Communalising politics before polls in Gujarat

Not long after the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh removed the Taj Mahal from the list of attractions in its official booklet on tourism in the state, a UP BJP MLA, who is an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots case, said at a Sunday rally that the monument built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan was a “blot” on Indian “culture”, and spoke of the history of the Muslim period as “kalank katha”, or a black chapter. But it’s not Sangeet Som’s understanding of the past or his ideas on the notion of “culture” that should bother us. In the backdrop of the hectic election campaign in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, specially Gujarat where the ruling party is said to be facing a strong challenge, it is the potential for communal mobilisation of Hindu votes, and causing a schism in society, through remarks like Mr Som’s, that is of real concern.

Communal politics and communal history demonise “the other” — in this case India’s Muslims. This is amply reflected in the BJP MLA’s odious remark and its subsequent elaboration and implied defence by a national BJP spokesman, which should be a matter of worry. The spokesman in question said Muslim rule in India was “barbaric” and “a period of incomparable intolerance” even as he maintained — to make matters worse — that his party had no views on specific monuments and its members were free to hold whatever opinion they liked.

If this is the official stance of the country’s ruling party, publicly articulated, it is evident that what’s not on the mind of the BJP is national integration. To nip any societal disharmony in the wider interests of the country is clearly not the ruling party’s agenda despite the slogan of “sabka saath, sabka vikas” promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the circumstances, that slogan appears to serve more as a smokescreen.

The BJP has ruled Gujarat for 22 years. Yet, sensing the acuteness of the electoral challenge it is confronted with for the Assembly polls due in December, the saffron party isn’t content to seek the popular mandate on the strength of its government’s performance, and is keen to take out an insurance policy by stoking communal politics. This is the meaning of despatching the ace communalist UP CM to Gujarat for the campaign.

This sharpening of the communal divide has gone alongside raising the vacuous issue of Gujarat’s pride (imagined wrongs done to eminent Gujaratis such as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Morarji Desai and former Congress CM Madhavsinh Solanki) by Prime Minister Modi himself in a campaign speech on Monday, and pandering to the electorate at the last minute by distributing freebies, thanks to the enlarged time window opened by the Election Commission.