Sangh Parivar

The basic question that the Rohith Vemula case raises is about the existence of the rule of law in India. If his mother Radhika Vemula was rich, there would have been no issue about Rohith’s caste and all people named in the FIR for abetting his suicide would have been in jail. But her fault is that she lived off the pittance that Rohith sent her from his paltry fellowship!

Looking at existing policy instruments and goals, and the economic and social outcomes they promise to deliver, it is argued that majoritarian politics and social and cultural outcomes are not part of fringe thinking. The politics of hate actually works to build a consensus for ruling class economics. It is not surprising, therefore, that the only "nationalist outlook" of our times is to stand firmly behind the policy programme for the global investor.

The arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the student’s union president in Jawaharlal Nehru University, and subsequent crackdown on all dissent on the campus, is part of a larger design to stifle the voices of anyone going against the policies of the current regime. 

At the end of it all, when we muse over the debate on the no-confidence motion - both inside and outside parliament - we are left in a chamber of mirrors. All that the Congress can do is to compete with the BJP in a race where the Sangh parivar sets the rules. Since the parivar has made leadership an issue, the Congress has to project Sonia Gandhi to counter Vajpayee. Since the parivar lays down the terms of discourse, the Congress has to debate over trivial issues which have been made explosive by the parivar, like Ram Janmabhoomi and cow worship.

Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics by Manjari Katju; Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2003; pp viii + 186, Rs 350.