One was the anxiety expressed by Maharashtra governor B.S. Koshyari about the possibility of the chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, turning “secular”. The manner of his observation seemed to indicate that the governor regarded such an inclination to be outrageous. The other event was the post-haste withdrawal of an ad by a jewellery outlet featuring a Hindu-Muslim couple after the criticism voiced on the social media by right-wing trolls.

To start with the governor’s angst, it is obvious that his RSS background is coming in the way of his functioning as the head of a province in accordance with a constitution which formally upholds secularism. Notwithstanding his oath based on the “holy book”, as the prime minister has called the constitution, the governor’s mindset apparently remains attuned to the concept of a Hindu rashtra which shuns a multicultural polity.

In addition, his “intemperate” language, as NCP leader Sharad Pawar has underlined, is a measure of his annoyance at Thackeray’s continuance as the chief minister when the governor would have probably preferred a BJP incumbent, whom he had earlier sworn in at the crack of dawn in an abortive attempt to install a saffron regime.

In tune with the governor’s exasperation with secular tenets was the anger voiced by saffron netizens over an ad featuring an inter-faith family. To them, it militated against all their beliefs based on a polarized society where Muslims were unwanted because of their suspected patriotism, links with jehadi elements, food habits with a preference for non-vegetarian items, including beef, and, above all, their role in medieval times as destroyers of temples.

Any idea, therefore, of communal harmony, or ektavam, as the company which put out the ad has called it, is anathema to the Hindu Right. A film star belonging to this right-wing group has seen in the ad an encouragement to the RSS-BJP spectre of “love jehad” or the luring away of Hindu women by Muslims for conversion and marriage.

It is in this context that the BJP-led Assam government is considering a legislation to ban “marriage by deception”. Such an initiative will mark a political intrusion into private life, a propensity which is also manifested in the Sangh parivar’s diktats on culinary habits with their emphasis on vegetarianism.

After the jewellery company developed cold feet and withdrew the ad, it was accused of having a “loose” backbone by another film star belonging to the centre-left – Bollywood, like the rest of the country is divided nowadays between the Left and the Right. But what the episode highlighted was the aggressive manner in which the Hindu Right tries to impose its agenda.

What is strange is that their Islamophobia pays no heed to the BJP’s soothing official sabka saath, sabka vikas mantra of development for all which advocates the idea of everyone working in unison for the sake of growth. But considering that the slogan is routinely ignored by the Hindutva storm-trooper, cynics may come to the conclusion that the peddling of one line by the saffron authorities and the pursuit of its exact opposite by the rank and file is nothing more than an elaborate charade conducted by the powers-that-be with deceit as the primary objective.

It is a fact of political life that every ideologically-driven ruling party tries to enforce its writ with the help of its foot soldiers. The difference between such endeavours in the past – as by the communists in West Bengal and Kerala - and the present situation is the intensity and persistence of the effort. Moreover, the enforcement of right-leaning ideas has been a rarity until now since the Jan Sangh-BJP had never had such a commanding political presence earlier.

Compared to what is happening now, the mildness of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government’s tenure cannot be denied. Arguably, it may have even beguiled not a few people into believing that the rough edges of a doctrinaire outfit tend to be smoothened once it reaches the corridors of power. In the case of the present dispensation, however, this mellowing does not seem to have taken place.

Instead, the ruling party can be said to have shown its true face right from the start. The Maharashtra governor’s mocking of secularism and the intimidation practised by the trolls are only a continuation of the tactics which the parivar has pursued from 2014. These included the campaigns against love jehad and in favour of ghar wapsi or the reconversion of Muslims into Hinduism.

Taking together with the occasional lynching of Muslims for either eating beef or transporting cattle, the saffron lobby has created an atmosphere of fear among Muslims, as former vice-president Hamid Ansari pointed out. Even at the “secular” level, there is fear among businessmen, as Industrialist Rahul Bajaj said, a trait. which the jewellery outlet’s pusillanimity showed. (IPA Service)