From his point of view, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s admonishment to his motormouth party colleagues to be careful about what they say makes perfect sense. Each time a preposterous statement is made, it embarrasses the party and the prime minister himself. What’s more, as Modi pointed out, it gives ‘masala’ to the media and we all know that there is nothing the media loves more than its daily dose of masala.
He also warned his colleagues not to rush to give a statement every time they see a TV camera as if they are “some social scientists or scholars who can analyse every problem”. Such indiscretions harm the party, he told them via the Narendra Modi app.
He has a point. Here’s some of that spicy material that the BJP’s stalwart intellectuals have given us over the last three or four years:
Giriraj Singh: “If Rajiv Gandhi had married a Nigerian lady and she had not been fair skinned, would the Congress have accepted her leadership?
Tarun Vijay: “If we were racist, why would we have the entire South India, you know Tamil Nadu, you know Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, who do we live with them? We have black people all around us.”
Satyapal Singh: “Darwin’s theory is wrong because no one saw apes turning into man.”
Biplab Deb: “In the Mahabharata, Sanjay narrated to Dhristrashtra, who was blind, about what was happening in the battlefield due to the Internet and technology.”
There’s much more of course – in October, 2014, basking in the afterglow of his victory, Modi had told a gathering of doctors and scientists that India had mastered genetic science at the time of the Mahabharata and that the fact that Ganesha has an elephant head is sufficient proof there were plastic surgeons during that time.
Outrageous statements, no doubt, that gave the media a lot of spicy stuff to print in their publications and mock the speakers (though there wasn’t so much mocking at Modi, as I recall.) The party appears to be a bunch of antediluvian people who harbour not just outdated, but also racist and misogynist ideas. What is even scarier is that they apparently are convinced of it – surely neither Modi nor Satyapal Singh were being ironical or funny; these are notions that are part of their DNA. This was part of their education while growing up in their Sangh environment. Biplab Deb is not playing to the gallery when he declares that the Internet was around during the time of the Mahabharata – he fervently believes in it, because it was dinned into his head from an early age.
The greatness of India – Bharatvarsh – in distant times is an integral part of Sanghi lore. This glorious land, populated by fair-skinned Aryans, in which all parts of society – the various castes, the lower orders, women – knew their place; a golden age that was destroyed by the advent of foreign invaders, who were mainly Muslims and Christians who came to loot and spread their ‘unIndian’ ideas. India, during that glittering epoch, knew all there is to know about science and technology but that knowledge was destroyed. It should be the effort of the true believers to bring back that greatness. Every true Sanghi is taught this ‘history’, each one of them grows up believing it with all his heart.
Seen in this light, the Sanghi-tutored BJP leader is not committing a gaffe when he makes these statements. A Giriraj Singh or Tarun Vijay don’t think they are being racist, and Satyapal Singh may well be taken aback if told that he is patently wrong.
But these statements are foolish and frivolous at worst-they can be debunked easily and they elicit ridicule. The world moves on after having had a good laugh at Biplab Deb; of course it is a conern that he, as the chief minister of Tripura, will try and insert his weird ideas into the school books, but there are ways to resist that. Besides, he could, at some stage, be voted out.
It is the more sinister ideas coming from the parivaar that should worry us, because they reveal bigotry and. And there is no dearth of those either. Some examples:
MLA Sangeet Som: “Mohammed Aklhaq’s family should be arrested” (This, after Akhlaq was lynched by a mob for allegedly keeping beef at home.)
Yogi Adityanath: “If they kill one Hindu we will kill 100” (and many more such examples)
MLA Vikram Saini: “Our country is called Hindustan, which means a country for Hindus. Earlier, the system was, the longer the beard the bigger the cheque.”
Narendra Modi figures in this category too. During his days as the chief minister of Gujarat, he had labelled Muslim refugee camps as baby making factories. During the Uttar Pradesh election campaign last year, he talked about how a shamshan (crematorium) should be built every time a kabristan (burial ground) is set up.
None of the above named party worthies have been pulled up by the party bosses for their hate-mongering. If anything, they have moved on to higher things. Adityanath is now the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and Modi is the prime minister. No doubt others too will get promoted at some stage, or get a pat on the back for their forthrightness.
Telling off partymen (and women) to cease and desist, therefore is a sham exercise, unless it is accompanied by a threat of punishment. Only when the leadership itself shows restraint, and only when there is a penalty rather than a prize for such behaviour, will these party members stop shooting their mouths off. If anything, theirs is more often than not a command performance, done on the orders of higher ups, to either muddy the waters, create a diversion or play the dog whistle loudly for their cadre. The rank and file look for cues from their leaders; they then know what to do next. And the leaders are not going to stop simply because Narendra Modi tells them to.
And often, a well-timed comment, quite obviously absurd and idiotic, draws attention away from some other serious matter. Journalists faithfully abandon the more important subject and, with their tongues wagging, chase the brightly coloured ball.
It picks up these statements, tosses them around for a while, expresses faux outrage and then moves on. There is little attempt to understand the processes or motivations involved and rarely any call for accountability. Can we forget the fawning over Yogi Adityanath when he took over as CM or how journalists rushed to take selfies with Modi when they met him?
Statements that most sensible people may find egregious serve a purpose- they keep the party corps enthused, distract from the key issues at hand, gets the ideological point of view across and most important, keep the press busy. They also serve who only stand and put their foot in their mouth. Their boss should honour, not criticise them.
