The Indian Panorama

Tag: Sabka Vishwas

  • BJP on a roll, Opposition needs to regroup

    BJP on a roll, Opposition needs to regroup

    • The least resilient among the INDIA members are in danger of disappearing from the political scene

    “PM Modi’s most urgent task is to lift millions of his countrymen from the poverty in which they are mired. The affluent are certainly much better off since 2014. The stock market is booming. Those who have invested in stocks will become even richer if he is re-elected in 2024. The freebies now given away to the rural poor will eventually have to be stopped. The youth of those poor households, belonging mainly to the lower castes, must be equipped with skills to enable them to fend for themselves. Industrialists and entrepreneurs, who have prospered in the last 10 years, should be motivated to enter less-profitable segments of the economy so that jobs are created for our unemployed youth.”

    By Julio Ribeiro

    I write this piece as a member of a minority community — just 2 per cent of the country’s population. In a ‘first past the post’ system of electing people’s representatives, the BJP has swept the Assembly polls in the Hindi heartland. The Congress lost the tribal and women’s votes. The shift in votes from the Congress to the BJP catapulted the latter to power in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

    ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’ needs to be put into practice instead of being merely parroted every now and then.

    The difference in the overall vote share of the BJP and the Congress was roughly 2 percentage points in Rajasthan and 4 in Chhattisgarh. It was 8 percentage points in Madhya Pradesh, where the winner garnered 48 per cent of the votes as against 40 per cent by the Congress.

    It was a resounding victory for the BJP and Modi in particular. Not even his bitterest critic can say that he is not the most popular and charismatic of all political leaders in the country. It looks certain that he will be elected for a third term. The Hindi heartland is with him and that should tilt the scales in his favor. The South is not with him, but the West is his for the taking. What is in store for the country after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections? In the past decade, India has been divided on communal lines. The consolidation of the Hindu vote was what the Hindutva forces strived for. It succeeded to the extent of ensuring the BJP’s poll victories. Muslims and Christians together make up just 16 per cent of the population. The Sikhs account for less than 2 per cent.

    After the 2024 polls, the forward castes in the Hindu fold will be the chosen ones, like the Christian Brahmins and Kshatriyas were in Goa during the Portuguese rule. The BJP under Modi, influenced by the RSS, will placate the OBCs and the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, counting them within the 80 per cent whose pride in being Hindu has to be ‘created’.

    The Muslims were in the doghouse in Modi’s first two terms. Beef-related lynchings, ‘love jihad’ accusations and the fear generated by the CAA-related NRC had stifled their quest for equality as citizens of India. Now, I envisage that they and the Christians, who are next in line on the extremists’ hit list, will have to adjust to second-class citizenship like Hindus and Christians in Pakistan have done in that religion-influenced country.

    Delivering his victory speech at the BJP’s headquarters in Delhi, PM Modi mentioned ‘appeasement’, besides corruption and dynastic politics, as the evils that he has been fighting. I do not know what he means by ‘appeasement’. If he is referring to the Muslims, it is only the mullahs who were appeased by the Congress, and that too in religious matters. That is not the mandate of a democratically elected government. Muslims should be ‘appeased’ like all poor communities, such as the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, in terms of education and healthcare. Religious issues should be sorted out by the community itself or by the courts.

    Extremist elements in the Hindutva camp have consistently railed against the Muslim minority. There have even been calls to exterminate Muslims and boycott their traders selling vegetables and fruits in Hindu localities. Modi should rein in these extremists by ordering penal action against them as ordained by law. He hesitates to do that for fear of losing their support. They, in turn, misinterpret this silence as tacit approval.

    PM Modi’s most urgent task is to lift millions of his countrymen from the poverty in which they are mired. The affluent are certainly much better off since 2014. The stock market is booming. Those who have invested in stocks will become even richer if he is re-elected in 2024. The freebies now given away to the rural poor will eventually have to be stopped. The youth of those poor households, belonging mainly to the lower castes, must be equipped with skills to enable them to fend for themselves. Industrialists and entrepreneurs, who have prospered in the last 10 years, should be motivated to enter less-profitable segments of the economy so that jobs are created for our unemployed youth.

    The possible re-election of Modi and the BJP in 2024 will consolidate the right-wing economic trend in the country. All left-of-center parties, like the Congress, TMC and the AAP, should come together to form an effective Opposition. If they fail to do so, the least resilient among the INDIA members are in danger of disappearing from the political scene. Many leaders of those parties, such as Arvind Kejriwal, will find themselves targeted by the ED, the CBI and other Central agencies with ruthless precision just before the elections.

    Nearly a century ago, writer-philosopher Aldous Huxley, in his futuristic work Brave New World (1932), prophesied: “By means of ever more effective methods of mind manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms — elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest — will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial… Meanwhile, the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.” Does that ring a bell? An Opposition-mukt democracy is no democracy.

    PM Modi has often stated: “India is the mother of democracy.” If he really believes what he says, we, members of the minority in our own land, will be reassured if ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’ is put into actual operation instead of being merely parroted every now and then.
    (The author is a highly decorated Indian Police Service (IPS) Officer and a former governor)

  • A Unitary State: Modi & Shah Determined to Establish ‘One India’ under Tutelage of One Party

    A Unitary State: Modi & Shah Determined to Establish ‘One India’ under Tutelage of One Party

     The inroads made by the paramilitary and the Home Ministry into Opposition states in this new adversarial avatar only consolidates the ingress of the Centre into the law-and-order management in such states. It helps the unitary state to come into being. 

    “It was always the dream of the Hindu far-right to have one center of power. It was the role of the second parallel engine that would be installed in every state to follow instructions. Money power and the threat of visits from the ED turned minority BJP governments into ruling dispensations riding double engines to power. Losing elections does not matter! There are dozens of venal politicians waiting to be compensated with money or power in return for their dignity and honor. Since the menace of the ED is visited only on opponents, crossing over is redeeming.”

    By Julio Ribeiro

    My esteemed former colleague in service, D Sivanandhan, who was at one time the Police Commissioner of Mumbai, and then, the DGP of Maharashtra, wrote a piece in a leading English daily recently. In his view, the policy of the Modi-Shah government in Delhi  to push all important criminal investigations in the hands of Central agencies, like the ED, CBI and NIA, not forgetting the National Drugs Control Bureau, has emasculated the state police forces across the country. It was always the dream of the Hindu far-right to have one center of power. It was the role of the second parallel engine to be installed in every state to follow instructions. He rightly pointed out that each state used to pride itself on its dedicated crime investigation unit and gained considerable satisfaction from difficult or sensational cases successfully solved. I can testify that my own experience in Mumbai’s police is that the morale of the entire force would rise a notch or two when cases that attracted public attention were solved. That morale booster is slowly being extinguished by the ruling duo in Delhi.

    Modi and Shah are least concerned about the health of the police. I do not envisage them giving such ‘trivial’ matters even a stray thought. They are determined to establish a ‘united’, ‘one India’ under the tutelage of one party that controls everything, even a citizen’s innate thoughts and feelings! All decisions need to be taken by the PMO because only they know what is good for the country and its people. Over half the voters who voted in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections did not vote for Modi and the BJP. His slogan of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’ is not taken seriously by the minority community, nearly 14% of the total population. There are numerous members of the majority community also who do not think that the BJP really wants every Indian’s wellbeing. The Dalits, for instance, are aware that they are not accepted as equal in most parts of the country.

    In Gujarat — Modi and Shah’s happy hunting ground — even OBC children reportedly refuse food cooked by Dalits under the midday meal scheme in schools. Dalit grooms are thrashed if they dare ride a horse in wedding processions. Young Dalit boys try to achieve parity with ‘forward’ castes but get thrashed. This is not an uncommon occurrence in enlightened Gujarat. What does one expect in neighboring backward states that constitute the Hindi belt where the BJP dominates?

    The real feeling among the minorities and the neglected among the majority is that the government is out to re-establish the Brahminical Chaturvarnya hierarchy. This may not be completely true, but mass perceptions are relevant. Among my many Hindu friends, most hailing from advanced castes, there is a feeling of triumph that the old social order is about to be restored in ‘new India’. Sivanandhan was right when he pronounced that the old elan in the police forces was now dying because of the new role being played by the Central investigating agencies. I, however, will go further and say that this was done deliberately — a plan that is obviously working. All powers are sought to be concentrated in one supreme body, the PMO, which will think for citizens, tell them what is permitted and what is not. The state government’s role in law-and-order management will be confined to implementing those policies. Their bulldozers, for instance, are to be used more frequently and only against those who oppose their policies.

    It was always the dream of the Hindu far-right to have one center of power. It was the role of the second parallel engine that would be installed in every state to follow instructions. Money power and the threat of visits from the ED turned minority BJP governments into ruling dispensations riding double engines to power. Losing elections does not matter! There are dozens of venal politicians waiting to be compensated with money or power in return for their dignity and honor. Since the menace of the ED is visited only on opponents, crossing over is redeeming.

    The Centre also had the wicked idea of using the Central Armed Forces, controlled by the Home Ministry, to the same end. Whenever BJP’s MLAs in Opposition-controlled states, like West Bengal, feel threatened, CRPF or CISF personnel are dispatched to the state as a sign of the power wielded by the Centre. This adversely affects the relations between the state police and the paramilitary. This never happened earlier. Whenever the paramilitary was deployed in a state, it always was with the consent, or even at the request of a state government. The local police would take decisions on the terms of deployment and would be in charge. It was the responsibility of the police to arrange for the accommodation of the visitors and to brief them. The arrangement worked. The Home Ministry is solely responsible for any misgivings and misunderstandings that may arise between what we used to think of as ‘sister’ forces.

    The Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, presently in power, had requisitioned the CRPF or CISF to provide security for its revolting legislators. This was before the new government was formed in Mumbai. It is common for legislators to get enamored of their protectors and want them to continue. It is not uncommon for protectees to strike up a personal relationship with security officers! CRPF/CISF men lead very hard lives. An assignment away from their own officers is always welcomed. The inroads made by the paramilitary and the Home Ministry into Opposition states in this new adversarial avatar only consolidates the ingress of the Centre into the law-and-order management in such states. It helps the unitary state to come into being.

    (The author is a retired Indian Police Force officer)