Intellectuals like Shekhar Gupta moved back into the shell of neutral intellectualism after the famous press meet where he sat with another so-called independent intellectual, Yogendra Yadav, who walked in much-acclaimed Bharat Jodo Yatra of Rahul Gandhi and publicly expressed their desire to hold by their collars the voters who voted for Narendra Modi in the 2019 elections. These state elections, which predicted a complete rout of the BJP, as per the political pundits whose idea of getting the pulse of people is to have breakfast in famous city joints, made them float on the frothy foams of false euphoria before the elections and ended with a painful thud and public humiliation post the polls.
As results began to pour in, their agony touched the heights of lunacy as lament turned into anger, and anger turned into a bitter sense of rejection. Then started coming a slew of articles trying less to look into explore their own alienation from the masses, and the message that the elections gave, rather more focused on giving a message to the Congress, with assessment about where the Congress went wrong and what they should do to revive the Party, which is a cottage industry in which the society of left loonies live now. They look at the world with their biased eyes and hope that the world would be watching at it in the same way.
Some, at that time, tried to compare the Yatra with Mahatma Gandhi’s travel through India after he returned from South Africa. They forget the glaring difference between Gandhi’s travel in Third-class train across Bharat and Rahul Gandhi’s luxurious travel across India in a train of Air-Conditioned Containers, funded by unknown sources. Some could claim that the expensive travel was funded by the internal sources of the Congress party, but then that is again questionable as to why would a political party fund the idiosyncratic travel of the son of erstwhile president of the party and now merely an MP from Wayanad when it keeps crying about lack of funds and finances. What these impartial advisers did not notice was widely visible to the common people.
Unlike Gandhi’s spartan travel across India, looking at the curious eyes of a young leader or political activist who had just arrived from South Africa, trying to understand India, Rahul’s Bharat Jodo was an ugly display of Party’s ill-gotten wealth, aiming to make a dynastic politician understand the ground realities of India, after he had spent two decades at the helm of his political party, and weighed down on the party right to the depth of despair. When the Mahatma travelled across India, Gokhale, his political mentor told him to keep his mouth shut and observe. When Rahul Gandhi travelled, his advisors, Jairam Ramesh and team advised him to be shrill and shout from day one. So he started the travel with a Christian Priest who has been in public badmouthing India and her spirit, then walked with the Youth Congress leader who butchered a calf to oppose beef ban (a dream of Mahatma Gandhi, a constitutional directive and implemented across the states of India by Rahul’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi).
It was a disaster from the word go, but a new industry had been formed around Rahul Gandhi who understood politics as little as Rahul Gandhi himself, and they wanted the stupidity to be sustained. And it did. Post -yatra Congress faced massive defeat in Gujarat, which was facing anti-incumbency. It won Haryana, where the Yatra did not go and Karnataka where it did go, riding on shrill and fanatical Islamist wave, supported by now-banned Islamist organisation PFI. People with staunch anti-Hindu ideas like the son of Neo-Buddhist chief of Congress, Priyank Kharge were given important ministerial berth. Much like a non-graduate leads Health Ministry in Bihar, a Non-Graduate was made IT minister in the state which competes with other states on technology and cosmopolitan outlook. The 6-month-long yatra had traversed for 16 days in Rajasthan and 12 days in Madhya Pradesh.
Coming to the current election, MP was kind of repeat of Gujarat. The Shivraj Singh government, many reported, was facing strong anti-incumbency. In a 230-seat assembly, the BJP safely sailed home with 163 seats, increasing its tally by 54 seats. Pratap Bhanu Mehta in his piece in Indian Express (IE, December 7, 2023) blamed this defeat off poor communication strategy of the Congress. He is right to an extent, but when he writes – an abstract critique of Adani (in a state like Rajasthan, which is receiving a Rs 5,000 Crore Adani investment) was beside the point. He fails to accept, perhaps blinded by his own ideology, that the problem is not with the communication as much as there was a problem with the content.
The world is getting tired of communism. It is not that the world is growing selfish and does not want the poor to be taken care of, but it seems that suddenly the world has grown adult in its ideas and ideology. We no longer live in a world plagued by much-acclaimed class-conflict theory of Communism. We have outgrown rhetoric, and in a post-pandemic world, we have understood that IT is not an elite concept when zero-touch transactions based on UPI and Direct Benefit Transfer came to the rescue of the poor and downtrodden. The world do not hate the rich any longer, that is one point. Further, during the crises the world has seen the rich comfort of privilege enjoyed by those who keep harping about underprivileged in all its ugliness.
Those who came to their rescue with oxygen supplies, medicines, hospitals were Adani and Ambani, much maligned by the Congress. People now admire them, love them and wants to be like them. Congress communication is based on the communist hatred for successful entrepreneurs. The world has lost patience with them. We have an aspirational generation which celebrates success. They have understood that there is no nobility in poverty, death and hunger when those who tell them to hate capitalism have been seen chaperoning men like Union Carbide chief Anderson in alleged quid pro quo with the US government to get a friend of Rajiv Gandhi released from the charges of terrorism in the US, after the horrendous Bhopal Gas Tragedy in which around 20000 people died in the capital of Madhya Pradesh died in 1984 under the Congress rule.
A Netflix series on the accident illustrates how after decades, the wraps over the wounds are being removed, so that they may heal with the touch of fresh air. Attempts were made to entangle BJP in the same much like attempts were made in cases of Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallaya where crime happened under Congress rule and the resolution was done under Modi regime. The problem with Congress is lack of constructive alternative. Sometimes the alternative need not be opposite, it could have also been creation of ten new Adani and Ambani to write the success story of Indian economy, taking credit of creating Adani by giving their first port license of Mundra. It was this Congress-granted foundation on which the business behemoth now stands. Instead of disowning it, Congress could have hailed it and taken the credit of it.
In MP, per capita income almost doubled from Rs 38,437 in 2010 to Rs 65023 in 2023 (Source MP Planning Commission report). The State Budget unde the last Congress Government was Rs. 16,392 Crore Rupees and it increased manifolds by 2023 to Rs. 2,47,715 Crores. The Congress proposition for eradication of poverty is dole based and even more law based. The license raj belief is that by making acts, society will be transformed without creating the means of transformation. This is the idea that makes any promise Congress makes to the electorate unbelivable. Indian welfarism under Modi Government has been that of prudent distribution of state support. For instance, much is written comparing Modi’s free ration scheme for the poor with Arvind Kejriwal’s populist freebies politics.
But we need to understand how the complete cycle of MSP procurement and the free ration scheme now extended for another five years at the implication of Rs 12 Lakh Crores, fits in which overflowing state grain Storage of FCI and the corrupt sale of rotten foodgrain to liquor manufacturers which this free foodgrain circumvents. Even in MP, where naysayers mocked DBT schemes like Ladli Behna and Medhavi Chhatra, let us consider that Debt-to-GSDP Ration in MP has gone better from over 40% under Congress regime in early 2000 to less than 30% post-pandemic in 2023. The extension of credit to poor in Agricultural sector went up in from Rs. 6.935 Crores in 2005 (Congress rule ended in 2003) to Rs. 55, 531 Crores in 2022. The Communist refugees that Rahul Gandhi now shelters in his island of insanity within the party do not see that. When content is messed up, communication cannot help much.
Another point Mehta makes is about, Hindutva. He again superficially looks at the matter and says that the BJP has created a core amongst Hindus that is comfortable with the political marginalisation and even violence against the Muslims. Again, to my mind it is a lazy analysis which ignores the inherent benevolence and acceptance of Hinduism which made it accept the persecuted Jews and Persians centuries before Nehru came out with his tryst to destiny and Indira forcefully inserted the term ‘Secular’ in the Constitution of India, at the time when the nation was breathing heavy crushed under the heavy boots of Emergency and entire opposition was in the Prisons.
If Hindu votes have shifted to the BJP, it is because Hindus were marginalised and pushed to a corner and the violence by belligerent Muslim mobs on the grounds of invented insults were supported and justified by the Congress leadership. When riots are triggered at will by Islamists during Hindu festivals and state stands either in support of violence or incompetent to handle it, it is a little surprise when the BJP raises the point about heinous beheading of Kanhaiya Lal, Hindus en masse move to support the BJP, placing their trust and 42 more seats to it than the last time, taking its tally to 115 seats. Rajasthan became a text book case of infighting and administrative nightmare. The crimes rose high and morals fell low as reports of minor girls raped and burned down alive hogged the headlines.
The results of these elections not only paves way for the Modi government in 2024 National Elections, it also relieves pressure which was being forced on the Government by crazy promises of a desperate Congress like the promise to bring back Old Pension Scheme. The week-long enthusiastic salute by the stock markets is a testimony to that. Himachal which returned to OPS, has now Pension bills amounting to Rs. 7000 Crores, against Own Tax Revenues of Rs. 9282 Crores, a whopping 76.29%. Little wonder that the state struggles to pay salary to their current employees while using the earlier to pay the pensioners. It is interesting for the new voters to note that it was Congress Government whose PM Manmohan Singh once famously said that Money does not grow on trees which made the shift from OPS to the New Pension Scheme.
With the Congress message thoroughly rejected as BJP increased its vote percentage in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to 48.55 per cent, 41.69 per cent and 46.27 per cent respectively, the new challenge for the opposition is the cracks appearing in the incoherent INDIAlliance with only agenda being change of regime. There is no alternative vision offered by the Alliance, not even the projected leader. Even at the time of fractured Janata Party post-emergency, JP was an acknowledged leader although he was not a political contestant. Current coalition lacks unity of purpose, direction and most importantly in a political entity, ideology. Rahul Gandhi keeps doing temple runs and Southern partners keep attacking Sanatana.
Crazy calls to eradicate Hinduism also keep coming from SP leaders and RJD leaders in the North, mostly to please their captive vote. Congress leaders from south including the son of Congress Chief keep adding to the southern anti-Hindu noise of the INDIAlliance. Rahul Gandhi, desperate for being back in power, has been quietly fuelling these fractures instead of acting against it. He tried to divide the voters on Caste lines harping on OBC Caste surveys, casually chanting- Jiski jitni Sankhya Bhari, Uski Utni Hissedari (The more the number, the more the participation in power). The insidious Scheme failed in states, often famous for voting along caste lines. In Telengana, where Rahul Gandhi’s party won (Although BJP increased its tally from 1 seat last time to 7 this time), Congress had fielded 22 OBC out of 118 seats contested. The cabinet has three Reddy, two OBC and one Brahmin and no Muslim. Not that there is any reason for the same, but Rahul Gandhi in his quest for divisive politics said differently. This is sad that an uneasy and insecure leadership is pushing Congress on the very path that Dr. Ambedkar warned off during his speech in Constituent Assembly on 25th November 1949, where he said
‘This anxiety is deepened by the realization of the fact that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost for ever. This eventuality we must all resolutely guard against. We must be determined to defend our independence with the last drop of our blood.’
Let us remember Ambedkar and famous Congress leader and poet from Tamil Nadu, Subrahmanya Bharathi who said passionately- Ellaram ennattu Makkal – Everyone – all the people of India, are my countryfolk. And wrote in a poem
‘ The mighty Himalaya is ours
There is no equal any where on earth
The generous Ganga is ours
Which other river can match her grace?
The sacred Upanishads are ours
What scriptures else to name with them? T
his sunny golden land is ours She is peerless, let’s praise her!”
Our liberation will be in defeating Stalin and making Bharathi victorious. India needs an able opposition but the betrayers serching for balkanisation of Bharat are not the kind of opposition India deserves.
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