Phony debate no proxy for good governance
Last Sunday, inimitable Cyrus Broacha anchored a spoof: “Harsha Bhogle versus BCCI” in his popular CNN-IBN show, The Week That Wasn’t, on the unceremonious removal of Bhogle from IPL commentary panel. Faking as radio commentators, Broacha and comedian Gopal Datt, animatedly discussed the sacking of Bhogle and the possibilities of his return to the cricket panel. Broacha asked Datt: “Can Bhogle return? What can he do to redeem his position?” Datt replied with all seriousness: “I cannot answer this question. It will depend on his (Bhogle’s) behaviour.” As a puzzled Brocha looked askance, Datt elaborated: “I think if he wants to get his job back, he should take an Indian flag in his hands and run around the stadium shouting Bharat Mata Ki Jai, Bharat Mata Ki Jai.”
The comic actors skilfully exposed the farcical and phony debate on nationalism. The parody, no doubt, has sent out a strong message to the contractors of nationalism. In the last 69 years (since Independence), nobody thought it necessary to get a certificate of nationalism. It is quite baffling as to how this spurious discourse has come to pass.
The BJP is apparently pleased with itself for shifting the goal post from “development” to “nationalism,” a sanitised version of Hindutva to divert attention from the real issues while the Congress is miffed with the saffron party for appropriating its trademark plank and grabbing media headlines.
Even as the Congress claims to be the original torchbearer of nationalism, a section of party men blame vice president Rahul Gandhi for letting BJP usurp its symbol. Some three decades back, when the BJP had just two MPs in the Lok Sabha, Congressmen used to taunt the RSS and the BJP for their lacking in nationalistic creden- tials. Circa 2016, a crafty BJP has the situation reversed while the Congress cries foul.
Though the country has been witnessing communal incidents since last two years, it was the sedition controversy at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, leading to the arrest of student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, that served as the springboard of the nationalism debate as the BJP adroitly stage managed the so called “anti-national” rhetoric.
The BJP’s initial motive was to use the row to bolster its student wing – ABVP, which is struggling to counter powerful Left unions in key varsities. Subsequently, the JNU incident was used to divert attention from the unfortunate suicide of Rohith Vemula,a dalit scholar of Hyderabad University, allegedly due to the harassment of the vice-chancellor at the behest of two union ministers.
Subsequently, when Rahul Gandhi visited the JNU campus to express solidarity with Kanhaiya and others, the BJP quickly grabbed the opportunity and turned the tables. BJP spin doctors (Amit Shah included) launched a campaign dubbing Rahul Gandhi as “anti-national”. The Congress strategists walked into the trap by overreacting. Rohith Vemula was soon forgotten much to the relief of the BJP in the avalanche of the nationalism debate. Simultaneously, the saffron camp appropriated national icons such as martyr Bhagat Singh, Ambedkar and few others to bolster its brand of jingoism.
An elated finance minister, Arun Jaitley, unveiled the party strategy as he said: “We have won the first round as those who shouted anti-national slogans are now saying Jai Hind, if not Bharat Mata Ki Jai.”
The Congress, unable to call BJP’s bluff, made valiant efforts to reclaim its nationalism symbol but with little success. In a desperate attempt, the AICC fished out the controversial comments of late RSS ideologue V D Savarkar wherein he praised the British rulers to get out of the jail seeking clemency. Drawing a contrasting parallel between Bhagat Singh and Savarkar, the Congress tried to puncture BJP’s pseudo nationalism.
While Bhagat Singh, a Leftist and atheist, willingly accepted death to kow-towing before the British, Savarkar had in a petition to the jail authorities (Cellular jail, Andamans, 1913), conveyed his readiness to be in their good books. “The mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the government,” the jail document reportedly said.
That the BJP had managed to rattle the Congress was evident from the fact that Congress president Sonia Gandhi convened a meeting of the high powered Congress Working Committee on the nationalism debate and decided that the party would aggressively counter the BJP propaganda, but in vain.
The country lags far behind in developed and even developing countries in various global social indices. In the Legatum Prosperity Index 2015, India ranks 99 among 142 countries. According to Labour Bureau data, there was a decline of 20,000 jobs across eight labour intensive sectors in the December quarter of 2015. According to Berlinbased Transparency International, India ranks 76 out of 168 countries in Corruption Perception Index. It means there is no improvement in the perception score even after Modi assumed power. Even Pakistan improved a bit.
A Lancet report had projected that India may fall short of the under-five child mortality rate target of 42 per 1,000 live births by 2015. Last year, Global Hunger Index report ranked India third behind Afghanistan and Pakistan amongst South Asian nations with a serious hunger situation. India is not a happy nation too. In the global ranking of the happiest nations, it comes in at the 117th spot out of 158 countries.
Are we getting our priorities right? In the ultimate analysis, can mere slogans substitute good governance? Is the spurious debate a smokescreen to cover up government’s failure in ushering in the Achhe Din? Let us end this polemic. All Indians are patriotic. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has still time on his side and one hopes that he will change the discourse to Developmental Agenda.