India’s Saffron Embrace

For millennia, the color saffron has been exalted across the Indian subcontinent.

Saffron clad renunciants and monks traveled across India spreading their philosophy and Dharma to anyone who had ears. It was a holy hue. And would set the tone of India for thousands of years.

But what’s so special about it, and why is it more relevant than ever in these elections?

The Call of Ancients

In the Vedas, sages would invoke the gods with offerings into a sacred fire, a yajna. This sacred fire is where India was born. The fire represented purity; it burned the material world and gave warmth, food, and spirituality. The yajna’s fire became the spirit of India, and the sages would don the color of the sacred fire – Bhagwa – or saffron.

Saffron would go on to represent many values as time went on:

• God or Bhagwan – The simple idea of an overarching being or force that permeated the cosmos – known as Parabrahman, Purushottam, Parameshvar, etc…
• Dharma – The bedrock of Indian culture. An almost untranslatable word that can mean righteousness, selfless duty, compassion, action, religion, etc… All 4 Indian religions or dharmas regard saffron as the most sacred of colors.
• Detachment – Renunciants and monks would wear saffron to express the rejection of the material world and commitment to walk the path of enlightenment.
• Courage – Originally, the courage to give up all of one’s possessions to pursue the ascetic life, but in later years saffron adorned the Sikh and Maratha flags in their rebellion against the Mughals. Saffron became a color of sacrifice as many perished in this struggle against persecutors and invaders. However their struggle would not be in vain, as both the Sikhs and Marathas brought the Mughals to oblivion.

As you can see, saffron crossed regions and time to become revered by all Indians. It then became intertwined with politics during the Islamic invasions of India.

This political angle would stay relevant during the British Raj as the political ideology of Hindutva took shape as a bulwark against past Mughal and British atrocities. Hindutva was a broad and vague ideology but can be summarized as placing primacy on a pan-Indian ethos derived from Dharma and unity of all Indian peoples because their ancestors followed a Dharmic religion or culture.

Hindutva would become a prominent inspiration for various freedom fighters; but it soon would become associated with the horrid assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu extremist. This assassination would politically destroy Hindutva for years.

With Marxist takeover of academia, bureaucracy, and media starting during Indira’s rule, saffron became a color of extremism, boorishness, and savagery to the elites. It had become derided, as had many of the Hindus’ valid grievances over appeasement and fake secularism. But the tides have shifted over the past 30 years.

Embers

Outrage over minority appeasement reached a boiling point during the Shah Bano case in the late 1980s. Shah Bano was instantly divorced through the Islamic practice of Triple Talaq. She brought her case to the Supreme Court arguing the practice’s inhumanity, but Rajiv Gandhi stepped in and threw her to the Mullahs. He solidified the legality of Triple Talaq to appease his Muslim vote bank. Hindus protested, and a fledgling party named the BJP attached itself to these protests.

Even worse in 1990, Hindus would be ethnically cleansed out of the only Muslim majority state in India – Kashmir. An apathetic Rajiv Gandhi government watched as hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus were killed, raped, and driven out of their ancestral land. Islamic extremism had set Kashmir on fire. Kashmiri Hindus have yet to return even today.

These 2 incidents among various other injustices would ignite the minds of Hindutva politicians. They began a pivotal movement that would change India’s fortunes forever.

This mobilization would culminate in 1992 as a saffron sea of protests converging on a mosque in Ayodhya, the Babri Masjid – also known as Masjid-e-Janmasthan (The Mosque of the Birthplace, Ram’s Birthplace).

Hundreds of years before, the first Mughal, Babur, built the Babri Masjid on one of the most sacred spots in Hinduism – Ram’s birthplace. He destroyed the commemorative ancient temple and built a mosque on top of it to humiliate the Hindus and force Islam on the populace. Years of anger erupted when the BJP’s protests reached Ayodhya. The crowd destroyed Babri Masjid in an act of retribution. Riots broke out across India and the government had to intervene to make sure a temple wasn’t built in the spot to enflame tensions.

The BJP was born out the sacrificial fire of Ayodhya. A new, saffron challenger had entered the vaunted arena of Indian politics.

Rise

For much of India’s history, Indian elites rained self-hate on Indians and especially Hindus. The Mughals and Britishers were “civilizers” of the backwards, fire-worshipping Hindus. Nehru opposed the reconstruction of Somnath Temple after India’s independence as he thought it would enflame tensions and was Hindu nationalism (Somnath Temple was destroyed 7 times by Islamic invaders). Even academics named the timid rate of GDP growth in early India’s history as a “Hindu rate of growth.”

The Ayodhya episode was a rebirth of Hindutva in various saffron shades. Some wanted India to become a full blown Hindu nation, while others simply wanted true equality and an end to appeasement. The BJP captured most of these shades while tilting to the moderate end of the spectrum. Fringe parties and groups emerged upholding extreme elements.

A Vajpayee government formed twice in the 90s and gave legitimacy to BJP’s ambitions. A soft Hindutva would permeate but development was rightly the top priority. Vajpayee would even go on to nominate a Muslim President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, who would go on to become India’s most beloved political figure in history. Unfortunately, Vajpayee suffered a shock defeat in 2004 as a drought punished him on the agricultural front while allied parties underperformed.

Meanwhile, a young Gujarat Chief Minister named Narendra Modi began a state and eventually nation defining journey. Modi would be elected 4 times straight championing a model of Hindutva and development in Gujarat. The seeds of a saffron revolution in India were sown in Gujarat.

Moving of the Minds

Fast forward to today. A saffron clad Modi meditates in the Himalayas just as he did as a young sanyaasin decades ago. Pictures of him set off outrage among many of India’s Left. This reaction encapsulates their disconnect with the average Indian. Forget a contempt for the religion of Hinduism; their reception shows a contempt for the indigenous culture and beliefs of the land.

Modi’s normalization of indigenous pride has colored all Indian politicians shades of saffron. Parties across India now have their politicians temple hopping and conducting public pujas. The frequency and publicness of these events were unheard of 10-20 years ago amongst so called “secular” politicians.

Modi has placed primacy and ownership of the Indian roots of Yoga and meditation. As we see Silicon Valley CEOs descend into meditation retreats and yoga being popularized across continents, Modi has seized the cultural capital on these ancient Indian practices. While many other cultural practices have been appropriated by the West, India has made sure to remind the world of their origins.

Ancient fables, allegories, and maxims are invoked by Modi during his speeches to the masses. A saffron inception melts into the minds of listeners when he speaks, a reminder of ages and achievements of the past. Modi has redefined Hindutva for all Indians. Hindutva has now become the most coherent and encompassing ideology in India; one that has no answer from opposition as old Nehruvian ideals have been warped and subsequently dismantled. He has fundamentally shifted the Indian Overton window to a saffron horizon. Whether Modi returns or goes, his political and cultural impact has been profound.

An Equal Embrace

Modi’s saffron nationalism is different in respect to other types of nationalism though. He designates it as a pan-Indian nationalism rather than just specific to an ethnicity or religious groups. While many of his critics deride him as a Hindu Nationalist, Modi has very much stayed true to his words of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas” – With Everyone, Development for Everyone. His government has not enacted any discriminatory laws neither does he engage in inflammatory anti-minority rhetoric. He frequently repeats the ancient Vedic mantra – Ekam Sat Viprā Bahudhā Vadanti – Truth is one, the wise know it by many names. This verse is the origin of India’s pluralism.

Some may point out his hardline against Bangladeshi illegal immigrants and pending Citizenship Bill, but one must consider factors such as:

• Partition – East Pakistan now Bangladesh was founded to harbor Bengali Muslims through an extremely violent separation. This context is crucial.
• Discrimination – Modi has drafted a bill to give refuge to heavily persecuted non-Muslim minorities in neighboring countries. Again this is based on a context of partition as well as the horrendous persecution non-Muslims face in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
• National Sovereignty – At the end of the day, India as well as any other country has an absolute right to enforce borders and choose who comes and goes.

What the BJP must do now is clamp down on extremists within the party who threaten to derail an otherwise admirable and much needed movement. Saffron is the color of compassion and bravery, not bigotedness and fear. Minorities should be elevated by and within the BJP. Not through appeasement and whitewashing, but with development and unity. India’s civilization belongs to all its descendants, whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, etc… One can and should acknowledge the crimes of the past; but that cloud should neither be held over or exalted by minority groups.

Just as the ancient Vedic fire would burn saffron regardless of what was put in it, Modi’s saffron ideology has accepted all those who come into the fold. He has shown that saffron is indeed secular and that Hindutva can be and has been a source of India’s pluralism. Modi has truly ushered in India’s Saffron Embrace during his term and for years to come.