A saffron strip – long and nearly unbroken – travelling down the coast is an unmistakable feature of the maps depicting the outcome of the recent Karnataka elections. In the five districts that are on or close to the coast (Uttara Kannada, Shimoga, Udupi, Chikmagalur and Dakshina Kannada), the BJP won 26 of 30 seats and got 48% of the votes (as compared to a state-wide 36.2%).

These spectacular results were the product of the time-tested RSS strategy of subverting democracy by imprisoning a large section of the Hindu electorate in cages of fear and insecurity.

Among the events that formed the campaign for the coast was a ‘Dharma Sansad’ organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which brought 2,000 sadhus and sants to Udupi for a three-day fest addressed by Adityanath and Mohan Bhagwat, among others. On the agenda of this ‘non-political’ gathering were the Ram Mandir, the control of cattle smugglers and other issues essential to the creation of a Hindutva nation.

Another element of the campaign were local issues that for some reason Hindus had apparently not yet taken offence to. Tipu Sultan, who died fighting the British, was reinvented and presented as a symbol of the subjugation of Hindus by Muslim ‘outsiders’. A local shrine where both Hindus and Muslims worshiped was rediscovered as an ancient Hindu place of worship where Muslims were, in fact, intruding. Then there was the constant simmering of the communal pot by presenting incidents involving a Hindu or an RSS worker as an attack on every Hindu and every RSS worker and a sign that the Congress administration was anti-Hindu.

These fears were openly and virulently stoked by local and national BJP leaders, one of whom, a Union minister with a history of contempt for the constitution, declared that polarisation is justified for the 'right cause' while he was leading a yatra in coastral Karnataka.

Apart from these big-ticket events, there were a number of smaller events designed to ensure that no district, taluka or village was spared its dose of fear. These events consisted of a 'cow protection yagna', Hindu samajotsavas, ‘love jihad’ awareness programmes, student seminars on threats to Hinduism and Hanuman Jayanti processions designed to foment clashes with those celebrating Eid.

Come election time, the national BJP leadership – including Amit Shah and Adityanath – toured the region to pour oil and further fan the flames of hate. Finally, in the distribution of tickets, the BJP stuck to its vision of democracy being a space reserved only for Hindus by comprehensively excluding Muslims and Christians from tickets. For all of these efforts, the BJP was rewarded with a 12% increase in vote share (from a base of around 36% for the BJP and Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) combined in 2013) and a 15-seat increase in their tally (in 2013, the BJP won four, the KJP won one and if they had fought together, they would have won another six seats).

The social fallouts of such an outcome are depressingly familiar. The local worthies who spread hate prior to the election will now be reborn as the guardians of social values with the full protection of the local BJP MLAs. Like their brothers disturbing namazis in Gurgaon or the murderous gau rakshaks of Rajasthan or those thrashing Dalits in Gujarat or pub-goers in Mangalore, these custodians of patriotism will begin spreading terror among all those who cannot resist.

Much as Adityanath is shipped around as the poster-boy of the assertive Hindu, the newly-minted leaders of costal Karnataka will be shipped into Kerala, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to spread their message of fear and hate. Marginalised and threatened minority communities will find it increasingly difficult to keep their youth from radical paths.

The RSS has once again demonstrated that it can almost at will sell hate, defy the constitution and capture democratic spaces. It will not rest till it has constructed a Hindutva vote bank in every state of the country. Political alliances are important in keeping the RSS out of government, but containing the organisation should not be confused with stopping fascism or the fear that feeds it. Coalitions are an acknowledgement that the RSS’s capacity to divide society is now at a level where it defines the national political agenda. When politics becomes the RSS versus coalitions, every vote, even those that reject Hindutva are compelled to acknowledge it. We cannot afford to let the politics of a billion people be reduced to a referendum on fascism.

If we are to rescue our politics, we will have to awaken our national political consciousness so it cannot be hijacked by the virus of hate. This will require more than just preaching tolerance. It will require a national movement to politicise people at a large scale with an understanding of society that is based upon truth, compassion, fearlessness and harmony. It will require us to fire the imagination of people with the revolutionary possibilities of freedom, equity, justice and fraternity. It will, in fact, require us to restore the place of the constitution in our national political conception.

This movement will not merely be a discussion about how we vote but a conversation about how we imagine ourselves and our future. It cannot be achieved by politicians alone, it must involve every section of society. It cannot be limited to an election campaign and might even take the better part of a generation to achieve.

But there is hope and it grows by the day. The appetite and energy for such a movement are increasingly visible all around. Pockets of resistance are appearing and gathering momentum. Some of these efforts are from those seasoned in public life but the many more are from young, optimistic and fearless activists who have refused to accept the inevitability of fear. There could be no better occasion than the 150th year of the Mahatma’s birth in 2019 to join this growing tide and dedicate ourselves to a movement that rebuilds the politics of satya, ahimsa and swaraj.

Sachin Rao is with Ahimsa Ke Raste (ahimsakeraste@gmail.com), an organisation that conducts conversations about ahimsa, the nation and the constitution with interested groups anywhere in the country. He is also associated with the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sangathan, a Congress affiliate.

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