Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 163strife since 1947, concluded that "our investigations show a sustained and
massive BJP-RSS investment in rioting." The strategy of the Sangh Parivar
is simple. Since the emotional Ramjanmabhumi issue alone would not be
quite adequate to keep up the levels of social tension and to forge a unified
Hinduism, they needed to add the riots and create a permanent state of
communal division that would also subsume the internal contradictions
within the Hindu society. That dual strategy was deemed necessary to
capture power both at the state and the Center.^43
However hesitant and painful, there have been several efforts to encoun-
ter the violence and the destructive potential face to face. The wounds are
not quickly bandaged and hidden from sight anymore, but the sores and
the pains are dealt with openly. The naked communal consciousness is
out in the open and is being talked about in the newspapers, tea stalls,
TV serials, movie theaters, and on the streets. What we have is not just
the videotapes of rapes in accompaniment with the Hindutva chants and
rites, but the awareness that the private and public viewing of those also
have become part of the Hindu heritage. In the final analysis, to borrow
M. J. Akbar's words, "if the India of the communalist has not died as yet,
neither has the India of harmony. If I was depressed by the first on the
road to Ayodhya, I was also elated by the second—visible to those who
want to see it, and on the same road."^44
The second indicator we can use to gauge the inner workings of the
Indian civil society is the electoral preferences of the people of the Hindi-
Urdu heartland. That all Hindutva politics has centered around obtaining
political power at the Center is widely known and discussed. However,
the shrewd Indian electorate has gauged the communal politics rather
well and demonstrated its acumen repeatedly. To begin with, let us take
a look at the BJP's electoral performance over the past three general elec-
tions for the national parliament. In the 1984 (December) elections, the
BJP contested in 224 seats but won just 2 seats, with a meager 7.74 percent
of the vote. In the 1989 (November) elections, the party fielded its candi-
dates in 226 constituencies and won 85 of them, with 11.36 percent of the
vote. And in the 1991 (May-June) polls, the BJP contested in 460 seats and
improved its toll to 119 seats, with 20.21 percent of the vote.
The 1984 elections were held right after Indira Gandhi's assassination,
and the sympathy wave and the national sentiments against Sikh funda-
mentalism played a crucial role in that poll. When "Mr. Clean" Rajiv Gan-
dhi and his government wanted a fresh mandate from the people in 1989,
accusations of corruption figured so prominently that he lost the election
that was held at the backdrop of an unfolding communal drama. Rajiv
Gandhi lost to a coalition called the National Front, and the BJP, which had
won 86 seats, offered the crucial support to V P. Singh's minority govern-
ment by staying out of the coalition. They withdrew the support following