Hence, party chief Rajnath Singh’s tirade against the English language for its harmful influence on “our culture”. It’s an old charge against the deracinated Macaulay’s “children” which was made when the temple agitation was at its height. Along with the language of the colonialists, the saffron warriors also wanted to do away with the Constitution since it was modelled on the 1935 Government of India Act framed by the British.

It was in keeping with this demand to make a complete break with the past and return to a pre-British, pre-Muslim “Hindu” India that the Vajpayee government set up a commission under a former chief justice of India, MN Venkatachaliah, to consider changing the Constitution. In a memo to it, the RSS suggested that the new Constitution for “Bharat” should create an institution called the Guru Sabha, which will be above the executive, legislature and judiciary. Evidently, the Nagpur patriarchs drew their inspiration from the Iranian model of a Guardians’ Council comprising ayatollahs whose status is above that of the three “estates” which are the pillars of a modern Constitution.

Mercifully, the Venkatachaliah commission stuck to the Supreme Court verdict in the Keshavananda Bharati case, which forbade any basic changes in the Constitution. But, that hasn’t discouraged the Hindutva brigade from hoping for the day when India – or, rather, Bharat – will be a country of their dreams from where all Western influences will be eradicated. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, has echoed Rajnath Singh’s views on English although the latter is now trying to distance himself from what he had said, presumably because of the apprehension that he may have alienated the urban middle class.

Irrespective of such caveats, what is obvious is that, like the proverbial Bourbons, the BJP has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. Instead, the party remains immersed in medievalism, which encompasses a wide variety of objectives of which the temple, civil code and Article 370 represent only the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface lurks an antediluvian worldview incorporating ideas, which are at variance with the fundamental concepts of a modern nation.

The trashing of English with the express purpose of closing one’s mind to outside influence, as in the Muslim madrasas, is only one aspect of this backward-looking mentality, which thrives on the ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindusthan’ slogan. Related to this linguistic fetish is a culinary one, which seeks to impose the vegetarianism of the upper castes, mainly the Brahmins of northern and southern India, on the entire country.

The anti-West prejudice extends from English to Western investments in the retail sector – earlier the saffronites also demonstrated against McDonalds and other such eateries – since this trend is equated with the entry of the East India Company in the 17th century. The prejudice is also directed against the Christian missionaries for their conversion drives. Whenever the RSS and the BJP get an opportunity, they spread the fear of the Hindus being reduced to a minority in their own country because of the conversions carried out by Christian missionaries and the influx of Bangladeshi immigrants.

Another fear is the rapid rise in the Muslim population because of their large families, which was memorably articulated by Narendra Modi when he coined the phrase, ‘hum panch, hamare pachis’, to underline how a Muslim man with his four wives will breed exponentially. LK Advani, too, contributed to the psychosis by accusing the Congress of allowing Bangladeshi immigrants to freely enter India to act as the party’s vote bank. ‘Hum do, hamare do, Bangladeshi ko aaney do’, was his slogan.

Those who believed that the BJP’s campaign for the forthcoming elections will be based on Modi’s achievements in Gujarat on the developmental front are looking at only one side of the party’s tactics. The BJP knows full well that its core group of supporters will not be looking at Gujarat’s growth statistics, but at the manner in which the chief minister has been able to cow down the minorities in the state.

As was obvious, his one gesture of refusing to accept the traditional Muslim headgear of a skull cap during a sadbhavna or goodwill meeting emphasised the calibrated distance bordering on a haughty coolness which he wanted to maintain between himself and the minorities. Modi was aware that a picture of himself wearing a skullcap denoting friendly proximity to the community will undermine his image of being someone who was hailed by his supporters at the time of riots for having taught the Muslims a lesson. (IPA Service)