximum sins. All of them, whether Sanatan Dharma, Buddhist, Jain or Sikh texts extol vegetarianism. The greatest warriors of Mahabharata were all vegetarian. This meat eating is a Kaliyuga demon for last 5,119 years of Kaliyuga and is the most negative sin”.

From the Kaliyuga, the writer returns to the Satyayuga to say that “all Haryanvi Jats who dominate Sports and Armed Forces are all vegetarians”.

It is obvious that if the home minister is serious about enforcing the government’s writ on a citizen’s freedom to eat and wear whatever he or she wants, he will encounter considerable difficulties. His task will be complicated by the fact that he must count himself among the very few who believe in keeping the government and the BJP out of the business of dietary and sartorial choices.

Rajnath Singh may receive some support from within the party if the BJP finds it difficult to make any headway in the north-eastern states which are its latest targets – the party doesn’t have much chance in Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu anyway – but both the home minister and his small group of supporters will know that they are battling against deeply ingrained prejudices in the Hindutva camp. Any attempt, therefore, to shed medievalism in favour of modernism cannot but be an uphill endeavour.

Yet, those who believe that the BJP should replace the Congress as an all-India party know that the party’s present ideas on lifestyle choices based on its own interpretation of Hinduism are bound to restrict its growth, keeping it confined to the urban milieus of northern and western India. They probably also know that the antediluvian concepts prevalent in the party at virtually all its levels run counter to the projects of smart cities, bullet trains and digitalization which the government claims is its goal.

It is hard to predict which side will win in this clash between the old and the new, especially when the BJP’s mentor, the RSS, is expected to be on the side of the former, not to mention the hardline outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal. But there is little doubt that an internal tussle is on if Rajnath Singh’s comments are taken at face value. (IPA Service)