Just two days after Rahul Gandhi met a group of Muslims intellectual – writers, academics and activists – Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman called a press conference to denounce him for having said, as she put it, that the Congress was a Muslim party. This, she declared, was an attempt to divide the country on communal lines. The “Congress party shall be solely responsible if any disharmony plays out between now and the 2019 elections.” The irony positively sizzles here, but let that go for the moment.
Sitharaman based her remarks on a report in the Delhi edition of the Urdu paper Inquilab or, rather, on the headline: ‘Yes, the Congress is a party of Muslims’. This was enough to send her into an apoplectic fit, and with all the indignation at her disposal, she attacked the Congress. One may ask why, as defence minister, she is not spending her time on the many critical issues facing her ministry and the armed forces in particular and instead, expending her energy on party political matters. But one has to do what the bosses order (not that she would have had much objection).
Sitharaman is unique in her party in that she studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University, where she clearly remained untainted by the Left and progressive spirit of the institution. Presumably she thought of them, even then, as anti-nationals. In the run up to the 2014 elections, when the party was gearing up its media game, she was among those chosen to bat for it on television channels and came across as being somewhat less illiberal than her fellow spokespersons, not given to shouting or using intemperate language. Even now, she remains calm, though at this particular press conference, she was bristling with anger at the Congress president’s apparent perfidy.
And what may that be? That the Congress was on the side of the ‘Mussslims’. This is the message the BJP wants to send out to its own cadre and to the country at large – the Nehru-Gandhis are only interested in the welfare of the Muslims to the detriment of the 80% or so Hindus in the country. As we also know, Muslims are unpatriotic, villainous and prone to breeding rapidly. Pampering them would only mean harbouring traitors in our midst. Thus, the Congress is a party of traitors. Any sensible person will spot the flaws in this perverse argument, but then sensible persons may not think like sanghis, for whom this is an irrefutable truth. There are still many sanghis who will happily tell you that the Nehrus are actually Muslims and have now compounded their original sin by bringing a Catholic into the family.
Prime minister joins in
Sitharaman’s rant was followed by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who thundered that the Congress was a party only for Muslim men, since it was not supportive of the BJP’s plan to do away with triple talaq. Other, lesser party men such as Sambit Patra and minister Prakash Javadekar have followed, the latter calling the Congress ‘communal’. Clearly, the publicity unit of the party has deemed this to be the issue of the day and laid down guidelines on how to go about it. Expect to hear more on the theme in the days to come.
Of course, this campaign is based on a lie. Several of those present at the meeting with Rahul Gandhi have patently refuted the BJP’s claim that he said anything of the sort. Fake news busters have documented the sequence of events which also shows that no such statement was made. Clearly, this is a product of the party’s fervid imagination and its willingness to grab any chance to advance its communal agenda and, with one stroke, hit out at the Congress as well as the ‘real enemy’ – the Muslims.
But why would someone as senior as the defence minister air something without verifying it? That too in a manner that demonises an entire community? And now that the lie has been caught, shouldn’t the party be a bit more careful about spreading it?
Nirmala Sitharaman. Credit: PTI/Files
These perfectly valid questions do not count for much when one considers the BJP’s intent in raising the issue. It is not only about going after the Congress, but also keeping the rank and file pepped up. This is a form of Bhakt-whistling, which immediately alerts the devotees to what is on the minds of the leadership. At the same time, it reassures them that the party remains true to its ideals. This is comfort food for the BJP’s hardcore followers, which they need from time to time or else get restless. It doesn’t matter whether what is being said is true or not, fake news or real, verifiable or disproved. If the leaders have said it, it is the truth.
Filling in the blanks
The hardcore bhakts hear only the words they wants to hear: “Congress, Rahul Gandhi, Muslim”; and steeped in their years of indoctrination, they fill in the blanks themselves: “treachery, enemy, Pakistani”. Sitharaman has to just say ‘janeu-dhari’, ‘Muslim-dhari’ for them to get the subtext. It conveys to them that the party and its leaders have not suddenly changed tack. In ideology-led parties, deviating from the script can be dangerous, as L.K. Advani found out when he praised Jinnah as secular. What if Narendra Modi suddenly spoke out in favour of secularism (not that there is any danger of that)? There would be disappointment, dismay and disgust. Indeed, he is loved and admired because he never loses an opportunity to hit out at the Congress or send out coded but easy-to-read communal messages about Muslims (kabristan-shamshan ghat, Mughal mindset, baby producing factories, the list is endless).
The more pertinent question is whether this will have traction beyond the faithful. The BJP won the last elections with roughly 31% of the votes cast. Even its most ardent supporters will admit that some of the state level performances of 2014 – such as in UP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra – are almost impossible to repeat. The anticipated losses there have to be compensated from other places. Moreover, if, as is widely assumed, the BJP’s core vote is around 22%, there is no guarantee that those extra 9% of voters will come back to support it. The last time round it was the challenger – Narendra Modi’s constant harping on development, growth, jobs, the economy and ‘achhe din‘ – that seduced large numbers of people who were fed up with the UPA and were ready for a change. Even though many were aware of the Gujarat social model, they weren’t that invested in the welfare of the minorities to worry about what happened in 2002. They may have secretly even approved of it. All they wanted was a messiah to lead the country to the status of an economic superpower and Modi was the man of the moment.
Today, the situation is different. The NDA government has failed on many counts. It has angered several constituencies – farmers, students, Dalits, Muslims and the large number of perfectly sensible, secular and peace-loving Indians who are simply appalled at the demons that have been let loose. They don’t want to be told what to eat, what to think, who to love and have sex with; they want their children to get a good job and their daughters to be safe; they worry about being lynched because a bunch of goons acts on a rumour. And they see that the present dispensation lectures them all the time on morality and has no real answers to generate jobs, and favours the rich. Will these voters, even assuming they were well disposed towards the BJP and Narendra Modi the last time, vote for it in 2019? Or do Modi and Co think this kind of blatantly communal messaging will win the party new supporters? Whatever it is, the plan now seems to be to raise the communal temperature – it’s often called polarisation, but that is not adequate to define the hatred-filled campaigning that we are in for in the coming months. In 2014, Modi put on his vikas mukhota – or mask – that has been thrown away long since. Now, it’s back to the basics.
