BJP’s IPL team for the 2014 Lok Sabha tournament has been declared. The elevation of Narendra Modi, Uma Bharti, Amit Shah and Varun Gandhi in BJP signals the return of the aggressive Hindu nationalism in the Indian politics.

Last time when the Hindutva wave gripped the country was in 1990 when L K Advani took out a Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya to build a Ram temple at the place of Babri mosque in Ayodhya. The yatra tore apart the secular fabric of the nation forever. In just a week after December 6, 1992 when the mosque was demolished, communal riots claimed more than 1200 lives. The demolition of Babri masjid also gave birth to Islamic terrorism in India.

The mischievous Ram janmabhoomi movement took hundreds of lives over the years and changed the lives of millions. But this made BJP a very strong force at the Centre. It stormed to power at the Centre and lost it at the same speed. One may wish that the nation learnt a lesson. But a little more than two decades later the nation is in danger of being a hostage to the hate-politicians once again! The ‘mastermind’ of Advani’s Ram Rath Yatra, Modi wants to be the prime minister now. For the last 11 years, he has managed to evade the law after the widespread communal violence in Gujarat in 2002.

Gujarat became a laboratory of the Hindutva experiment. Many who contributed to the making of brand Modi are in Gujarat jails. Modi’s ex-minister Maya Kodnani was convicted of orchestrating the massacre of 95 people in Naroda Patia in 2002. She was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

After 2002, there was a series of ‘encounters’ in the state where ‘jehadi terrorists’ were killed by the ‘brave’ Gujarat police. These encounters kept the agenda of Hindutva alive in the minds of the voters by keeping the communities polarised. In the investigations ordered by the Supreme Court and the High Court of Gujarat, many of these encounters turned out to be cold blooded murders of innocent or petty criminals. As many as 38 police officers, including six IPS officers, are behind bars for staging fake encounters. And these are not the final numbers as investigations are on.

Brand Modi became bigger with every encounter because all the FIRs said that these ‘terrorists’ had come to kill Modi. The media played a significant role in the spread of this false story.

You see how perceptions are created. A huge part of the population believes Tulsiram, Sadiq Jamal, Ishrat Jahan and Kauserbi were terrorists and deserved to die in spite of having no or little evidence. But prime accused Amit Shah, against whom there are several evidences, is seen as innocent by the people till the courts convict him. This is the power of the Hindutva brainwash of civil society.

Kejriwal and company made people believe that the biggest threat to the nation is corruption and not communalism. Since the inception of the movement, I didn’t hear them utter a single word against communalism.

The ‘apolitical’ movement to bring the Jan Lokpal ended in Kejriwal forming a political outfit. This movement eventually created a fertile ground for the communalism virus to grow.

BJP has often criticised the dynasty politics of the Congress, especially the Nehru-Gandhi family. Now Varun Gandhi is elevated to general secretary’s post. The message is, BJP is fine with dynastic politics as long as you do a bit of Muslim-bashing.

Looking at the completely polarised atmosphere, VHP’s international working president Pravin Togadia says that by 2015, it will declare Gujarat a Hindu state. Isn’t this a vulgar misuse of freedom of speech granted by our constitution directed against the very spirit of the constitution? And the irony is that they call themselves nationalists.

The Congress party, too, sensing the Hindutva wave carried out the death sentences of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru in quick succession without letting the opposition to reap political benefit from the delay.

In the given circumstances, I see no light at the end of the long dark tunnel of the Indian politics, especially when the impressionable youth have little politics but a lot of adrenaline- just the right proportion for hate to be harvested.

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