When you travel abroad, you realise how very insular people are. Everywhere. I used to think that only we were: a measly page or two for international news even in our biggest papers, compared to, say, an English newspaper’s many pages. But now I found that quantity deceptive: an English paper’s international news will generally be that which concerns the British, either directly or indirectly, either in terms of policy or human interest. And if other kind of news does get in, it will be because it’s bad news, like a natural calamity or a horrific crime.
So I was relatively happy that there wasn’t much about India in UK’s dailies while I was there. No news sometimes really is good news. When I came back, though, I found that there really was some good news: the electorate’s severe drubbing of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recent byelections. Even firm supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to be happy: the party needed this jolt, they all said.
However, I feel that our commentators on TV and in print have drawn the wrong conclusions. There seems to be a general consensus that the BJP lost many of the seats it had won in the general elections now because the party had let loose extremists like “Yogi” Adityanath as well as the “love jihad” campaign. (Here a little digression. I would like to know — and we should all ask — who gave the title of “Yogi” to Adityanath? Is it, as I suspect it is, a self-awarded one to claim a spurious relationship to the spiritual world when the man is nothing but a stark raving bigot?) There is also a general consensus that that the “love jihad” campaign backfired, and the electorate was repulsed by this two pronged pandering to extremism.
I wish I could agree. My own gut feeling is that this is wishful thinking on the part of people whose heart is in the right place, that is for secularism, rationality, even handedness and all the nice values of humanity. My own feeling for the reasons for the election results are far more prosaic: in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party withdrew from the fray, paving the way for a straight contest between the Samajwadi Party and the BJP. “Master strategist” Amit Shah may like us to believe otherwise, but would the general election results have been as favourable to the BJP if Mayawati had withdrawn even then? You can’t do a straight extrapolation of figures because not all the BSP supporters would have voted for the SP; nevertheless it’s an interesting conjecture.
As for Rajasthan and elsewhere, the electoral reversals may have to do with the general sense of disappointment with the Modi government. While people are impressed with the absence of scams and the general air of purposefulness that now prevails, there was an unrealistic expectation that Mr Modi’s poll promises would translate into instant action.
Why do I think the Adityanath-love jihad factors were not so important? I say this because except for a few small pockets, where people really don’t care about your religion, there is a general Hindu antipathy to Muslims, which now increasingly feeds upon the brutal actions of the jihadists operating in many places in the world like Syria and Nigeria. Some of my best friends are no doubt Muslims; but some of my other best friends are no doubt anti-Muslim. The feeling comes out occasionally in subtle and unexpected ways, but it is very much there. Which is why I think the effect of Hindutva extremism on the poll results are overrated. Another common assumption though is spot on. That these election reverses, rather than dent the image of Mr Modi, have strengthened it. He is now the one man BJP army, the party’s performance in elections sorely dependent on his star power. The image dented is of Mr Shah. And thank God for that.
Even diehard opponents of Mr Modi have to admit, however grudgingly, that the man is conducting himself like a real Prime Minister. His choice of people to call, his international visits, his body language when talking to people like the Chinese President (Eleven Jinping as the poor Doordarshan newsreader called him), all have shown his immense self assurance which proclaims loudly that he is not to be trifled with.
The choice of TV channel and interviewer for his first international media interaction was also well thought out: an American channel like CNN and an interviewer like Fareed Zakaria — a Muslim of Indian origin on a channel of the world’s superpower, which was hitherto opposed to Mr Modi because of Gujarat 2002. Through them he could now proclaim to the world his belief in the patriotism of Indian Muslims as if he himself never doubted it.
Yes, Mr Modi is clever. In fact, he is very, very clever. But — and this should concern us all — is he too clever? Whatever be the veneer of his outward persona, is the real person still shaped by his core beliefs which are impossible to shake down? Everyone has noticed how the BJP’s coming to power has emboldened all the lunatic and extremist elements of the Hindutva brigade to come out of the woodwork. Even politicians you would expect to have more sense, for example, politicians in an enlightened state like Goa, have come out with expressions of moral outrage which would have been acceptable 150 years ago. Except for a fleeting expression of public reproach, notable for its carefully calibrated casualness and mildness, there has been no effort from the Prime Minister to shut up the lunatic fringe. The world is no doubt being held hostage by Islamic terrorists, but is Hindu extremism the answer to that?
The other point which struck me at the very start of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit was its very start: the Chinese leader’s first stop in India was Ahmedabad and not New Delhi. In addition, many of the agreements and memorandum of understandings signed by the Chinese leader favoured only the state of Gujarat. Does this mean that the former Gujarat Chief Minister has not, in his own mind, elevated himself to the post of Prime Minister?
The writer is a senior journalist
