Choice Before BJP: Hindu Rashtra Demands One Course,
Elections Another
Saeed Naqvi
After the
Maharashtra, Haryana elections, when I reverted to friends and acquaintances,
my personal pool for an opinion survey, a majority heaved a sigh of relief. This
was at variance from the response of this very group during the 2019 Lok Sabha
election. There was an unnerving consensus for Narendra Modi. Why? I had asked
then. “Well, the Hindu sentiment” said a very friendly member of my welfare
association.
Now that the
BJP is diminished, why this sigh of relief? Mixing up “pride” in Hinduism with demonstrable
“arrogance” of Hindutva power may be the cardinal mistake the Modi-Amit Shah
duet have made.
Ultranationalism
will give a platform an initial boost to take-off but ultranationalism cannot
be sustained over long distances. Boosters en route to stoke nationalist
temperature will begin to look like the handiwork of tricksters. One surgical
strike on Pakistani terror camps will work wonders in one set of elections. But
repeat it on the eve of another election and folks will screw up their noses: “again?”
There is, in other words a decline in credibility as frequency of requirement
for nationalism “boosters” increases. In fact even article 370 turned out to be
a dud cartridge in this electoral round.
The Congress
will be justified in taking heart from the results, but it will have to accept
many qualifications. Its relatively decent performance in both the states is
despite the Gandhi family. That is a problem congressmen do not like to talk about:
how do they discard a dynasty?
Remember how
Haryana strongman Bhupinder Singh Hooda inaugurated the Haryana campaign while
the party high command, Hamlet like, was sunk in thought. Whether he forms the government
or not, on this electoral showing, Hooda is looking a much taller Congressman
than, say, Ahmad Patel, Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad, etcetera.
In Maharashtra,
the Congress is having to digest a principle it refused to accept during the
Lok Sabha elections. It refused to be a junior partner to Akhilesh Yadav and
Mayawati in UP, to Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi, or Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.
Instead of joining them, on whatever terms available, to fight the BJP, it
turned upon them, hoping to come up trumps. I heard the BJP sing in chorus: “With
such enemies, who needs friends.” The Congress was clobbered in the three
states.
I wonder what
the “janeudhari” Brahmin, Rahul Gandhi is upto these days other than temple
hopping? (Or, has he given up the practice). Two cameos come to mind. There was
Rahul, flanked by Ashok Gehlot and Randeep Surjewala, addressing a post
campaign press conference on the fifth floor of Ahmedabad’s Radisson Blue
hotel. Someone asked where was the senior most Gujarati Congressman, Ahmad
Patel? He had been advised not to appear at the press conference. His presence
might give BJP the ammunition to polarize the vote.
The Supreme
Court judgment on Sabrimala lifted the ban on women of childbearing age to
enter the shrine. The RSS smacked its lips. Here was an issue of “aastha”,
faith. The cadres would whip up an almighty frenzy if an abiding tradition was breached
by the Supreme Court. Congress, which had initially supported the judiciary found
the Hindu card alluring. So, helped by nimble footed leaders like Shashi
Tharoor, the Congress recalibrated its stand until it was indistinguishable
from the RSS position. The CPM Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan stood his
ground, mobilized the Ezhavas and so badly undercut the RSS’s very own Nair
Service Society, that he became unbeatable in two elections where the Nairs
were once powerful.
What should
the Congress do other than give up? It can call an All India Congress session
and hold elections to elect its various bodies including the Congress Working
Committee. It does not adopt this obvious route because the spectre of the
Tirupati session in 1993 haunts it. P.V. Narasimha Rao heard those results in
glum silence. His arch rival Arjun Singh had polled the largest number of
votes, followed by Rajesh Pilot, Sharad Pawar, a slate bereft of Brahmins
except for the Prime Minister’s Secretary, Jitendra Prasada. The results were promptly
annulled.
There are
plenty of wise men in the Congress who, alas, have brought the party to this
sorry pass. Some ideas can be tossed up: hold party elections followed by a
conclave to chart out a new, realistic course for the party. It must give up
its dream of “reviving” to the glory it began to lose as early as 1967, when
eight states had non Congress governments. Now, by its own ineptitude, its mimicking
of the Hindu platform, it has caused the BJP’s dramatic ascent, indeed, dominance.
Its first task should be to strengthen regional forces – exactly as it has done
with Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra. Its perspective should be a larger federation
of regional parties. It will be federalism that will check the phenomenal rise
of the BJP. That is the only way to whittle down the idea of a unitary system.
A contributory
fact for exposing the BJP’s vulnerability has been rural distress,
unemployment, nervousness on collapsing banking system, all functions of neo
liberal economic policies mingled with a swadeshi urge – neither here nor
there. The Congress must consult progressive economists to give shape to a left
of centre platform, without which distributive justice is not possible in a
country which is now globally accepted as 102 in the Global Hunger Index.
Have these
results been accepted by the opposition without grumbling about the ruling
party’s capacity to manipulate EVMs? Not really, because at least 850 EVM
related complaints have been registered with the state election commission. But
there is no evidence of a combined opposition movement to abandon EVMs in
favour of paper ballots.
Has the Hindutva
brigades trot towards its transformational agenda of a Hindu Rashtra by 2025,
centenary of the RSS, been retarded by these results? There is Kashmir and Ram
Temple yet to be played, but how and when? Election results demand one course,
Hindu Rashtra another.
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