As polls draw nearer, competitive religiosity is the name of the game in Madhya Pradesh

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As the assembly elections draw nearer, Madhya Pradesh is increasingly turning into a saffron theatre for competitive displays of religiosity between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, the main rivals in the state’s bipolar polity. The lines between “soft Hindutva” that the “secular” Congress is accused of toeing, and Hindutva, the BJP’s core ideology, seem to be blurring in the state.

The Congress’s unprecedented zeal to match the BJP in embracing religious symbolisms has caused uneasiness in the Muslim community which has begun to think the opposition party seems to take them for granted because there is no other alternative to the saffron party in the state. On the other hand, this has also afforded the BJP an opportunity to gloat over its “success” in forcing the Congress to emulate its core ideology.

Hindutva: No Outdoing BJP

In pursuit of Hindu votes for the assembly polls slated in November this year, both the parties are relentlessly vying with each other to show who is the greater champion of devout Hindus. Unsurprisingly, the BJP that brazenly espouses Hindutva is far ahead in the race.

Its 18-year-long rule (briefly interrupted for 15 months by the Kamal Nath-led Congress government) saw vast resources splurged on religious extravaganzas such as expensive expansion of the state’s half a dozen famous temples, constructing huge statue of Adi Shankaracharya at Omkareshwar, organising Kathas at grand scale and doling out largesse to temple-priests, among other debatable acts of untrammelled governmental munificence with an eye on votes.

The toppling of six out of seven statues at the magnificent Mahakal Lok Corridor at Ujjain on May 28 owing to rainstorms and the consequent Lokayukta probe into alleged corruption in the corridor’s construction at the cost of over Rs 800 crore has not deterred Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from going ahead with similar temple expansion projects. Amid controversy over the Ujjain disaster,  CM Chouhan has announced a lavish renovation and expansion of a famous temple in his own assembly constituency.

But Kamal Nath’s Not Giving Up

Unnerved by the state government’s flurry of activity to aggressively woo Hindu voters, self-proclaimed Hanuman-Bhakt and state Congress president Kamal Nath raised the “soft Hindutva” pitch which he had adopted in the 2018 assembly election. The Congress manifesto then had promised gaushalas in every panchayat and the development of the Narmada Parikrama (circumambulation) route and the Ram Van Gaman Path (the mythical route undertaken by Lord Rama on his way to exile). The party even promised to amend the anti-cow slaughter legislation without elaborating on the changes. However, before it could do much the government collapsed, making way for the BJP to enter its fourth term in power since 2003-end.

For the coming assembly election, Kamal Nath appears to have concluded that “soft Hindutva” of the past isn’t enough to match, if not outwit, the BJP: It needs to completely jettison secularism, the core ideology of the Congress. The “merger” of Bajrang Sena, a fringe Hindutva outfit, into the Congress last week provided eloquent testimony to Kamal Nath’s further veering away from the party’s secular ideology.

Several young men, with vermillion smeared on their foreheads and bearing huge saffron flags, dressed as Lord Hanuman walked into the state Congress office and joined the party on June 6.  The procession was accompanied with drum-beats, bhajans and slogans of Jai Shri Ram. Kamal Nath also joined the sloganeering. Saffron activists, who were previously seen with state BJP ministers, leaders and MLAs, were present at the state Congress office. Men in saffron kurtas recited Hanuman Chalisa after joining Congress. They hailed Kamal Nath as a “true” Hanuman bhakt who has constructed a 101-feet idol of the deity and a temple at Semaria in Chhindwara.

The PCC chief is unruffled over the accusation of saffonising the Congress. The veteran Congress leader’s Twitter profile picture shows him draped in peetambar, a yellow silk cloth worn on religious occasions. “I say with pride that I am a Hindu. But unlike the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which uses it as a divisive tool, religion is an article of faith for us,” he says.

Religious Preachers In Demand

He also had no qualms in reverentially sitting at the feet of Dhirendra Shastri and Pundit Pradeep Mishra despite being fully aware that the two controversial preachers openly call for creation of a “Hindu Rashtra”. They are also frowned upon by liberals for allegedly prescribing bizarre remedies to their legions of devotees for their wellbeing. Both of them are in high demand these days in Madhya Pradesh. They have already held religious discourses at various constituencies at the invitation of BJP ministers and MLs. Some Congress MLAs have also organised their kathas.

Both Shastri and Mishra are already booked for next six months. Their political proclivity is unambiguously pro-BJP and the ruling party is sparing no efforts to capitalise on their popularity for Hindu votes. Apart from soliciting blessings of the two godmen, the Congress has pitch-forked its own version of Sadhvi Uma Bharti into the limelight.

Daughter of a Supreme Court lawyer, Richa Goswami has been holding religious events like Sunderkand and Rudraabhishek across the state. She heads the state Congress’s religion and festival cell. In the next few weeks, the cell will organise Sunderkand recitals across the state. “The Congress leaders were always religious but they never flaunted their religiosity in public. They were religious in private but the BJP maligned them as anti-religion,” says 32-year-old Goswami, who began preaching when she was only five.

With just months to go for elections, whose competitive religiosity will the voters prefer?

Rakesh Dixit is a senior journalist based in Bhopal. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.