No government which is in a large minority in the country, even though it possesses a working majority in the House of Commons, can have the necessary power to cope with real problems.” Winston Churchill’s wise words, in the House of Commons on June 2, 1931, apply very much to the government formed by Narendra Modi on May 26, 2014.
The 282 seats which the Bharatiya Janata Party won in the 16th Lok Sabha of 543 members cannot obscure the fact that its vote share of 31 per cent, of the total votes cast, is the very lowest in the 62-year history of the House. The nearest low was the Congress Party’s 40.8 per cent in 1967 to win 283 seats in a House of 520 seats.
In the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House, the BJP holds just 64 seats in a House of 240. The Congress has 68. Narendra Modi faces numerous problems. One is his own autocratic temperament. The very next day after the Council of Ministers was sworn in the portfolios of the ministers were formally announced. In the allocation of responsibilities the Prime Minister’s own remit raised eyebrows. It was “all-important policy issues” as a portfolio subject. The Prime Minister’s Office will direct and control all matters it considers important. Policymaking will be the PMO’s prerogative under the Prime Minister’s watch.
This is what Richard Crossman famously called the presidential government in his introduction to the 1963 edition of Bagehot’s classic The English Constitution. Prime Minister Harold Wilson had no problem in demolishing this thesis. Margaret Thatcher discovered its falsity when the long-suffering Cabinet rebelled against her. But Narendra Modi has also reduced the party to his fiefdom. Its president Rajnath Singh, is made home minister. His equation with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which founded the BJP’s ancestor and the BJP itself, is an ambiguous one. He has been a lifelong canvasser.
The Cabinet has been filled with an unprecedentedly large number of RSS men. The RSS agenda is reflected in the BJP’s manifesto; especially three highly controversial planks. They are — abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution which confers autonomy on Jammu and Kashmir, construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya on the site of the demolished Babri mosque, and enactment of a Uniform Civil Code in order to replace Muslim personal law.
However, the RSS never allows any of its men to get too big for his boots. Significantly its organ Organiser published on May 25 an article by M.G. Vaidya, entitled RSS and hero worship. He recalled, “The founder of the RSS adopted a style that never had any place for hero-worship…”
It is the RSS’ cadres who ensured a high turnout. Two other helps were the corporate sector and the media. The Economist’s correspondent reported: “His slick, expensive campaign shaped local media coverage: The BJP will not say, but it probably spent $1 billion.” Out of the 541 winners 442 are crorepatis — 237 belong to the BJP, 35 to the Congress.
Muslims comprise 15 per cent of the population. The BJP put up only seven Muslim candidates. All lost, including its poster boy Shahnawaz Hussain. This Lok Sabha has the lowest number of Muslim members in all its history since 1952. Two reputed political scientists, Christophe Jaffrelot and Gilles Verniers, write: “In terms of parties, never in the past had the winner of general elections in India counted zero Muslims among its MPs. In the case of the BJP, this reflects a certain strategy. This involved identifying the minority groups that would not extend their support to the BJP and aiming at attracting all the others while working towards creating rifts and preventing members of the identified minority groups from allying locally with other groups.
“Indeed, out of 428 candidates, the party fielded a mere seven Muslims… That said, the Congress did not do much better this time, with 5.8 per cent.”
Embittered with the Congress for its breaches of promises, Muslims turned to other parties and split their votes. It was disgusting to see Muslim clerics profess belatedly on TV that they saw virtues in Modi.
He appointed as minority affairs minister Najma Heptullah, a Congress veteran who left the party about a decade ago and joined the BJP. Her first pronouncement as minister was: “Muslims are not minorities. Parsis are. We have to see how we can help them so that their numbers do not diminish.”
Modi’s aim is to recast India’s polity, especially its credo of secularism. Few in the media oppose this. The battle for secularism has begun in earnest.
The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai
By arrangement with Dawn
