The political elite class Congress and Left combine is unable to digest the rise of nationalist forces. It is losing its peace and balance as it is finding itself cornered in the political space – to witness what it had never dreamt of.
These days BJP is experiencing what Dalits generally feel when they taste success. BJP symbolises the forces that were till recently discarded as ‘untouchables’ by the mainstream politicians. To the discomfort of these mainstream forces, they have now been able to position themselves at the fulcrum of the Bharateeya politics from where they are about to dictate a new paradigm. The political elite class (Congress and Left combine) is unable to digest the rise of nationalist forces. It is losing its peace and balance as they find themselves cornered in the political space – to witness what they had never dreamt of.
A socio-political mindset that was created and constructed by these political elite class and was used to enjoying power since the British rule, is now being seriously challenged by the hitherto ‘marginalised’ BJP. Those who are suffering from the ‘ill-belief’ that only British or British-like mindset (read Congress) can govern Bharat – are losing their sleeps. Those who were used to getting favours from the government in return to their full time effort in maintaining this mind set (read as Left) have suddenly started losing their grounds. These forces have invested their life in trying to make us believe that we can be properly governed only through some ‘imported ideology’. Drawing parallel with the upper caste mentality, they wanted us to believe that ‘nationalist forces’ are not good enough to govern. They are convinced that, left on our own indigenous thoughts, we will fight to finish ourselves. They think that ‘nationalists’ need to be taught lessons on the idea of ‘secularism’, ‘socialism’, ‘equal opportunity’ and ‘development’ as they have least regard for these instruments that are absolutely necessary to claim any progress in the modern world. For this, they want us to feel ashamed of our past, to disown our existence and to feel dependent on borrowed constructs and imported ideology to think of making any meaningful progress.
Just as the elite class, they have carefully calibrated a socio-political order where those who were ready to disown their roots/existence and were ashamed of their past were categorised as acceptable and worthy for taking control of the government whereas those who drew inspiration from the past or from indigenous thoughts were termed as lumpens and goons required to be brainwashed before giving any responsibility. This elite class construct in our political setup believed that their empire would grow with time and would never be in danger. Their unthinkable and unimaginable fears have come true with the Modi Government storming at the centre. And what is making them restless is that this government is also showing genuine promise of making Bharat a progressive and economically developed country.Modi refused to read out the line of apology that was almost being forced by Karan Thapar just to make Modi admit his guilt; Modi refused to enact the skull-cap ‘secular’ drama, he insisted with everyone to realise the sincerity of his comment regarding puppy killing instead of retracting on the same; he started taking pride in several personalities other than Nehru and Gandhi; he started exhibiting his pride in our ancient culture, beliefs and texts – and therefore as per the judgment of the existing upper caste political construct Modi was not fit to occupy the chair.
But to snatch them of their livelihoods Modi arrived at
the centre.
With their dooming future looming large, just to prove their conjectures right, these forces are prepared to do everything to prove that this government is undesirable. To save themselves from becoming extinct, they are bent upon blowing up events after events entirely out of proportions to somehow project that Bharat is now destined to doom, that the liberal space of this country has shrunk all of a sudden and that this country has suddenly turned into a country of cannibals and conservative intolerant. A careful and academic exercise would be enough to show statistics that though the hate incidences need to be curbed immediately and effectively but contrary to the seculars’ projection, it is not steadily increasing.
Rakesh Pandey (The writer is Associate Professor, Kirori Mal College, Delhi University)
