Praying for the longevity of the Prime Minister is a signal in code; crucial elections in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Manipur are due within the next five months. Organised and coordinated lighting of lamps is part of voter engagement, signifying the role of Modi as the guardian spirit who can repel the “Bharat Todo Gang,” a rather ugly euphemism for parties in Opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party
Willingly or reluctantly, light the lamps, the light of which dispels darkness to reveal the menace and the majesty of the helmsman. The pan-India coordinated celebration of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday ( hope he has a certificate that can be verified by the Election Commission’s army of functionaries), is the anti-thesis of the coordinated darkness called by Rabindranath Tagore on October 16, 1905, as a collective public rebuke to the plan to divide Bengal.
Praying for the longevity of the Prime Minister is a signal in code; crucial elections in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Manipur are due within the next five months. Organised and coordinated lighting of lamps is part of voter engagement, signifying the role of Modi as the guardian spirit who can repel the “Bharat Todo Gang,” a rather ugly euphemism for parties in Opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Such slogans — Nonstop UP, Yaad Rakhega UP — are spreading fast on social media, with new influencers and a new media cell of the party hard at work. The combination of a barrage of positive messages for the BJP and negative ones that demonise the Opposition — from the Samajwadi Party to the Congress and everyone else in-between in UP, and versions of this in other states — means the BJP is leaving no stone unturned and nothing chancy will be allowed to happen, to turn curated victory into unexpected defeat.
There are good reasons for the BJP to work harder on its victories in the election-bound states than ever before; the Cockroach Janta Party, which is not a political party at all, delivered a challenge to the political establishment, specifically the BJP and Mr Modi’s regime, by stripping off all the layers of obfuscation that hid the abysmal governance and its failures for all to see, nationally and globally. The young men and women and their older supporters, travelled to Jantar Mantar in July mostly from the Hindi heartland.
Unemployment, joblessness, depressed wages, exploitative contracts on the one hand, an education system that had been rigged by money and policy failure to cheat merit and hard work of access to opportunities, recruitment scams, quota scams and many more killer maladies have turned a section of Gen Z into spontaneously igniting in protest. The little explosions, across mostly North India, are also signals that the BJP and its helmsman have failed the 18 years to 29 years youth bulge or the demographic dividend.
That the little insurrections have not turned into a prarie fire of the fast moving, uncontrolled kind is no reason for the BJP to be sanguine that the immediate danger of a Gen Z eruption is over. Across the world, there is a growing awareness that the uncategorised Gen Z is politically active and needs special attention.
That being the case, it is inexplicable by the usual standards of rationality, of why the Modi regime has decided to inflict more pain on the pettiest of retailers and smallest of businesses by setting new rules for UPI transactions from October 15. It is also mystifying why the Modi regime has turned an already functioning system of subsidised LPG cylinders to certain categories of people into a race to renew credentials that qualify the recepient for the discount, including a large number of women beneficiaries, brought under Mr Modi’s flagship, albeit malfunctioning, Ujjwala Yojana.
Could it be because the Modi regime or the BJP’s think tanks and masterminds have rediscovered one of Utilitarian sage Jeremy Bentham’s principles that run along the “No pain-No gain” axis? The negative utilitarian argument, simplified, is that governments sometimes need to inflict pain, like demonetisation, or setting limits and adding taxes on UPI transactions, or renewal of KYCs but only electronically, and Special Intensive Revisions of electoral lists that question the status of New Delhi’s chief minister Rekha Gupta and ex-chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and about 15 crore other Indians. The reason for inflicting pain, or compelling voters to endure the chaos is justified by the outcomes, namely that a “much worse catastrophe” awaits “down the line”.
Viewed from the BJP’s perspective the “much worse” part of Bentham’s theory is obvious. The Opposition is the avoidable “catastrophe.” In the run-up to the election, in UP, the narrative is being developed of the Congress being “Muslim League 2.0”, an epithet that was lobbed against it by Mr Modi in February labelling it “Muslim League-Maoist Congress”. He explained the branding; “Just as the Muslim League hated India and was responsible for Partition, the Congress is acting in the same manner. Like the Maoists who have hatred for democracy, the Congress trespasses anywhere.”
The Congress is not the punching bag and unifying spectre it was in 2014. It has re-emerged as an alternative site for taking up issues that have riled the nation. From being the butt of BJP-Modi’s crude jibes — “Pappu”, “Shezada”, et al., Rahul Gandhi has acquired a tough man image; of a leader who stood courageously and firm against all attacks.
Targeting the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and other regional ruling parties including the Aam Aadmi Party as “against national interest” is not smart politics any more. Using props of pain to present the party as the better alternative, does not make the BJP a desired alternative; and the party knows it. There are little insurrections within the party, as the elections approach, with caste leaders and nomination aspirants jostling for space, in what could be their last chance at gaining power through elections.
Time is not on Mr Modi’s side. His cult status has faded. It now needs orchestrated lighting of diyas (clay lamps) to deliver the message of his benevolence and sagacity as a leader. Great as the risk of encouraging idolatory maybe, there is not much else the BJP can do, because, like every one of the tea cup readers, it did not see the rise and transformation of the Cockroach Janta Party.
Not even Rahul Gandhi, who is currently on a different Bharat Jodo Yatra (Unite India Rally) with his Chhatro Ki Goonj (Voice of Students), knows for certain how the four-point Gyan (Garib, Yuva, Annadata, Nari) intersection will decide. The X factor in the next round of elections will be discontented and aspirational Gen Z, women and the poor.
Credible opinion polls indicate that the majority of voters have already made up their minds on who is their choice as representative. But, the mind of India’s youth is not open for viewing. If it chooses it will keep the regime in power; if not, its choice is not clear as yet. All Hail Modi may work; then again, it may not, the diyas notwithstanding.
