VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
This will be my last column in a
rather eventful year, which saw political changes of unparalleled magnitude in
the country. Though I believe in looking
ahead rather than looking back, but given the momentous political changes in
2014, it would be in fitness of things to see how the year 2014 was a watershed
in Indian politics and how it promised to change status quo once and for all.
How the year saw building of Narendra Modi as a brand, State by State and
nationally from the geographical confines of Gujarat and
continuity of the brand as an election winning machinery as elections of
Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir showed.
The year also saw a complete
demolition of the Congress making it redundant nationally. All the elections,
whether the Assembly elections of late last year in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the general elections of May and now the Assembly
polls in two States, the Congress has been exposed like never before in its
history and is gasping for breath following the onslaught of the Modi and BJP
juggernaut in practically all parts of the country where elections were held.
As one personality rose in the horizon (Modi), there was another family which bore
the brunt of this unrelenting political onslaught—the Gandhi family, comprising
Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
But as Modi consolidated his hold
on the Indian polity, the Hindutva forces came into the forefront sidelining
economic issues, those of employment, prosperity and growth. This brought into
fore issues and vocabulary either lying dormant or being invented
now—conversions, ghar wapasi, Ramzade-Haramzade, comparisons between Mahatma
Gandhi and his killer Nathuram Godse, anti-conversion Bill etc. Some of these
have been on the agenda of the Hindutva forces for long but are finding
expressions now when the BJP has a majority Government at the Centre on its own
for the first time ever.
On two of the issues — Ramzade
debate triggered by the comments of a Sadhvi and a BJP Minister, Modi had to
intervene at the right time to prevent it from becoming bigger. Similarly,
Godse-Gandhi comparison was nipped in the bud when Sakshi Maharaj was forced to
apologise. But there could be more such issues, which would be highlighted and
raised from time to time and obviously it strays from the model of Good
Governance of Modi and would prevent building a national consensus on a host of
economic issues which stare the Government in the face.
The issue of conversion or ghar
wapasi as it is being referred to in a section which advocated it, has even
irked a long-term ally of the BJP — Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab. Chief
Minister Parkash Singh Badal says that the Sikh Gurus fought against forced
conversion of Hindus to Islam all their life and therefore the party was
against conversions now. “The Sikhs never accepted forceful religious
conversions. Entire Sikh history is replete with several episodes where our
great Gurus and valiant Sikh warriors never bowed to the pressure exerted by
the mighty rulers,” he said at a religious-cum-political function at Fatehgarh
Sahib. As the year comes to an end, Home Minister Rajnath Singh talks about
anti-conversion Bill. But the debate seems to be a meaningless exercise at this
point when other pressing issues need immediate attention.
Coming back to politics, Assembly
elections of late last year — Delhi ,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh set the trend for the country. These
elections were held soon after Modi was anointed the prime ministerial
candidate and results were a vote of confidence for the decision of the BJP top
brass in doing so.
There was no looking back for
Modi and BJP juggernaut after that. Even the hardcore BJP supporters had not
expected the party coming to the power on its own and even on the eve of
election results in May 2014, were discussing possible permutations and
combinations if the party was left 40 short of the magic figure. After 30
years, a single party got the mandate of the country and a guarantee to rule
for five years without the artificial support and blackmail of allies, which
had been the hallmark of Indian politics since 1989 Lok Sabha polls. In the
Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar , where the
BJP was considered relatively weak, it won 90 per cent of seats with allies, a
dream performance, which gave cushion of a comfortable majority for Modi. His
decision to contest from Varanasi
proved to be the masterstroke which won him votes in UP, Bihar
as well as Jharkhand, the most populous areas, which together have 134 seats.
The victory march of the BJP
continued in the year and ever since the party was founded in 1980, it never
had it so good. In Maharashtra , the party broke its
quarter of a century old alliance with the Shiv Sena and went to polls but
still was just a little short of majority and formed a Government on its own.
Uddhav Thackeray, who ridiculed the existence of a Modi wave, had to eat a
humble pie and he may not yet have accepted but now must have realised that
this indeed was the case in Maharashtra as well. In the
State, the BJP won from several constituencies from where it had not even
contested in the last 25 years indicated a groundswell of support for the “tea
boy”- turned-RSS pracharak-turned Prime Minister.
In Haryana, the magic was
similar. The BJP was never a strong player in the State but riding the Modi
wave, it won the polls for the first time. Even life-long members of BJP had
not imagined this happening six months ago. Similarly, Jharkhand will see the
first majority Government in almost 14 years under the BJP. The party won in
alliance with AJSU and now there is a guarantee that the Government would last
for five years — something which had never happened in the State after it broke
from Bihar in the year 2000 and was plagued by political
instability. In Jammu & Kashmir, the BJP becomes an important player for
the first time and hold the balance of power. It was in this State that Syama
Prasad Mookerjee, one of the founders of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the
predecessor of BJP, died in a jail trying to cross the borders of Punjab
without official papers as was the norm then.
In all the three States — Maharashtra ,
Haryana and Jharkhand, there was another experiment. This was putting political
greenhorns as Chief Ministers who do not have any baggage of the past. The
youthful Devendra Fadnavis was chosen for Maharashtra
and claims of other seniors with past baggage were brushed aside. Haryana saw a
first-time MLA, Manohar Lal Khattar as Chief Minister who comes with a fresh
set of ideas and is pleasantly different from run of the mill politicians. In
Jharkhand, Raghubar Das is the first non-tribal Chief Minister and this would
never have happened had the BJP been dependent on allies for support. This
opens the talent pool in the State and is a complete break from the past
political practices.
As the BJP was in upswing and
2014 was the best year ever for it politically, the Congress was on decline and
the year proved to be the worst in the history of the 129-year-old party,
founded in 1885. The figures of Congress came down to 44 seats in the Lok
Sabha, a figure so low that it could not even get the post of Leader of
Opposition. The worst performance since the parliamentary elections of 1952 saw
almost all its Ministers losing polls and the party had to faced the ignominy
of not even opening its account in 12 States. The party must be drawing a
revival plan and a strategy to reinvent itself now and it better be fast as the
BJP is steadily eating into is support base.
For political historians, 2014
would perhaps remain the single most important year in the history of Indian
Republic December 29, 2014 )
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