Acording to the prevailing wisdom in certain quarters, the merit or achievements of people in power could or should be “scientifically” determined: identify a few parameters, establish a weightage principle, employ a graded points system. Finally, add it all up “objectively” and see what you get. Take communalism as one of the parameters and development as the other, say such wise men and women. Now, since development is a many-splendoured thing that supposedly spreads happiness
or bliss all around, it must obviously get more weightage than communalism in the overall scheme  of things. Thus if we limit ourselves to just two parameters for the sake of convenience – communalism and development – according to the weightage criteria of the wise (Ratan Tata, the Ambanis, Anna Hazare, etc), if communalism gets 20 points, development must get 80.

Now weigh Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, according to this scientifically devised scale. Granted that communalism is bad, but Modi must get at least 10 out of 20 for no “riots” since 2002, we are told. On the development front, he is very good (“Vibrant Gujarat”) so here Modi must be given 70 out of 80. (His champions would love to give him 120 out of 80 – 150 per cent – but some allowance is made for his detractors who point out that Gujarat’s poor have got zilch from his development model.) Thus Modi’s total score adds up to an impressive 80 per cent: distinction marks! It is through such a perverted “scientific approach” and “balanced thinking” that Modi, a mass murderer, is deemed eminently qualified to be a prime ministerial candidate.

While dishing out praise to Modi and Nitish Kumar (Bihar), the mahatma of our times, Anna Hazare, perhaps forgot to include Shivraj Singh Chouhan (the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh). Let’s not forget all the media pundits who told us in 2008 that the low-profile BJP leader from MP had swept the assembly polls because he was a man focused on delivering the basics to the masses: bijli, sadak, pani (electricity, roads and water). The BJP was told that it must learn a lesson from Chouhan’s impressive performance in his second innings: shun divisive issues, concentrate on good governance and things that matter.

Now with our present cover story, we are asking whether development, real or concocted, in Gujarat or in Madhya Pradesh, is a veil behind which the sangh parivar relentlessly pursues its communal agenda. The opening line of the cover story says it all: “The dividing line between the government and the saffron brotherhood in Madhya Pradesh has become so blurred that the two are now virtually indistinguishable.” The chief minister is now brazenly acting as a recruiting agent for the RSS, virtually directing government employees to engage actively with an outfit whose declared goal for India is Hindu Rashtra. The MP police are busy profiling Christians and Hindutva is writ large on every government scheme and project. Even more ominously, with Swami Aseemanand in police custody for his involvement in several terrorist activities across the country – Malegaon, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad), Ajmer and the Samjhauta Express – his counterparts in MP have now taken charge of hounding Christian tribals in their state ŕ la Aseemanand.

As readers are aware, when Anna Hazare issued a good development certificate to Modi in the midst of his India Against Corruption campaign, many activists from Gujarat had cried foul and put out facts and figures to show how for the vast majority of Gujaratis, Modi’s development claim was a sick joke. We do not know how much substance there was or is in the claim that the MP chief minister has actually reached benefits to the aam aadmi (common man). Even if we take the proposition at face value, the question remains whether behind the development curtain in all BJP-ruled states, the RSS and its affiliates are quietly and not so quietly pursuing their Hate Minorities agenda. The report of a citizens’ inquiry conducted by Justice Saldanha published in the March 2011 issue of this journal showed how the Hindu communal agenda was being pursued in BJP-ruled Karnataka. Our cover story this month is a clear pointer that things are no different in Madhya Pradesh under BJP rule.

That this is very likely to be the case in every state under BJP rule, or where the BJP is in a power-sharing arrangement, is not in the least surprising. The BJP is, after all, only the electoral wing of its parent body, the RSS, which, while pretending to be only a cultural organisation, has a definite and divisive political agenda. As important is the fact that the RSS is a highly disciplined cadre-based organisation which knows how to milk every opportunity that comes its way.

The moral of the story is that woolly-headed liberals can continue to dream and to offer the BJP unsolicited advice to cut the umbilical cord that ties it to its parent body and transform itself into a right of centre party so as to remain relevant. Meanwhile, wherever it manages to gain power, the BJP remains committed to providing some facade or other behind which the patriarchs of the parivar can pursue their poisonous ideology.