national politics
All is Fair in Politics
Suicide by the ex-armyman has crashed all hopes of the BJP ’ s nationalist card post surgical strikes while the hopeless opposition has stooped down to its nadir to cash-in on
By DANFES
Gangadhar Dolui ’ s father Onkarnath had to borrow `10,000 from neighbours to perform the last rites of his son , an army jawan who was killed during the Uri terror attacks . A proud father , Onkarnath rejected the `2 lakh recompense promised by the Mamata Banerjee government , the same amount which is paid as ex-gratia for hooch tragedy victims in West Bengal . Gangadhar died defending the border but not a single politician drove in or flew down to attend his funeral .
As the media and political parties go into a tizzy over the suicide of one Ram Kishan Grewal , there were no OB vans to live telecast the funeral of another Ram ( Shankar Yadav ), the head constable of Bhopal Central Jail whose throat was slit by SIMI operatives while they were attempting a jailbreak . The 58-yearold Yadav was scrambling money for his daughter ’ s wedding .
Ex-serviceman Grewal would never know that a battery of OB vans and an army of reporters have descended on Bhiwani , his hometown , to ‘ live ’ broadcast the proceedings and a clutch of politicians — from Derek O ’ Brien , Arvind Kejriwal to Rahul Gandhi — have rushed to the Haryana hamlet to perform the last rites of Indian democracy .
It may raise disgust but shouldn ’ t invoke surprise because the compulsion that forces politicians to differentiate between the deaths of Jawans is politics . And politics is a game of perception . When Subedar Grewal consumed poison leaving behind a suicide note that disgruntlement over OROP has forced him to take the extreme step , he may have unwittingly also sounded the death knell for BJP ’ s nationalist politics . If BJP is perceptive enough
it would have already realized that it ’ s positioning as a party running a ‘ nationalist government ’, riding a wave of popular patriotism fuelled by the exploits of Indian Army , is over . It may kiss the plank goodbye .
One of the biggest problems BJP has had while seeking to present itself as a pan-Indian alternative to the Indian National Congress is its ideological confusion . It never possessed an ideological knife to cut through the heterogeneity and regional complexities of this vast nation . Unlike the Congress , which had a legacy to bank upon and later came to position itself as one big tent and had something for everyone , the BJP repeatedly found its national ambitions stonewalled beyond the Hindi belt by the limitations of its platform , a curious amalgam of cultural unity and socialism .
The limitations of the Hindutva platform and the fate of Atal Bihari Vajpayee , who was voted out despite implementing reforms and ensuring robust economic growth would have taught Narendra Modi a valuable lesson — economic growth and development is a chimera in India .
Selling dreams of acche din may catapult one to power but it is hardly enough to ensure an encore . Modi successfully tapped into the anger of a young populace frustrated by the corruption and dole-based politics of the UPA regime but he was smart enough to understand the transient nature of electoral success . He quickly figured out that BJP ’ s 2014 electoral mandate needed an ideological foundation to be translated into a substantive , tangible benefit that may enable BJP to break through the regional and cultural barriers . Or else the party will be buried under the very expectations that it raised during the 2014 campaign .
But when it came to an ideological foundation , what were the options ? The BJP and the RSS tried their hands at appropriating
22
The Dayafter November 16-30 , 2016