Bharat Jodo: Thinking beyond Electoral Politics

Bharat Jodo

H. Srikanth

No, I am no fan of the Gandhis, or the Congress Party.

Bharat Jodo yatra is initiated primarily in to revive the fortunes of the Congress party and present Rahul Gandhi as a dynamic leader capable of taking on the BJP in the forthcoming General Elections.

Not sure whether this aim is realized.

For, every big and small opposition leader in the country today thinks that he or she is the potential PM candidate. Each one is moving the pawns in the political chess game, not so much against Modi or BJP, but against other contending opposition party leaders.

Given the competition and disunity among the opposition parties, one is not sure whether others accept Rahul Gandhi as a leader of the opposition front in the General Elections, 2024.

India today lacks a leader of Jayaprakash Narayan’s stature who could carry opposition parties along with him.

Even if a section of the corporate sector in India looks up to Congress as an alternative to BJP, no one is sure whether the Nehru-Gandhi family will revive the faction ridden, disunited Congress to electoral victory. But these doubts do not stop me from endorsing the need for Bharat Jodo campaign.

There is no need to project a false narrative that there was ever a phase in Indian history where the people belonging to different castes, creed, race and religion lived harmoniously singing the song, “Hum Saath Saath Hai”. Indeed, there was prejudice which kept the communities aloof from one another others. The feeling of ‘US’ vs ‘THEM’ was there even earlier. The social reform movements and the Freedom Struggle failed to eliminate the vestiges of feudal and pre-modern ideas and outlooks.

After independence, India’s political and economic spheres have acquired modernity, but our culture and outlook continued to be a mix of the worst of both modernity and tradition. Barring the times when India was at war with neighbours, or facing terrorist threats, Indians remained a divided lot. Class divisions, caste oppression, and communal riots came in the way of forging emotional bond as the citizens of India.

The gap widened further after the Mandal-Mandir agitation took shape in the latter part of the 1980s. The political parties with an eye on the elections consciously fanned communal sentiments and fortified caste and religious prejudices through national level campaigns. Even earlier, there were caste and religious based parties, but their influence was localized. But the Ram Janma Bhoomi campaign and the fall out demolition of Babri Masjid cemented the cultural divide and turned prejudice into fear and hatred. 

As in the Nazi Germany, since the 1980s a systematic campaign has been carried out against the minorities. Many irrational arguments were advanced to whip up a fear psychosis and hatred among the Hindus. The Muslims are held responsible for several problems the country is facing -for population rise, poverty and unemployment; for growth of terrorism and border unrest; for increasing crime, and for love jihad.

The Christians are accused of religious conversions. Even the protesting Sikhs and dalit activists are branded as Khalistanis or Naxals. Smear campaign doesn’t stop there. Even the Hindus who don’t agree with the regime’s idea of Hindutva are nicknamed as ‘libros’, ‘commies’, and ‘pro-Pakis’. Trade union leaders, activist farmers, environmentalists and tribal activists are treated as criminals. Media and social media are effectively used to perpetrate hatred against anyone who differs from the regime in power. 

Not just the political opponents, even artists and social activists became the targets. The last decade has witnessed the killing of several journalists and rationalist writers. Several dalits and Muslims are lynched on the charges of eating or selling beef. Comedians and artists are shown as threats, and their shows are cancelled under threat from fringe elements which enjoy patronage of politicians and police. Often the people are made to doubt the loyalty of Muslim and Sikh players in Indian cricket team. There is an organized campaign to project Bollywood as a whole as ‘Urduwood’, meaning pro-Muslims and, hence, anti-Hindu.

Even crime is now viewed from political and communal angle. Those who criticize other communities for patronizing fundamentalism don’t hesitate to feed extremists in their own communities. They may vociferously demand death punishment for rape. But the same persons don’t mind condoning rape, and garlanding and distributing sweets, if the rapists belong to their community, or subscribe to their political ideology.

Whether one condemns or overlooks the criminal acts depend on whether the victims belong to ‘our’ or ‘their’ community. They talk of human rights only when ‘our’ people are affected. All that ‘we’ do is right, and what ‘others’ do is always wrong. The persons who wear the ‘us versus them’ goggles cannot see the people and events from rational and humanitarian angle. To them, every person belonging to another caste, creed, region, and language becomes an enemy or a potential threat. Imaginary fears and cultivated hatred have affected even family relations and friendships.

 While the masses are pre-occupied with petty quarrels over religion, caste, region and race, the regime is pushing ahead anti-people’s and anti-democratic policies. In normal circumstances, the worsening plight of the people would have united them to fight for their rights. But alas, thanks to politics of hate, the people remained a divided lot.

The people, instead of uniting against the real problems of poverty, unemployment, price rise, socio-economic inequalities and human rights violations, are busy fighting over the issues of mandir, masjid, burkha, beef, conversion, Love Jihad, Bollywood, Shivaling, Taj Mahal, Babur, Aurangajeb and Tippu Sultan! 

While one may blame the regime in power for the present state of affairs, one cannot bail out the opposition parties. In their own ways, most mainstream parties have contributed to the mess through the acts of omission and commission. For electoral gains, they have invoked and played with caste, religious and regional sentiments of the people. In different measures, they have contributed to the decline of the constitutional values and made a mockery of secularism and socialism. It makes little sense to blame BJP’s politics of Hindutva, when the main opposition parties challenging it practise soft Hindutva, or appease reactionary elements among the minorities in the name of secularism. 

No meaningful social change is possible without putting an end to politics of hate. Should the progressive minded people and organizations in the country abstain from the campaign against hate just because Rahul Gandhi is leading it? That does not appear to be the right approach.

Contrarily, now is the time they take the lead and exercise pressure on every political party claiming to be secular to take up a systematic campaign against hate politics, and expose those who perpetrate hate. Defeating BJP in the General Elections should not become the only goal. Electoral victory makes little sense if the hate politics continues to thrive.

The need of the hour is to project and work for an alternative vision of India that accepts cultural diversity and respects the values enshrined in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.

Preserving and promoting social harmony is possible when the people rise above politics of hate; cultivate rational and humane thinking; build bridges across the communities in every mohalla, villages and towns, and support democratic struggles against the real problems affecting the poor and marginalized. 

[Writer H. Srikanth is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong, India. His research has primarily focused on issues concerning ethnicity, indigenous people and the political economy of Northeast India. Dr Srikanth was awarded the Shastri Indo-Canadian Faculty Research Fellowship to work on Native Indians in British Columbia. His publications include Indigenous Peoples in Liberal Democratic States: Conflict and Reconciliation in Canada and India (2010) and the co-edited volumes Vision for Meghalaya: On and Beyond Inner Line Permit (2014) and Ethnicity and Political Economy in Northeast India (2016). He has also published many research papers in such journals as International Studies, Economic & Political Weekly and Man and Society; and many more. “Bharat Jodo: Thinking beyond Electoral Politics”, was first published in “The Shillong Times” today and we also published this article in our Mahabahu with permission from Prof H. Shrikanth.]

17-09-2022

(Headline Image from India Today)

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