By Amulya Ganguli
The BJP, and especially its gung-ho prime minister, might not have imagined that the party would be seen to be under considerable pressure at its first national executive meeting in Bengaluru after its Lok Sabha victory. The impression of being on the back foot is presumably the fate of all ruling parties once the customary 100-day honeymoon period is over. In Modi’s case, he even claimed that he never enjoyed the luxury of such period.
The reasons why he is seemingly always fighting a losing battle are many. Even when the wild antics of the Hindutva Gestapo have subsided to an extent, presumably because Modi asked the fundamentalists to pipe down in the matters of ghar wapsi and love jehad campaigns targeting the Muslims – although attacks on churches have created a sense of insecurity among the Christians – several other issues have surfaced to put the party and the government on the back foot.
Two of the most egregious among them are the outrageous statement of minister of state, Giriraj Singh, that if Rajiv Gandhi had married a Nigerian, the Congress would not have accepted a black woman as its president. It is difficult to make out which is more shocking – this statement or the one made by another minister of state who described the supporters of the BJP as Ramzadon and those of the other parties as haramzadon or the children of illicit unions.
What these crude comments show is the low level of even ministers belonging to the BJP. It isn’t only their poisonous antipathy towards the minorities which distinguishes them – as in the cases of the two M.P.s, Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj (the latter having the added ignominy of being an admirer of Nathuram Godse) – but also their foul mouths.
Rarely in the history of Indian parliament have such a gaggle of disreputable characters disgraced its hallowed portals. Because of their uncouth behaviour, the BJP has confirmed the long-held suspicion of its critics that the party is not yet ready to be a part of polite society since it hasn’t been able to emerge from the unedifying background of its origin in the musty by-lanes of the small towns of north India.
As if the crassness of Giriraj Singh and others was not enough, the BJP courted further controversy when another of its M.P.s, Shyama Charan Gupta, a beedi baron, discounted any connection between smoking and cancer as the member of a parliamentary committee on tobacco usage. It is this self-serving turning of the blind eye to what is regarded by an overwhelming majority as a proven scientific fact which denotes another aspect of the illiteracy which is a feature of the Hindutva lobby.
Little wonder, the BJP’s Bengaluru show could not be regarded as a roaring success. Even before the meeting began, it was pointed out that the Modi government had little to show for its nearly one year in power. The reforms are yet to take off, the quest for black money hasn’t been fruitful and the outcome of the Delhi elections has shown that the people are impatient about the absence of the promised achhey din.
To make matters worse, the amendments of the land acquisition law have created the impression that the government is anti-farmer. Although the lapsed ordinance about the changes in the law has again been issued, the party and the government are aware that Modi’s oratorical skills are not enough to dispel the unfavourable impression.
Yet, the law is the key to the prime minister’s “make in India” plans based on massive industrial undertakings with foreign investment. According to him, the reforms cannot succeed in the absence of the country’s industrialization. Of the other parties, only the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) appears to be fully behind Modi as its support for the mining and coal bills in the Rajya Sabha where the BJP does not have a majority showed. Although the Samajwadi Party, the Trinamool Congress and the DMK also supported the measures, they cannot be said to be fully in favour of the reforms.
The BJD, on the other hand, has been at the receiving end of the green “activism” of the Congress’s environment ministers, Jairam Ramesh and Jayanthi Natarajan, as a result of which several of the state’s industrial projects, notably of the South Korean steel-making giant, POSCO, have been held up.
The BJP’s discomfiture is unusual at a time when the party does not face a serious challenge from any of its opponents. While the Aam Admi Party is imploding, the Congress is yet to formulate a strategy in view of the uncertainty about its leadership because of Rahul Gandhi’s truancy.
Of the other parties, Janata-2 comprising Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and others is yet to coalesce. However, if the BJP cannot erase its anti-farmer image with a convincing explanation of how industrialization will create employment from which the farmers will benefit because they will not be victims of the division and sub-division of farmland among succeeding generations, the party will face an uphill struggle in the Bihar elections in November-December. (IPA Service)