Obama and BJP: Political expectations and expediency

There is always an appreciable gap between expectations and expediency in the world of politics. The Obama speech to Islamic world and the Indian election results are two manifestations of the same truth. L.K.Advani and others who endorsed the candidacy of Varun Gandhi expected correctly that it would give rich dividends to him. Of course it did as he won the election. The Presidential address made some people euphoric as they were taken in by the spur of the moment and thought that it made a watershed in the troubled history of how the Americans had been dealing with the Muslims for more than a century before 9/11.
When excitement of the moment gives way to cool reasoning things appear different from what they purportedly say. Many who heard President Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg could not understand him because before the hubbub of the audience subsided he had ended his speech and his voice was quite low. It was only when the speech appeared in printed form the next day they discovered how some of the golden virtues of democracy were enshrined through the power of speech. That single speech did not eradicate slavery lock, stock and barrel. But it was an important decorative gem in the rich mosaic of truthful words matched by strong action and tenacity to remain firm in one’s views and dealings. President Barack Obama on the other hand made instantaneous impression but the true import began to register in the minds of the audience slowly. Neither his most questionable silence over the way the Israelis used his induction as the president to punish the Gazans at will and time of their choosing nor his refusal to even rap their knuckles anytime subsequently (including the Israeli piracy of the ship carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza sent by six time member of the US Congress Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and others) fit in any rich mosaic of wise words accompanied by firm actions.
It was good to hear him accosting the audience in their familiar putative greetings, emphasis on his middle name Hussein, his being brought up in Indonesia rather than Saudi Arabia. Many were soon aghast at the too much circumspect references to the Palestinians which ended with a clear concern for the security of Israel rather than the opposition to the Israeli aggression repeated ad absurdum.
As Obama cannot pull himself out of the orbit of the political set up in his country, in India both the major parties have their own rotation and revolution again determined by the political set up here. Why did Advani and his party support Varun Gandhi? They knew quite well that what he had uttered was the unequivocal truth of their personal and collective conviction of their reason of existence as a political force in this country. That is their oxygen. Labeling soft or hard tags will not make any change anyway. It is this that has powered them to let anyone questioning their commitment to Hindutva know that he is free to leave the party rather than cast aspersion on their conviction. That is not negotiable and explains why on reaching the Goa conclave in the aftermath of the Gujarat carnage of 2002 Prime Minister Vajpayee not only chose to back Modi but find fault with the Muslims who ala Huntington do not cohabit the planet well with their neighbours.
That is also the reason why Congress and BJP choose to look the other way when it comes to this essentialism. BJP MLA Fatesinh Chauhan of Rajgarh was named an accused in the loot and arson of property of and attacks on Muslims in Devgarh Bharia in 2002. He got elected in the notorious election of that year and ‘absconded’ as he was declared a ‘wanted’ in the post Godhra carnage as Babu Bajrangi has been doing the same, off and on. Chauhan had called Sonia Gandhi a ‘kutri’(a bitch) and a ‘vandri’ (a she monkey) during electioneering in November. This time the Congress leaders opted to act not out of their any concern for the plight of the Muslims as victims of the pogroms but to show how seriously they took the slur to their leader. Their expectation would bring rich rewards to them and the expediency of the election officer JR Nanavati in lodging complaint would fructify.
There are people in India who flaunt their being politically incorrect as a badge of honour (Obama needs some more lessons in Islam. Tavleen Singh. Indian Express. June 7, 2009). One such has called the American president to be wary of wahabism. She expects that he take lessons in dealing with Islam from Indians! Her feeling is that we Indians lived in “our happy heathen atmosphere” “till Saudi money started to fund Wahabi Islam.” Such a naiveté in expectation is like carrying coal to New Castle as the United States has been governed and shaped by the puritan founders of the colonies; they condemned revelry as the work of the devil. In one single year Judge Hawthorne had sentenced more than two dozen women to be burnt at the stake for no fault of theirs but for their mumbling as a result of old age which the puritans took as their uttering the name of Satan! In what way have the wahabis dented the pagan pleasures of India? Some expect too much from the Americans and look for whatever opportunity comes in hand as expediency to show others their place in the country that is home to all its citizens.
The political right in India share with their counter parts in the US and Israel some implausible articles of faith which see nemesis rather than remedy as solution to the besetting problems. The words of Obama that some “measure one’s own faith by the rejection of another’s” is double edged and can cut both the ways equally.
No doubt that Islam rejects the free and easy ways of the West for its licentiousness and promiscuity among many other signs of decadence. But Islam is quite firm and clear that your religion is with you and mine with me and there is no compulsion in religion. Given this as the governing thought of Islam the rejection of hijab by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Obama embracing the right of the Muslim vis-à-vis hijab is the concern of two different groups of the Western stream of thought. Their concern is extraneous to Islam as a religion. It may also happen that these two sides would (ex)change their position if their political expediency becomes so emergent at a future time.
Therefore jumping on any bandwagon in a hurry in great expectation is the expediency for a short term gain but is fraught with danger. India made that mistake in regards to terrorism only to realize that its bête noire Pakistan is also on the same side with the Americans. This would mean the Arnold-ian situation of ignorant armies clashing in the dark of the night.
But such is the extremism of the right that the hijab appears as the “danger of Islam” to Bal Thackeray. His expediency of shouting alarm over religion in danger has been played so often and so much that whether Indian leaders are really “thakela and pakela” (tired and bored) is difficult to say, but he is, and this mind set is the result of it.