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Food, community and elections
Bharat Bhushan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused Opposition leaders of displaying a "Mughal mindset" when videos surfaced of Lalu Yadav, Tejashvi, and Rahul Gandhi bonding over cooking mutton. Not only did he accuse them of deviating from Hindu dharma in the auspicious month of Sawan, but he also alleged that the display of bonhomie was deliberate.
The videos, the PM said, were reflective of the mindset of the "Mughal" invaders "who found perverse joy in the demolition of temples and defiling places of worship.
To dismiss this as election rhetoric would be to forget that creating controversies over meat-eating has been part of communal propaganda for over a century and a half in India.
Today's smear campaign is reminiscent of the strategy said to have been used against CM Stephen, who was contesting against Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1980 from the New Delhi Constituency-I. It was a close contest, and the right-wing organisations backing Vajpayee wanted to take no chances.
According to an apocryphal story, the cadre was deputed to join queues at polling booths and engage voters in conversation, alleging, "Aadmi achha hai par suna hai gau-maans khaata hai (He is a good man but we have heard he eats beef)." The whisper campaign is said to have cost Stephen the election -- losing by a mere 5,045 votes!
Today's political fight is nowhere as close as it was in 1980. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Modi said they are comfortably placed to win the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Then why are such cheap shots directed at the Opposition?
He had also earlier distorted Rahul Gandhi's remark about the Opposition pitted against the power (shakti) of the controversial Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)—calling it "a well-thought-out attack against Hindu religion," where goddesses are worshipped as Shakti. He labelled those who did not attend the temple inauguration at Ayodhya sinners, exhorting voters, "Ram Navami is coming, remember those who committed this sin."
By drawing parallels between the Congress manifesto and the demands of the pre-Partition Muslim League, two organisations separate in time and context are made to appear similar, divisive and only representatives of sectional Muslim interest.
While such iterations of religious identity will keep the BJP's vote bank consolidated in Northern and Western India, it is even more crucial in states where the BJP is desperate to make inroads. Hindutva is the platform from which the BJP hopes to counter the strong regional sentiment and distinct political culture in these states. Its success has so far been uneven.
The BJP has made major inroads in West Bengal, where its Hindutva rhetoric seems to have struck a chord in a state that has witnessed two partitions on communal lines. The BJP is tapping into that deep and rich seam.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it won 18 seats, and its vote share was only 3 per cent behind the ruling Trinamool Congress. In the state assembly in 2021, the BJP improved its tally from 3 to 77, becoming the main Opposition party. From Sandeshkhali to Ram Navami celebrations, all incidents and festivals are occasions to polarise the Hindu voters against the 30 per cent Muslim population of the state.
However, the BJP has not been successful in Tamil Nadu and Kerala so far. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP has aggressively argued that the Dravidian political parties and their allies are essentially anti-Hindu. 'Real' Tamil culture is postulated as having been part of a unified Hindu culture till Dravidian atheists hijacked it. This thesis was bolstered by the two Kashi-Tamil Sangamam organised by the Modi government in 2022 and 2023 and articulated in the Prime Minister's election campaign in Tamil Nadu.
The BJP's state president, K Annamalai, has also held forth about reclaiming Tamil culture from the Periyar-Dravida ideology, which he says is anti-Hindu and destroying 'true' Tamil culture and society.
In Kerala, too, the BJP faces a Hindu majority that is largely oriented towards Left and secular parties. The Hindu vote here is divided along caste lines. The marginalised and backward castes support the Communists, while the Congress has a proportion of the upper caste (Nair) Hindu vote and is seen as the party of the Muslim and Christian minorities. The Muslims are represented in North Kerala by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).
Kerala politics alternates between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) led by the Congress. The BJP aims to break this cycle by weaning away the Hindu vote.
It tried to woo the Dalit castes through the Kerala Pulaya Mahasabha and Kerala Peoples' Front, an organisation of 21 backward castes, but failed. Nor did its militant agitation against women's entry into Sabarimala Temple amount to much electorally. Now, a propaganda film, "The Kerala Story", is about a Hindu woman being converted to Islam and forced to join the Islamic State. The threat of 'love jihad' and 'narco-jihad' is also being propagated by the BJP to also mobilise the Christian minority.
Contrary to popular belief, the BJP is not bringing out its communal rhetoric because it is apprehensive about election results. It is an offensive strategy. Prime Minister Modi has learnt to successfully twist the meaning of his adversaries' statements and actions. The forms of distortion are sufficiently in tune with communal thinking so that his supporters can easily amplify them and influence voters. It also keeps the communal divide open against attempts by the Opposition to bridge it.
Most importantly, it is used to increase the BJP's Lok Sabha seats. Like all good businessmen, who consider anything below the previous financial year's profits a 'loss', the BJP wants each election to bring in higher returns.
Prime Minister Modi needs this more than the party because that alone can sustain faith in his charisma. Anything less will be seen as the onset of weakness in his leadership.
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