Going back may sometimes be a good thing. The newly-elected Congress government in Karnataka is taking steps to change the direction which the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government had set for the state. For the BJP, Karnataka had seemed to provide an entry to the south; hence it was important to harden it ideologically, including cornering minority communities socially and economically. The introduction of the Karnataka Right to Protection of Freedom of Religion Act, 2022, better known as the anti-conversion law, ostensibly intended to prevent conversion by coercion or ‘allurement’, reportedly made even voluntary conversion impossible. Its presence created distrust among communities and undermined the notion and practice of secularism. The Congress government has decided to repeal this law, which is important in itself while signalling harmony and equality. Alongside, the state government is also returning textbooks to the form they were before the BJP government dropped certain chapters on history and progressive social reformers and the work of selected writers. The latter inserted accounts of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologues such as K.B. Hedgewar, V.D. Savarkar and others. The Congress’s moves could represent a force of correction that would counter the BJP’s divisive, religion-based politics. That children are being asked to read the Preamble to the Constitution in school emphasises this, while training the children in peaceful co-existence and respect.

So it is disappointing to believers in secularism that the same Congress is determinedly playing up religion, or ‘soft’ Hindutva, in Madhya Pradesh ahead of the assembly elections. The symbolism surrounding Priyanka Vadra’s visit to the state to inaugurate the party’s campaign bristled with religious symbols, including her prayers and invocations to the Narmada and the ubiquitous presence of Hanuman and his mace — is it competing with the sengol? Five priests blew conch shells to mark the beginning of the campaign. But Kamal Nath’s government had fallen within months in spite of the Congress’s soft Hindutva. Is the large percentage of Hindus in the state the reason for repeating the strategy? A credible national Opposition must stand for something definite, maybe secularism and the Constitution. Using religion, however ‘softly’, whenever strategic destroys the clarity of the Congress’s image and suggests an unbecoming cynicism. Religion should have nothing to do with politics in India. The party’s political approach in Karnataka is an example for the entire Opposition.