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Where is the promise of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas'?

By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal. Dated: 5/21/2017 12:56:26 AM

Propaganda is sometimes more convincing than reality. The BJP has used this to its advantage more than sometimes. Interestingly, though frighteningly, so! In a democratic country where teeming majority appear so gullible, beneath the propped up image of economic prosperity, inclusive development and corruption free governance, it is easy to camouflage the breathing reality of falling agricultural growth, grimness of increasing farmer suicides, unemployment, 84% drop in job creation, unaffordable higher education in the face of increasing private universities and exorbitant fee hikes in government backed institutions as well as decreasing health standards. The government spending in all the vital sectors of agriculture, health, education and employment generation have been drastically reduced since 2015, as revealed by several reports compiled by the government. Demonetisation has further hampered the economy, robbing poor people of their money and depriving many in the informal sector of their jobs, rather than have helped check black money, a popular perception that is triggered by the BJP peddled theory of 'robbing the rich to serve the poor'. Then why is it that the dis-illusionary halo created around the BJP remains unbreakable?
BJP itself is conscious of its multiple failures on the development front. That is why, failure of the BJP to deliver on its promises of 'sabka saath, sabka vikaas' has pushed the party to pursue an aggressive Hindutva agenda across the country, craftily done to its own advantage in electoral politics. Its shift from 'Acche Din' to cow protectionism, Ayodhya temple, invoking the narrative of ultra-nationalism, moral policing and saffronisation of educational institutions further betrays both its zeal to pursue its hidden agenda as well as its own recognition of its inability to perform with respect to development and economy. Well oiled propaganda machinery helps it circumvent the criticism over its shortcomings on the development front. The success rate of such a policy is not only dependent on the gullibility factor. The sustainability of this propaganda and the acceptability of its polarising ideology within the Indian society depends mostly on the absence of a strong and viable opposition. The Hindutva juggernaut remains virtually unchallenged owing to weak political opposition barring some aberrations like West Bengal, Punjab and possibly Bihar; also because civil society initiatives lack both the zest and an effective strategy.
The political parties remain not just divided but are also plagued by their own inability to articulate an alternate model that can effectively challenge BJP's inability to check the downslide of the country into an economic mess as well as its mission to alter the very idea of India. Congress, the main opposition party, remains indecisive about its own ideological stand as it continues to oscillate between soft Hindutva and its centrist politics of socialism. Socialism rings a hollow tune in the face of butchery of these values during the successive Congress regimes which allowed economic liberalization, that walked hand in hand with social welfare schemes, in the first place. The Congress has been unable to reinvent itself both ideologically and as a democratised unit. Its image of pursuing dynastic politics, especially under the failed leadership of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, further gets in the way of its resurgence. The BJP by investing all power in the hands of prime minister Narendra Modi and his man Friday, Amit Shah, may be committing the same mistake of damaging party interests for the sake of creating personality cults but as far, these cults have caught the imagination of the nation. If Congress intends to pose a formidable challenge to BJP, it must first have to look inwards. So is the case with the Left which has developed the tendency of shifting towards centrist politics and been unable to develop a connect with the cause of the working classes it claims to espouse. As for regional parties, which can rely on their own respective strengths, there is little to suggest that there can be any cohesive unity to upset the BJP's apple cart. Uttar Pradesh is the most glaring example, where BJP took the advantage of factional politics, disunited secular parties as well as its effective vote bank related social engineering resulting in its remarkable victory. Whether or not there is an element of truth in the allegations of fudged electronic voting machines, it almost becomes immaterial. Both the allegations of rigging and calling BJP communal do not make the opposition any holier as long as they do not establish the latter's secular or uncorrupt credentials. These merely become convenient excuses to hide the opposition's own ineptitude. The sooner the secular parties free themselves of this denial, the better. It is important to understand that BJP is strong today not because it is good but because the rest appear too weak and bereft of a strategy other than blind shadow boxing that comes in fits and starts.
The civil society initiatives challenging the march of hate soaked Hindutva have been weak for similar reasons, primarily because they remain divided and oblivious of ground realities. The civil society initiatives to mobilise public have ended up becoming almost monologues because these are unable to factor in the increasing acceptability of even the brazen forms of Hindutva among the masses including the marginalised communities, sections of which have begun aligning themselves with BJP for survival. The strategies of the grand opposition, if at all it exists, and the secular civil society, if it can shun its tendency to remain divided over petty differences, need to be rooted to the ground realities of a changing narrative of Indian society. They need to be able to break from the theoretical righteousness and speak a language that the public understands to challenge the many myths that the RSS backed BJP is weaving. Without an effective planning and its implementation, the BJP juggernaut with its mixed bag of Hindutva and packet of lies may well be unstoppable.