Bypoll results: BJP's hate politics of love jihad yields no dividends

If today’s by-election results are any indication, the BJP’s simultaneous policy of silence and tacit encouragement to shrill Hindutva propaganda has not paid dividends. All of a sudden, voters seem to be acting up. As a BJP leader in Uttar Pradesh - where the party badly lagged its adversary, the Samajawadi Party in the by-poll results, said: the voters have not voted judiciously. Conversely, one could say they have. The outright propaganda of communal hatred, the constant refrain of ‘the Hindu way of life being the only way of life for Indians’, drummed up by various outfits of the Sangh Parivar, not to mention the BJP's very own leaders like Yogi Adityanath, has not mutated into ballots.
 
My thoughts stray to the most prominent politician who invested so much time and energy into venting hate. Over the past few months, the BJP's five-time MP Yogi Adityanath has relentlessly fed us fake propaganda about what the Sangh Parivar describes as ‘love jihad’ – a phrase which is in itself a misnomer. Not so long ago the MP from Eastern UP’s Gorakhpur area, delivered a communally inflammatory speech in the Lok Sabha during a debate expressing concern about the rising sentiment of communal tensions in UP. This happened even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi silently looked on and his trusted lieutenants (BJP spokespersons) directly or indirectly defended Adityanath on television talk shows.
 
Only the other day the Gorakhpur MP, recently nominated as a star campaigner for his party, declared that ‘love jihad’ would certainly figure as an issue electorally. At the time of making that statement he was flanked by Union minister Kalraj Mishra and state BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpayi. “I have been raising this issue for the past four to five years. The menace first began in Kerala and has now spread to Western UP,” the Yogi said.
 
As he made these pronouncements, the BJP’s central leadership donned the proverbial role of the three monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. In fact, Home Minister Rajnath Singh went to the extent of denying any knowledge of love jihad. If the Home Minister truly doesn’t know what his star leader is bandying about as a terrorist practice, serious questions arise: Why did the party not clamp down on the intemperate lies spread by Adityanath? Why did the BJP nominate the Gorakhpur MP as their star campaigner?
 
Two days ago, another BJP MP from Unnao, Sakshi Maharaj, said that madarsas across the country are imparting “education of terror” and “love jihad”. He claimed Muslim youths in madrasas are being incentivised for “love jihad” with offers of cash rewards — Rs 11 lakh for an “affair” with a Sikh girl, Rs 10 lakh for a Hindu girl and Rs 7 lakh for a Jain girl.
 
What could possibly be more dangerous than the fact that these are candidates nominated by the BJP to represent the party in communally sensitive areas? Puffed up by their recent Lok Sabha triumph the BJP must have patted itself on the back for its two-pronged strategy to distance itself from the shrill propaganda without seeming to reject it outright. The party had hoped to continue to blaze a trail of victory in UP. But now its two–pronged strategy is looking more and more like what it actually is: a forked tongue.
 
Rather than back divisive majoritarianism, the love-jihad campaign has boomeranged in the BJP’s face. The Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh who rallied behind the BJP in the 2014 general elections appear to have trooped back to the Samajwadi Party. Despite its poor governance track record, the Samajwadi Party has managed to wrest traditional BJP constituencies in these polls.
 
Clearly, the Yogi and his like-minded colleagues, who imagine furtive love jihadists lounging around to lure hapless Hindu women, haven't been able to hammer that fear into the minds of their fraternity. The judicious voters have voted judiciously. One can only hope that the BJP learn from its miscalculation. Though I wouldn’t advocate holding your breath.

The author is editor dna of thought.