'Hindus in danger' | Why Yogi is likening Bangladesh events to Partition horrors

"Hindu khatre me hai" ("Hindus are in danger") is the favourite line of right-wing hardliners to polarise voters. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on the eve of Independence Day, sought to revive the "fear" by drawing a parallel between the horrors of the Partition of 1947 and the recent attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh.

What was peculiar about Yogi's speech in Lucknow on August 14, Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, was that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah did not refer to the current crisis in Bangladesh while paying homage to Partition victims.

August 14, named Partition Horrors Remembrance Day by the Modi government in 2021, also marks the Independence Day of Pakistan since the two countries were born in 1947 out of a single British dominion in the region on the midnight of August 14-15.

Use of partition analogy

Ever since former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled her country following massive protests against her regime, there have been reports of widespread violence against Hindus including torching of homes and vandalism of temples by rioters.

Speaking at the Lucknow event, Yogi said the dates may have changed, but Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan and Bangladesh are being persecuted today the same way as they were during the Partition.

“Whatever is happening today in Bangladesh is actually what had happened there in 1947, forcing Hindus to beg for their lives,” he said, , “It is as bad as is the case today (with Hindus) in Pakistan.”

Solitary voice in BJP

Interestingly, Yogi seems to be the only prominent BJP leader who has voiced his opinion on the issue on a public platform. Neither Modi nor Shah has made such a remark till date.

This is also the second time that Yogi has raised the issue about the safety and security of the minority community in Bangladesh following Hasina’s ouster and subsequent arrival in India, on August 5.

Significantly, neither any other BJP chief minister nor any state leader has spoken about the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh as vociferously as Yogi.

All Opposition parties have authorised the Union government to deal with the crisis in Dhaka the way it deems best, while assuring the Modi government of their support in all circumstances. Opposition leaders gave this assurance to the government at a recent all-party meeting where External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar briefed them about the situation in Bangladesh.

Behind Yogi’s outburst

This raises a pertinent question: What has prompted the Uttar Pradesh CM to venture into difficult territories which his political peers daren’t enter and deem to be the exclusive preserve of the Union government?

The answer, perhaps, lies in the precarious situation of Yogi since the dismal showing of the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh.

Both the BJP and the RSS have been trying hard to find reasons for the electoral reverses suffered by the saffron party in the state. But Yogi has stuck to his guns, squarely putting the blame on the BJP’s “overconfidence” for the poll debacle.

His assertions point to the central BJP leadership’s election slogan of winning 400 of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats in the polls. This was a tall order which Modi’s point man Shah thought to be possible, but it came to a naught after the candidates fielded by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh couldn’t cut the ice with the electorate.

CM’s ‘precarious’ state

Thus, Yogi now wants a free hand while his detractors are trying to put the blame for the BJP’s poor poll performance on him.

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who is said to have been at loggerheads with Yogi over the party’s poll performance, reportedly met Modi in Delhi on August 11.

This is in sequel to Maurya’s several meetings during past weeks with Shah and BJP president JP Nadda to discuss the vexed nature of politics in Uttar Pradesh. Little is known about as to what transpired during these meetings.

Desperate hand at communal card

With Uttar Pradesh awaiting bypolls to 10 Assembly seats, the latest rumblings within the party show that Yogi’s fate as chief minister is directly linked to the performance of the party in the upcoming elections.

It is thus evident that Yogi has been sharpening his core strength that lies in his ability to play the communal card to polarise voters on religious lines to the extent that the caste divide among Hindu voters could be obliterated to favour the BJP.

The only change this time is that Yogi’s efforts to polarise voters has gone across India’s borders to include what is happening or may happen in Bangladesh. His moves show a kind of desperation to which the Centre has, so far, turned a blind eye. But how far this can remain so is not known.