After some two years in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre has shifted gears. It has progressed from promoting a Congress-mukt Bharat (Congress-free India) to demolishing the font of Congress power, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul.
The assault on the Congress Party has accelerated for two reasons. The glow Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed in his first months in office has dimmed of late and the handicaps of a system that revolves round what has virtually become a one-man rule have come to the fore. Second, the direction the BJP is taking the country in suppressing opposition through ultra-nationalist slogans is meeting greater resistance than expected.
The Congress Party is a pale shadow of what it has been but is still a force to reckon with in the Opposition ranks. The other Opposition parties are regional outfits that, in the BJP’s reckoning, can be bribed or bullied. On the other hand, the Congress retains a national standing and can score political successes if it pulls up its socks. What keeps the Congress together in its weakened state is Mrs Gandhi and heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi. Hence the BJP’s new strategy to demolish her. And the party chief, Amit Shah, was the first to launch a missile at her. He had readied other steps to achieve his objective. Inducting Subramaniam Swamy into the Rajya Sabha to use his talent for hurling invectives at one and all. Dr Swamy has earned his keep by launching a tirade against Mrs Gandhi on the very first day of the session, keeping up his offensive on successive days.
Significantly, Mr Modi thought it fit to jump into the fray by using a campaign speech in Tamil Nadu by alluding to Mrs Gandhi’s origins in Italy, promising to mete out justice to all wrongdoers. The Congress, on its part, recognising the risks presented by the BJP onslaught, bestirred itself by its leaders presenting themselves for token arrest as part of a “democracy march” to castigate the government for its conduct in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and demonstrating against the smear campaign.
The BJP’s plan is to employ the reported scam surrounding the Italian AgustaWestland helicopter deal to involve Mrs Gandhi. In its haste to demolish Mrs Gandhi, the government did not wait for the official English translation of the Italian court’s verdict punishing Italian officials to damn the Congress chief. And the government has not provided an iota of proof even on the basis of the available translation that she was in any way an accomplice to the alleged bribes paid. Additionally, Mr Rahul Gandhi’s name has been brought into the murky affair through an associate’s alleged doings.
Mr Modi’s penchant for high-stakes manoeuvres to win his hand is common knowledge. How far the mud-slinging at the Congress chief and her family will succeed lies in the lap of the future. But the very fact of conducting the present operation is based on certain assumptions. The government cannot expect Congress support for controversial measures such as the goods and services legislation. The second, more portentous, assumption is that the hoped-for fall of Mrs Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi will remove from the scene an Opposition party with a national presence. Even in its straitened circumstances, the Congress represents a potent political force. It is the party that fought for India’s Independence over decades and had over time evolved a consensus on the kind of a nation free India should be.
The BJP’s mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was not part of this freedom struggle. And over some six decades (the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led BJP dispensation at the Centre was essentially a part of this national consensus) Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors pursued this essentially Nehruvian legacy.
The Modi government, on the other hand, made it clear from the beginning that it wished to change this idea of India. After two years in power, it is clear that the concept of a secular India is to be buried by a Hindu-oriented India, with the minorities tolerated on Hindu terms and the whole imaginary of India is sought to be changed. It is “Bharat Mata ki Jai” (Victory to Mother India), rather than “Jai Hind” (victory to India), and even the national anthem must now share space with Vande Mataram, the favoured Hindu chant.
Mr Modi’s problem is that thus far he has not had much success in promoting a different India. What has happened in these two years is an accentuation of communal and ethnic divide. The BJP has never successfully answered the stark question of what it seeks to do with 14 per cent of the population. There are opportunistic Muslims, as there are opportunists in other communities, eager to make peace with Mr Modi on almost any terms. But the bulk of Muslims is not to be bribed or intimidated. They are for the present keeping their counsel to themselves.
It is likely to be a long journey for the BJP and the broader Sangh Parivar because of the very diversity of the country and the consensus on the winning formula evolved by Nehru and his successors. Mr Modi is the new man on the block, a welcome change in being decisive and giving momentum to the process of governing the country.
It is, however, well to recognise that, as more recent trends show, people can grow tired of a new order that is strong on slogan-shouting and dictating the eating habits of citizens than in tackling basic issues. And the Sangh Parivar’s wise men and women would have us observe new reproduction norms, worship the concept of “Bharat Mata” riding a lion holding aloft a saffron flag, and chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai”.
The controversy surrounding such chants represents the essence of the Sangh Parivar’s way of doing politics, There is the implicit threat of intimidation. The fallback position is that in case of difficulties and crises, the nation can always cover itself with the national flag and chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai”.
