While speaking at a panel discussion on the occasion of the launch of the new book of former finance and home minister P. Chidambaran, I said that the future strategy of the Bharatiya Janata Party has become crystal clear. It will unhesitatingly use two instruments for short-term political gain: Hyper-nationalism and communal polarisation. Clarity in this regard is essential for the Opposition, for only then can it forge an appropriate counter strategy.
Communal polarisation is, of course, an old tool of the BJP and the larger Sangh Parivar, and it has yielded short-term political dividends, both in state elections and at the national level. But, while the BJP has pursued this policy with sustained and unconcealed vigour, Indians, as a whole, have consistently refused to be seduced for too long by the logic or need of divisive politics. For all the trying of Hindutva demagogues, Hindus refuse to believe that their religion is under any real threat or that they need to go out and attack other religions to protect it.
Most Indians by now want to move away from the inflammatory rhetoric of mullahs and mahants to the tangible gains of economic growth in a secular democracy. They have little interest in perennial social instability that imperils their safety and the future of their children. Hence, while they have sometimes been temporarily swayed by deliberate attempts to sow hatred against others, sanity has returned quickly, much to the discomfiture of the polarising brigade.
Hyper-nationalism is the new BJP card. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologues believe that patriotism, like religion, can have a pan-Hindu appeal and thus help to deflect attention from verifiable governance failures in a host of important sectors.
In spite of the promise of achchhe din, the economy is floundering: Industrial production has contracted; exports have fallen for 14 consecutive months, and are now down by over 13 per cent; the value of the rupee to the dollar has far surpassed the age of our Prime Minister — it is now in the vicinity of 70; agricultural distress is pervasive, with agriculture having registered a minus growth rate last year and still hovering around an unacceptable one per cent this year; every half an hour a farmer commits suicide; there have been 124 suicides by farmers this year in Maharashtra alone.
Significantly, the rich and the middle class are equally unhappy. Apart from a few businessmen and industrialists who are in with the BJP, most corporate leaders say that this government has done precious little in the vital area of ease of doing business, bank reforms and the mounting burden of Non-performing assets (NPAs), tax reform and policy initiatives.
There is widespread disillusionment because of the gap between the expectations this government aroused and the actual deliverables on the ground. The middle class finds it hard to believe that inflation has, as per statistics doled out by the government, come down. Because its purchasing power has shrunk, mehngai remains a continuing burden for the average middle class person.
In fact, whatever the wholesale price index may say, the price of vegetables was up by 13 per cent in January. Most importantly, there is a veritable famine with regard to Mr Modi’s poll promise of creating jobs. Every year millions of our youth waiting to join the work force are left in the lurch, with the much touted skill development programme far behind its announced goals.
The promise of achchhe din has thus become a bit of a joke. People are asking: Kya hua tera vaada? Faced with this manifest failure, the RSS has taken refuge in the tactic of invoking a virulent form of hyper-nationalism that essentially amounts to saying that anyone who criticises this government, or has an alternative point of view, is “anti-national”.
Nobody questions the need to punish those who indulge in activities that go against the national interest, but is it necessary to slap sedition and treason charges against all and sundry merely because they have a different point of view?
There are two particularly obnoxious aspects of this hyper-nationalism. Both were visible for all to see in the aftermath of the tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad Central University (HCU), and the arrest of JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar.
The first appears to be a concerted attempt to dilute and subvert the autonomy of universities and higher educational institutions through the motivated intervention of the ministry of human resources development, and the RSS. People of a certain ideological hue are being imposed on educational campuses and a free hand is being given to the ABVP, the student wing of the BJP.
The question that needs to be asked is simple: Was there a definitive bias against dalit and backward class students in the HCU, and was this bias reinforced by the actions of the vice-chancellor, the letter of Bandaru Dattatreya (a minister of state of labour and employment in the Central government), and the actions of the HRD ministry, leading to the suicide of Rohith Vemula? To my mind the answer is an emphatic yes.
In the case of Mr Kumar and the JNU incident, while those who raised anti-national slogans need to be dealt with under the law, there is no case of tarnishing an entire university, and an entire student community that may hold views in variance with the BJP. The evidence that even the videotape of the February 9, 2016, student rally was doctored is a sinister reminder of the kind of Machiavellian ploys this government will adopt to pursue its malevolent attempts to play the nationalist card.
The second aspect of the hyper-nationalism game is to provide a free licence to an entire set of pro-BJP lumpen elements. The manner in which lawyers beat up Mr Kumar, other students, journalists and teachers within the premises of the Patiala House courts complex, while the police stood around as a mute spectator, should alert the entire nation to the consequences of a politically motivated hyper-nationalism that can target with impunity all law abiding citizens who believe in the constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech and dissent.
The important thing to remember is that in India the noble sentiment of nationalism is imbedded within the framework of a democracy. Any attempt to yank it away from this framework displays a fascist temper that is far removed from the temperament of the Indian people and will, therefore, be stoutly resisted, in spite of the violence of the State. The overwhelming majority of Indians are nationalists; but this does not mean that India, a country of vast socio-economic inequities, will itself become an undifferentiated monolith to add to the BJP’s vote bank. The BJP is playing with a fire that will never ignite.
