The latest reports tell us that only 58% of the voters turned up in the first phase of the UP elections. People seem to say: Enough is enough! We have heard too much of venom spitting of one Party against another and allegations of national betrayal, each forgetting their own? The ruling party is coming to us for votes after dumping our bodies into the river during the Covid heights! Wait till the waters of the Ganga and the Yamuna swell up in anger and the stones destined for Ram Temple cry out in protest against the ‘politics of anger’ to which they have been witnesses so long! 

Lalu Prasad has turned most critical. He alleges that Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are doing nothing less than inciting a “civil war”; that the BJP is continuing the British colonial tactics of dividing communities and engineering tensions. Rajeev Yadav, who produced a film on Adityanath Yogi in admiration, now condemns him for spreading the “politics of hate”. Yogiji, in fact, proves the allegation true, by calling for a bulldozer to deal with the SP and the BSP candidates whom he dubs as goondas. After all, the monk-politician had been carrying a revolver and a rifle ever since 2004, on his own admission. Amit Shah remains loyal to the same political culture, contending that the SP candidates are merely a bunch of hooligans. Crime is always on the ‘other’ side: with the Dalits, minorities, tribals, poor!

Money Decides
Whom can one vote for in this political climate? Who is going to win? If recent elections are a guide, the victory does not go to the most deserving, peace-loving and purposeful, but those who have the deepest purse. Corporate donors with their self-interested strategies decide the issue. They are the biggest threat to democracy today. They put their bets on the most pliable Parties. 

During recent elections, more than 70% of election money was spent by the BJP. That speaks for their convincing power. MLAs, MPs, and even veteran Party members, no matter which Party they belong to, bend to fat purses and top positions. This is the pitiable scenario today.

The Vernacular Proletariat 
There is another force at work. When civil rights groups, secular spokespersons, and the English-speaking elite grow vocal in “snobbish style” against of Modiji, the vernacular majority gathers round him, with the upper castes in full support.  He has the skill of eliciting sympathy from the “vernacular proletariat”, leaning against the Ram Temple issue, Kashmir decision, and the pretension of having re-captured the lost “prestige” of the Hindu majority. The Modi-Yogi mantra works when you least expect it. But more than anything else, their victory is sure when the democratic parties are themselves in total disarray and ideological loyalty shifts according to the amount of cash or the measure of power offered, or the special political advantage held out. Lamentable, but true!

A Budget for the Elite 
What Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promises is something more than a Golden Age: “Amrit kaal” with a steady 8.5% growth.  On the contrary, what Rahul Gandhi notices is the plight of 23 crore Indians in poverty. He says, there are two Indias: one of the poor, the other of the rich. “Entire wealth is going into the hands of select people”, a chosen few. Chidambaram refers to 142 very rich people who nearly doubled their wealth during the Covid period, e.g. Ambani with monopoly in petrochemicals, telecom, retail, e-commerce.

But the interesting news is that the 59-year-old Adani has gone ahead of him, with a net worth of $88.5 billion, $600 million higher than Ambani’s. Thus, Adani has emerged as the tenth richest man in the world.  He controls 7 airports and a quarter of air traffic, largest power generator, city gas retailer. 

When competitors grow fewer, ‘privatisation’ effectively means ‘monopolisation’: appropriation of national wealth by one business magnate or a few. What is taking root in India today is an ‘oligopoly’ of 20 companies, belonging to one or two business communities from a specific region with pronouncedly inward-looking traditions. The destinies of the nation are slipping into their hands. So far, what they have done is to ensure more layoffs and less jobs. Unemployment has grown. The Government is catering to these giants in a studied manner. 

What the Prime Minister called a “people friendly” budget is considered a “cruel assault on people’s livelihoods” by Sitaram Yechury. Mamata Banerjee affirms, it offers “zero” for the common man. The social sector is greatly enfeebled, with health and education suffering most. 

Proposal for Wealth Tax Ignored
Jan Sarokar argues thus: if a 2% wealth tax and 33% inheritance tax were imposed on the 1% richest, the income could look after the entire social sector needs of the country. Sukanta Chaudhuri says that over 100 of the world’s richest people have expressed their willingness to be taxed more. If it were done in each country, the whole nation would benefit, and the general economy in consequence. 

What the Government does for the people, like ensuring irrigation, mid-day meal or loan waver, should not be seen as favours, freebies, election bribes or doles, of which we have too much in India, but responding to people’s rights and entitlements. Ensuring common welfare is the duty of the Government, not a favour it does for votes. 

In which case, we could not say with the BJP MP Alphonse, who exclaimed: anyone who creates jobs must be “worshipped”, be he Ambani or Adani! That is precisely what is being asked of citizens in Hindutva-led India: to worship the leaders. Is not Modi an avatar? Rahul says, Modiji is not acting as a Prime Minister but a king: shah-en-shah, king and master. Imperial overtones are too evident. No one can speak against his decisions. No criticisms. 

Jairam Ramesh of the Congress says, ministers are merely reading out prepared reports and chanting Modi Chalisa. Mamata Banerjee feels certain that “the whole nation is being run by force”. Fake encounters have increased in UP and Assam. Encounter killing of ‘suspects’ is not the right way of safeguarding social order in a civilized society!  

Free Citizens or Bonded Labour?
Mamata accuses Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar of treating her elected Government as “bonded labour”.  The same is happening in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, with R.N. Ravi and Bhagat Singh Koshyari trivializing elected Government’s decisions. No independent thinking is allowed, no regional differences tolerated. 

Those who have no faith in themselves nor in others are ruling the country. Ultimately, ‘meaninglessness’ rules.  Irrationality reigns.  But a sort of resentment grows at subconscious levels. Emotions build up. The rulers seek to soothe emotions by telling stories about Aurangzeb and Shivaji, or Mir Jaffar and the British. These are idle memories that harass the psyche of the higher classes who are slaves of their complexes, about which the masses are least worried. 

Words Lose their Meaning
Words themselves lose their meaning, concepts lose their significance: democracy, peace, equality. What does the word ‘Equality’ mean? I am asking this in the context of Modiji unveiling the statue of Equality and Humanity in Hyderabad on the 1000th birth anniversary of Ramanujacharya.  Is there any consistency between the Equality that is being claimed and the equality that is actually prevailing in the country? And what does Atmanirbhar mean? If it means “self-reliance”, why was the making of Ramanuja’s statue (like Patel’s in Gujarat) entrusted to Aerosun in China. No doubt, it was an expensive product. The 216 ft statue cost Rs. 135 crores, and the entire project Rs. 1000 crores. People wanted to ensure quality.  

However, is it not embarrassing that Gandhi’s India makes headway in advanced arms production (Brahmos, etc), while the construction of statutes of inspiring personalities has to be passed on to our controversial friend, China?  That is what makes Rahul question Modi’s concept of Atmanirbhar. Will the Ambani-Adani combine, masters of unequal wealth, help the Prime Minister to make India the land of Equality, Peace?  

“Death” for Conversions
Curiously, on the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, Hindu Mahasabha paid respects to Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte in Gwalior. They mean to keep Godse-Apte smriti every year, calling for Akhand Bharat. There is, then, encouragement for violence still, and at the highest levels. And again recently, a gathering of 400 sadhus in Allahabad called for ‘death’ for conversions. 

Meantime near Bhopal, strong action was taken against a goshala-manager for unexplainable bovine deaths. The deaths were caused by a BJP man who was making money out of leather and bones. See! Cow-protection zeal is merely an excuse for jihad against Muslims and Dalits who handle the cattle trade. In today’s India, lives of cows count more than those of fellow citizens! 

The sadhus at Allahabad demanded the abolition of words like ‘minority’ and ‘majority”.  As far as they are concerned, minorities do not exist! They say, those who follow foreign religions must quit India. Meanwhile, they forget that they themselves are following ideologies that have origin in Italy and Germany, Fascism and Nazism. Noam Chomsky, a US philosopher-historian, accuses Modi of turning India into a ‘Hindu ethnocracy’. He feels that a Hindu supremacist ideology has fully taken over. 

Hindu Rashtra Strategies
Every step towards a Hindu Rashtra is well planned. 1) In the field of education:  Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit, who considered Gandhi and Godse equal, has been appointed Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University; Banaras Hindu University has introduced a course that considers caste system as “Inclusive”, contributing greatly to social solidarity. Similar things have been happening under the BJP for years. 2) In the field of commerce: a market that excludes weaker communities is gathering momentum, e.g. the economic boycott of Muslim/Dalit products in Gujarat has spread to central India of late, like Surguja district, Chhattisgarh. People view this as ‘untouchability’ in a new form, marginalisation of minorities, discrimination against weaker communities, exclusion of Dalits, ‘othering” of fellow citizens. 

The BJP stand in UP has been that any attention to the Dalits is a threat to Hinduism. Thus, caste domination is asserted in veiled language. Unfairness is condoned in the name of social harmony, Hindu interests, cultural solidarity. Caste-based unfairness gets lost under the carpet of ‘Hindu renaissance’. Effectively, the impoverished masses remain in political powerlessness. Hindutva’s ‘hegemonic cultural politics’ leave little hope for the downtrodden. The glory of the nation is not the uplift of the poorer sections as it happened in China, but projects like Bullet Trains and Central Vista. Jawahar Sircar calls  the latter a “project of hubris”. 

A Minority-less Nation?
During the current elections in Uttarakhand, all parties are wearing religion on their sleeves to weaken the BJP monopoly. But is it a Dharma-promoting religion or violence-promoting religion?  Mukul Kesavan asks, was the attempt on the life of Asaduddin Owaisi because of the provocative things he had said or what the Dharma Sansad said at Haridwar calling for genocide. The Prime Minister’s silence in such contexts contributes to national mind-formation. Is the call of the Sadhus at Haridwar a part of the national policy? Is the programme for the next five years to create a Muslim-mukt nation? A minority-mukt India? 

Everyone is shocked when a Hindu teacher in Pakistan gets 25 years in prison for blasphemy; but when a Dalit dies in UP at the hands a cow-protection force, no one seems disturbed. The Hijab would never become an issue like in France if we had preserved our respect for diverse identities and their respective sensitivities at a given time. When identities are threatened or denied, people cling to symbols of their identities with passion. Any anthropologist can vouch that this is bound to happen.

Ideological Fidelity, Ethical Convictions
When core human values are rejected, people cling to empty forms of pieties with neither moral content nor religious depth. Prophets of every religion held moral uprightness, fairness and justice far above temples, holy places and shallow observances. The sweep of money-and-power during the BJP rule has killed “ideological fidelity” in every Party. This form of ideological erosion has led to the enfeebling of ethical convictions in the Indian political scenario, where principles do not count any more, values collapse, show-and-display mounts, and opportunity decides. All convictions have yielded to opportunism, all principles to profit. Not a tear shed!

All Parties that ruled India since Independence may need to ask themselves how far they had diverted from the core Indian values of “sincerity in service” and “respect for diversity” when and where they were in power. Truth will tell. A return to such values will ensure our future. Rahul Gandhi said on the anniversary of Gandhiji’s death, “Wherever there is truth, Mahatma Gandhi is still alive”. Rahul too may need to examine how far his party diverted from the great idealism and noble ethos of its earlier days, and whether there is too much of shirking of responsibility and decision-making in the present day. More inspiring figures have to emerge. People gather in strength when they see great ideals lived out, not merely proclaimed.

Gandhiji must come alive to strike the conscience of every Party. Tagore must come alive and demand the removal of all “narrow domestic walls” (Gitanjali). The Vedas should be brought to daily life with its message “Let noble thoughts come to us from every side” (Rigveda I-89-i). Then we will prosper like never before.