NEW DELHI, 17 November 2002 — Atal Behari Vajpayee is not a Hindu, says the self-appointed guardian of Hinduism, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, vice president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He is a Manavvadi, explains the vice president. The statement says nothing about Mr. Vajpayee. It does however say a great deal about Acharya Giriraj Kishore.

He must be the first Hindu with any reputation to believe that a humanist cannot be a Hindu. Hinduism has a supernatural aspect, which involves faith in an afterlife; and a natural one, which guides the worldly behavior.

If Hinduism has a defining message, then it is humanism. There is space in its philosophy for everyone, which is one reason why India is a home to every single religion in the world. Anyone who has been persecuted anywhere else has found an undisturbed haven in India. This remained true even when men distorted the philosophy of Hinduism and introduced the inequities of caste: The attitude of Hinduism to other faiths continued to be liberal. Hinduism is synonymous with humanism. That is its essence and its great liberating quality.

Giriraj Kishore may however, and perhaps inadvertently, have defined his problem. In a very real sense the struggle within the Hindutva Parivar is about the definition of Hinduism. For the Kishores and the Praveen Togadias, Hinduism is about imposition. For the Vajpayees it is precisely about what Kishore found objectionable: Manavvadi, or humanism.

What is the difference between what we call, perhaps for want of another word in the English language, secularism, and communalism? Secularism is inclusive. Communalism is invasive. Belief and the practice of faith is not communalism. Muslims are celebrating the holy month of Ramadan now with fasting and prayer. A Muslim who fasts does not become communal. A Sikh who wears a turban or a Hindu who wears puja marks on his forehead does not become communal.

But when a Muslim begins to impose fasting on those who are not required by their faith to do so, then he becomes communal.

This was what we saw in Punjab in 1983 when the pressure of fundamentalists forced the closure of cigarette and liquor shops so that neither Sikh nor Hindu might be able to smoke. This is forcing your mores upon others who may not agree with you, and have the perfect right not to agree.

Perhaps the worst form of religious fundamentalism occurred in Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition when some 25 percent of the population, consisting of Muslims and Jews, was either driven out of the country or forcibly converted to Christianity.

The Kishores and Togadias want to change Hinduism into a militant, aggressive, invasive movement that forces all other communities into a submissive status.

They also believe that they have found the man who will convert their passion into a political movement: Narendra Modi. The extremists of the Parivar have formally given up on Vajpayee. This is evident. It is equally evident that the prime minister has given up on them. He knows he cannot change them; they know they cannot change him.

Both also know that their response must be calibrated by other realities. Vajpayee is not so naïve as to believe that he can eliminate them from the broad coalition that constitutes the Hindutva Parivar. He will deal with them the best way he can even as he pursues his own agenda in power.

If the militants thought that they could replace Vajpayee as prime minister, then they were excessively foolish even by the standards of a restricted average IQ.

Vajpayee’s strength is a trifle paradoxical for a man who has served a party all his life. He has no real constituency in the BJP. His forte is his acceptability to the electorate, which brings us to the second paradox: It is precisely because he is, intellectually and emotionally, a humanist that he receives the support from voters that he gets.

It is so often forgotten by the hard ideologues of the Parivar that India is a secular nation not because India’s Muslims and Christians want it to remain secular, but because by far the greater percentage of India’s Hindus want the nation to remain secular. Minorities cannot determine the political culture of a nation. It is the majority that keeps India secular.

The challenge before the extremists of the Hindutva Parivar is to change the mind of this majority. They do not believe that Vajpayee will help them in their mission. They are also getting convinced that L.K. Advani will not either. They once thought he was a wolf in wolf’s clothing. They are now beginning to feel that Advani is a sheep in sheep’s clothing.

Both Vajpayee and Advani, in their view, irrespective of their cosmetic differences, or perhaps deliberate differences (good-cop-bad-cop is traditional strategy), remain in the conventional mold of Indian politics, which still believes in persuasion rather than coercion. They want a hard-liner ready to draw his lines in crimson. Their hero is Narendra Modi, who has indulged in havoc, demonized Muslims, threatened Christians, smirked at liberals, taunted the “respectable” and will win an election. How perfect can you get?

There are two principal reasons why Modi will win. He satiated a very powerful thirst for violent revenge across a wide belt of Hindu opinion after the infamous incident at Godhra. The violence was left to the urban Hindu lumpen but it had the implicit support of those who would never be seen on the street but were nevertheless pleased that the Muslims were being a taught “a well-deserved lesson” for having over-reached themselves.

The insidious propaganda against Muslims, labeling them “filth” that needs to be cleansed from the Indian body politic may not have any effect most of the time, but seemed terribly credible in the post-Godhra moment.

The electorate will thank Modi with one victory. It will be only one. Such emotional support tends to be ephemeral, and in fact the temporary hero could invite a severe negative reaction three months down the line, but in the interim the victory will excite the hard-liners into delirium and conviction that this is the way to keep both the secular and the “pseudo-secular” out of power. Ironically, when the Kishores and Togadias think of “pseudo-secular” they think of Vajpayee and Advani.

The second reason why Modi will win is because of a mistake made by the Congress party. When a party runs out of conviction and ideas it chases the opponent. (The Democrats did this against George Bush in the midterm American elections.) Shankar Sinh Vaghela has tried to defeat Modi not by arguing that Modi is fundamentally wrong, but by saying he can be a sophisticated version of Modi.

If it is a question of only electing another Modi, why settle for the fake when the real one is available? Sardar Patel is the icon of both parties. I am certain that the Sardar would be absolutely horrified at both the BJP and the Congress, the first for claiming him when he was never a believer in Hindutva; and the second for telling voters that he is really their man, and if the Congress could allow closet-Hindutva five decades ago it can do so again.

I wonder how many posters the Indian National Congress has sent out in this election campaign with the face of Jawaharlal Nehru; or even of the most famous Gujarati of all, Mahatma Gandhi. This has been a me-too campaign; not a you-are-wrong campaign.

Will a Modi victory change the future of Indian politics, as is being trumpeted, a bit pompously? Better men than Modi have tried to change the future of Indian politics, and discovered that Indian politics has changed their future instead. Let us cite just one example.

Can the Modi-Togadia tune play in Uttar Pradesh? They could try it, but it will cost the party its alliance with the Dalit Chief Minister Mayawati. The Dalit is no friend of violent extremism. In Bihar, such politics will reconsolidate the demographic alliance that keeps the ineffective and irresponsible government of Laloo Yadav in power.

The BJP is the engine of a national train now; and the key question of a national party is not what wins a state, but what preserves a nation. Arson might provide passing pleasure in politics. But to build anything needs the values and culture of a Manavvad. The BJP will continue to need Vajpayee more than Vajpayee needs the BJP.