BJP cuts a sorry figure today. All its efforts, of mind and body (and soul it doesn’t have) to communalise the country’s atmosphere and disturb its social fabric for political gains are meeting with grand failure. Despite its best efforts, the communally charged agitation for giving back the forest land to Amarnath Shrine Board has remained, by and large, a local state phenomenon as the rest f the country has refused to be impressed by their nefarious agenda and propaganda. The cash in Parliament episode has also not worked in its favour, for its “holier than thou” image received a severe beating during and after the trust vote which the UPA government won with comfortable majority. And its latest drama through the good offices of the notorious Gujarat police to convince the common public that all terrorists are Muslim would also backfire. The media, by and large, have danced to their tune but sooner than later they would realize that the Gujarat police has falsely implicated the SIMI activists. The media may have forgotten, but the Suhrab episode is still fresh in public memory.
BJP is in haste to grab power at the centre. The problem is that India’s common public is not impressed by their credentials. Political commentators with insight know well that the road to Delhi passes through U.P. where the BJP is in bad shape. By all indications the fight in the next general elections in U.P. would be between the BSP and the SP-Congress alliance which is most likely to be formed in near future. It was BJP’s huge success in U.P. which had catapulted it to power in the 1990s. But for about the last one decade it has been declining gradually, in fact, it seems to have been marginalized in U.P. And the Muslim community, almost 18 per cent in U.P. must receive a pat on its back for marginalizing the BJP in the state. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri mosque a good number of Hindus were swayed by the BJP’s passionate temple propaganda on the one hand and the Muslims had deserted the Congress to stand solidly behind the SP on the other. They would vote only for the SP candidates, even in constituencies where they were not in winning positions. But gradually the Muslims realized the value of their votes and decided to vote for the SP, BSP or Congress candidate whom they found to be in a position to defeat the BJP. Being 18 per cent in U.P. afforded them to be the decisive factor in good numbers of constituencies. The Muslim cause was also helped by the reassertion of caste politics in U.P.
BJP knows that the 18 per cent UP Muslims are not only a big number but are also politically mature as they vote with a mission to defeat the communal outfit. They also know that the temple issue would no longer help them electorally. This is the reason that they want to communalize the U.P. atmosphere and polarize the Hindu majority in its favour. The propaganda against the SIMI and the arrest of its activists in mainly the BJP-ruled states are parts of their strategy to whip up the Hindu passions and impress upon the majority community that Islam and Muslims are a threat to the unity and integrity of the country. Unfortunately a section of the media is unwittingly helping the BJP in its design.
But the most worrying fact is that the Interior Ministry headed by a senior Congress leader is also unable to see through the BJP design. It has wrongly convinced itself that the lifting of ban from SIMI would give BJP an opportunity to criticize Congress as being soft on terrorism. Congress must learn a lesson from some of its partners in UPA whose open advocacy of SIMI has never harmed them electorally. The reason is that they ably expose BJP’s communal face and convince their electorate that SIMI was a victim of BJP’s communal electoral design. Why Congress is shy and hesitant in taking a fair stand on SIMI. It must analyse how many terrorist activities the SIMI cadres had carried out before being banned and what it has done after going underground. A banned SIMI is not only dangerous but is also liable to be used by BJP to its advantage. Moreover, it is now a common knowledge that only a tiny minority of the SIMI activists is militant in its thinking and approach which may be further undermined by lifting the ban as it would give an opportunity to the moderates to take full control of the organization and put it again on the right track.
BJP’s negative ideology is on the wane. It succeeds here and there not because people have begun to subscribe to its fascist ideology but because they find no other alternative to a failed BSP, SP or Congress regime in one or another state.
This is an obvious political reality which Congress, like the SP and RJD, must realize for its own advantage as also for safeguarding the national interest. Soft Hindutva has never helped any one other than BJP in the past and will do it no good in future as well.
[August, 2008]
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