One Month after BJP’s U.P. Victory: Attack on Faith and Culture Continues, Everywhere – The Milli Gazette

A pious festival on Sunday was turned into a free-for-all attack across atleast six states that saw widespread violence on communal lines. At least 11 different locations across six states saw communal violence, proactive slogans, hate comments, and violent ‘clashes’. This is in continuation to the past one month post-BJP’s massive victory in the recently held state polls that saw relentless attacks on one community, at its places of worship and faith. Not just in any other parts of the nation, but even its capital—New Delhi—witnessed sharp, controversial, and open hate speeches delivered in the name of Hindu Mahapanchayat held on April 3.
BJP's victory in the recently-concluded state elections not only legitimized its Hindutva agenda but also unwrapped a plethora of attacks on minorities and leaders of opposition by the so-called “fringe groups” which are directly or indirectly associated with the Sangh Parivar. It's been just a month for the BJP which stormed back to power in four out of five states that went to polls including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, and Goa. The past month witnessed open rape threats, open genocidal calls, economic bans & boycott of people of one faith, that is Islam. They have been attacked with threats of being massively disenfranchised through the draconian CAA-NRC and lately threats of how one professes his/her faith—be it Azaan, Hijab, Namaz, and ‘Halal Meat’.
States like Karnataka, Bihar and Rajasthan saw relentless attacks on lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles. These attacks are not surprising but the way they received open support from those in power is. Karnataka Chief Minister openly supported the economic ban of the minority community, mayors of the three BJP-ruled Municipal Corporations in Delhi were among the frontrunners who issued diktats seeking shutting down meat shops during Navratri, several fringe groups in Uttar Pradesh led mobs that launched attacks on Muslim shops and traders in the name of Navratri.
Though the states—nationwide—have been witnessing these attacks, open threat calls for violence is the new normal in the post-2014 ear. But the frequency of such attacks in the past one month has seen a massive hike which further materializes the question of what has changed in the last one month? This piece tries to draw a line showing how these relentless attacks are getting political legitimacy, the way forward and what they are aimed at achieving.
Electorally, the Hindutva agenda has passed several litmus test of polls and by-polls post-2014 victory. The party's landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh led by one of its biggest Hindutva icons—Yogi Adityanath—has made the Sangh strategists realize that the Hindutva card, along with the factors like Modi Card, Welfarism, is an unbeatable combination. Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, who started his career as chief of a Sangh-affiliated outfit, stormed back to power and also increased the legitimacy of these saffron outfits. The increased activities of Sangh-affiliated frontals in the post-poll scenario are characterized by the feeling of political legitimacy, dominance, and tokenism, occasionally. The return of CM Yogi in Uttar Pradesh has made these frontals more confident, proud, and belligerent than ever before. Frontals on the face of it know no boundaries under the Sangh Parivar's government and can go to any extent to achieve their aims—which we witnessed in multiple incidents of violence across the states.
Furthermore, Yogi Adityanath’s coming back to power puts a lot of pressure on other ‘icons’ in the race of the next national leader. His landslide victory has accelerated the stiff competition with Sangh Parivar and other political leaders of his stature in the BJP.
It is not unfair to portray that these ‘fringe groups’ get a lot of support, and are backed by VIPs in the digital media. VIPs – Influencers and supporters, lead the ‘hate pandemic’ in the digital spaces that have later been converted to the ground by the same-ideological affiliation groups. The release of the film Kashmir Files that followed the open calls of rape and boycotts saw a similar trend. As per the hate tracker of NDTV, which is based on scanning of some thousands of tweets and articles, the last five months saw the frequency of these hate comments rising by around 200%. Out of the total 348 incidents of hate comments in the past seven years of the NDA regime, 297 have come from the leaders, MLAs and sympathizers of the ruling party. The NDA regime has seen 348 such incidents against 19 that belong to the UPA-2 regime.
It would not take you much to understand that the ‘Hindutva Agenda’ even if it would be served openly on the backdrop of ‘Modi+Welfarism’ will be widely accepted. Apart from being just accepted, the ‘combination’ has translated the saffron party to many wins in the states and of course, earlier in 2019. Uttar Pradesh elections were widely seen as a semifinal before the mega event in 2024. And since the party stormed back to power handsomely, its ideological affiliated groups, had no hesitancy, rather it made them more confident in implementing Hindutva through aggressive processions, open calls for bans/boycotts and even physical attacks. After UP’s victory, BJP has no hurdle in between on the road to 2024. The Sangh Parivar knows that the way to the Indian Parliament goes through Hindi heartland – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand. The state of Karnataka comes as a complementary to the party as it has become the Sangh's laboratory for Hindutva's experiment after its Operation Lotus that ousted HD Kumaraswamy’s government in 2019. These five states – four from the Hindi heartland along with Karnataka send 191 lawmakers to the Indian Parliament – which is over 1/3rd of the total MPs and around 70% of what is required to be in power. In the 2019 national polls, BJP and its allies had won 159 out of these 191 Lok Sabha seats. Clearly, the increased activities of Sangh-affiliated fringe groups have a lot to do with the electoral gain that the party is aiming at in the next general elections in the Hindi heartland states. While the wave of unrest is not new to the state of Karnataka that has become the epicenter of attacks on minorities in the recent past.
So, there is no doubt that the increased activity of Sangh affiliated groups can be seen as a combination of chest-thumping in celebration of the recent landslide electoral victories, a stiff competition about who is the biggest ‘Hindutva Icon’ within Sangh, ‘VIP’ support on social media, and a motive to conquer 2024.
— Talha Rashid is a Delhi-based independent researcher who is interested in political campaigns and communication. He tweets @_TalhaRashid

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