Tag: Opposition Alliance INDIA

BJP is India’s Most Powerful Political Magnet

Under Modi, BJP is Now India’s Most Powerful Political Magnet

By Sanjoy Narayan

It’s a phenomenon that has become so common that it is almost a part of the official protocol. When an incumbent administration has to announce a budget barely months before it seeks reelection, that budget invariably becomes a crowd pleasing one – full of sops, tax rebates, and other carrots that are proffered as enticement to voters. Last week, however, when the finance minister announced India’s interim budget, it was not especially laden with those customary come hither propositions. That’s because Prime Minister Narendra and his regime that is completing its second term and will be seeking a third at the elections, scheduled for April and May this year, expect that they will be a shoo-in for the voters.

In fact, to many it could seem that for Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the elections will be a one-horse race. At the national level, opposition to the ruling regime is in shambles; the multi-party Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which was formed last July, has all but disintegrated; and the BJP’s strength and prominence has grown without any signs of abatement.

The BJP has become so dominant that Modi’s government didn’t have to throw in sops or lollipops for voters in last week’s budget. Yes, it had the routine nods and doffs of the hat aimed at the poorest sections of the population: it has focussed on the rural sector and agriculture by boosting several schemes. Yet, it has also cut food subsidies, a delicate area, and not lowered income tax rates. In fact, it will lean on higher tax collections for the coming financial year.

In an election year, an interim budget lets an incumbent government spend until the new administration takes over. If the ruling regime is reelected it can seek approval for a full budget.

That eventuality looks like a certainty. Few doubt that the Modi regime can be ousted in the coming elections. For one, there seems to be no alternative to challenge it. Potential challengers have mainly self-destructed or become weakened. Some former challengers have crossed over to join the BJP or ally with it. Most recently, Nitish Kumar, Bihar’s longest lasting chief minister (last week he was sworn in for a record ninth time) jumped ship to join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is led by the BJP. Ironically, Kumar was the main architect of the opposition alliance, I.N.D.I.A., formed with the sole purpose of ousting the Modi regime. Amen!

Kumar isn’t the only renegade in contemporary Indian politics to clamber aboard the BJP’s bandwagon. Politicians of all stripes from various opposition parties have jumped onto it. It may serve us well to remember that the word “bandwagon” was coined by Phineas T. Barnum, also known as P T Barnum, a famous 19th century American circus owner and showman. He created the term to describe the wagons that transported a circus band. The circus metaphor does fit Indian politics rather well.

Among those who have joined the BJP have been many of its erstwhile critics and sworn opponents. But then politics, at least in India, is marked by promiscuity. Some Congressmen who ditched their party to join the BJP have also been rewarded (or was it a quid pro quo?) by ministerial portfolios in Modi’s Cabinet. The current civil aviation minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, 53, was in the Congress party for nearly 20 years before joining the BJP in 2020; and the minister for micro, small and medium enterprises, Narayan Rane, 71, also left the Congress to join the BJP in 2019. Rane is not a shy party-hopper. Before joining the Congress he was with the Shiv Sena. 

There are many other political leaders, who were originally opposed to the BJP, but now members of that party. Jitin Prasad, 50, a longtime member of the Congress party who has also served as minister in the Congress regime, is now part of the BJP and a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government led by BJP’s Yogi Adityanath. In 2017, the veteran Congress leader from Karnataka, S.M. Krishna, once a foreign minister, joined the BJP. Other prominent politicians who have joined the BJP include the Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, 55, who left the Congress in 2014; Mukul Roy, 69, who left the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal to join the BJP in 2017. In some states such as Uttar Pradesh, there have been televised events organised where opposition politicians have formally joined the BJP ceremoniously.

What makes the BJP a political lodestone in India? A simple answer to that is power. Politics, purists would say, is a pursuit of a calling rather than a career. In a democracy such as in India, the copybook definition of a politician’s ambition would be the urge to serve the people. However, in reality it is the power that politics can bestow on an individual and burnish his importance and status that drives many politicians. 

The BJP won the elections and formed the government at the Centre in 2014 and has during the past 10 years decimated opposition at the national level. It is without doubt the most powerful political party in the country and one that offers the most potential for ambitious political leaders. In contrast, the Congress, once referred to as India’s Grand Old Party, is a weak shadow of itself. It has repeatedly lost elections at the Centre as well as in the states: in Parliament, the Congress now has 47 of the 543 seats. In 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister, it had 414. His son, Rahul, now the party’s most prominent member, is witnessing the Congress’ steady and devastating decline. Of the 28 Indian states, the BJP rules 12 and is part of the ruling alliance in four more. The Congress is part of the ruling alliance in only five states. 

The steady decline of the Congress’ importance and sway in Indian politics is one of the chief reasons why ambitious politicians from that party have been disillusioned and have decided to ditch it and join the Modi bandwagon. It is for the same reason that veteran politicians of regional parties such Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United) have chosen to ally with Modi and bury earlier differences with him.

The BJP on its part has welcomed the influx of such renegades. First, many of the new entrants are leaders with considerable influence in their constituencies and can obviously beef up the BJP’s electoral might further. Second, their departure can also serve to weaken their former parties, which is good for the BJP. Some of the younger joinees have good track record as ministers–for instance Scindia or Prasad – and, therefore, can strengthen the BJP’s administrative firepower. They can also help win elections.

Meanwhile, the BJP has been quietly, and a bit invisibly, deepening and strengthening itself. It has become a significant force in Indian politics, and its appeal is multifaceted. While the party has been associated with Hindu nationalism and has been accused of being anti-minorities, it has also been successful in projecting an image of good governance and welfare schemes that appeal to a broad section of the electorate. 

The BJP’s leadership, particularly Prime Minister Modi, is seen as strong and decisive, and the party has been successful in expanding its base and electoral presence. Last December, Modi retained his position as the world’s most popular leader with an approval rating of 76 per cent, as per the data released by US-based consultancy firm ‘Morning Consult’.

Additionally, the BJP’s well-oiled and lethal electoral campaign machine, which leaves nothing to chance, has been a significant factor in its success. The reasons for politicians leaving other parties to join the BJP may include disillusionment with their former party’s internal dynamics, leadership, and electoral prospects, but it is also the appeal of the BJP’s ideology, governance, and electoral success that has drawn them to it. Therefore, the BJP’s appeal is not limited to its association with Hindu nationalism, and it has been successful in projecting an image of good governance and welfare schemes that appeal to a broad section of the electorate.

Some observers feel that the BJP lacks a lineup of successors beyond Modi, 73, and home minister Amit Shah, 59, the two most prominent faces in the government. This may not be true.  The party has a history of grooming and promoting leaders from within its ranks and is far less dynastic than many other India political parties such as the Congress or even regional parties where the route to leadership is often limited to those with family ties and connections. 

Although some BJP leaders have been “sidelined”, including Shivraj Chouhan who was chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Sushil Modi, who was deputy chief minister of Bihar, Vasundhara Raje, who was chief minister of Rajasthan for two terms, and Raman Singh, who served as chief minister of Chhattisgarh for 15 years, the BJP does have future leaders that it has been grooming.

Some of the younger leaders who have begun making a mark in the BJP and could be watched in the future include Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has emerged as the party’s point person in the north-east; Manoj Tiwari, 53, who the the Delhi BJP leader and whose influence has been growing; Tejasvi Surya, 33, an MP from Bangalore, known for his articulate speeches and strong conservative views; Poonam Mahajan, 43, another MP who is seen as a rising star in the party; and Sarbananda Sonowal, 61, an MP from Assam and currently a minister in the Modi cabinet. 

These are just a few names of leaders to watch from the BJP. It will be worth the while to watch how these younger breen of party leaders are groomed and given more responsibility in the coming years. Also worth watching is how many more leaders from other parties make a beeline to what has become India’s most powerful political magnet.

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Countdown To Modi's Third Term Begins

The Countdown to Narendra Modi’s Third Term Begins

By Sanjoy Narayan

The next time you are at an Indian railway station and it happens to be one of the hundred that has a selfie point, you can pass the time while waiting for your train by taking a photograph of yourself along with a life size replica of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The selfie points, if they’re of the permanent sort, cost around ₹6.25 lakh, while the temporary ones are cheaper at ₹1.25 lakh.

Railway stations aren’t the only places where you can take a selfie with the Prime Minister (albeit in a life-size 3-D avatar) beside you. Such points have also been installed at museums, parks, and other public spaces. According to media reports, universities and even the armed forces have been instructed to install them. One source says the total number of selfie points is 822.

At New Delhi’s international airport terminal, as you walk to the departure gates, there are several booths with Modi’s image along with that of Swami Gyananand where you can take a selfie. Swami, an Indian Mahamandaleshwar saint, is known for his research on Bhagavad Gita, the 700-verse Hindu scripture. He has also founded another organisation to globally promote the Gita.

The ubiquity of images and pictures of Modi, on posters, banners, official documents, and other commonly used official papers and forms for the past 10 years that he has been Prime Minister is not new but now their omnipresence seems truly larger than life and, quite clearly, this has much to do with the forthcoming parliamentary elections, which Modi and his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would like to win and extend the tenure of its rule by another five years.

Last December 31, The Guardian’s headline of an article said: BJP win in India’s 2024 general election ‘almost an inevitability’. It was written by Hannah-Ellis Petersen, the newspaper’s South Asia correspondent, and it described how, with less than six months left for the election (in which 900 million Indians will be eligible to vote) the Modi government had launched a nationwide campaign to highlight its achievements “despite criticisms of politicising government bureaucracy and resources for campaigning purposes”.

The Guardian’s use of the word “inevitability” in its headline (although in the article it is attributed to a prominent Indian policy analyst) displays the newspaper’s bias against Modi and his government, which are seen by the West as pushing a Hindu nationalist agenda and creating insecurity among minorities. Nearly 80% of Indians are Hindus and 14% are Muslims. As a percentage of India’s population of more than 1.4 billion, viewed against any global population statistics, both those numbers are huge.

Still, the view from the West could miss the reality on the ground in India. For instance, The Guardian article says: “At state and national level, the apparatus of the country has been skewed heavily towards the BJP since Modi was elected in 2014. He has been accused of overseeing an unprecedented consolidation of power, muzzling critical media, eroding the independence of the judiciary and all forms of parliamentary scrutiny and accountability and using government agencies to pursue and jail political opponents.”

To be sure, many Indian observers also agree that since the BJP-led regime came to power, elections, especially in the more populous northern and central states, have been marked by religious polarisation. And that inequality remains one of the biggest concerns and challenges. The richest 1% of Indians own 58% of wealth, while the richest 10% of Indians own 80% of the wealth. This trend has consistently increased–so the Indian rich are getting richer much faster than the poor, widening the income gap.

Also sadly, despite over 70 years’ of effort by the Indian government, the caste system (or social inequity) also continues to keep widening that gap. People coming from the marginalised sections of caste-based social categories, continue to be directly impacted in terms of their opportunities, access to essential utilities, and their potential as a whole.

The ordinary Indian voter, however, sees Modi as a strongman, a hero who has not only tried to enhance India’s prestige and status on the global stage–last year it hosted as rotational president the G-20 summit; and sent a space mission to land on the moon–but also tried to help improve the average Indian’s economic fortunes. India’s economy has grown at a higher rate than most large economies (although inequality has not been impacted significantly); a slew of subsidies aimed at the poor have benefited millions; and universal digital services have ensured that beneficiaries are not denied what they have the right to receive. Infrastructure, especially roads have improved impressively and so has public access to medical facilities and hygiene.

A well-known publicity and communications strategist of the Congress party, which is the BJP’s main challenger from the Opposition, admits that India will go to the polls with a clear advantage for Modi and his party. In 2019, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is led by the BJP, won 353 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament. The BJP on its own won 303 seats. This time, the Congress strategist who spoke on conditions of anonymity, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the NDA wins 350 seats, a staggering 65% of the total seats.

It is a fact that the Indian mainstream media is no longer a platform where criticism of the ruling regime or a focus on problem areas such as religious polarisation is encouraged. In fact, India’s largest newspapers and TV channels are dominated by hagiographic coverage of the Modi-led regime. Even “independent” media outlets, most of which are small and lack robust business models, have begun to shy away from criticising the government or its policies, some of them because they fear retaliation in the shape of tax raids or other regulatory action.

No one really cares. Last year, several leading Indian artists were “commissioned” to make artwork themed on the Prime Minister’s monthly addresses to the nation, Mann Ki Baat. The event, which occurs once a month, is aired by the state-owned TV channels (and co-telecast by many private channels as well) and streamed on the internet and social media platforms. The commissioning of artists marked the 100th episode of Mann Ki Baat and the art that they created was exhibited under the title Jana Shakti (people’s power) at Delhi’s prestigious National Gallery of Modern Art.

Last week it was announced that the Opposition alliance of nearly 30 parties, called I.N.D.I.A., would be headed by the Congress Party’s president, Mallikarjun Kharge. I.N.D.I.A., which stands for ‘Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance’, is a group of opposition parties, including the Congress, which have joined forces to challenge the NDA, led by the BJP, and stop it from securing a third consecutive term at the Centre in the Lok Sabha elections. Most Indians think that it will end in a whimper. And that Modi, 73, and his party will win the elections decisively and secure a third term for the regime he heads.

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The Ground Is Shifting – Slowly, Silently

By Amit Sengupta

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
– Nietzsche

If in the beginning was the word, then silence is not always golden. If, in the beginning is silence, then there is always a twist in the dark narrative. If a tragedy follows a nightmare, and a nightmare then follows a tragedy, and it thereby becomes a damned vicious circle, then the wordless silence can become sinister, almost diabolical.

As the condemned people of Manipur would tell you.

Or, ask the people of a ‘democratic, secular, pluralist, socialist’ India – the happy story of their lives since the fated summer of 2014, sans the dominant narrative of fake news synchronized ritualistically by fanatic loyalists of the media and the army of thoughtless bhakts. Ask them, and a torrent of clueless, insensitive and incoherent verbiage floods the vitiated atmosphere, like waters from a filthy gutter, and all forms of ethics, form and content, argument and ideas, go for a toss. If the fake messiah has spoken, or chosen silence, then it will be as it is; Manipur, and the country, can go, get damned!

So what is it that compels him to choose this uncanny silence in the face of the whole world asking him to speak up?

Is it something new? No. Not at all.

Did he choose to offer condolence to her family when journalist Gauri Lankesh was murdered by Hindutva fundamentalists, no less vicious in their murderous thoughts and actions, as Islamic fundamentalists? Did he choose to share the grief on the killing of ace photographer Danish Siddiqui, a Pulitzer award-winner, on the frontlines of a battle between the Taliban and western forces in Afghanistan, even while the entire Western media made their homage, and even the Afghan president shared his sorrow with the family of Danish?

So why was Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a brilliant Kashmiri woman journalist, clicking her rare and precious pictures against all odds in an extremely difficult conflict zone, denied the joy of visiting the US to collect her coveted Pulitzer? What is the petty pleasure which an ageing and fossilized establishment gets, (with not an iota of positive thoughts inside their political unconscious) by denying a young, female role-model the right to her prestigious award, while, in contrast, they should be celebrating her and the honour she received?

Not only that, they have put other Kashmiri journalists in prison, in a state, where, literally, the media has been gagged since the abrogation of Article 370, the clampdown, and the military occupation, subjecting the entire population into an eternal state of trauma. Is this how they imagine the people of Kashmir can be integrated to the idea of a mainland?

Ditto with late UR Ananthamurthy and Girish Karnad, great cultural icons. Ditto with our world champion women wrestlers, who were dragged and brutalized on the streets of Delhi, even while he walked like a mythical monarch holding a mythical Sengol, in the new Parliament building, boycotted by the entire Opposition. Even while a muscular BJP bahubali from UP, accused of hounding and harassing women wrestlers, including by a minor, still roams scot-free! He even has the audacity to speak about the Manipuri women who were paraded naked on the streets, gang-raped and mob-lynched, even while the BJP-led regime in Imphal and the entire security establishment tacitly looked the other way.

Chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, one of the few brave public figures who chose to go to Manipur and meet its people in the relief camps, said: “I went to Churachandpur alone, without any security. I met the families of the two women who were stripped, paraded naked and sexually assaulted. If I can meet them, why can’t the chief minister? Why can’t he go to Churachandpur and other affected places in his bullet-proof car?”

Indeed, in one case, a boy was allegedly picked up by the cops for putting up a Facebook post, and, then, guess what did they do? They gave him away to a blood-thirsty mob!

In another case, two Kuki women working in a car-wash garage in Imphal were reportedly gang-raped, beaten up and murdered by a mob, and the spectacle went on for a long time, but the cops and para-military forces were nowhere around. A freedom-fighter’s mother was burnt alive inside her own home. A Kargil soldier’s wife was murdered. And someone else’s daughter has been gang-raped. Horror stories are endless and no one knows when these tragedies and nightmares will at all end!

In another macabre twist, as in the ghastly parade of a Kuki mother and daughter, stripped on the streets, which led to huge national outrage, several such instances point to the active role of women in instigating and supporting these grotesque public spectacles – the murderous assaults on the body and soul of other women — as allies of male rapists and murderers.

What have they reduced this beautiful state of Manipur into? How have they turned such nice people into ugly monsters?

ALSO READ: Every Corner of Imphal Has Become a Relief Camp

Certainly, all of this, reminds us of the state-sponsored genocide in Gujarat, 2002, when innocent citizens of India, including children, were raped, gang-raped, burnt alive and murdered, while a large population celebrated and glorified the genocide and murderers. No wonder, they were garlanding the killers and rapists in the Bilquis Bano case, whereby, her child, family and friends were murdered! Not only that, one of the killers was being felicitated by the BJP in Gujarat.

So what is this goddamned message to the entire country and the world? We will do what we will, you can go get damned!

While miscellaneous monsters, mob-lynch specialists and gang-rapists are currently ruling the roost, apparently backed by the regime, it has been three years since brilliant, young scholars, Umar Khalid, Gulfisha, Sharjeel, among others like Khalid Saifi, are rotting in jail. Their crime? Protesting peacefully against the communal and anti-constitutional CAA.

In this litany of infinite injustice, there is not one moment of pause. There is not one word spoken which can heal, console and soothe the nation’s soul. There is not one gesture, not even symbolic and ephemeral, which can help the nation walk away from the vicious, the sinister, the diabolical. It is this eternal festival of hell-fire which hounds this condemned land, where evil stalks, like a death-wish, crushing all that comes on its way.

Amidst this despair and pessimism, what is it that compels him to choose this compulsive silence? In contrast, he is in full force, waxing eloquent to hired, mostly Gujarati NRIs, all over the world, while being honoured with sundry awards, even as he makes multi-billion arms deals – to benefit whom, in a country with tens of thousands jobless, homeless, poor and hungry?

For one, there is a path-breaking paradigm shift happening right now in India which has rattled him and rendered him speechless. Two, he and his genius think-tank, seem totally clueless in their unimaginative counter-attacks – using metaphors which only boomerangs on them.

Consider this golden statement of someone who has otherwise chosen silence when faced with a ravaged Manipur, or, the sexual harassment of our women wrestlers, etc. According to a BJP MP, while speaking to them in a parliamentary party meeting, “He said the East India Company, the Indian National Congress, the Indian Mujahideen and the Popular Front of India also had India in their names.”

INDIA has undoubtedly rattled him and his party. There is a new wind blowin’ in this ‘New India’. India needs hope and healing. India will find hope and healing. The nation will definitely resurrect and redefine its own destiny; its own secular democracy and its own rainbow coalition. It’s time for him to go. Enough is enough!