On India’s streets, youth push back BJP’s politics of hate, fear

To understand the BJP’s politics of hate, fear and divisions, look no further than former cricket captain Sourav Ganguly.

It was said of Ganguly that during his twilight years, he would find innovative ways to opt out of the team if a match were to be played on a green top, where the ball would seam and swing. On Thursday, Ganguly found a novel way of wriggling out of an embarrassing situation.

A day before, his daughter Sana had tweeted an excerpt from a Khushwant Singh book to register her protest against the changes in the citizenship law. “Every fascist regime needs communities and groups it can demonise in order to thrive. A movement built on hate can only sustain itself by continually creating fear and strife,” she posted.

Within a few hours Ganguly prevailed upon his daughter to remove the post. He then asked the media to keep his daughter out of it because she is too young to understand politics. Sana, incidentally, is 18, just a year younger than what her father was when he made his debut for Team India.

Also read: Anti-CAA protests turn bloody, multiple deaths reported across India

This incident requires a bit of deconstruction.

At a broader level, it tells us how the citizenship law has divided families and pitted Indians against Indians — some Hindus against Muslims, liberals against the rightwing and bigots against humanitarians. In this, the ploy is classical BJP stuff.

But, it also tells us a lot about today’s India—a country where the young still retain their idealism, ability to speak their mind without fear and fight for what is morally and constitutionally right while the older generation, its public faces, either watch in silence or cower in fear, like Ganguly, rumoured to be the BJP’s presumptive rival to Mamata Banerjee in the next elections for West Bengal.

The good news, of course, is that in this battle of Sana vs Sourav—the rebels vs the establishment—Thursday belonged to the youth, their idealism and derring-do. Defying police diktats, barricades, internet bans and restrictions on movement, thousands protested against the citizenship law across India.

In Bengaluru, historian Ramchandra Guha, whose books on Gandhi are read the world over, was dragged like a petty crook by half-a-dozen cops while he was speaking to the media in front of the Town Hall for “disturbing peace”. But, most of the protesters were brave students from campuses across India.

The Narendra Modi government has several defining traits—it is egoistic, intractable and finds it difficult to back down. In addition, it is great at selling a blunder as a masterstroke (think demonetisation, think GST.) Such is its obduracy that if the Modi government were to swallow poison for some reason, it would refuse to spit it out just because it would hurt its hubris.

So, when two of its ministers dropped veiled hints of dialling down its rhetoric on the National Registry of Citizens, it was a huge victory for the protesting citizens. “Even if there is one per cent chance of NRC, we assure you that no Indian citizen would suffer,” minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told TV channels. Another junior minister said there was no plan of a national register in the near future. Notice the phrase “even if one per cent.” Just a few days ago, Home Minister Amit Shah had claimed that his government would 100 per cent implement NRC throughout India.

Also read: Mamata dares Centre to go for UN-monitored referendum on CAA, NRC

It is obvious the protests have rattled the government. Never the one to miscalculate the impact of a divisive step that could lead to polarisation, the BJP may have erred in assuming that only Muslims would protest the changes and the proposed NRC. Had that happened, it would have been exactly what the BJP hopes for—another opportunity to divide, divert and rule. But, the large number of students, activists and ordinary citizens from every faith and creed must have surprised the BJP and forced it to watch the events unfold with trepidation.

The Modi government has already lost a lot of credibility in the West, where newspapers and civil organisations have been slamming it for the amendments in the citizenship laws, calling them a blot on the country’s secular and liberal ethos. Whatever little vestige of moral authority it had managed to retain was further shred to pieces by protesters in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities of India on Thursday, calling the BJP out for its politics of divide and rule.

India’s growth rate has slid to a paltry 4.5% (actual growth is less than 2%) from the highs of 8% around two years ago. Unemployment is at a multi-decade peak and prices of consumer items are rocketing. In addition, banks are beset with huge defaults, tax collections are depressed and the government is fiddling with the idea of putting some of its public sector units up for distress sale.

The BJP has ruled so far through fear and its majoritarian agenda, even as its government failed on many fronts. But, this policy is fraught with the risk of diminishing returns for two reasons—voter fatigue and the fear of anarchy in India’s middle class, which is notorious for being a bit like Ganguly —self-centered and aware of its own interests. The BJP knows that the cocktail of a prolonged conflict with its own citizens and a falling economy can be lethal for its longevity.

In addition, it finds itself in an unusual place where people are looking it back in the eye, dissing its divisive agenda, instead of rolling at its feat with fear. To its chagrin, its Gujarat model of rule by fear has suddenly stopped working.

Also read: Resistance to CAA shows how to deal with BJP’s Gujarat model of conflict

Interestingly, while India was burning, Modi was tweeting. On the day his government was suppressing dissent and peaceful protests through British-era laws and police sticks, Modi actually paid lip (read Twitter) service to the very man whose spirit was muzzled on Indian roads. “Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals and principles give strength to the entire world,” Modi said after a meeting to discuss commemoration of the 150^th birth anniversary of the Mahatma.

Apart from some protesters, even irony died a million deaths on India’s streets on Thursday. And so did a bit of Ganguly’s aura.