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India Heading for One-Party Rule?

By Aijaz Zaka Syed. Dated: 5/22/2017 10:43:10 PM

All politics is local, said US politician Tip O'Neil. Under Narendra Modi, nothing is local anymore. Writing for Aljazeera, Prof Apoorvanand of Delhi University explains how India is permanently in election mode these days and insurrectionary politics is keeping the nation in a perpetual state of agitation. "BJP is trying to convert all elections, be they for rural, municipal or district administrative bodies, into national elections," he argues.
The party achieves this by harping on emotive issues like nationalism, security and perpetual tensions with Pakistan even in local body polls, and conflating support for the BJP and Modi with the support for the country.
With the explosion of social media and TV channels, local election campaigns have started reaching every nook and cranny of the country, becoming a part of debate at the national level.
Given India's, there's always an election going on somewhere. So with some help from the friendly media, the BJP keeps the pot boiling and the country permanently in election mode, notes the don.
This gives the governing party, already enjoying brute majority in parliament and for the first time boasts governments in most parts of the country, an excuse and opportunity to whip up political and religious passions by demonizing 'the enemy' and portraying nearly 200-million strong Muslim minority as the fifth column of Pakistan.
As Prof Apporvanand argues, speaking and promoting hatred against minorities has always been accepted as a legitimate political strategy in India: "Today every election campaign assumes a national character. A statement made in Kerala stirs emotions in Bihar."
Since local elections became national discourse topic, the BJP keeps the country in a permanent election mode and uses this as an excuse to continue with its polarizing discourse. The party has put its entire machinery in permanent combat mode, fielding all its central ministers including the Prime Minister to campaign for the party in local elections.
Besides, it has been preying on other parties, including the Congress, to expand its support base across the country and wipe out all opposition. No wonder there has been a deluge of departures from various parties for the BJP. The biggest loser has been the Congress, once the world's largest political party with broad-based representation from all communities and social strata.
Today, with the grand old party imploding across India, the BJP has replaced it as the country's largest political party. However, the BJP's ambition is not just to replace the Congress as the natural party of power. Its goal is to grow at the expense of everyone else, making India a single-party autocracy like China and North Korea, in sync with Hindutva Parivar's agenda of forcing one culture-one faith uniformity on everyone else.
Already, there are enough signs to suggest that we are fast turning into a one-party state - the all-pervasive personality cult portraying Modi into some kind of deity with superhuman powers. Someone who couldn't be questioned and judged by mere mortals.
The once vibrant, fiercely independent Indian media acts and behaves more and more like that figure on old HMV records - eager to please and speak what its masters would like to hear.
Even hasty, harebrained schemes like the recent rupee demonetization that caused unprecedented misery and chaos across the country, depriving millions and millions of jobs and livelihoods and crushing small businesses are being portrayed as brilliant, visionary ideas.
Intolerance is the order of the day. Muslims and other minorities and Dalits live in constant fear and are being hunted and killed like animals.
The forces of darkness are on the march and become more powerful and uncontrollable by the day. The law is helpless before them; therefore it often joins them, penalizing the victims.
Even those who have lost their lives and aren't around to defend themselves, as has been the case with Mohammed Akhlaq of Dadri and Pehlu Khan of Haryana. Even Kafka and Orwell couldn't have ever divined such a scenario. All this would be funny if the circumstances and outcome hadn't been so tragic.
Meanwhile those in power pretend all is well in the new India as the government marks three years in power with mega, unprecedented celebrations, as if this is the first government in history to turn three.
But then the BJP and its Parivar have all the reasons to celebrate. The secular and democratic republic built over the past seven decades with enormous sacrifices and hard work has undergone a transformation that is both scary and sobering.
After three years of the BJP, the country that we inherited looks unrecognizable. And given the state of Indian politics and the utter disarray and chaos in the opposition ranks, you can bet your life that they are here to stay for a long time to come.
Until and unless the opposition, especially the Congress, which boasts national presence and most representative of all parties, gets its act together and goes back to the people with a clear strategy and plan to expose the harm that is being inflicted on the body-politic and the very foundations of an inclusive, democratic India, there is really little hope.
The way the regime is going after prominent opposition faces who have had the courage to confront it or may pose a challenge in the future is yet another sign of its intolerant nature.
Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have been dragged to the court on ridiculous, trumped up charges. All those old cases against Bihar strongman Lalu Yadav, who beat the BJP at its own game in the assembly polls, in the fodder scam have been resurrected.
The CBI, which is now more than ever a handmaiden of the government, has also been targeting Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for confronting the BJP's fascist policies.
Another CBI target has been the soft-spoken Chidambaram. The former interior and finance minister of many terms has been speaking out against the rising intolerance in the country, the crackdown in Kashmir and Hindutva's war on the pluralist ethos of the nation.
There is a method in the madness as the government launches an all-out war to neutralize opposition. If they do not unite even now, opposition parties would be mauled and thrown by the wayside, one by one.
And it can no longer be a short marriage of convenience and temporary alliance. If the BJP is to be defeated, secular parties must strike at the ideology of hate that inspires and sustains it. This requires long-term strategy, commitment and hard work. The BJP is in power today because of the insidious groundwork done by the RSS over the past 91 years. Half-hearted attempts to counter it will not work. It's dangerously entrenched now.
The time to unite for the sake of India is now. For by the time Modi is done with India or India is done with Modi, it may be too late.
Aijaz Zaka Syed is an award-winning journalist. Email: Aijaz.syed @hotmail.com