The Bharatiya Janata Party has a strong electoral machine, well backed by its parent organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The core module of RSS-BJP is based on demonisation of Muslims through distortions of history in particular and glorification of the past. When it comes to elections, RSS fronts have resorted to various themes from time to time. The first major theme was destruction of Hindu temples by Muslim kings, which was the hidden message of the Ram temple campaign.
In due course, security (Pakistan as the enemy) was also brought in.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Prior to the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992, they used to talk of the need for the ‘Indianisation of Muslims’ among other anti-Muslim themes.
In 2014, the BJP used the promise of ‘acche din (good days)’ to take advantage of the anti-incumbency mood. Modi made promises (later described as mere ‘jumlas’ or slogans by Amit Shah) like women’s security, Rs 15 lakhs per person, two crore jobs every year. In 2019, national security, via Pulwama-Balakot, became the major propaganda theme for winning the elections.
All through, anti-Muslim rhetoric has remained as an undercurrent.
This time, the euphoria around the Ram temple was anticipated to be the major fulcrum of its propaganda. The Gyanvapi issue has also been raked up but with marginal effect. Its seems now that there is some sort of ‘fatigue’ around this issue. Moreover, given the parlous socio-economic conditions of many voters, the temple theme alone is not being seen by the BJP brass as the vote catcher they had hoped it would be. This is why the party has fallen back on its time tested tactic: anti-Muslim propaganda. Modi himself set the tone for this, linking the BJP’s communal agenda to the Congress manifesto by deliberately misrepresenting and even fabricating the party’s social justice proposals.
So far, justice for weaker sections of society has been the RSS’s Achilles’ heel. To dilute caste based reservations, the Modi government even brought in reservations for economically backward ‘upper’ castes. Faced with the great appeal of Rahul Gandhi’s emphasis on reservation and affirmative action, the BJP realised it had to counter the Congress without sounding inherently opposed to quotas.
This is why Modi has chosen to make the spurious claim that the Congress wants to grant reservation to Muslims, and that it will do so by cutting into quotas meant for the backward classes and SCs/STs.
Modi has also brought in the P factor by stating that Pakistan wants a weak government in India. Modi’s claim is that Pakistan is scared of a Balakot type reaction so they want Rahul Gandhi as PM.
To bring in the Mughals, Modi used a tweet from Tejaswi Yadav, when he was having fish a day before Navratra (the Hindu sacred period, when some Hindus do not consume non-vegetarian food). Modi claimed that Yadav was eating ‘mutton’ to insult the feelings of Hindus – “the way Mughal kings used to humiliate Hindus by destroying their temples”. By connecting the opposition leader’s innocuous act with the Mughals and then on to Muslims today, Modi demonstrated his skill in stretching any simple and harmless thing into a tool to demonize Muslims.
The Congress manifesto’s emphasis on a caste census by giving the analogy of an x-ray was picked up by Modi and linked with his anti-Muslim narrative. Connecting the two, he has spread the falsehood that the Congress wants to use an x-ray machine (quite literally!) to find gold, money etc. and give it to those who have more children or who are ‘infiltrators’ (meaning Muslims as usual in their fake narrative). And to frighten Hindus, and Hindu women in particular, he has claimed that the Congress “won’t even leave your mangalsutras” (sacred necklace worn by married Hindu women).
Modi’s belief that he can get such a blatant lie to be believed by a large number of people comes from the fact that the BJP has a formidable IT cell to amplify this claim, and also the full support of corporate controlled TV channels.
Ram Puniyani is president of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.