सौरभ राय | Sourav Roy

Dr Subramanian Swamy is probably the only Indian politician who has more Twitter followers than voters. His political journey can be traced back to the emergency and since then, almost every major Indian political event has his name written on it. May it be the rise of Janta Party, the economic reforms of 1991, the Babari incident and BJP’s consequent rise to power, the 1999 voting out of Vajpayee from power, the series of scams and Supreme Court’s probing into them, or the recent rise of Modi and his Hindutva brigade on streets and the social media – Swamy is everywhere.

Once a professor at Harvard and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he became actively involved in politics during the 70s. He was quite vocal about his neoliberal economic policies. This didn’t go well with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. As a result he was expelled from the IIT. Swamy took IIT to court, eventually winning the case in 1991. During this time period, he participated in the Janata Party movement against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency and soared into limelight as a prominent leader. In 1977, when the Janata Party government was sworn in, Morarji Desai proposed making Swamy the minister of state for finance. However, this proposal was vetoed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then national president of the Jana Sangh, a part of the ruling coalition. In 1980, when the BJP was founded, Vajpayee refused to allow Swamy in.

Over time, Swamy became critical of the Indian right wing policies. In 1987, when 42 Muslim youth from the Hashimpura mohalla were killed under police custody, Swamy spoke against it and undertook a fast for more than a week in Jantar Mantar demanding inquiry. Survivors of the massacre claimed that Swamy used the event to score political points. In 1993, after the demolition of Babri Masjid, Swamy gave a speech in Hyderabad where he stated that RSS, VHP and BJP are not pro-Hindu but anti-Muslim. ‘After the Babri Masjid demolition, the first thing we must do, is to disabuse the minds of the people, that RSS stands for Hindus. they have vulgarized the name Hindu, like Hitler, in the name of nationalism, vulgarized the meaning of nationalism,’ he stated.

The historical stand-off between Vajpayee and Swamy was to take centre stage again. In 1997, Swamy accused Vajpayee of being a ‘police informer’ during the Quit India movement of 1942. He even accused Vajpayee of being an alcoholic and a womaniser. In 1998, the BJP was seeking AIADMK’s support to form a government in New Delhi. As an MP from Madurai and Jayalalithaa’s ally, Swamy was asked to negotiate. After being denied the finance ministry the second time by Vajpayee, Swamy hosted a tea party in Delhi and invited both Sonia Gandhi and Jayalalithaa. This meeting is famously touted as the reason behind AIADMK’s withdrawal of support from Vajpayee’s government and its eventual fall in April, 1999.

Already unpopular for being too loud-mouthed and unpredictable, many believed that this was the end of Dr Swamy. With the fading of the Janata Party from the political scene, the name of Swamy was rarely heard, until in 2011, when Swamy resurfaced as a hardliner Hindutva supporter. Swamy, who had popularly taken an anti Hindutva stand during the Babari masjid demolition, claimed that the arrest of Shankaracharya of Kanchi – which he saw as an attack on Hinduism – triggered this change in ideology. Once a close friend of the Rajiv Gandhi; in his new avatar, started to draw his appeal from hostility to Sonia Gandhi and her family. In 2011, Swamy became a part of the 2G spectrum scam courtroom proceedings, gaining huge political mileage and publicity by pulling P Chidambaram, the then Home Minister into the case.

He soon negotiated a possible place in the NDA, with senior leaders in the RSS and elements of the BJP backing the entry of his one-man Janata Party into the alliance. But he took his hardliner Hindutva support too far. In 2011, he wrote a controversial article in the DNA titled ‘How to wipe out Islamic terror’, in which he said “Make learning of Sanskrit and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Rename India Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors were Hindus.” As a response to his extremist stand, he was removed from Harvard University as the visiting professor of Economics.

Famous for his controversial statements, he soon became the Indian media’s darling. Even today, television media loves to highlight his ultra conservative opinions. In one of his interviews, he said that he wants all Hindu voters to get united and Muslims to get divided. Once a harsh critic of Babari incident, this time he brought the Ram Mandir issue back, saying it is and will always be a priority for NDA to build the temple in Ayodhya.

In one of his books ‘Hindus Under Siege’, he rejected the scientifically proven theory of Indo-Aryans originating outside India. He claimed that the Aryan ancestors of the Hindus were indigenous to India in contrast to India’s Muslims, who invaded India and should be considered outsiders even today. This controversial idea has been the baseline for numerous Hindutva organizations active in India. The founder of RSS, M. S. Golwalkar also believed in this. In his book ‘We or our nationhood defined’, he claimed the same thing. In order to align his idea with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who had already written that Aryans had migrated from north, Gowalkar further claimed that it was the poles that shifted, and not the people.

With over 850 thousand followers on Facebook and an almost equal number of followers on Twitter, Dr Swamy’s tweets and posts have driven numerous flame wars on the Internet. In May 2013, he tweeted, “You need to go to a hospital. Being gay is mental disorder.” Speaking on Bangladesh, he said “If Bangladesh does not agree to take back its people, then the country should compensate by giving land to India.” In one of his recent Facebook posts, he claimed that Al Jazeera has used scenes from popular Hindi film Sholay in their depiction of the destruction happening in Gaza. Al Jazeera laughed it off.

These twin identities – overstated Hindu nationalism and an opposition to the Congress – specifically the Nehru-Gandhi family – has now become Swamy’s calling card. This is how the contemporary generation identifies with him. In a country where being a critic of ultra-nationalism is almost always considered anti-national, it has become increasingly difficult for people like us to function – who believe that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Who believe that love for one’s country and people should not be accompanied with hatred for another. Who believe that violence – in the name of created identities, like religion and nation – is the highest form of crime.

No wonder political parties try to keep safe distance from him. Extremely cunning and confident, considered the Professor Moriarty of Indian politics, Dr Swamy probably maintains a file on every major politician. He has not won an election since 1998. In 2004, when he contested from Madurai, he finished fourth with only 12,000 votes. His party did not contest in 2009 elections. In 2014, soon after he merged his Janta Party into BJP, he was not given any ticket to contest upon. However his growing popularity in the media and Internet is worrisome, especially to the communal peace and harmony of India. He might be another Owaisi of Indian politics today, only much more popular.

Isn’t this inability to separate religion and state the root cause of numerous problems the world faces today? It does not take a Harvard degree to understand that right from the era of Spanish Inquisitions driven by hardliner Catholics, to the recent Zionist movement which justifies killing people in Gaza – are all a form of similar hatred. ISIS’ claim to Islamic State is similar to the Hindu claim to Ram Rajya in India, only much more violent. Religion is a personal preference and is almost always determined at birth. Tagore, in his popular novel Gora had tried to address similar dilemmas in a much more profound way. Religious utopia is a myth and should remain that way. Progress, peace and harmony, on the other hand, thrive on science and rational thinking.

Before the era of Facebok and Twitter, Dr Swamy was a supporter of Sonia Gandhi, a hater of BJP and RSS, and a messiah for the Muslims. He has recently reinvented himself as a champion of Hindu rights. It is very difficult to say what he really wants, or how realistic his religious utopia is. But his controversial and explosive statements and beliefs make him a person who, despite his stature and experience in Indian politics, should not be taken seriously. On a brighter side, he is a crusader against corruption and dynastic politics in India. But he has a dark side too, which is way too dark for India to handle.