05-20-2009, 09:51 PM
brihaspati
X post
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->There is a fundamental error in perceptions about the Congress, and this leads to all the heated debate about relative merits or tactical differences between the BJP and the Congress in elections.
<b>
The Congress is all about ideological vacuum. It carefully nurtures, maintains and promotes complete lack of commitment to any consistent ideological position, including "faith". There are many advantages to this, and for most of the time in any nation's history, such a strategy will appear successful.</b>
All those who link and fught over the apparent association of "hindutva" with the BJP and the non-association with Congress miss this crucial point and therfore are misjudging its impact on th recent elections. The Congress's major support base comes from within those who are legally considered "Hindu". The Congress itself is very much aware of it, and it never takes any obvious steps that would directly alienate the "Hindu" sentiment. In fact as I have written elsewhere, the Congress is more "Hindutva" of the the type it overtly criticizes, than those it accuses. Congress has never tried to modernize and integrate the Muslim or Christian Indian, into the mainstream, by reforming or modernizing the faith blocs that the theologian leadership of these communities use to prevent them from striving forward competitively in education and the economy. Congress however has done a lot to modernize the "Hindu". This is a pointer to the inherent bias in the Congress elite thinking that the non-Hindu does not belong to "us" - and therefore not sufficiently identifiable with "us" to care enough to do the same as with the "Hindu".
However, the Congress cannot afford to allow the rise of a strong ideological framework, and the most natural convenient one would be the "Hindutva", since that would mean rival claims to political authority away from the dynastic system and the courtier regime around it. In both Christian and Islamic countries, where such ideological basis of political parties have been allowed to flourish or remain in morphed affiliations, the elite of these political parties are always in an uneasy reltionship with the theologians, and feel constrained or a re challenged from time to time in terms of unadulterated enjoyment of power.
Thus Congress has fought hard to impose and promote a general atmosphere of ideological vacuum, where its major constituency, the "Hindu" cannot have independent sources of arriving at ideological conclusions - and have to look up to a dynasty or individual.
Why could this flourish? Because of two reasons :one historical, where the major forces of strong ideological commitments were worn down in conflicts with the British, and the two most prone to such afflictions - Bengal and Punjab were successfully decimated through the Partition, as well as consistent regime mounted campaigns to destroy rival claimants for the "Hindu heart" - the host of staunch organizations like that of Savarkar's repressed, and those like RKM forced into "pure social service".
The second factor is that normally a population would not like to work more to commit itself to an ideology unless a crisis makes it unavoidable. The majority of "Hindu elite" who supported Congress had no reason to invest more of their intellect and efforts into commiting to strong ideological positions as there were no incentives to do so. Given the attitude of the elite, which has a disproportionate voice on media projections, the non-elite would have no reasons to go that extra le either. So ideological vacuum suits well with scenarios where people do not have to "commit". It gives them the greatest flexibility of tactical switching over as and when it is seemingly beneficial. This is of course most advantageous for the "Hindu elite" who would be found to have the greatest proportion of aggressive proponents of this ideological vacuum. It is therefore not surprising that the strongest attacks on this forum against "Hindutva" has come from among the "Hindu elite", for they realize very well the danger it represents to the opportunistic flexibility of position that they think they can benefit from.
It is not a question of "hindutva" that affected the elections - both sides practice "Hindutva", one of the closet variety with even more hidden but exclusivist, paranoid, "brahminical - all non-Brahmins are Shudras" (the Thaparite reconstruction of Brahmin - not my personal generalization) type thinking, and the other practices overt "Hindutva" although a shy, bashful, and hesitant one.
It is "peacetime" politics, where ideological vacuums are generally attractive. Here results will swing based on whoever promises the more largesse, and asks for lesser in return. It is only when crises overtakes, that people will search for strength in their roots. Only when such crises have been shown to be a direct result of vacuum opportunism will the people crush the originators of the vacuum. Until then it is a question of pure and cynical manipulation.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
X post
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->There is a fundamental error in perceptions about the Congress, and this leads to all the heated debate about relative merits or tactical differences between the BJP and the Congress in elections.
<b>
The Congress is all about ideological vacuum. It carefully nurtures, maintains and promotes complete lack of commitment to any consistent ideological position, including "faith". There are many advantages to this, and for most of the time in any nation's history, such a strategy will appear successful.</b>
All those who link and fught over the apparent association of "hindutva" with the BJP and the non-association with Congress miss this crucial point and therfore are misjudging its impact on th recent elections. The Congress's major support base comes from within those who are legally considered "Hindu". The Congress itself is very much aware of it, and it never takes any obvious steps that would directly alienate the "Hindu" sentiment. In fact as I have written elsewhere, the Congress is more "Hindutva" of the the type it overtly criticizes, than those it accuses. Congress has never tried to modernize and integrate the Muslim or Christian Indian, into the mainstream, by reforming or modernizing the faith blocs that the theologian leadership of these communities use to prevent them from striving forward competitively in education and the economy. Congress however has done a lot to modernize the "Hindu". This is a pointer to the inherent bias in the Congress elite thinking that the non-Hindu does not belong to "us" - and therefore not sufficiently identifiable with "us" to care enough to do the same as with the "Hindu".
However, the Congress cannot afford to allow the rise of a strong ideological framework, and the most natural convenient one would be the "Hindutva", since that would mean rival claims to political authority away from the dynastic system and the courtier regime around it. In both Christian and Islamic countries, where such ideological basis of political parties have been allowed to flourish or remain in morphed affiliations, the elite of these political parties are always in an uneasy reltionship with the theologians, and feel constrained or a re challenged from time to time in terms of unadulterated enjoyment of power.
Thus Congress has fought hard to impose and promote a general atmosphere of ideological vacuum, where its major constituency, the "Hindu" cannot have independent sources of arriving at ideological conclusions - and have to look up to a dynasty or individual.
Why could this flourish? Because of two reasons :one historical, where the major forces of strong ideological commitments were worn down in conflicts with the British, and the two most prone to such afflictions - Bengal and Punjab were successfully decimated through the Partition, as well as consistent regime mounted campaigns to destroy rival claimants for the "Hindu heart" - the host of staunch organizations like that of Savarkar's repressed, and those like RKM forced into "pure social service".
The second factor is that normally a population would not like to work more to commit itself to an ideology unless a crisis makes it unavoidable. The majority of "Hindu elite" who supported Congress had no reason to invest more of their intellect and efforts into commiting to strong ideological positions as there were no incentives to do so. Given the attitude of the elite, which has a disproportionate voice on media projections, the non-elite would have no reasons to go that extra le either. So ideological vacuum suits well with scenarios where people do not have to "commit". It gives them the greatest flexibility of tactical switching over as and when it is seemingly beneficial. This is of course most advantageous for the "Hindu elite" who would be found to have the greatest proportion of aggressive proponents of this ideological vacuum. It is therefore not surprising that the strongest attacks on this forum against "Hindutva" has come from among the "Hindu elite", for they realize very well the danger it represents to the opportunistic flexibility of position that they think they can benefit from.
It is not a question of "hindutva" that affected the elections - both sides practice "Hindutva", one of the closet variety with even more hidden but exclusivist, paranoid, "brahminical - all non-Brahmins are Shudras" (the Thaparite reconstruction of Brahmin - not my personal generalization) type thinking, and the other practices overt "Hindutva" although a shy, bashful, and hesitant one.
It is "peacetime" politics, where ideological vacuums are generally attractive. Here results will swing based on whoever promises the more largesse, and asks for lesser in return. It is only when crises overtakes, that people will search for strength in their roots. Only when such crises have been shown to be a direct result of vacuum opportunism will the people crush the originators of the vacuum. Until then it is a question of pure and cynical manipulation.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->