Secularism has long been the hot button issue in Indian politics. Drop the S-word and watch the invective fly, as Congress and BJP supporters hurl words like Godhra, 1984, sickular, genocide etc. at one another. Over recent decades, the debate over a complex and sensitive issue -- one that goes to the core of our nation's identity -- has been reduced to two crude arguments.
On the one side is the Congress party's feudalistic definition of secularism which consists primarily of extending patronage and some degree of protection to minorities -- while keeping intact the conditions that keep these communities dependent on the same. The BJP version redefines India as a Hindu state, albeit a liberal one (compared to the Islamic kind) where minorities are required to know and embrace their lesser status.
PTI
For a new entrant like AAP, therefore, the challenge is to stake out a third position that stands in opposition to both.
AAP may be liberal in its ideology but it certainly doesn't want to be associated with the Congress establishment. Hence, all that rhetoric about eschewing vote-bank politics. And yet its best path to success is to take direct aim at Narendra Modi, including his fraught history and relationship with minorities. So what is a wannabe national party to do?
In the Hindu today, Yogendra Yadav offers a tantalising glimpse of an answer in the making.
Mr. Yadav refuses to get into the 'secular-communal' debate, arguing instead that in comparison to a stated 'secular' position, the better route to secularism is through a diverse vote base. "The best thing that happened to us in Delhi was our discovery that our support among Muslims and Dalits was disproportionately large."
This support base, Mr. Yadav says, has naturally led the AAP towards secularism and social justice. "Our commitment to secularism and ideology springs from our support among Muslims and Dalits; this is what anchors our ideology."
It's an oddly passive definition of secularism. AAP 'discovered' its support among minorities -- which implies that the party did not actively court it (because it doesn't believe in making identity-based appeals, as AAP leaders are at pains to underline). And in turn, this unsought and yet welcome support defines AAP's commitment to secularism. Translation: they are secular by default because of the diverse identities of their supporters.
Yadav then takes it up to the next level and rejiggers this de facto state of affairs into a seemingly commonsensical, aam aadmi version of secularism:
"It is a different kind where there is no high political theory of secularism, there is no 'secular' rhetoric. Instead the focus is on inclusion." Mr. Yadav points to the irony of Muslims and Dalits supporting the AAP despite the party's refusal to toe the intellectual line on identity and related issues.
"Arvind [Kejriwal] addressed a letter to Muslims which was not in the language of official secularism at all. The letter did not raise any of the classic Muslim identity issues that obsess the Muslim leadership, such as Aligarh, Urdu, Muslim culture etc. The letter talked about security which is a real issue and it talked about water, electricity and other livelihood matters. By any textbook understanding of Muslim politics, we should have bombed. Our party's stand on Dalits is similar. We do not say what Dalit intellectuals want us to say."
I, Arvind Kejriwal, will write a letter to Muslims but not address the readers as Muslims. In other words, AAP wants it both ways. Its leaders want to advertise their refusal to make identity-based appeals even as they appeal directly to certain communities.
The notion that parties need to speak to minorities as citizens and not as special interest groups is entirely laudable. Surely Muslims are more concerned about bijli-paani than Aligarh or even Hajj dispensations. But to pretend that their identity can be entirely erased, that communities don't have special concerns that spring precisely from their minority status is disingenuous. More disingenuous still is the assertion that a politician can speak to them without acknowledging those unique concerns.
Ironically, this is exactly what Narendra Modi is trying to do -- reaching out to Muslim leaders and groups but without ever acknowledging their worries about Godhra or Hindutva. AAP seems to be trying to figure out a liberal version of the same strategy. This tricky tightrope act, however, will be impossible to sustain in either case.
For example, on the campaign trail , Yadav spoke about very different issues in the malls of Gurgaon than he did in the Muslim-dominated district of Mewat, where he told voters that "unfortunately" he can't speak to them about civic issues such as hospitals because "[t]oday there is a bigger threat and the name of that threat is Narendra Modi. A decisive man, who wants to divide the country. A man who will invoke a fight between brothers."
He then went on to say: "This isn't the first time I'm talking about Narendra Modi but I speak against Modi on every platform. But outside this constituency people are more interested in listening to Modi's role in corruption. But for the people here it's a very specific issue, which resonates with them."
Does this mean Yadav is 'pandering' to Muslims? No. Is he wrong to focus the Muslim voter's attention on Modi? No. In an election, every politician has to speak his audience's interests. And as Yadav the psephologist once told Tehelka, The Muslim is no longer attached to any one party. He now votes tactically to defeat the BJP and this is how it will be in 2014." Hence, both Rahul Gandhi and Yadav will inevitably beat the Modi drum to galvanise Muslim support. To pretend otherwise is just silly.
AAP should indeed eschew narrow identity-based appeals that do great disservice to the very people they pretend to serve. But putting forward a genuinely alternative vision of secularism requires real intellectual engagement and investment -- the kind that AAP has yet to display. Until it does so, it will remain the not-Congress, not-BJP party to its voters, be they Hindu, Muslim, Dalit or Brahmin
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