The Liberalism in BJP’s Agenda
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The issues of domestic migration and trade, and of taking personal decisions free from orthodoxy are liberal, and not communalist issues.
In an op-ed in Mint, Harsh Gupta and I argue that Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and Article 370 are essentially liberal and secular issues and the large civil society should treat them as such,
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Indeed, when even seasoned BJP politicians are unable to define Hindutva beyond mouthing platitudes, and considering the party’s past association with a particularly rabid brand of denominational politics, discarding Hindutva as the party’s core ideology may well be the first step in a fundamental restructuring of its polity. Nevertheless, it does not follow that what has historically constituted the Hindutva agenda policy-wise—implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), abrogation of Article 370 that provides for special rights for the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and establishment of a Ram temple at Ayodhya—is entirely communal in nature.
While the Ram temple issue is undoubtedly a communal one, the same isn’t true for UCC and Article 370. Unfortunately, because of political correctness and a desire not to be associated with the “communal” BJP, the nation’s media, intelligentsia and the larger civil society have avoided these intrinsically liberal and secular concerns. [link]
