Time to pull out that saffron rag again

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath coined the slogan ‘batoge toh katoge (divided, you fall)' in August 2024 while referring to attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh after a restive population overthrew the Awami League government and prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country, to find sanctuary in India.

The attacks, mostly on Awami League supporters, were useful grist for the Hindutva hate mill; BJP leaders seized on the ‘opportunity’ to stoke fear that ‘vulnerable’ Hindus in India would suffer the same fate if they didn’t unite. Eight per cent Hindus in Bangladesh versus 80 per cent in India — shouldn’t the math alone reveal the idiocy of this claim?

Clearly not. The slogan has acquired a life of its own, appearing on posters in Mumbai ahead of crucial elections in Maharashtra, as well as in Jharkhand. Yogi Adityanath, undoubtedly chuffed by the response of his constituency, used the slogan extensively while campaigning in Haryana.

Variations of the slogan — Batoge toh katoge/ ek rahoge toh nek rahoge (Divided, you fall/ united, you thrive) — have been used by other BJP leaders including Prime Minister Modi who asserted, “Batenge toh baatne wale mehfil sajayenge (If we divide, the people who divide us will make merry)". Worth noting again, the loaded use of the word mehfil, inflected to invoke the ‘other’.

With by-elections scheduled for 48 assembly seats and two parliamentary constituencies in November, the slogan has been instrumentalised to divide and flourish, BJP style.

Himanta Biswa Sarma called for Hindu unity in Jharkhand lest Ansaris and Alams loot them. At an election rally the next day, PM Modi followed up with his own tirade against those “who will rob Jharkhand’s maati (land) and beti (daughters)”, amplifying the BJP’s claim that Bangladeshi infiltrators in Jharkhand are waging ‘love and land jihad’.

TV anchor and editor Rahul Shivshankar confirmed the political intent behind the slogan in his blog: "UP CM Adityanath’s remarks are a well thought-out political provocation. Yogi has only a few weeks to consolidate the Hindu vote that has noticeably fractured there. An unabashed invocation of well-worn Hindutva tropes, he hopes, will win back all the subordinate castes (read Dalits and OBCs) that have drifted away from the BJP. It is estimated that because of this drift, the BJP lost at least 20 parliamentary seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh."

RSS sarkaryavah (general-secretary) Dattatreya Hosabale, also told the media in Mathura, “If Hindu society does not stay united, then ‘batenge toh katenge’ in the current parlance could become a reality.” Yogi Adityanath, he argued, was calling for social unity, as divisions along caste lines would be bad for society. Hosabale emphasised that divisions along caste, language and forward-backward status would be detrimental to Hindus. “Certain powers are working to break Hindu society, so caution is necessary,” he added.

Since when are Hindus in danger in this country? Since when did menacing and violently targeting an entire community count as ‘caution’? Clearly, he’s consulting a different dictionary.

Who is dividing the Hindus, and why, wondered the RJD’s fiery spokesperson Priyanka Bharti in a TV interview. Who has created divisions on the basis of caste? Who has divided Hindus into 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes? Who has been assaulting and killing Dalits for simply growing a moustache or riding a mare to a wedding? Why did Yogi not invite the Dalit MP from Ayodhya to this year’s Diwali deepotsava? Is the UP chief minister a unifier or a divider? You decide.

The BJP knows from experience that communally surcharged poll campaigns yield rich dividends. Think Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In a recent speech in Maharashtra, Yogi Adityanath bragged how Muslims in Uttar Pradesh had stopped offering namaaz (prayers) in public spaces, how loudspeakers had been removed from mosques, so people no longer have to hear (read put up with) the sound of the azaan calling the faithful to prayer. Muslims are threatened all the time and yet Hindu khatre mein hai? It would be laughable if it weren’t so horrific.

Nobody, points out Sanjay Singh of AAP (Aam Aadmi Party), objects to unity. Indians should be united. The trouble with the BJP is that it wants the Hindus to gang up against the ‘other’. Isn’t it obvious the party is not really concerned about Hindus — all it cares for is electoral victory?

Isn’t the aim of that polarising cry also to oppose the demand for a caste census? The BJP feels threatened as such a census may well expose the dominance of the numerically small upper castes in almost all spheres of life in the country.

Increasingly, marginalised sections and backward communities are standing up to be counted. They want to know whether the job quotas and seats in educational institutions reserved for them are being filled by the rightful recipients or not. More so after the Justice Rohini Commission (constituted by the Modi government itself) revealed that the lion’s share of OBC and SC/ ST quotas are cornered by a handful of powerful castes.

Wary of opposing the caste census outright, the BJP has instead spun it as an attempt to divide on caste lines rather than a demand for equality across castes. Simultaneously, it is trying to change its own image from a traditionally Brahmin-Bania party to one that embraces those that come under the larger Hindu umbrella.

A pronounced upper-caste bias defines both the BJP and its ideological fountainhead. All RSS chiefs so far have come from upper castes, with one exception (Rajendra Singh alias Rajju Bhaiyya). All sarsanghchalaks have come from a single caste — the Chitpawan Brahmin community. BJP chiefs were predominantly Brahmins till L.K. Advani’s aide K.N. Govindacharya tried to integrate social justice with the Ram mandir narrative by attracting Dalits and OBCs. With OBC leaders like Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti, the BJP made rapid strides across the Hindi heartland.

Narendra Modi saw the inclusion of Dalits and OBCs as the expedient move that it is. The past 10 years have witnessed the OBCs rise in the party — as cadre, office-bearer and elected representative. So much so that upper-caste leaders have been complaining. “These days only OBCs are getting plum positions in both the party setup and in government,” said a BJP leader from Bihar.

Meanwhile, UP deputy chief minister and former state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya dissed the slogan in an interview to a Hindi daily. Batoge to katoge is not the BJP’s official line, he said. “The BJP contests elections only on the basis of its developmental achievements. This false narrative is being propagated by the opposition and the media”.

Is Maurya, a known Yogi-baiter close to Union home minister Amit Shah, saying this to deflect potential criticism and outrage? Or is he, in Machiavellian mode, distancing now, all the better to disown and discredit later, should the slogan fail to yield the desired dividends?