When Narendra Modi – the son of a tea vendor – was elected prime minister of India, about 10 months ago, the media reported that he had more than 200 sets of dresses in his wardrobe. When Sheila Dikshit of the Indian National Congress was the chief minister of Delhi from 1998 to 2013, she had 31 air conditioners in her government residence.
This time, when Arvind Kejriwal won more than a landslide victory in the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections, his guru in crusade against corruption, Anna Hazare, congratulated and requested him to remain simple, as he is now, in his lifestyle.
In December 2013, Kejriwal went to take his oath as the chief minister of Delhi by metro. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is also known for her simple lifestyle. Recently, her name has gotten implicated in the multi-billion rupee Saradha chit fund scam.
Till now, it seems, centre-left Kejriwal is made of a different substance. Before the elections, the imam of Delhi Shahi Mosque, asked Muslims of Delhi to vote for AAP – Kejriwal’s political party. Delhi Muslims account for about 10% of the total votes.
In spite of that, Kejriwal downright rejected the imam’s political support. What does an imam have to do with politics? He is a religious leader, not a political leader. As a citizen, he has the right to do politics; but not in the capacity of an imam.
In Delhi elections, the BJP won only three seats out of 70. Does this mean communal politics of BJP is losing ground in Delhi? It seems so, but that is in fact not the case. In the 2013 elections, BJP bagged 33.71 % of the popular votes; this time, it got 32.2%. This means it has lost only 1.5% of its votes. Disenchanted Congress votes went to AAP’s ballot box – that made the real difference between APP and BJP in this poll.
What is alarming is that the Indian youths, especially in the urban and educated parts, have been getting more and more attracted by the communal politics of BJP. A secular man in his personal life, Mohammad Ali Jinnah wanted to build Pakistan on secularism. But within a year after his mysterious death, Pakistan plunged into communal politics. Politicians of that country started using religious sentiments of the people to achieve their personal goals.
Pakistan has now been paying, for quite some years, the price of blending religious faith with politics. 67 years after having achieved independence, India has started traversing, without playing hide and seek, the path of its arch rival in terms of blending religious sentiments of the people with politics.
The difference between these two countries is that in Pakistan, the religion of the majority people, Islam, has been used as a political weapon. In India, the religion of the majority people, Hinduism, is used as an ideology named Hindutva.
The “Ghar wapsi” (return home) campaign of RSS – BJP’s mentor – has sent shudders through the spines of the minorities as well as the secular-minded people of India. This campaign, based on the premise that all citizens of India were originally Hindus, has tarnished India’s image as a democratic country in the West.
Though India will be coaxed by the West vis-à-vis rising China, which is getting more and more assertive as its economy is getting stronger. With this campaign, India may lose some private foreign investments from the West, but it will remain in the good books of the US and the Japanese governments. So Modi’s “Make in India” will suffer.
The advertisement published by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in India on the country’s 66th Republic Day celebration was missing the word “secular” along with the word “socialist” on the preamble part of the constitution.
These two words had become a part of the constitution of India in 1977, and were not in the original constitution of the country. Whether this error occured due to an oversight by the designer of the advertisement, or if it was a premeditated mistake with an inherent motive is a question for debate.
The spectacular performance of a centre-left political party in the Delhi Assembly polls is good news. With such an astounding election victory, it is now time for Arvind Kejriwal to deliver. Making high-sounding promises before elections is the easiest part of politics, implementing and executing the promises while in power is a Herculean job in fact.
If he can really broom off the corruption, half the job is done. At the same time, he will need support from the central government belonging to BJP – the party to whom AAP has dealt a humiliating defeat as it was basking on one election victory after another. We wish all the best to Kejriwal.
