Content provided in partnership with

India votes for secularism

National Catholic Reporter, May 28, 2004 by Francis Gonsalves

At sunset May 13, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee conceded defeat in parliamentary elections that saw his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, which had led the ruling National Democratic Alliance, suffer massive and unexpected losses.

India, the world's largest democracy, voted decisively for secularism, not religious fundamentalism. India's 670 million voters also voted for basic needs--roti-kapda-makaan (food, clothing and housing)--over economic liberalism. Indian voters handed the "Secular Front" (now renamed "United Progressive Alliance") led by the Congress Party a landslide electoral victory and dashed the Hindu right's hopes of winning another term as a parliamentary majority.

Most Popular Articles in Reference: The importance of understanding organizational culture; Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students; What factors attract foreign direct investment?; Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...; How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques; More »

The gains of the Secular Front are remarkable. Congress--the party of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru--and its allies won 216 seats in the 539-seats Lok Sabha (parliament).

These elections were historic. In election campaigns nationwide, contentious issues were raised, foremost among which was secularism versus religious fundamentalism. Secularism and people's power won the day.

Religious fanaticism gained ground in the 1990s when the BJP became a major player in Indian politics. During the campaign, the BJP routinely pushed communal issues that had earlier led to bloodshed. A highly sensitive issue is the construction of a Hindu mandir (temple) over the Babri masjid (mosque) that was destroyed in Ayodhya in 1992 at the instigation of BJP leaders such as L.K. Advani, the deputy prime minister under Vajpayee.

BJP leaders promised to construct a temple over the ruins of the mosque. Indians, however, seem tired of the mandir issue and prefer peace.

The Ayodhya issue polarized Hindus and Muslims, and ultimately led to the 2002 "Gujarat carnage," communal violence in western India that saw hundreds of people burned, raped and murdered.

Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, reaped rich dividends in state elections in late 2002 by creating fear and factions among citizens. Hoping to capitalize on the communal divide in national elections, too, the BJP commissioned Modi to campaign in more than 50 rallies. His vituperative speeches hardly influenced voters. The Congress Party met with substantial successes in Gujarat, where it secured 12 out of 24 seats, a marked improvement over previous performances.

In these elections many parties either parted company with the BJP because of its fundamentalist stand or joined hands with Congress to support secularism. Of the former, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam of south India's Tamil Nadu led its Democratic People's Alliance as a Congress ally and won all its 35 contests routing the alliance formed by the BJP and the party of the imperious Jayalalithaa, the state chief minister and southern power broker. Jayalalithaa had earlier passed the Freedom of Religion Bill that made it mandatory for one to seek government permission before converting to another religion.

Conspicuous among the BJP losers are Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha.

Joshi, the minister for human resource development, got fundamentalist ideologues to rewrite Indian history and manipulate school syllabi to suit Hindu right ideology. The finance minister, Sinha's economic liberalization spelt his doom.

The BJP's theme throughout the elections was "India Shining," a media blitzkrieg that trumpeted successes in the information technology sector and economic gains, such as 8 percent growth in national gross domestic product.

The progress, if any, was limited to urban India. The BJP's trusted ally, the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh, for instance, had pumped people's money into beautifying the state capital Hyderabad--also known as "Cyberabad" because of its technological advancements. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, N. Chandrababu Naidu, provided many benefits to technocrats, multinationals and industrialists while forgetting the woes of farmers who suffered from devastating drought. The Telugu Desam lost not only 24 seats in the national elections but was routed in the state's assembly elections.

One final issue that continued to split the polity was whether Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, widow and daughter-in-law of assassinated prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, was eligible to become prime minister.

Unexpectedly, at a Congress parliamentary meeting late on May 18, she announced: "The post of prime minister has not been my aim. An inner voice tells me that I must humbly decline this post." No pleas and protestations would make her change her mind.

Manmohan Singh, a former finance minister who ushered in economic reforms in the early 1990s, will be India's prime minister. The country's stock market rebounded with news of his appointment. The markets had plunged the day before as investors pondered the leftists' role in the new government.

It is unclear how much influence India's rich and powerful can bring to bear on this new administration. What is definite, however, is that India has voted for secularism and the poor have proved their polling power. It is left now to the United Progressive Alliance to reach out to the poorest, the lowliest and the lost.

India votes for secularism

National Catholic Reporter, May 28, 2004 by Francis Gonsalves

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Health

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference