I have admired the historian and biographer, Rajmohan Gandhi, for many years, both for his books and for his abiding commitment to democracy and pluralism. During the Emergency, the weekly he edited, Himmat, stood out as one of the few periodicals brave enough to challenge the prevailing atmosphere of fear. In the decades since, Rajmohan has produced a series of rigorously researched studies on modern India, including the definitive biographies of Vallabhbhai Patel and C Rajagopalachari. Even while writing these weighty works of scholarship, he has continued to contribute to public debate through columns in the press that are always rich in detail and considered in argument.

I had, I thought, a fairly immersive understanding of Rajmohan Gandhi’s oeuvre, but recently a learned friend brought to my attention a speech by Rajmohan that I had not read before. It was made in September 1991, when he served a brief term in the Rajya Sabha. Rajmohan’s remarks here are highly pertinent to where the Republic of India finds itself today.

Rajmohan was speaking in a debate on the Places of Worship Bill. That Bill sought to “prohibit conversion of any place of worship and to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on the 15th day of August, 1947”. However, it made an exception in one case; the site in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid then stood, and which was believed by many Hindus to be the birthplace of Lord Rama.

A Congress government was in power at the Centre. The Bill had been passed in the Lok Sabha, despite opposition from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which argued that the Bill violated the principles of federalism and that state governments should have the freedom to do what they want with the shrines under their control. It was now up for discussion in the upper House of Parliament.

‘A Hindu Pakistan’

Rajmohan, who was then a member of the Janata Dal, opened the debate in the Rajya Sabha. His remarks drew on his deep understanding of India’s past to warn about the dangers of reopening old wounds in the present. He began by referring to the devastation recalled and reported in the Mahabharata when millions of humans were killed in the pursuit of revenge. “The ringing lesson of the Mahabharata down the centuries,” remarked Rajmohan, “is ‘Those who seek to right the wrongs of history with an attitude of revenge will only produce destruction and more destruction and more destruction.’”

Though in the Opposition, Rajmohan Gandhi supported the Places of Worship Bill. Some in the BJP had called the Bill “anti-Hindu”; theirs, remarked Rajmohan, was “the voice of a new separatism in our land. It calls itself a new nationalism but it is a new separatism. It is Hindu separatism. It is Hinduism in a tragic and warped reincarnation. Those behind it, I am sure, are devoted to the Hindu cause but misled by their own emotions and passions. They are seeking to create a Hindu Pakistan, a Hindu Saudi Arabia here in India.”

Rajmohan Gandhi said that in so obsessively focusing on the crimes (real or imagined) of the past, this “new separatist Hinduism” wilfully ignored “the misery and the hunger… and the blindness, corruption and the violence” of the present. The forces of Hindutva talked of restoring Hindu pride and Hindu honour. He added that “the litmus test of the champions of the new Hindu separatism is ‘demonstrate your Hinduism by being anti Muslim.’”

Rajmohan warned those opposing the Bill that battles over the distant past “may help you gain political success of a small or a large kind, but new emotions will be created. New wrongs of an ancient time will be sought to be righted and there can be scores of struggles to right the ancient wrongs in India …” He pointedly remarked that “when we seek to turn the existence of the feeling of Hindu pride and the feeling of Hindu honour… into cash, into votes, into intimidatory power, into the gun, that is when we cause dishonour to be brought to the Hindu name.”

Rajmohan ended his speech by appealing “to the Bharatiya Janata Party and its supporters to see the issue in its true perspective, to understand the spirit in which this Bill is being brought before this House. Let us make this a national resolve: thus far, no further. Yes, there will be disputes, but violent confrontations shall be avoided… and together we will look at the future and the present, not so much at the past.”

Fresh challenges

Rajmohan Gandhi’s wise words are worth listening to again today when the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 has been gravely undermined by none other than a serving chief justice of India. In August 2021, some Hindus in Varanasi claimed the right to worship in the Gyanvapi mosque on the grounds that it apparently contained Hindu idols from the distant past. A local court, and then the Allahabad High Court, allowed a survey to go ahead. The decision was appealed in the Supreme Court in May 2022.

The chief justice at the time, DY Chandrachud, claimed that the 1991 Bill did not bar “the ascertainment of the religious character of a place” at any time in the past. In other words, if lower courts and subordinate judges wanted to seek to encourage the righting of historical wrongs (real or imagined), then they were free to do so.

As the writer, Harsh Mander, has pointed out, the observation by the CJI, Chandrachud, “permitted the order of the civil judge in Sambhal that ultimately resulted in the death of six men. It authorised what the Supreme Court Observer describes as ‘a bevy of challenges to the religious character of places of worship’ in the wake of Gyanvapi”. These challenges have been enabled by the fact that, especially in BJP-ruled states, magistrates in lower courts live amidst an atmosphere of Hindutva intimidation and cannot be regularly trusted to interpret the law fairly or without fear or favour.

On December 12, even as this column was being finalised, the Supreme Court began hearing a fresh challenge to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. However, beyond what is happening in the courts, the wider political atmosphere of today should also make us return to Rajmohan Gandhi’s warnings of 1991. Consider the electoral campaigns run by the ruling BJP this year which have witnessed the repeated stigmatisation and demonisation of Indian Muslims.

When the National Democratic Alliance was first in power, between 1998 and 2004, the open expression of hate and bigotry was rarely resorted to by the top leaders of the BJP. True, LK Advani’s rath yatra of 1990 left a trail of blood in its wake – for which this writer at least can never forgive him – but as home minister between 1998 and 2004, he (whether tactically or otherwise) used restrained language in his public utterances. So did other cabinet ministers, and the prime minister too.

During the first National Democratic Alliance regime, there were of course many people within the wider sangh parivar who sought to demonstrate their Hinduism by being anti-Muslim. They included some leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, and the odd back-bench MP. Now, however, those who define their Hinduism through hatred of those Indians who are not Hindus include the most powerful politicians in the country. The Union home minister as well as the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Assam regularly demonise Indian Muslims in their speeches; and the prime minister has, at times, been quite willing to do so too.

These power-crazed proponents of Hindutva hatred cannot be redeemed or reformed; but to those Hindus who may still be willing to listen and learn, let me in conclusion quote once more the lesson that Rajmohan Gandhi drew from his reading of the Mahabharata: “Those who seek to right the wrongs of history with an attitude of revenge will only produce destruction and more destruction and more destruction.”

Ramachandra Guha’s new book, Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism, is now in stores. His email address is ramachandraguha@yahoo.in.

This article first appeared in The Telegraph.