Modi-BJP's ambitious plans may encounter a stumbling block in South

Barely weeks after the setback triggered by Nupur Sharma’s blasphemous statement and the confusion it caused alongside Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s assertion that looking for a shivling in every historical mosque was unnecessary, middle-rung leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party are once again ‘arrogantly’ confident and this is evident in the once-again-found spring in their strides.

Yet paradoxically, anxiety was visible in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address while addressing a public gathering in Jharkhand when he listed “short-cut politics” as a challenge before the nation and warned people against parties who make tall promises to lure voters.

By warning people against parties that make pledges which result in “severe consequences,” was Modi warning against a bugbear in the Aam Aadmi Party whose potential as an eventual challenger now appears more realistic than ever?

But till the challenge from AAP is addressed, it is necessary to run through the reasons behind the quick turnaround in BJP’s fortunes. This has to do with several developments and initiatives of the party and its leaders, not in the least by the success in unseating Udhav Thackeray from Maharashtra’s citadel of power and by the unqualified success of its strategy to get Droupadi Murmi elected the next President of India.

The two developments were preceded by the Supreme Court verdict dismissing a petition filed by Zakia Ehsan Jafri challenging the SIT report that discarded allegations of a larger conspiracy by political functionaries including Modi, the then Gujarat Chief Minister and 63 others in the Gujarat riots of 2002 that ensued the Godhra train massacre.

This was followed up immediately by the arrests of Teesta Setalvad, R Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt, an action that sought to turn the narrative on the Gujarat 2002 riots on its head.

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Meeting success in the bid to topple the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government was sweeter for the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duopoly because they delivered a public snub to former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis who rankled the duo by dreaming big.

The developments in Maharashtra coincided with the BJP’s National Executive Meeting in Hyderabad, from where four significant messages were broadcast by the party.

The first, Dynasty-Mukt-Bharat will hereon be the focus of the BJP’s political campaign. This indicated that in the reckoning of the leadership, the Congress was a spent force and the political dynasty was now the primary target because the challenge to the BJP was mainly from regional parties, most of whom — including the Shiv Sena’s whose split was engineered by the BJP, had leaders at the helm who either inherited the position or were working towards, as Mamata Banerjee allegedly is, anointing GenNext leaders from within the family.

The symbolic value of this call being given from Hyderabad was not lost because the BJP has been at loggerheads with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and is keen to emerge as the principal challenger to K Chandrashekar Rao and his family.

It is ironic that despite the largest number of Lok Sabha members from political families – in BJP’s lingo, the dynasts — in the present and the previous Houses being from the BJP, the party accuses parties of being dynastic. The tirade against dynasticism, however, may fetch brownie against regional parties but not when countering AAP because Arvind Kejriwal has displayed no such propensity.

The second most important message from Hyderabad was delivered by Modi – that there was a need to reach out to social groups who are currently out of the party’s net. While this has been interpreted as a call to reach out to the Pasmanda Muslims, the appeal is in direct contradiction to the party’s belligerence witnessed barely weeks ago in Nupur Sharma’s statement and the support she received from within the Sangh Parivar’s ecosystem.

Modi’s directive to party rank and file to take out a ‘Sneh Yatra’ (affection rally) across the country to bring together all sections of society while emphasising the diversity of India is at odds with the politics of Shobha Yatras, displayed with vigour during Ram Navami earlier this year. These politics of provocation led to clashes with minorities in several places.

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For the past three decades and more, the BJP and its affiliates have tried to ride the tiger and tame it at will with little success. From 1992 when the Babri Masjid’s demolition could not be prevented till the latest outburst from Nupur Sharma, there have been numerous instances of BJP getting entangled in the duplicitous politics of its own choosing.

Yatras aimed at embracing religious minorities, especially Pasmanda Muslims, may be believed as a possibility by the gullible in the media and middle classes. But, can it be ignored that the first targets of BJP-led vilification campaigns against Muslims target the poor and deprived sections that Modi wishes to be embraced?

The third message that emanated from Hyderabad emerged from famous words from Shah, that the next three to four decades shall be the era of the BJP and the party would lead India into becoming a Vishwa Guru (global leader). Like many others, this too is a catchphrase or a ‘jumla’ as Shah famously termed one of Modi’s undertakings some years ago.

A week is said to be too long in politics and Shah said something with certainty about the next few decades. This was little but another strategy to enthuse the rank and file of the party. Going by the mood within the party, this ploy has been successful. The question is if this can be sustained.

The fourth palpable issue that was flagged was that Hyderabad was chosen not just for being Telangana’s capital, but because the BJP sees the city as a gateway to the southern states that have eluded the party’s clasp.

The executive meeting was followed by the nomination of several iconic public personalities from the South to the Rajya Sabha. But this is likely to generate little but talking points and opening arguments for party leaders as they make their way through these south of Vindhyas states.

The BJP’s limitations in southern India are not merely its own. The problem extends to the entire Sangh Parivar and stems from a very north Indian view of what they term Bharat.

It is true that the BJP has marked its presence consistently in Karnataka for the past three decades, but its gains in the state are negated by repeated failure in the four other states. This is largely due to its incapacity to view the people of the southern states as equal partners in its project Bharat.

Quite often, the social fabric and tensions in north and western India are superimposed on the south, although the situation warrants a different model. The BJP is trapped in the realisation that creating a different framework for southern India may be counterproductive in the north and west.

The BJP has consolidated its position because of the numerical dominance of north and western India, but its failure in large parts of eastern and southern India is likely to jeopardise the party’s ambition of smooth running for the next few decades.

As the scare-mongering by party leaders, the BJP leadership is aware that their bravado is for consumption among the rank and file. But challenges for the BJP remain. It is just a matter of someone being able to widen a small crack and threaten the entire edifice.

(The writer is an NCR-based author and journalist. His latest book is The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India. He has also written The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin)