“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scared of INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance). The Bharatiya Janata Party is under pressure,” Nitish Kumar told reporters at Patna on Wednesday, July 26, at the sidelines of a government function.
When it was pointed out that Modi had compared INDIA with the East India Company and the Indian Mujahideen, the Bihar chief minister said, “These are the manifestation of his nervousness… he is under the spell of anxiety.”
Nitish simply summarised the overwhelming sentiment of the INDIA leaders, drawn from different parties and different parts of the country. The opposition parties – after their successful meets at Patna and Bangaluru – have demonstrated superb floor coordination in both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha on the issue of protracted violence in Manipur.
Modi, of course, broke his silence on the issue – 79 days after the ethnic clashes began. But he spoke outside parliament, and only about a viral video in which two Kuki women were paraded naked and attempted to link it with crimes against women in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. That has angered the opposition more. They have continuously stalled the proceedings in both the Houses ever since it assembled for the monsoon session on July 20 and have brought a no-cofidence motion against the government. Their primary demand is that the PM must make a statement on Manipur in both the houses.
Why is Narendra Modi shying away from discussing the Manipur issue in the parliament? Why is Modi “anxious and scared”, as Nitish claims? Why did he choose to equate INDIA with Indian Mujahideen and the British East India Company?
A conversation with a cross-section of INDIA leaders brought to the fore two reasons they believe are behind Modi’s actions. First, the Union government’s “incompetence” to deal with the problems besetting the country and secondly the tag of corruption now “sticking” to the BJP governments at the centre as well as states under its rule.
‘Incompetence and corruption’
Despite attempts by the government and the BJP to downplay the situation in Manipur, the unabated violence – abd particularly the video showing the assault on the women – has shaken the conscience of the nation. It has also “exposed” the PM’s incompetence, the opposition leaders say. That Manipur has the BJP’s much vaunted “double engine” government with N. Biren Singh as its chief minister is another blow to the party.
What has exacerbated this feeling of “incompetence” is the claim, made by human rights bodies, civil rights activists and public intellectuals operating in Northeast, that the Hindutva party pitted the two ethnic groups – the majority Meiteis against the minority Kukis – against each other. This was similar to what Modi did with Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and other states.
Following this template, the RSS-BJP strategists, working under the stewardship of Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, calculated that they would establish the dominance of the Meiteis over the Kukis in Manipur.
But the strategy has backfired in Manipur, after the video emerged. The Kukis have repeatedly accused the Biren Singh government of siding with the Meitei community in a flagrantly biased manner. The Kuki women in the viral video said the state police, who were present, did not act when the mob stripped them naked and allegedly raped one of them.
The Narendra Modi government is already under fire for quite some time now for its dire failure in checking price-rise, unemployment and failing on its promises of getting houses for all by 2022 and doubling farmers’ income. The issues of unemployment, rural poverty and price rise have, apparently, slipped beyond the Modi government’s control.
The second point that is said to rattled Modi and his party is that corruption is increasingly being associated with the BJP. The perception that the party used its money power to topple the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra has gained ground all across the country. What has strengthened the perception is the Supreme Court’s declaration of the events that led to the Thackeray’s downfall as “illegal”. But even after the apex court’s ruling, the BJP executed a split in the Nationalist Congress Party – bringing Ajit Pawar and eight of his colleagues to join the Eknath Shinde cabinet.
The BJP initially bracketed the opposition leaders who are part of the opposition alliance INDIA as a “group of corrupt leaders” who are under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax. “The BJP has far more corrupt leaders from east to west and from north to south. They were under the scanner of the central agencies for corruption. After joining the BJP, they stand cleaned in the BJP’s washing machine,” said the Rajya Sabha MP and Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesman, Manoj Jha.
The BJP is said to be apprehensive because it had come to power in 2014 after heaping charges of corruption and ‘policy paralysis’ on the Manmohan Singh government. Now, the charges of incompetence and corruption against it – coupled with an organised opposition – can create a vicious anti-incumbency against the Modi regime.
Chemistry over arithmetic
Nitish, who is perceived as the de-facto convener of INDIA, said that the alliance will soon announce a policy for seat sharing. “We are at work. But INDIA will work for the larger interest of the country and countrymen. They (BJP) are altering history and obliterating what Mahatma Gandhi stood for. Does he (Modi) ever speak Bapu’s name? They (BJP) are annihilating our history, culture and values… It can’t be tolerated.”
The Bihar CM knows that just arithmetic is not enough to win seats, and even political chemistry is required. During the 2019 general elections, Nitish and the JD(U) were with the NDA and swept Bihar, with all but one of the 40 seats in the state.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had the correct arithmetic when they entered into an alliance for the 2019 polls. Had only the arithmetic determined the poll results, the BJP would have lost 40-50 seats in the country’s most populous state. But the saffron party won 65 seats. Observers say that the BJP had chemistry in its favour.
This time around, the BSP is so far not the part of INDIA. But the INDIA leaders are not too concerned about it. With the Congress resurgent with its victory in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh and Rahul Gandhi’s padyatra, Nitish and opposition strategists are believed to be working for chemistry over arithmetic.
Their chemistry is visible in their floor coordination during the ongoing monsoon session of the parliament. It’s to be seen how they succeed at the level of the masses in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, media educator and independent researcher in Folklore.
article was first published by The Wire and written by Nalin Verma
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