The Big Story: Jai jawan, jai politician

The Union government’s #Sandesh2Soldiers programme encourages citizens to send Diwali greetings to jawans to thank them for their services. The move has the stamp of Narendra Modi all over it: a mass public relations exercise that blends everyday politics, nationalism and militarism.

The concept of an army predates the rise of the modern nation-state by quite a bit. In fact, the Indian Army itself is older than the current Indian state – since it also functioned as the armed forces of the British Raj. What the modern nation state has done, however, is to make the army a mass institution.

Ever since May 2014, though, Narendra Modi’s government has significantly heightened the profile of the armed forces in national life, taking them towards what could be called militarism – a system where the military plays a crucial role in mass politics. In such a system, the forces are a near holy cow, a sacred institution of the state. The fact that it was thought to be anti-national to even question the army in the wake of the September surgical strikes is an example of militarism at work.

In a militarisitic state, the army is also a critical part of the power structure, supporting and buttressing mass politics. The Bharatiya Janata Party has made ample use of the army for the rather utilitarian purpose of gaining political popularity. On Thursday, the BJP-led Gujarat government even featured a mock enactment of the surgical strikes, complete with the mandatory Modi speech.

The #Sandesh2Soldiers programme is the latest development in this saga, adding religion to the mix. Ever since he has come to power, Narendra Modi has made it clear that he wants to dismantle the vestiges of India’s secularism, where the state is equidistant from religion. Since 2014, state media has broadcast messages from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief marking the Hindu festival of Vijay Dashami. Now, it seems, Diwali, the most popular Hindu festival across large parts of India, is the time the Modi government has chosen to conduct a mass contact programme with the army.

India doesn’t really have to look far for an example of how this could undermine democracy. Pakistan has been mixing militarism, nationalisms and religion for some time now – with disastrous results. As its neighbour and twin, it would be a significant oversight if India did not learn from Pakistan’s failures.

Political Picks

  1. Hostilities escalate as both India and Pakistan expel high commission officials. However, the Modi government has also said that India will welcome Pakistan at the Heart of Asia conference to be held in Amritsar in December.
  2. China has pointed out that any boycott of Chinese goods by Indian consumers will actually end up hurting India more than China.
  3. Civilian-military rift in engineering services as the Army defies the Union Defence Ministry's orders.
  4. The Union Home Ministry is all set to move a Cabinet note for a ban on an nongovernmental organisation run by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

Punditry

  1. The fact that the Union government is now ready to consider multiple rates and Union cesses under the Goods and Services Tax umbrella contradicts the very rationale – “one nation, one tax” – of the move to abolish state taxes and institute a GST in the first place, points out Praveen Chakravarty in the Hindu.
  2. The issue is not just the fate of Tatas. A letter like Mistry’s could deepen the credibility crisis of Indian capitalism, argues Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express.
  3. No alternative? In the Hindustan Times, Sunita Aron points out that Samajwadi Party seniors know Mulayam Singh Yadav won’t disown Akhilesh

Giggle

Don’t Miss

Could Adivasi children be made to stay in school by teaching them in their own native language? Aarefa Johri reports on an interesting pedagogical experiment in Maharashtra.

Perhaps the most successful “mainstreaming” of Scheduled Tribe languages has been in Odisha, where the state government has been offering bilingual primary education for the past ten years. The state has extensively published textbooks in ten different Adivasi languages, and children are taught in their mother tongues from Class 1 to 5. But Odia is introduced as a subject in Class 2 itself, to prepare students for a shift to the state language in secondary school