IT is for the first time in the history of India that the BJP came to power at the Centre on the basis of its individual strength, securing one-third votes and 282 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The yardstick for evaluation of a party-in-government for two years either at the Centre or in states is quite simple. Policies and performance of a government is judged on the basis of its strengths as well as inadequacies in terms of outcome. Hence, “performance” is the criterion for a critical evaluation of a government after two years. However, this tradition-based criterion of “performance” is not applicable in the case of BJP-in-government from 2014 to 2016 because unlike all other multiple democratic, centrist and secular parties of India, the BJP is quite distinct and its ideology is derived from the Hindutva organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The BJP is not autonomous and is an affiliate of RSS and like all other 44 affiliates of RSS, BJP too is committed to establish a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in India and hence every political action of its government is expected to push forth the agenda of making the Indian state a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. RSS, the parent organisation of BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal, ABVP, et al, as a team are ideologically and politically committed to strengthening the foundations of making India a “Hindu Republic”. RSS and other Hindu ideologues like V D Savarkar believed that India belongs to Hindus only and exclusively. Narendra Modi and every RSS affiliate focused their primary agenda of Hinduisation of society by targeting Muslims and Christian minority by projecting them as outsiders, as “enemies” of Hindus and anti-India from whom ‘Bharat Mata’ has to be protected. Hence, the yardstick for evaluation of ideological politics, policies and programmes pursued by the BJP-in-government from May 2014 to May 2016 is to identify how far it has been able to push forward its agenda for ‘Hinduisation’ of Indian society, culture, education, etc., a task assigned to it by the RSS. The first hurdle in the way of BJP and Sangh Parivar for this project is the republican, democratic, secular Constitution of India. This is the reason that during its two years, the BJP government has tinkered with constitutional institutions like Parliament and Supreme Court. It has made every effort to bend and break the letter and spirit of constitutional institutions in order to pursue its goals in a ruthless manner. The new government served notice to Parliament that procedures and norms of parliamentary democracy are dispensable and even disposable. The BJP took no time to convey a clear message that it does not recognise the need for an “opposition” party in a democracy and on a technical basis it rejected the demand for assigning the status of official leader of the opposition. Ideologically, BJP and RSS do not accept the value of ‘democratic dissent’ and ‘opposition’ because all swayamsevaks of RSS are trained in shakhas to accept and obey the leader without questioning him ever. The concept of opposition and dissent is foreign to BJP legislators and leaders, many of whom are senior RSS pracharaks. To recall, the very first action of the BJP government was to bypass Parliament and issue an ordinance to amend the Land Acquisition and Compensation Act, 2013. During its two years in government, the BJP has literally practised an ‘Ordinance Raj’, the latest being an ordinance to counter the Supreme Court judgement on NEET, all-India common entrance examination for admission to medical colleges. Similarly, the same contempt was shown by the BJP government on the issue of appointment of Supreme Court and High Court judges. A full constitutional bench of the Supreme Court annulled the law on Judicial Appointments Commission and restored the existing system of Collegium of fraternal judges for appointments because the constitutional bench felt that the proposed Judicial Appointment Commission will open the doors for “political appointments” to judiciary, compromising its independence. A senior Cabinet minister reacted against the judgement by making a public statement, “unelected judges are passing judgements on laws passed by Parliament”, forgetting the fact that it is the Constitution that provides the power of judicial review to the Supreme Court and it is arrogance of power to call the judges as “unelected”. The deadlock on the issue of Collegium remains and the government still wants “veto power” in appointment of judges, leading to apprehensions of a possibility of political appointments. Finally, while the BJP government had been talking about “cooperative federalism”, it has not hesitated in dismissing state governments in non-BJP states at the drop of a hat. Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are a case in point. The Harish Rawat government in Uttarakhand was reinstated on the orders of the High Court and the Supreme Court with strictures against the central government, reminding it of the Supreme Court judgement in the Bommai case. Thus, all these prove that the BJP government, led by Modi, in its two years does not care for constitutional niceties of a democratic republic, whether dealing with Parliament or with judiciary. It has displayed authoritarian and centralising approach to governance, showing least care for the noble values of federal democracy mentioned in the Constitution. Further, in these two years, the RSS and its affiliates have been “emboldened” to freely implement the “hate-base” agenda against Muslims and Christians. Anti-minority agenda is being openly pursued by every organisation of RSS as they feel a sense of protection from the BJP-in-government. The RSS, its affiliates and BJP governments both at the Centre and in the states picked up the issue of “cow slaughter” and Muslims and Christians were targeted as “beef-eaters”. The ‘beef politics’ has gone to occupy the centre-stage of Indian politics since May 26, 2014 when Modi became the Prime Minister. Extra-legal and extra-constitutional Gau Raksha Committees, supported by RSS and Bajrang Dal, hounded suspected Muslims for either eating beef or slaughtering the “holy cow”. It is not only the agenda of protection of the “holy cow”, in fact aggressive groups are openly engaged in targeting non-Hindu religious minorities. On 24 May, 2016, Bajrang Dal and VHP were found to be holding training camps in Ayodhya where Hindu youth were being trained in rifle shooting and use of lathis/sticks in defence against enemies represented through Muslim symbols. Such trainings are being conducted without any fear. The agenda of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ cannot be fulfilled without the propagation of education in this direction and hence control of the same is being seen as crucial by the BJP government and the RSS. They are working overtime to “re-write the whole curriculum” and teaching syllabus so as to inculcate “Hindu cultural values” and clear the minds of Hindus of “foreign ideas”. The Hindu conformist intellectuals are in the forefront as active messengers of the RSS ideology in making universities as centres of Hindu educational system. Intellectual dissenters in universities like Central University of Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru University are being targeted and declared as “anti-nationals”. Thus, the two-year report card of the Modi government reveals that its primary agenda is ‘Hinduisation’ and to achieve this it has not even hesitated to disrespect the Constitution. (END)