Modi no longer invincible, Rahul the only alternative

Love it, loath it; Narendra Modi is ultimately the winner in the latest round of electoral battle between the BJP and the Congress in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Himachal was a cake walk for the BJP right from the word go on the polls there because the hill state had proved a game of musical chairs between the two major players alternating between the Congress and the BJP in every subsequent election. It was the BJP turn to win this time round and it did. So, there is nothing much to read into the Himachal assembly outcome.

But Gujarat turned into a virtual national referendum on Narendra Modi’s three years in power at the centre. The opposition led by the Congress rightly made demonetisation and the GST its primary target issues against Modi in Gujarat. The Congress also weaved a pan social rainbow consisting of Patidar Patels, the OBCs and Dalits along with the minorities support for itself. The three young leaders of these social groups, led by Hardik Patel, Alpesh Kumar and Jignesh Mewani, openly and vigoursly backed the Congress.

Narendra Modi was his same old usual self. Shunning shame and all pretensions, he was at his divisive best in his career since 2003 post Godhra riots Gujarat elections. He was visibly nervous and at times panicked with thinning crowds in his campaign rallies and the BJP workers literally getting the beatings at places. Modi returned to using crass communal and regional agenda. Gujarat elections campaign will be remembered more for a prime minister in office accusing the outgoing prime minister for conspiring to topple his government with Pakistan help. Modi stooped low to conquer. Conquer he did. But he diminished himself in the process.

Modi is the past master of divisive strategy. He creates an enemy bogey with a Muslim identity out to overwhelm the majority Hindu community. Whipping up passions, he generates fear within the majority which in turn is polarized and eventually crystalizes into a solid Hindu vote bank for the BJP. It had been the old Sangh electoral game-plan. But no one has been able to do it so far with the fines Modi has been doing for nearly a decade and a half.

He did it in 2003 post Godhra Gujarat elections with his ‘’action-reaction’’ theory projecting himself as Gujarati Hindu ang rakshak against the Muslim killers. The tactics worked winning him the first election. In the second round he united the Hindus against perceived threat of terrorism equating Muslims with Mian Musharraf and humarey panch, unkey pachees, clearly overwhelming Hindus with the Muslim fear. The third round of Gujarat assembly elections was won by Gujarat model and subtle use of the Muslim enemy card. Modi used the same strategy in 2014 parliamentary elections too.

So, creating an imaginary Muslim enemy is central to Modi’s strategy to create the Hindu majority vote bank in his favour. But he used to do it with a bit of fines. He was pits this time round. Modi sensed defeat at least in the first round of Gujarat polling. Thinning crowd at the rallies and the demoralization seeping into the BJP workers panicked him. Modi knows if Ahmedabad slips out of his grip, Delhi would not be far to go away. So, Gujarat polls turned into a life and death political battle for him. It turned Modi into his communal crass.

Interestingly, the RSS too is in the same boat with Modi. If Modi weakens, its dream of a Hindu rashtra shatters. So, the Modi-Bhagwat duo did everything dirty in its kitty to save the election. Both play divisive card the best and that is what they did blatantly during the last phase of elections. Modi projected Pakistan as the enemy out to topple a ‘Gujarati’ prime minister government to project himself as the son of soil fighting for Gujarati pride. Imagine, he first used some unknown Salman Nizami’s FB post to raise Pakistan bogey; then he latched onto Mani Shankar Iyer’s use of word ‘’neech’’ against a Gujrati Prime Minister.

Finally, Modi raked in a former Pakistani minister’s visit to Iyer’s residence where a meeting was held to topple him. Lo and behold, he even accused former prime minister Manmohan Singh of participating in this conspiracy against him. The RSS cadre went for the kill with house to house campaign convincing Gujaratis that if Modi lost, Muslim raj would be back in Gujarat.

The Congress was painted as the 21st century Muslim League, recalling the past Hindu-Muslim riots of the Congress days in Gujarat. It was again the same old strategy where the Muslim bogey was raised to scare Hindus and then Modi comes in as the Hindu ang rakshak to garner Hindu vote bank. Thus, Gujarat was won fourth time by the BJP.

Modi did win Gujarat ridding communal and regional cards. But this was the first time that the certain social groups consisting of a sizeable chunk of Patels, OBCs and Dalits did walk away from the BJP fold. It broke Modi’s pan-Hindu monopoly after 15 long years. Here lies the catch. It politically means that the communal Hindu card was dented with the deft social alliances Congress built in Gujarat. There lies the hope for the opposition to pitch social justice issue to create dents within the solid Hindu vote bank. It may sound bizarre to manly in the liberal constituency. But it is the hard-political reality on the ground that Hindu communalism can be fought with a blend of social issues like quota with other burning issues like joblessness and farmers’ problems.

Secondly, the Rahul appeal and the dramatic rise in number of the Congress seats clearly shows that the liberal Indian ethos is asserting now. The need is to ingeniously blend social issues and invoking traditional Hindu liberal ethos without being labelled as the soft Hindu.

Rahul Gandhi did it in Gujarat and it worked in boosting the Congress tally after a long time. The tactics may work in 2019 parliamentary elections with opposition forming a UPA type united platform to contest BJP with one-non-BJP candidate in almost all the constituencies. But creating only anti-BJP ferver without organisational backup is no longer delivering the desired results. Building an organisation in a long haul. Mrs Sonia Gandhi used civil society to bridge this gap in 2004 and it worked. The Congress needs to revisit Sonia’s strategy to engage with civil society and social groups for electoral purposes.

The Gujarat victory on the crass communal appeal would further encourage the BJP-RSS duo to push the Hindu card with all its might in pending round of elections till 2019. It could be the construction of Ram temple in 2019. The Congress, backed by the other secular parties, should work out its electoral game plan learning from Gujarat results. Young and energetic Rahul Gandhi is the man of the moment who should rally round Indian liberals cutting across caste and communal divide to roll back the politics of hate that is overwhelming India for quite sometimes now.

Nationally speaking, Modi would further polarize India, the only politics he knows well. Rahul needs to stick to his narrative of ‘ politics of love against politics of hate’ blending it with social issues like dwindling jobs and declining economy.

Modi is no longer invincible. Indian democracy is asserting itself at grass roots levels. Time for the united opposition under the Congress umbrella to take on Modi for the kill in 2019.