Communal or corrupt? A false binary
at the ascent of Modi did also seriously compromise the fight against corruption. In 2015, Lalu Prasad was a convict in the fodder scam but still a valued member of the anti-Modi coalition because he had the crucial vote bank to offer: the spectre of ‘jungle raj’ was forgotten because an election had to be won. Can Rahul Gandhi explain how he tears up an anti-corruption ordinance that was brought in by the UPA government to protect Lalu in October 2013 and then aligns with the same individual two years later?
The hypocrisy cuts across parties: can the BJP, which now targets Lalu as the ultimate symbol of political corruption, explain how it ran a government in Karnataka with the support of the Reddy brothers, the mining barons charged with massive fraud? Or how it happily made peace with Congress defectors in Uttarakhand who they once accused of corruption? Or why cases against the BJP’s political rivals are being fast-tracked by the CBI even as those in BJP-ruled states like Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh are being buried? Or is the yardstick of corruption a measure of the state’s brazenly partisan approach: you are corrupt only when the state agencies pronounce you as such?
Truth is, both corruption and communalism need to be resisted in an uncompromising, non-discriminatory manner. The dangers of creating any false binary between the two are apparent in the BJP’s choice of Yogi Adityanath as UP chief minister. A leader with a record of stoking communal hatred was cheered when he promised to rid UP of corruption: is Yogi’s past to be forgotten because he now is a crusader against corruption?
Post-script: In the past week, the BJP’s internet army and Nitish supporters have been busy deleting what they said about each other on social media in the last four years. I suggest they press the pause button instead: who knows, after all, when next will the political ‘hawa’ change?