Time for BJP to mend fences

In a recent editorial page article titled How the world sees India for a renowned newspaper, the respected former foreign secretary Shyam Saran wrote the following, with anxiety lacing every word: “(India’s) reputation lies somewhat tarnished by the conduct of what I still believe are elements who do not represent mainstream opinion in this country. But the world hears those who shout the loudest and sees those who act with violence. We must assert the values and principles that lie embedded in our Constitution and resume our journey towards the India that its enlightened framers envisioned. Only then will the world see in us the qualities of a Vishvaguru.”

Shyam Saran’s advice is wise. The Supreme Court this week urged the government to consider an anti-lynching law. But the reason India must build a society with zero tolerance to lynchings and mob violence is not because that will meet the approval of the world as Mr. Saran suggests. It is because it is right.

Since Independence, India has sought global approval. Mahatma Gandhi backed Jawaharlal Nehru over Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as India’s first prime minister not only because Patel was much older than Nehru and in poor health but because Nehru had a global appeal. Patel was a man of the soil. Nehru had the polish and intellectual dexterity to impress the rest of the world.

The same thinking rules the Indian establishment today: we must be seen as a moral, responsible and righteous nation. India did not sign the non-proliferation treaty because it was brazenly discriminatory, allowing nuclear powers like the United States to possess 10,000 nuclear warheads while demanding India abandon its nuclear weapons programme. The US-led West imposed sanctions on India. For decades. India was starved of uranium supplies for its nuclear power plants from even supposedly friendly countries like Canada and Australia. When India carried out its Pokhran-2 nuclear test, the Bill Clinton administration imposed harsh sanctions on India. Those were lifted only when George W. Bush negotiated a complex civil nuclear deal with the Manmohan Singh government in 2005.

For a rising power like India, global reputation matters but not to the extent India’s foreign establishment imagines. Shyam Saran is right though when he writes: “A wave of regressive tendencies is evident in our country and Nehru’s advocacy of instilling a ‘scientific temper’ among the people of India sounds oddly out of place in this environment.”

Individual cases of violence have increased since the Narendra Modi government took office in May 2014 but the dire communal riot-after-riot prediction made by the Opposition has been proven wrong. Cynics say that’s because the BJP now rules in so many states that Muslims have been browbeaten into keeping the peace.

There’s no doubt that religious symbolism has become ubiquitous after the BJP’s electoral victory in 2014. As we approach the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, that symbolism will become stronger. The Supreme Court’s verdict on building the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya may be the spark that ignites Hindu revivalism. The Congress has, therefore, tried every trick in the book to delay the verdict beyond May 2019. The Supreme Court is unlikely to oblige.

Meanwhile, the proposed Ramayana train will stoke passions further. The distribution of the Gita in schools has drawn the standard response from the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM which sought distribution of the Quran as well to schools. This leads to a battle of polarisation and counter-polarisation. A polarised society is a double-edged sword. It can translate into electoral advantage but carries a societal cost no party in India can afford.

The BJP though must shed its complacency. Its allies continue to fret. While the JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar has been mollified after his meeting with BJP president Amit Shah last week, seat-sharing in Bihar remains difficult terrain for both parties to navigate. The Shiv Sena provides an entirely different challenge. Uddhav Thackeray is furious at the casual treatment his party has received in the NDA. But it knows that there is no life for the Sena outside the NDA. It will stay in an acrimonious marriage with a partner who has usurped much of its Hindu majority vote.

Other BJP allies are unhappy or have left (TDP). The BJP’s chances of returning to power in 2019 will depend on how many allies it can retain and how many new ones it can attract. The TRS, BJD and AIADMK are prime targets despite their leaders’ anodyne comments on tying up with the BJP.

As Shyam Saran concludes: “What has distinguished India through the ages is the culture of curiosity and deep reflection, the spirit of questioning and dissent and these are precisely the values we need to make India a modern and flourishing democracy. Yes, we have inherited many negative and regressive social attitudes from the past, yet our future lies not in indulging them but in confronting and eliminating them.”

The BJP indeed inherited ills from the past but it has failed to fix many of them. It has a very small aperture of opportunity left to do so. Politics is the art of the possible but for the BJP those possibilities are shrinking rapidly.

The writer is author of ‘The New Clash of Civilizations: How The Contest Between America, China, India and Islam Will Shape Our Century’. Views are personal