We are facing a politics of comand and control. The Government is drawing the red lines and trying to dig our past as well our present. Steadily, it seems that our Government is becoming a police state trying to police our memories and aspirations. The painful memories of the past are evoked as well aspirations of the common man are put under the gaze through dual blows that threaten to enact an anti-conversion law as well as build temples brought down by the Portuguese. Given the vigilantism of Hindutva forces and the dual blows that the Government intents to unleash in our society, we can certainly feel an intense sense of fear and confusion among the Christians and other right thinking citizens. It is surprising that the Government seem to have left a development agenda and has taken up disciplining our society.
Development taken up by the Government has been rejected by the people of Goa.The double tracking for transportation of coal saw great resistance. IIT in Shel Melauli was rejected by the locals The Bunglow in old Goa has resistance. In fact BJP during it’s previous regime had pushed people unfriendly development. People came on the street and protested. Therefore we have to discern thr reasons for this sudden shift in approach. The moderate Hindutva of late Parrikar seems to be dumped and a new aggressive Hindutva appears to be embraced by the Government. It appears that an aggressive Hindutva is s stick that keeps the mass protests at bay. The comand and control politics of the aggressive Hindutva seems to be employed right in the beginning to silence people’s movement against degoanizing development that benifits the crony capitalists.
Hindutva appears to massify the majority community. We have already seen the rising prices and unemployment seem to be non issues to our people as identity or Hinduness has become the be all and end all of all the Hindu community. This identity politics requires a society to be kept on the boil. Thus a society that remains agitated all the time arround identity issues runs out of energy when it comes to protest against destructive development. In fact Hindutva consumes us all. This is why Hindutva politics seems to have become the cover to its development agenda to benefit it’s cronies. This specially because all Hindutva is Hinduism although all Hinduism is not Hindutva. It this essential links of Hindutva with Hinduism that makes it difficult for the majority community to discern it’s fangs that poison them. Perhaps, the Government is trying to play Hindutva on our people to cripple all resistance to it’s vicious development program.
Hindutva is a philosophy of command and control. We have already seen that our Government dislike opposition. Perhaps, the breaking of the Congress during the previous term of the legislative Assembly was to mute all opposition. The rumours that six Congress MLAs are waiting to enter the BJP in Goa also appears to be also aimed at breaking the backbone of the opposition. Hence, my hunch that aggressive Hindutva is pursued by the Government to massify and cripple resisting people unfriendly and destructive development. This is why we have to the discern the strategic use of Hintutva by our Government to scuttle opposition has to be brought to light.
