Why blame Modi? Our delusion defeated India

Leading intellectual Pratap Bhanu Mehta had issued a warning to us soon after the shattering results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. He foresaw hubris in the winning party—the BJP, which was evident the very next week if you looked at the selection of the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath. Many people like Mehta opined that this was a slap on the face of UP’s electorate, and also a blunt message to the nation at large that finer democratic sensibilities have no place in the new scheme of politics. Duplicity would now be the norm of political life and you would not be able to hold anybody accountable to his words. He said Modi had defeated India with his duplicity.

But if you looked at it differently, the party or the man can always turn back and say that why did you disregard or ignore what was being said all along?

Was the ‘anti-Romeo squad’ not part of the election promises of the party? Is it wrong in believing that the mandate the electorate gave is a thumbs-up to its cultural plank? Why blame BJP, then, of duplicity? It was very much part of the package. It can be argued that the extra enthusiasm of the people of UP was actually the result of its desire to get itself immersed in a soul-cleansing exercise. Was there any ambiguity in BJP’s promise to shut down illegal slaughter houses? It is quite a different matter that the media did not want to report on it, or our English-speaking commentators—who seek ‘decisive leadership’—thought that this was just to spice up the blandness of the economic agenda. That they were mistaken is their folly; they cannot blame the party for being serious to its words! From now on, it would be advisable to read the election manifesto carefully, and take it seriously too.

You are complaining too much, would be the answer to those cribbing. This party represents an ideology, a philosophy. When given this weighty mandate, we would need a person who would be able to hold it, a man who in his conviction would be equal to the conviction of the faith reposed in the party by the people. Would a Communist Party, given such a mandate, put a revisionist in the driving seat? Same here. New revisionists like Advani were pushed to the margins earlier too.

The disappointment of the people with the Ram Temple taking centre stage is again misplaced. The party has always held and unequivocally told its people that you have to give us a decisive mandate to implement the agenda of Ram Temple. That is one of the reasons they have been telling people that it is necessary for the party to be omnipresent and omnipotent. Half-hearted response would not be sufficient for this divine task.

The response of the law and order apparatus to the new regime is breathtaking. Its legendary lethargy has given way to extra-lawful alertness. Also, there has been unusual promptness by the law and order machinery, our civil servants and police officers in cracking down on the slaughter houses, their super-vigilance in locating small mutton shops and dismantling them. It is as if it has now got a higher purpose in life, has found its moral moorings and is, therefore, working with a spiritual zeal. This response is revealing. The default mindset of Indian bureaucracy is compatible with what is being suggested by the RSS and the BJP. The moral world view of the party is thus readily translated into ‘secular action’ by this machinery.

Compare this extra-vigilance with its attitude to the constitutional world view. Its response in cases of atrocities against the scheduled caste or attacks on minorities or atheists shows that constitutional message has yet not been translated into a moral language for them. It does not appeal to them and they have to be goaded to understand and execute it.

The idea then is to do a complete overhaul of the secularly maligned soul of the nation. The nation is not an economic category. The fight is not about who would best implement the neo-liberal economic agenda. It is not as if two contractors were filing tenders for the same work and decision would be taken judging the most efficient and least costly. It was also, or primarily, a fight for the soul of the nation. You cannot blame the BJP for pushing its agenda hard and then implementing it and for the sheer apathy of other parties to this aspect.

We need not delude ourselves. You cannot endorse the anti-pink revolution platform and eat your Tunday kabab too.

It is not duplicity of Modi and his party that has won. It is our delusion that has defeated India. Let us first understand this. It would help us make the next move in the right direction.

Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi, and is a literary and cultural critic.

This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own.