Can the opposition [read @RahulGandhi] fight RSS/BJP Hindutva with Hindutva light? @RamaNewDelhi rightly argues it will be like Pepsi fighting with Coke for the Soda market. It cannot work 4 RG.

https://theprint.in/opinion/bjp-vs-opposition-is-just-like-coke-vs-pepsi-catch-up-hindutva-wont-work/483127/

1/n How should RG frame the contest? Some ideas.

The roots of the Congress have always been Hindu. Even the the father figure of Hindu nationalism, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a Congress man. Hindu Mahasabha, and RSS, which originally was the muscle arm of the HMS always represented the Hard right among Hindus.

While Congress spanned the whole spectrum from Right to Left. This remained so after independence under Nehru right upto Indira Gandhi. Congress began to lose its ideological moorings under the young Rajiv Gandhi due to sheer lack of political experience.

. @RahulGandhi doesn’t have to reinvent a Hinduism for the Congress. That has always been there. Instead RG needs to emphasise that Congress always represented the more liberal among Hindus. It is the liberal Hindu contrasted with the hard right sectarian Hindu that …

distinguishes the Congress from the RSS, BJP and the hard Hindu right.

Next RG needs to reaffirm his party’s faith in a new secular state. Congress stupidity allowed locating the secular ideal in individuals where it clashes directly with our ingrained religiosity.

We don’t need secular individuals. e need individuals who are free to practice any religion with maximal freedom. Individuals obtain this maximal freedom under a secular state. RG must reposition secularism as religious freedom 2 all individuals which comes from a secular state.

Hindus have never let a formal priesthood dictate their life choices & life styles. Hindus need a secular state more than the minorities because Hindus are so diverse in terms of region, language, culture & ethnicity.

No Hindu wants to live his life as per dictates of a clutch of Brahmins from Nagpur. That is the main weakness of the RSS/BJP nationalism plank. It must of necessity shun our inherent diversity & impose uniformity as in 1 language, or 1 religion or 1 ration card.

RG must always speak to Hindus without ever mentioning Hinduism. Do Hindus want to be sectarian monsters or liberal, modern individuals wedded to growth & prosperity. Do they want to live in the present or in a bleak cattiest past?

The whole Hindu nationalism project was about modernising Hindu society. Savarkar, wanted a modernised Hinduism without caste or excessive religiosity. In his thoughts he was closer to Nehru than Modi. Where he broke with Nehru was over treatment of Muslims.

If Congress has lost its way, the BJP & RSS have lost the plot. Far from modernising Hindu society as envisaged by Savarkar, they are taking us back to a bleak past, and are intent on repeating all the blunders that Hindus made back in the Middle Ages.

Modernity vs medievalism, Liberalism vs sectarianism, diversity vs uniformity, progress to a new society vs regressing to a bleak past - these are the hard choices that Hindus face and surely RG must know what most people will choose if the issues are framed correctly.

Congress failure since 2004 has been one of inability to correctly frame, present & articulate the larger issues that confront India and Hindus & others alike. Congress floundered most not in its basic approach but in framing & arguing for its approach.

I have very little doubt in my mind, that having finished off the Congress, RSS/BJP will become more like the Congress than Congress itself. They crave the secular label, their whole project is one of modernisation & they dare not try confronting India’s diversity.

This is so because the Congress approach to the whole project of nation building was fundamentally sound. Whereas the current RSS/BJP approach will undo what has already been accomplished.

So RG doesn’t have to reinvent a ideology or party.

Rather he has to recognise the mistakes made, redefine & reframe key concepts and pit his party as one of liberal & modern minded Hindus out to build an India that lives for the future rather than bunch of insecure, hard right buffoons seeking glory in a bleak past.

Frankly framed thus, I don’t see how RG & Congress can lose to the khaki knickers.

But carrying it off requires gumption, faith, dedication & conviction. This repositioning allows RG to be positive rather than negative yet enables him to attack anybody on the right openly.

RG must grasp modernity & liberalism & use the two as sticks to beat the khaki knickers & their Nazism borrowed from abroad as something of an aberration in Indian & Hindu traditions.

If Modi Shah & Co must borrow their nationalism from Nazi Germans, why talk of atamnirbarta?