Intellectuals vs the rest

Let’s start with first principles on the events in JNU. The arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar and the implication of other student leaders is a violation of the right to freedom of expression. They did not indulge in hate speech or violence; they were simply expressing an idea of India that differs from the official view.

As a letter by some faculty members of IIT Bombay, expressing solidarity with JNU students, explains: “The state cannot dictate on the many meanings of what it is to be ‘Indian’ or mandate the meaning of ‘nationalism’. Rather, the state should be the one that makes sure that multiple ways of imagining one’s relationship with the nation are allowed to flourish especially when it might contradict dominant ways of thinking.” Should this include the space to imagine and peacefully express a geographically different idea of India? Or, not to stand at a cinema hall when the national anthem is being played, because it is possible to love one’s country without visualising the Other across the border?

But we, or large sections of our society, are an implacably angry people. This is a government supported by Angry India. Its fraternal outfits tap into the anger from time to time by creating visions of the Other, the Enemy.

In the case of JNU, two binaries have come into play: not just India vs Pakistan (which can insidiously lapse into Hindu vs Muslim), but also the ‘arrogant’, over-smart, leftist intelligentsia inside the campus (in other words, ‘pseudo-seculars’) vs the simple-minded, patriotic, aam aadmi outside it. The Sangh Parivar owes a lot to LK Advani for creating the ‘pseudo-secular’ construct — the idea that a pottage of leftists, westernised elites, crusty Congressmen or women, and mediapersons, with their wimpy, woolly ideas of nationhood, collaborate with the Muslims (the original Other) to set the terms on which ordinary Hindus should live.

The Sangh Parivar has so far been hugely successful in tapping into, if not manufacturing, essentially lower middle-class rage, no less, against the upper/middle-class liberals. It’s a resentment born out of post-reform India lifting many out of poverty and igniting aspirations, while also driving home the realisation that the higher classes will remain ahead because of their social and cultural capital.

Pseudo-secularism — a construct that disqualifies the Left-leaning or middle-class liberal from being Indian — worked well for Narendra Modi when he was chief minister. Under attack for the 2002 riots, he would argue that elite, westernised outsiders (mediapersons, activists, leftists) displayed little understanding of Gujarati asmita (pride). He, in a way, used pseudo-secularism in the 2014 general election campaign against Rahul Gandhi, lampooning him for being out of touch with the masses. Sreenivasan Jain of NDTV describes Modi at a rally in Uttar Pradesh in a newspaper column; Modi, he says, pokes fun at Rahul for slumming around in bastis as his idea of a holiday, whereas the real aam aadmi would rather go to the Taj Mahal. Never has the BJP’s constituency been better spelt out: it is the peevish aspirational class grinding its way up (and not looking down to reflect on its journey), bearing a grudge against the awkward shehzade and his silver spoon.

Replace Rahul Gandhi with ‘JNU’ for the stereotype it conjures up, and it is evident that the same categories are at work — the aspirational class versus a perceived economic and cultural elite.

JNU, that bastion of the liberal, and hence ‘unpatriotic’ intelligentsia, is now the target of social anger. The only difference is that things are not working out as they normally did in the past with such confrontations.

The controversy over the video showing the demonstrators being a doctored one seems to have pushed the Centre and the BJP on the backfoot. The game plan of creating a schism (pseudo-seculars vs the rest) around ‘nationalism’ seems to have been overwhelmed by a suspicion of foul play. Whether this derails the Sangh Parivar’s long-term ideological campaign remains to be seen.

It is also clear that the BJP is not at ease with political opponents who cannot be called pseudo-secular — such as Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar and even Lalu Yadav. Lalu wears secularism on his sleeve, but he is a subaltern, just as Rahul Gandhi, the shehzade , is not. Upper-caste/class Congress or Left politicians who espouse secularism and are cosy with the English media are easy meat for the Parivar.

If the politics that unfolded after Rohith Vemula’s tragic death is any indication, the BJP has no answer to the Ambedkarite Left. Surely, Dalits cannot be called pseudo-secular, even if they happen to be ‘misguided’ by the Left. While it initially seemed that JNU would help the BJP win back the lost ground in Hyderabad, its plans appear to have been derailed. What instead seems to be happening is a consolidation of student power — don’t forget that JNU has a major share of the lower castes — against the Centre and the party.

Contrary to the conservative perception, JNU is not an elite space. Its system gives the socially, geographically and economically underprivileged a chance to secure perhaps the best post-graduate education in the country. By virtue of being largely liberal or Left leaning, the faculty is vulnerable to being labelled pseudo-secular or anti-national (read anti-Hindu).

The BJP may be on the defensive for now, but one cannot really say.

The callow leftists of JNU, while being within their rights to air their views on nationhood, have not fully grasped the BJP’s strategy of creating binaries and waiting for their adversaries to walk into them.

Nor should it be forgotten in the mood of the moment that the Sangh Parivar’s idea of India enjoys considerable traction, thanks to years of political and cultural mobilisation. Challenging this disturbingly muscular notion of nationhood calls for a sustained and discreet effort — an idiom of engagement that cannot readily be dubbed pseudo-secular.

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