Narendra Modi’s nomination as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate in India’s next general elections, while alarming to staunch secularists, is probably a relief to more Indians than most of us would like to acknowledge.
His particular brand of nationalistic chauvinism echoes with such resonance (with the successes of campaigns like Mera Bharat Mahan) that today in India, the schismatic BJP can contemplate Modi as its next PM candidate with open support from the likes of Harvard educated individuals like Subramanian Swamy.
The BJP is not wet behind their ears; they have enough intuition to know that Modi,his brand of divisive and communal politics (packaged with neo-liberal capitalism) promising a bright, shiny and mighty Bharat might actually bring them the harvest of votes they are looking for, not less helped by the scandal-ridden incumbent government. His proposed mammoth monument of Vallabhbhai Patel is a prime example of the neo-fascist totem-ism his appeal relies on.
A large section of Indian society is tired of coalition governments that can’t find real consensus on issues, for example, on decisions to “privatise” fast enough or “teach Pakistan a lesson,” and the BJP appears to them to be just the answer. Given the climate, the rhetorical/ideological positions of the extreme right, even within the BJP, and the Rastriya Swayamseva Sangh, should also be recognised as election posturing.
The problem with India today is that no political party, on either side of the centre, have any differentiated issues they stand for. This absence of posturing thus helps Modi, and BJP to create a distinctive image for themselves in the minds of the people.
A multiplicity of issues face a half-baked, in-between country which has seen a sliver of enlightenment, but mostly remains in ignorant darkness, sleeping together permanently and making not very strange bedfellows after all. Although it is patted on the back by the world for a vibrant democracy, but is basically run by entitled feudal lords, uneducated criminals, and merciless capitalists.
Christened as one of the fastest growing economies as borne out by the “Bricks” of lavish superstructure being laid haphazardly, complemented by glossy advertising, and shiny “supermalldom” the signposts of the so-called new rising India, promising material nirvana, but is hamstrung by an inadequate and decrepit infrastructure, a corrupt and an inefficient administration and a dismally poor record in human rights and governance.
From the smartly turned out corporate yuppiedom minority to the struggling, uneducated languishing majority, riven by dated customs, laced by poisonous inequality, and abject mental health issues to touch upon a few stumbling blocks, that none of the 13 million gods, or the one supreme, have an answer for the powers-that-be don’t even question it.
So, they play the age-old game of schismatic politics. Since the Left is seen as anti-development, and the others are peddling soft-Hindutva (manifest as appeasement politics), BJP with Modi seems to have a clear-cut agenda: “development and nationalistic jingoism.”
The latter once belonged to the Indian National Congress, and resonates with the majority, but it seems the BJP is successfully redefining it to suit the yearnings of a new sort of nation, imbued with the bigotry of an old sort of arrogance.
