FROM POKHRAN TO AYODHYA
MEANING OF BJP'S NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

BY

Once again we are witnessing the resurgence of the politics of the temple - an attempt to arouse the passion of Ayodhya and reduce religion to a tool of political mobilization. For some, this mythologization of politics may be inexplicable because, only yesterday, its chief agent - the ruling BJP - celebrated science at Pokhran. They may ask: how can science and religion go together? But then, as we wish to argue, this journey from Pokhran Ayodhya is a logical consequence of the BJP's national philosophy. There is no break, no discontinuity. Science and religion unite in the BJP's vision of nation-making; both are appropriated, falsified and used as symbols of power or ideologies of domination.

To begin with, let us understand the meaning of Pokhran. Pokhran is real and concrete. Yet, Pokhran has to be seen as a metaphor: the way technology - or to put it sharply, military technology - is allowed to colonize the spirit of science. At Pokhran we saw the celebration of brute technology, not liberating science. True, one cannont isolate science from technology. Technology is, after all, the instrumental application of the principles of sciences. Yet, it is desirable to keep a separate space for science - science as an uncompromising search for truth, science as inner strength liberating the mind from fear, dogmas and prejudices. It was this libertarian science that, for example, Karl Popper idealized as an important component of an open culture leading to tolerance and dialogicity. It was this science which even Nehru, despite his fascination with technological modernization, celebrated as a state of mind. Indeed, it was this optimistic vision of science that was the basisc foundation of modern Enlightenment.

Yet, the irony is that in the culture of post Enlightenment / late modernity, science loses its liberating potential. As big / gorgeous technology it becomes a new kind of magic; it becomes an ideology of the modern nation-state; it gets pampered by the managers of the techno-military empire. Technology as "national development" or "national security" acquires enormous power; it creates an expertized culture that silences all alternate voices of dissent. In other words, the dissenting role of science is being replaced by the technologized culture of Establishment. In fact, it is this instrumental technology (against liberating science) that has darkened the prospect of modernity. It is responsible for environmental disaster, for war and violence, for the holocausts. At Pokhran we saw the celebration of this demonic technology; it had got nothing to do with the vision liberating science.

As a matter of fact, it is the hunger for the same brute power that can be seen at Ayodhya. A desperate attempt to construct a temple at the disputed site does by no means reveal the intensity of authentic religiosity. Instead, it is an ideology of domination designed to homogenize a plural society. It is not an inner search for truth; instead, it is directed at its "bad enemy". Its message is not that of love or fusion of horizons; instead, it is violent and narcissistic. In fact, at Ayodhya we see the death of spiritual religion or libetarian theology - something that embraces and softens the world. Both Ayodhya and Pokhran, we insist, reveal the assertion of power - the power to consolidate the "nation" and rescue it from its "perpetual enemy".

Herein lies the national philosophy of the BJP. Despite its proclaimed affinity with religion, it has got nothing to do with religiosity as spiritual awakening or experience of unboundedness. Instead, it can easily appropriate the logic of instrumental technology and use religion for yet another modernist endeavour: creating an ideology of aggressive nationalism. In fact, in the BJP's national philosophy we do not see the libertarian potential of modernity; we see only its aggressive and violent face. It has to be realized that religiosity is an affirmation of love, and science as libertarian consciousness can coexist and spiritualize the agenda of modenity. But the unity of science and religion that Pokhran and Ayodhya symbolize, as we are arguing, is of a different kind. It is an unholy alliance that reflects the crisis of modernity.

To critique this national philosophy is to create an alternative vision of India - a vision that can question the logic of ruthless techno-military modernization, a vision that can rescue science from technological managers, a vision that can separate religiosity (as a process of purification of soul) from the politics of militant nationalism. The irony is that even those who otherwise criticize the BJP do not always appreciate such a vision. More often than not, they speak the language of "progress" and get seduced by the logic of technological development (even the leftists congratulated our scientists and technologists for what they did at Pokhran). Unless our secularists learn to remain sensitive to different meanings of "progress" they cannot really come forward with an alternative to the BJP's national philosophy.

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