Defeat of secular democracy

By abhay mokashi

The results of the Legislative Assembly elections on five states, is a clear endorsement of Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Hindutva agenda, Punjab being an exception.

In a democracy, the election results have to be accepted and as such it has to be accepted that BJP’s agenda, which is against a secular India, has won. Political pundits and analysts will try to argue that the BJP polled only around 40 per cent of the votes cast in the elections, so 60 per cent of the voters are against it. The argument may be valid mathematically, but that does not happen in the electoral system we have accepted, it being first-past-the-post, so even if a party or candidate gets only ten per cent of the votes, yet has the largest number of votes in the constituency, it is a victory for the candidate or party.

The victory of the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) sensational victory in Punjab can be attributed to the utter dissatisfaction of the people of Punjab with the performance of the Congress government in the state and faith that AAP, led by Kejriwal would be in a position to give good governance, going by its performance in Delhi. The rejection of the BJP by Punjab, cannot be attributed to merely the farmers’ agitation for over a year, which was directed against the BJP-led government at the centre, but it is the rejection of communal politics.

The BJP has been talking of wiping out the Congress from the country, well it has been able to nearly wipe out the party from electoral politics, if one goes by the electoral results. Yet, all is not lost for the Congress, as the party still has good support from the voters across the country, even though it is not in a position to garner enough votes to convert them into electoral victory.

During the election campaign, the BJP directly and indirectly presented its Hindutva agenda, paying less attention to inclusive development and public welfare. The party concentrated on Hijab and Kabrastans and successfully diverted the attention of the communally blinded masses from issues like unemployment, inflation and the failure of the Adtiyanath-led government in giving proper medical care to COVID 19 patients, during the infection and a proper funeral after their death.

The election results show that the people did not mind the situation that led to the dumping of bodies of COVID 19 victims in the Ganga or on its banks. The government continued to be in denial mode about the dumping of those corpses and the voters seem to have felt that it was a privilege to throw the bodies of their near and dear ones in the Holy Ganga, probably presuming that such an act would lead to the salvation of the departed souls.

The Samajwadi Party, with the leadership of its president Akhilesh Yadav put up a good fight and their contribution to fighting the communal forces represented by the BJP, is laudable.

The Congress, especially its leader Priyanka Gandhi, campaigned well, but failed to convert the crowds into votes. This is partly because, the party and Gandhi came on the field a bit too late, notwithstanding the fact that the party workers helped the people during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Electoral victory is largely dependent on public perceptions about the contesting parties and candidates. The BJP knows the value of public perception and has been successful in creating a public opinion that it is the best party and that Congress and all other parties opposed to the BJP are corrupt. No party can be said to be above board in the country and the BJP is no exception, yet the party has been able to convince the people at large that it is a party with integrity. It is due to this belief that even the educated have not questioned the BJP about its huge election expenditure, the collection of stupendous amounts of donations and the construction of five-star party offices in numerous cities across the country.

The mainstream media, primarily the television channels have made a great contribution in promoting the BJP and its ideology, while hiding the party’s failures. Debates and discussions on most of the television channels are confined to communal issues, with a slant towards Hindutva, while ignoring other issues that affect the public at large. Most of the anchors of television shows act as spokespersons of the BJP and that is due to this that a majority of them could not hide their ecstasy over the victory of the BJP in four of the five states that went to the polls.

Though the Congress has performed very poorly and has lost one more state (Punjab), the BJP will continue to attack the party and its leadership, as the BJP leaders, including Modi, still look at the Congress as a threat to it. Why else, would they give so much of their time to criticising the Congress and the Gandhi siblings?

Many within the Congress are causing more damage to the party, than the BJP’s propaganda machinery. It is a sad state of affairs in the party that senior members of the party, who have contributed to the party and held ministerial and other posts for decades, do not wish to make way for the younger members in the party to take over the leadership. The seniors do not stop at that, they make public statements that damage the party and such statements are made more during the times of elections.

It is to the credit of the Congress workers, that they subscribe to the secular ideology of the country, as envisaged in the Constitution and by our founding fathers. The Congress does not have the finances to take care of its workers, the way BJP can, yet the party supporters try to contribute towards the party agenda in a selfless manner.

Those who wish to keep secularism alive and defeat communal forces, should wake up now, seeing the election results. There is no point in sulking and beating chests to mourn the victory of communal forces. The next general elections are to be held in 2024 and that gives two years for the non-communal forces to come together and change the public opinion. The dangers of theological states need to be brought to the fore. Political parties, opposed to the BJP agenda, must come together and form an alliance, the way alliances were formed in the past to defeat the Congress, keeping aside party politics; the alliances succeeded in defeating Congress.

If all such forces come together, it will not be difficult to destroy the BJP ideology.