The Big Story: Divide and con

This time around, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah are making no bones about it. The ground has shifted so much over the last four years, it is hard to remember that in the run-up to the 2014 elections both Modi and Shah were, at least in official spaces, much more careful in their attempts at polarising the electorate.

Back then, Modi needed the rhetoric of development and “Acche Din”, the good days that were right around the corner, to build his national campaign against the incumbent Congress-led government. Underlying the BJP campaign was the promise of Hindutva making its way to the top echelons of the Indian government, but the party waved that card only at rallies in specific areas it felt that it needed to polarise the electrote.

Four years later, with the 2019 elections around the corner, Modi and Shah no longer have development to offer or an anti-corruption platform to champion. Even Modi supporters would not claim that “Acche Din’ are here. Since their victory, Modi, Shah, the BJP and its ideological parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, have done enough work to shift the terms of the discourse that blatantly communal comments no longer seem shocking – or even surprising. The ideological strategy that was somewhat veiled in 2013 will be on display for all to see in the coming year.

Last week, Amit Shah reportedly promised that the Ram temple in Ayodhya would be built before the election, even though the Supreme Court is still hearing the matter (those comments were later denied). Shortly after, the BJP raised the temperature by latching on to an apparently inaccurate news report claiming that Congress President Rahul Gandhi had said that his is a “party of Muslims”. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was trotted out to accuse the Congress of seeking to divide India. She asserted that any communal incident between now and 2019 would be the Congress’ fault – a strange claim to make, given that her party is in power at the Centre and in the majority of states. Modi then picked on the same alleged remarks by Rahul Gandhi, and cleverly pushed them further, accusing Congress of just being a “party of Muslim men”.

The Congress attempted to counter these charges, insisting that the it was a party of all Indians and the BJP was trying to distract from core issues like farmer distress, inflation, the lack of jobs and a general economic malaise. But the headlines had been made, the news cycle had been won. As the elections draw nearer, it is clear that the BJP will want the focus to move away from the economy and fall back squarely on debates about nationalism and majoritarian rights. Will Indians see through its ploy?

Punditry

  1. “On the one hand, the Congress gave no special attention to the participation of Muslims in various government schemes for the poor,” Zakia Soman writes in the Indian Express. “On the other hand, it provided leverage to the BJP by allying with the conservative patriarchal elements during the Shah Bano controversy in 1986. This classical Congress behaviour continues till date over the issue of triple talaq.”
  2. “Rahul Gandhi has not erred by not engaging with Muslim conservatives,” writes Mohammad Sajjad in the Economic Times. “It was this section, lest one forgets, that had misled Rajiv Gandhi in 1986 to legislate a misogynist law against the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case... In today’s context, any such attempt by any party or political element to communalise politics – as was done during the Shah Bano episode – will eventually be helpful only to BJP.”
  3. “The BJP will try its best to make the elections presidential and pose the question ‘Modi vs who?’ The opposition should not fall in this trap. Modi should not be the issue in the next election; issues should be the issue, of which there are plenty. The opposition must have an alternative programme; merely criticising the present regime without offering an alternative agenda is unlikely to impress the people. Thus, while a leader is not a must, an alternative agenda is a must for such an alliance.” Yashwant Sinha, on NDTV, offers the potential scenarios in which the BJP may lose the elections.
  4. “It is a bitter irony that a little over a decade after the RTI Act was operationalised, proposed amendments have been kept secret; there has not even been a hint of public consultation.” Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey write in the Hindu about the cloud hanging over the Right to Information Act.
  5. “Creating a common pool of senior management creates homogenization in thinking and strategy,” writes Harsh Vardhan in Mint. “These banks are managed almost as if they are actually one bank with 21 different brands. For government-owned banks to be competitive, especially in consumer banking, each will have to develop its own strategy, prioritize customer segments, geographies and products and then compete.”

Giggle

Don’t miss

Vinayakk Mohanarangan writes an ode to the Fifa men’s World Cup, which has just concluded after 64 matches and countless moments of magic.

“The World Cup also wouldn’t have been half as entertaining as it turned out to be but for the contributions of the so-called smaller nations in the group stages. So, thank you, Iran, South Korea, Morocco, Iceland, and the likes for not reading the proverbial script and going toe-to-toe against the biggest names in world football.

To see Hannes Halldorsson, a film-maker not too long ago, and Alireza Beiranvand, a man who slept outside the stadium doors in Tehran to earn a chance to play top-level football save penalties against Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, to see Son Heung-min and the South Koreans in tears after knocking out Germany, despite knowing they weren’t going to progress any further, and the moment Panama fans celebrated their solitary goal in a 6-1 thrashing because that was the first time they had seen their country score at the biggest stage – these are the moments that might not make headlines decades down the line when we look back at Russia 2018, but showed playing in the World Cup is not always about the results.”