By Ram Puniyani
For the last couple of decades, one has come across many pamphlets, leaflets and other material containing the propaganda that Christian missionaries are converting the people at a rapid pace. The examples mostly given have been those of the North Eastern states. This propaganda has been extensively used at a pan-India level, particularly before elections in most of the states. It is this propaganda which formed the base of hate against Christians and we witnessed the ghastly murder of Pastor Graham Stewart Stains, the horrific Kandhamal violence, and low-intensity anti-Christian violence and attacks on Churches in different parts of the country.
So how come the BJP, the party flaunting Ram Temple, Mother cow and Hindu nationalism could make its inroads into an area where Christianity has a major presence, where beef eating is part of the people’s dietary habits and where different tribes with diverse and clashing political interests articulate their aspirations by forming various groups which have been asking for separate state for their tribes?
While the situation in each state is different, there is a pattern of the BJP, which, in a flexible manner, supplemented by massive resources, near-perfect electoral machinery and the backing of its parent organisation’s Swayamsevaks is getting the cake in state after state. In Assam, it focused mainly on the Bangladeshi immigrants; Muslims swamping the state and threatening that Hindus will be reduced to a minority. It was clever enough to strike alliances even with separatist organisations. Most of the regional organisations in the area look at Congress as the party which has not focused on the development work. The BJP while at one level abuses those differing with its ideology as ‘anti-nationals’ but has no compunctions at all in allying with those who have been talking of separate state or even secession. In Tripura, the Left government; despite its clean record; failed to fulfil the aspirations of tribal and OBCs in matters of reservation. It also failed miserably in creating employment opportunities for the youth which gave the ground to BJP to promise and create the illusion of development.
The BJP in Tripura mainly harped on two major factors. One is the promise of development. For the rest of the country, its claims of development all over the country stand exposed as mere vote catching slogans, in North East, they still could sell Modi as a development man. Manik Sarkar’s failure to implement the new pay commissions must have hurt the large numbers as they are still stuck at fourth pay commission while talk of seventh pay commission is in the air. In Tripura, they could also harp on ‘Hindus are Refugees: Muslim is infiltrators’ to influence the Bengali Hindu votes. In the tribal area, RSS Swaymsevaks working consistently by organising religious functions, opening schools etc. have succeeded in turning the tables as the Manik Sarkar Government failed to address the needs of the Tribals in matters of opportunities. In matters of beef, BJP openly took a hypocritical line that their ban on cow slaughter and eating beef, which is being imposed in different parts of the country; will not be enforced in North East. As such also one knows that like most of the issues raised by RSS-BJP, a holy cow is a political tool for dividing the society and when the crunch comes they manipulate the issue as they have done in Kerala and Goa on the issue of beef and cow slaughter.
In a very loud manner, towering over Christian voters, Modi talked about rescuing 46 nurses in ISIS captivity in Iraq and Father Alex Premkumar from Taliban captivity. What can one say on these issues? Were they rescued since they were Indians or were they rescued because they belong to a particular religion? In the world of Modi-type politics, they do take advantage of these incidents in a crass political manner. Despite the fact that their ideology regards Christians and Muslims as foreigners, they do at the same time manipulate these identities for electoral gains. In Tripura, the majority of Congress and TMC MLAs migrated to BJP as well as the electoral support shifted to BJP. What worked for BJP here was the anti-Bangladeshi sentiment along with the illusory promise of development.
In Meghalaya, the situation is different. Though Congress did emerge as the single-largest party and logically it should have been given the chance to form the Government, the Hindu nationalist Governor thought otherwise and the second largest party in alliance with practically everybody including BJP will form the Government. Here, the failure of BJP to win over electorate is writ large on the results but what gives them the advantage is the alliance with a regional party, which has not been having amicable attitude and relations to Congress. The role of BJP’s all-around clout including money and muscle is the undercurrent of the story.
There is a lot of lessons for the Left to learn in Tripura. The issue of addressing problems of youth, Tribals and OBCs are paramount. In addition, the issue of BJP manipulating all possible ways to come to power is something which can be ignored at the risk of severe declines in the electoral power of the Left and other parties. What is being labelled as the Karat Line–not allying with the Congress–will surely decimate the Left in times to come, probably sooner than later, as this line underestimates the potential and the deeper agenda of BJP-RSS. It ignores the threat of powerful electoral machine built by BJP over a period of time and its capability to manipulate issues, like beef and conversion by Christian missionaries, is different parts of the country, taking two opposite positions and getting away with it!
The emotive politics unleashed by BJP RSS is visible again in the form of attacking Lenin’s statue and attacks on CPM workers. What is in store for future of the region if democratic forces don’t rise to the occasion is anybody’s guess!