Hindu, Hinduer, Hinduest

Congress president Rahul Gandhi chose the 14th-century temple of Brahma in Pushkar, Ajmer, in poll-bound Rajasthan, to furnish his Brahminical credentials—a Kaul Kashmiri Brahmin of Dattatreya gotra.

- Bhavna Vij-Aurora

It was done unobtrusively, almost naturally, during the course of a puja on November 26. Mere detail? A banal formality one encounters when, say, filling up a form? Well, not quite. The act spoke volumes, and eloquently. Culminating a series of public gestures, made in the backdrop of competing gestures, it framed a fundamental shift in India’s political climate. If one asks what the key difference is between the 2014 general election and the upcoming one, it could be this. ‘Congress vs BJP’ was once categorised, even if not very neatly, as ‘secular vs communal’. An overt touch of ‘Hindu vs Hindutva’ has now coloured that equation. The Congress offers a nuanced gradation there, but it’s a risky tactic that seems to be setting off a domino effect—with unforeseen consequences.

It was last year, in the run-up to the Gujarat assembly elections, that Rahul Gandhi was declared to be a janeudhaari Brahmin (one who wears the sacred thread). Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala offered that in response to a taunt, during a press conference, about Rahul being allegedly listed in the register for “non-Hindus” during a visit to the Somnath temple. That taunt, of course, has its own, very public history—the frequent invoking of his mother Sonia Gandhi’s Italian birth and imprecations referencing “Rome” and “the Vatican”. But it’s the new Congress response that’s interesting. What was then derided by the BJP as his ‘Temple Run’ is still going full steam ahead during the last set of crucial assembly elections before the Big Battle of 2019. This exhibitionistic ‘Hinduness’ isn’t limited to temple visits or other markers of religiosity. The tactic is visible on the policy front too: take the populist stance on the Sabarimala controversy, and a perceptible retraction from an overt “pro-Muslim” space.