New Delhi: If Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not made it amply clear in Banswara a few days ago that religious polarisation is his primary electoral strategy as he seeks a third consecutive term in office, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday hammered the messaging down officially. In an animated video posted on its official Instagram handle, the BJP pushed Modi’s central assertions that the Congress, if elected, would distribute Hindu wealth and property to Muslims – whom it describes as the opposition party’s “favourite community”.
Gone are the thinly-veiled euphemisms Modi used in his speech – ‘infiltrators’ and those “having more children”. The party’s video directly names and targets Muslim Indians – against the backdrop of lurid, Amar Chitra Katha-style art. Rahul Gandhi is shown holding the Congress manifesto whose cover morphs into a Muslim League flag.
As shocking as it may appear to be in the world’s largest democracy, it has become something of a habit over the past 10 years for the BJP to turn India’s elections into an exercise in perpetuating hate against Muslims.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Every time, opposition parties have attempted in the Modi years to raise concerns like rising inequality, livelihood worries, poor public education and health infrastructure, and other issues around economic and social justice, the BJP and its leaders have made it a point to pull the political discourse back to the manufactured Hindu-Muslim binary.
Take a look at the tone of the BJP’s polarising video. It says, “If the Congress Party comes to power, it will snatch all the money and wealth of non-Muslims and distribute it to Muslims. Their favourite community!”
It goes on to repeat the same untruth Modi first uttered on the campaign trail – that former Congress prime minister Manmohan Singh had said Muslims have the first claim on resources. In fact Singh, in a 2006 speech, had identified Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs and Muslims as marginalised groups which should get preferential treatment by way of affirmative action. Another video from 2009 that the BJP has begun gleefully circulating has Manmohan standing by his assertion of the minorities, “if poor”, having a “prior claim”.
The BJP’s video then repeats the falsehood that the Hindu Right has been propagating ever since it has existed:
“Ancient India was really beautiful. We were so rich and prosperous that each and every average citizen had plenty of gold. Plenty of wealth. Plenty of riches. And it was precisely because of our prosperity that invaders, terrorists, robbers and thieves used to come again and again, used to loot all our treasures. They used to redistribute the loot among themselves. And on top of that they used to ruin our temples. And the Congress Party has been empowering people who belong to the very same community.”
Leaving aside the gratuitous and false claim that Muslim Indians today are responsible – as a ‘community’ – for the destruction of temples, the BJP’s simplistic story line has been dismissed multiple times by reputed historians as lacking any veracity. Historians have said that Indian history is full of complex politics and power struggles that can’t simply be reduced to ‘Hindu-Muslim rivalry’. However, the prevailing political climate in India has given more and more power to the communal understanding of history. In power at the Centre and in many states, the BJP has made it a point to colour school and college textbooks on Indian history with a narrow understanding of the discipline in its attempt to project a ‘glorious past’ that was ruined by “Muslims”.
The BJP’s video perpetuates the same myth about Indian history in order to buttress allegations Modi has made about the Congress confiscating the mangalsutras and gold of “our sisters and mothers” and distributing it to Muslims or opposition leaders behaving like the Mughals “who found perverse joy in demolition of temples and defiling places of worship”.
“If you are a non-Muslim, Congress will snatch your wealth and distribute it to Muslims. Narendra Modi knows of this evil plan! Only he has the strength to stop it. If you really care about the Bharatiya Civilisation, you need to go out and vote for Modi! ‘Ab ki baar 400 paar’ is the absolute need of the hour.”
The BJP’s communal overdrive has surprised observers, given the fact that only a month ago the prime minister appeared to be banking on what he said were his achievements over the past 10 years and his self-proclaimed ‘commitment’ to turn India into a developed nation by 2047.
The opposition’s consistent campaign on issues of social justice seems to have pushed the BJP back into its original avatar. The Congress has been demanding a pan-India caste census that will help the government reframe its affirmative action policy in a way that resources could be distributed evenly among underrepresented groups among the marginalised communities. The fact that some BJP leaders have openly spoken about how a two-third majority for the BJP in the Lok Sabha could help the party ‘rewrite the Constitution’ also seems to have sent a negative message to communities who have been guaranteed reservation in jobs and educational institutions by the Constitution.
The BJP’s latest communal offensive against Muslims appears to be a tactic to offset any possible electoral losses because of the opposition’s campaign around such social justice issues.
When the demand for a caste census was first made by the Opposition last year, it had left the Modi government stunned. Party leaders felt they could neither support nor oppose the idea.
The BJP relies entirely on consolidating different Hindu caste groups under the Hindutva umbrella for electoral success. It has been decidedly anti-Muslim in its political rhetoric and has also denied Muslims any political representation under its banner. In power, the saffron party has shown that polarisation, both along the lines of religion and caste, has been its only game. While it has depended on pitting Hindus against Muslims, it has also stoked animosity between politically-dominant backward groups against other marginalised but somewhat underrepresented communities among the Hindus.
With the opposition picking up the cause of social justice, which has historically opened up room for backward class assertion, the BJP may have perceived a looming threat to its politically-effective strategy of consolidating Hindus.
In damage control mode, the saffron party clearly believes its anti-Muslim legacy could yet again prove to be an ace diversionary tactic – except that such divisive rhetoric targeting Muslims doesn’t stop at the level of speeches. It empowers Hindu Right militancy on the ground and leaves a large section of Indian minorities feeling threatened and anxious. There is ample evidence that anti-Muslim violence has been on an upswing in India over the past decade. Communal prejudices against Muslims have reached a new high, threatening social cohesion and the unique ability of Indians from diverse backgrounds to coexist.
For the BJP to release such a blatantly communal video when the Election Commission (EC) has served notice on the party president for the polarising language used by its ‘star campaigner’ (Modi) at Banswara suggests it is in no mood to forsake the benefits an anti-Muslim campaign will bring. The video also means the BJP is confident that the EC will turn a blind eye to any complaints that come its way.
