The Nation to experience the Gujarat model now
By Faraz Ahmad,
The ninth and last phase of polling completed today, ending the longest ever election process of the world’s largest democracy, heralding the prospects of an authoritarian, divisive and controversial Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi becoming the Prime Minister of India and thanks to the overt, aggressive and unapologetic campaign by the Rashtirya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and a humungous financial investment by the corporate India, it is not difficult to presume which way a Modi-led India would head.
Besides if the results of the general elections on May 16 are anywhere close to what the Exit Polls, an array of which were on display soon as the last phase of the polling ended, predicted, then these go against the grain of various news reports emanating from the field, specially in Punjab, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, West Bengal and Karnataka, where there were no visible signs of the BJP doing well. The results then indicate, for instance that not just the Congress but the Left too stands completely decimated, even in Kerala, which incidentally is the only state where the Congress and its allies have improved their tally as compared to the 2009 general elections. This in effect means it is a vote for the “Shining India” by the Shining Indians. What about the not so Shining India which benefited at least to some extent from the various schemes like MNREGA, NRHM, cash transfer of subsidies and other similar measures?
This means that not just the likes of Arun Shourie, Shekhar Gupta, Arvind Panagriya, Surjit Bhalla and Jagdish Bhagwati and the Corporate honchos who appreciated Modi’s stubborn refusal to implement MNREGA in his state, and his disdainful opposition to the Right to Food Bill, but even the poor whose lot was sought to be improved through these schemes, with whatever shortcomings, appear to have rooted for Modi or in other words for scrapping these schemes, which the above mentioned worthies as well as Modi are inclined to believe.
The most significant aspect of this election, beginning the December elections to the four state assemblies was this huge upsurge for Narendra Modi, in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and even Delhi. Wearing Modi masks and chanting Namo, Namo, Har har Modi, Ghar, ghar Modi,the youth was parading the streets of urban centres. By no stretch of imagination is Modi some benign figure, whose face is endearing to the masses. Here is a man who polarizes even before he opens his mouth. Yet suddenly there is a surge for him? Amazing! Isnt it?
A senior JD-U leader disgusted and exasperated with the communal poison injected into the body politic in western UP by Modi’s lieutenant Amit Shah commented privately, “The common refrain is: ‘Modi hi in saale Katuvon ko seedha karega (Only Modi will set right these circumsized bastards).’ The Jats of Shamli, Muzaffarnagar and adjoining Western UP are more forthright and clear why they want Modi this time round—not for any fraudulent promise of development, not to protest against Congress corruption, but to put the Muslims in their place.
The surprising thing is that the Amit Shah campaign to vote Modi to save the honour of their daughters, wives and sisters, seems to have influenced even the OBCs and Dalits, if we go by Smita Gupta’s latest report in The Hindu, May 12, 2014. Actually the Sangh/BJP has been working on the ‘Love Jihad’ campaign for some time. Nearly a year ago VHP International President Ashok Singhal held a press conference in the Constitution Club where he mentioned the biggest threat to the Hindu society came from ‘Love Jihad.’
Wonder whether we recall that in the frenzied mob lynching of Muslims in 2002 Gujarat pogrom which went on for days on end, there was one instance of a young Hindu woman spotted by the mob in the house of a Muslim and they suspected she was carrying on with the Mussalaman, they chased her out and finally caught up with her at the local bus stop where she was lynched, stripped, gangraped and burnt alive—ostensibly for having a Muslim boyfriend. The grouse that the Musalmans entice Hindu women to convert them to Islam and increase Muslim population, is nothing new. Ashok Singhal has oft repeated this in his press conferences. Thus there is nothing new about this campaign,except that through the social media Amit Shah succeeded in whipping up mass passions against Muslims this time round, mainly to garner votes for Modi.
Amit Shah asked the Hindus to take ‘Badla’ (revenge) and elaborated, “Yeh Mughlon ka zamana nahin hai ke teer aur talwar se badla len. Ab hum vote se badla lenge (This is not a Mughal era to wreak vengeance through arms. Instead we will take our revenge through our vote. He also mentioned: “Savita ka haq le ke Salma ko de diya, Yeh hum kabhi nahin bardasht karenge (We will never tolerate that Savita’s share be taken away and given to Salma).” His last nail was “Azamgarh Atanakwad ka garh hai (Azamagarh is the seat of terror).”
This was the under current of Modi’s speeches as well: Muslims are terrorists; they are taking away the Hindu women through ‘Love Jihad’ and these Muslims are taking away what rightfully belongs to the Hindus. Thus the BJP succeeded in creating a rift between Jats and Muslims, OBCs and Muslims and even the Dalits and Muslims. That is what has caused the surge even among the OBCs and Dalits for Modi. The 2009 general elections had shown how the BJP had shrunk from close to 60 seats in 1991 and 1999 to just nine seats. Therefore it focused single-mindedly on Uttar Pradesh. The traditional Savarna could never match up to the OBC-Muslim solid phalanx for Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav or Dalit-Muslim combine vote bank of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as it existed till the 2012 UP assembly elections. Tragically except for loud announcements nothing has come by the Muslim community, notwithstanding the Sachchar committee and Ranganath Mishra Commission recommendations. The Minority Commission, unlike the SC/ST Commission is a toothless body and has no powers to indict. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did earmark 15 per cent of the nation’s resources, to the Minorities But first it was blocked by the then Revenue Secretary Vinod Rai (the later day much revered CAG). Besides, how much of it eventually reached the deserving? In Gujarat we know that Modi returned the Central allocation for scholarships for Muslims, even though he was not called upon to spend a single paisa of his state resources.
The residents of Batla House to date keep crying that their boys were killed in cold blooded fake encounter by the Delhi Police and to give it the colour of real encounter someone from the police force shot at Inspector M C Sharma from behind but for all the agitation neither did the state agree to a judicial inquiry nor has it released to date the post mortem report of Inspector Sharma and the courts are also refusing to heed to the pleas of the accused. Muslims are victims of such unfair and discriminatory treatment by the Indian state but their fellow travellers, the OBCs, the Dalits and the Jats, who are generally in the same boat are convinced today that the government is giving them undue concessions. “On top of it, these Mussalman boys are enticing our young women as well.” Not so long ago inter caste, inter religion marriage was a sign of progress and never imagined to be an act of aggression. After all there any number of Muslim girls who have married Hindu boys. And if there is some disparity in the proportion it is largely because the incidence of Muslim girls, specially in the villages, going to schools and colleges is far lower than among the Hindus, particularly the caste Hindus.
In effect Modi has succeeded in wrecking the bond of amity between the OBCs, Dalits and Muslims and before the month end we would have Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. But what about the thousands and thousands of crores spent by Ambanis, Adanis, Tatas and others in securing the PM seat for Modi? The corporate world has to retrieve in the multiple of hundreds if not thousands of what it has invested in Modi. For that a Modi government has to cut on Government spending on subsidies through Modi’s oft repeated Mantra: “Minimum government,maximum governance.”
How would he achieve this? By emulating the Gujarat model, by projecting Musalaman as the real enemy of the country. More terror, more action from Indian Mujahideen (IM); crush the Musalaman like he did in Gujarat. Divert the attention from the poor man’s economic concerns emanating from withdrawal of subsidies. In effect turn India into another Pakistan. Hail the Indian Ziaul Haq!