Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 167constitutional commitment to secularism, average "real Indians" still take
that to mean equal respect for all religions, and religion plays a large role
in their daily life. They do not accept the elite-cultivated secular behavior
or the sophisticated compartmentalization of religion and politics. This is
why the great antireligious political movements of E.V.R. Periyar in Tamil
Nadu or M.N. Roy in Bengal and others, whose politics were expedient
for their times and enjoyed popular support, are nowhere in the Indian
scene today. Modifying Louis Dumont's "singular Dharma" contention,
we could posit that the immediacy of plural dharmas is a major organiz-
ing principle of the Indian society.
While the Sangh Parivar is trying to set these many dharmas against each
other and to wiggle through that confrontation to state power, other politi-
cal actors are either assisting them or averting meaningful confrontations.
They tell the people that the Hindutva mobilization is wrong and impul-
sively look outside of India toward capitalist or communist convictions of
god, governance, and growth. On the contrary, the Sadbhavna (commu-
nal amity) movement in Varanasi that was formed by the local citizens to
counter the Sangh Parivar mobilization did not brand the demolition as "a
black day for secular India" but "a day of shame for Hinduism." Invoking
the bhakti (devotion) tradition of Hinduism and the Sufi tradition of Islam,
they paraded Tulsidas, Chaitanya, Kabir, Nanak, Raidas, and Meera and
demanded to know how the Hindutva crusade could be justified.^61
The concern that this approach may give rise to "soft communalism" is
a valid one. But then we have to look at the ground reality and the histori-
cal facticity. The religiosity of the Indian polity is so central that we can
neither deny it nor wish it away. More than 700 years of Mughal and Brit-
ish domination have not dampened this spirit of spiritual search on the
subcontinent, but only added to it by introducing additional faiths and in
the process complicating the search further. Trying to wipe it clean as the
Marxists do, or attempting to push it over as their liberal counterparts do,
have been and will prove to be futile exercises. The only alternative would
be channeling that great repository of human energy into the proper chan-
nels of life and living.
Here the Gandhian model comes to our rescue. He may not have been
immaculate, his method may not have been impeccable, but his approach
has strong potentials for the subcontinent. For him, it is a land of faiths,
and everyone has to better him or herself in his or her own faith and carry
it around in all he or she does in his or her daily life. He is indifferent to
the idols or the skullcaps or other such ostentatious manifestations and
opposes the religious institutions, evils, and superstitions, but evokes the
human-making, life-facilitating, and harmony-promoting aspects quite
vigorously. You see the shining light of life within you, within the other,
and all around you. A polity illuminated by such a light will produce hon-
est leaders, conscientious humans, and a humane society. This collectively