Fringe's benefits keep the core intact

what is it in Hindutva politics that it is always spoken of in a duality of being, by which some groups are the "(lunatic) fringe", where others are the centre? This appellation, used most recently by the media for the Karni Sena in the context of the violence that has been unleashed, has displaced an earlier metaphor to describe Atal Bihari Vajpayee's relation to his Sangh Parivar kin, and particularly the RSS, in 1997. Famously termed as a mere mukhota, i.e. mask, that the BJP was choosing to wear to present a liberal face to the electorate by a compatriot from the RSS, Govindacharya. For most of the NDA's regime, and specially in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat pogroms, the media played on the implied opposition between the mask of moderation and liberalism and the face of bigotry and violence it concealed.
What does the media's use of 'fringe' bring it? The presupposition of a distinction between 'core' ideology and action produced by a disciplined party cadre versus a motley collection of maverick individuals, beyond the reach of party discipline. Second, a sense of ideological distance, even with a hint of deviation, between the RSS/BJP and these 'extremist' elements, whose actions can be disavowed at any instance. Whereas a mask implied both a duplicitousness in facing the public and the possibility, even necessity, of revealing the real visage that lies beneath, a fringe cannot reveal anything of significance about the core. The media is then saved from both investigation as to how a fringe outfit could organise large-scale violence in seven states, all BJP-ruled, over four days virtually unchecked, and even mild criticism of the role that BJP/ RSS politicians, government functionaries, or even institutions like the Censor Board have had in fanning the violence. And no connections need be even contemplated to the host of violent events that have both preceded (public lynchings of Muslims and Dalits) and followed it (the Kasganj communal riots).

Ayesha Kidwai

Why does the BJP/ RSS let a kin relation be so mocked? The upcoming elections in Rajasthan are just one element of the strategy, where caste consolidation and polarisation can always come in handy. Maintaining the otherness of the Karni Sena is useful for the BJP/RSS because it facilitates an imagination of the centre as 'not fringe', even though there was nothing really to distinguish the opposition of the Karni Sena to the screening of Padmaavat from the four state governments immediately banning the film.
Furthermore, the existence of fringe groups allows the BJP/ RSS to simultaneously occupy both the spaces of governance as well as of opposition and protest. Manufacturing its own opposition, Hindutva preoccupations become those of a public that the government must respond to; by controlling the tap that turns such protests on and off, the BJP looks like it can govern; and, of course, the noise, the smoke and fire, and bloodshed can be used to scare off any genuine mobilisation and consolidation on issues such as the economy, the agricultural crisis and caste conflicts.
The truth of the matter is that without the fringe, the BJP/ RSS's centre cannot hold.
(Ayesha Kidwai is a professor of linguistics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)