There is no genteel way to say this so I am going to spit it out: menacing hyper-nationalism does not win elections. It was menacing hyper-nationalism that defined the BJP’s election campaigns in Maharashtra and Haryana and voters rejected it. The BJP may well form governments again in both these states but the truth is that in this seeming victory lies hidden a warning that Narendra Modi would do well to heed. The warning is that even a prime minister who has just won a second term must never start thinking of himself as invincible. Delusions of invincibility have been sadly much too evident ever since that second term began and they became manifest in a very ugly way during the recent election campaign.
As someone who has supported Modi openly in this column, I was horrified to hear him virtually charge his political opponents with treason for opposing the removal of Article 370. Ask them, he said often, if they would dare bring it back. Sharad Pawar answered correctly that it made no difference to the people of Maharashtra whether this Article was there or not since destitute farmers from his state were not exactly ready to race off to buy land in the Kashmir Valley. The menace in the Prime Minister’s speeches was amplified by his faithful fellow traveller Amit Shah who gives that word a whole new dimension.
When I asked ordinary people in Maharashtra what they thought of the removal of Article 370, the general response was puzzlement that I should even be asking them this question. Most people seemed unsure what difference it made to their lives and usually, after pausing to think about it, they would remind me that jobs were being lost in the auto industry and banks were failing and it was these things that worried them most. I did not get a chance to travel in Haryana this time but am willing to bet that voters in that state were as unconcerned about Article 370 as voters in Maharashtra. And yet, this was all that the BJP’s campaign had to offer. This was mixed with some very nasty hyper-nationalistic rhetoric that singled out Muslims as the only ‘infiltrators’ who were not welcome in India. Unsurprisingly, this got noticed all the way in Washington when a congressional committee met to discuss human rights in South Asia.
Speaking of which has anyone in the Prime Minister’s Office noticed that it was only human rights violations in Kashmir that appeared to come up for discussion? Nothing about Balochistan, nothing about the human rights of Shias and Ahmediyas in the Islamic Republic. Our diplomats seem to be doing a really bad job of explaining to the world why the Kashmir Valley continues to be incommunicado and in a state of semi-curfew so many weeks after Article 370 was removed. On the domestic front the situation is if anything even more worrying because if there is a strategy to win the peace
in Kashmir it is being kept very secret. The Prime Minister tweeted proudly last week about how ‘the people of J&K have been able to exercise their democratic right with exceptional enthusiasm, as seen in the historic turnout of 98% that too without violence or disturbance.’
These were village level elections but it is no small achievement that they should have been held. What will matter much more to the world is whether there will be ‘exceptional enthusiasm’ when elections are held to the legislative Assembly. The removal of Article 370 has internationalised our Kashmir problem dramatically, so the world will be watching whenever these elections are held. It is hard to say when or how but what can be said is that if the BJP campaign is imbued with menacing hyper-nationalism the chances of winning the peace in Kashmir will become much harder. And yet, the peace has to be won, and it has to be won soon, so instead of weaponizing the abolition of Article 370 it might be a good idea to start explaining to ordinary Kashmiris exactly how it is that they will benefit from losing their special status and losing even their status as a state in the Union of India.
In Maharashtra and Haryana there would have been much more support for the BJP if there had been more talk in the campaign of steps being taken to reverse the economic slowdown. It is beginning to hurt ordinary people now because when jobs are lost instead of being created everyone can see that there is cause for concern. On this day that we celebrate the goddess of prosperity it is appropriate to remind the Prime Minister that unless signs of prosperity begin to become evident soon, he could start discovering how quickly delusions of invincibility begin to fade. Meanwhile, a very Happy Diwali to all of you.
The article appeared in print under then headline: A deluded campaign
