Reams of paper
has been put to worst use by denigrating Narendra Modi as the choice of world’s
oldest and largest democracy in foreign magazines like New York Times and
Washington Times. There used to be a time when media was meant to report on
what people thought, in the current age of cultural colonialism, the Western
media has taken it upon itself to define the democratic choices for the people
of India. The fear of Hinduism which the West keeps on alluding to borders on
plain Hinduphobia. While writing this piece, I did notice one interesting
thing. If you write the word “Hinduphobia”, MS word marks it as incorrect word.
Such a term does not exist in the Western lexicon. Not acknowledging something
does not mean that it does not exist. It merely means that this is one
phenomenon, not a new one, but a real one which no one wishes to acknowledge.
In this land, Hindus were ruled for centuries, in spite of being a majority, by
the minority foreign religions, counting on the peace-loving nature of Hindus.
That said, I try
to look at what the return of Narendra Modi with an overwhelming mandate might
mean to different people. I may be wrong, I may be right or I may be somewhere
between being totally correct or totally incorrect.
What Modi’s return mean to India That is Bharat?
It is an opportunity and occasion
to be what they are supposed to be, the modern believer in a long, line of
cultural history, the continuum, often called Sanatana. When Hinduism began, it
was not a religion per se, rather a philosophical zeal to understand the world
and to establish a system of existence in otherwise an otherwise disorderly
world. There was no other competing religion. Dharma, what was then called, was
nothing but the right way of living- respectful to the people and the world
around us. It was a commitment to truth. The ancient Vedic philosophers did not
want to convert others to their beliefs, did not want to rule other lands. When
empire-building religions came about with Military Generals cum philosophers,
the Hinduism of India found itself at loss. The very diversity which Hinduism
celebrated became its curse. Wedges were drawn from one Hindu against another,
and slowly and slowly the land under the world’s oldest religion shrunk. The antagonism
against Hindus was unprecedented. The Christian and Islamists were confused by
the people for whom religion meant invading the unknown, the realm of truth,
and who had no idea of using religion for invading lands, converting people,
gaining numbers. In an era when the fight for supremacy was going on as
Crusades, the separation between the King and Sage, which was termed as
separation of the Church and the State in the secular western world, a new
thing in the west, but long existent in the east, was odd for the foreigners.
It took centuries for Hindus to come back to the unifying nature of this
religion. It also took them centuries to understand that Satantan was termed
Sanatana or Eternal at the time when there was no competing religion, when the thirst
for truth was ever-expanding and the compass of morality ever stretching to
include people from Iran to Indonesia to Vietnam, as tribes moved into the fold
of civilization. As the land shrunk under the feet of Hinduism, the hollowness
of the word Sanatana started ringing loud in the minds of people in the only
land in the whole globe which still had Hindus. The land of the origin of
Hinduism was handed over to the Hindus, broken, fractured. In a world, with 50
Islamic nations, and 15 belonging officially to Christian religion, the now
much-demonized third largest religion in the world, Hinduism, has no Hindu
nation on the face of this Earth (even though the partition of India was done
on the basic premise that since India will become a Hindu nation under
Congress, Muslims need a separate nation). Not being an imperialistic religion
and being inherently secular, Hindus have not minded it much. In fact, any
demand of Hindu nation has been most opposed by Hindus themselves. Hindus of
this nation were widely split across caste and language. However, what this
election has proven that Hindus have not got tired of ceding space and are now
intending the hold on to their last citadel of Sanatana. In Modi, we hope the Christian antagonism
towards Hinduism we find in the West today, will give way to the affection of
Emerson when he wrote affectionately about “the genius of Hindoos, whom no
people have surpassed in the grandeur of their ethical statement.” We can hope
that in the next five year, the editor of Washington Post and New York Time
stop demonizing those very people about whom Voltaire had written as “Peaceful
and innocent people, equally incapable of hurting others or of defending
themselves.” They are only embarrassing themselves by trying to create demons
out of one of the most peaceful race and the most accommodating religion.
What it means to Political Pundits :
Indian media, in particular, and
Indian intellectual space, in general has been largely captured by the
left-leaning and West-facing people. They considered the first tenure of
Narendra Modi as an aberration to the natural order of things. They had worked
hard to keep the dictatorial tendencies of earlier Congress leaders, primarily
from the first family, hidden from the people with a dishonest narration of
history. Largely conventized, they hated anything Hindu and would look down at
anyone with a bent towards Bhartiyata. Such is their intellectual arrogance
that they believed that the larger masses will simply follow them as far as
electoral choices are concerned. They tried to split the choices and then tried
to figure out if the masses will chose nationalism over issues like employment,
farmer crisis and such. Little did they understand that the two are not
cross-purpose to each other, not mutually-exclusive desires for the people. In
reality, both work together. If you love your nation, you will want it to
succeed economically as well. They somehow missed the point that a Rahul Gandhi
who stands in JNU with those who raise slogan to break the nation, and
represents a constituency still stuck in prehistoric age of development,
represented neither. Rahul Gandhi, as an opposition to Narendra Modi, stands a
failure both on Nationalism and Development and the split which the
intellectuals tried to effect was of no use. They tried to downplay the upsurge
of cultural revivalism and got it all wrong. Even today, they think Modi is the
factor. Narendra Modi, the man, is not the factor. It is what Narendra Modi
represents, matters. He represented execution of policy, he represented honesty
of intention (which made people forgive him biggest difficulties imposed by
something like Demonetisation). They tried to fan outrage, but the poor of
India stood by Modi, solemnly, silently, decidedly. When the intellectual mafia
hit out at Modi, ostensibly moved by the plight of the poor; the same poor
common folks stood up to defend him. They identified themselves with Modi, as
Indians, beyond caste, creed and religion, and they understood that these elite
classes with their champagne glasses weren’t after Modi; rather they were
against the ordinary man who could not speak eloquently in English and who went
about work to make ends meet and Modi merely stood in the middle of this
cross-fire between the Haves and the Have nots. By crediting the win to his
Charisma, they are trying to hide their failure in reading the winds of change.
They got so busy in reading between the lines that they forgot to read what was
written on the walls. They still continue to delude themselves as if Modi was
some pied-piper of Hamelin and the people of India mesmerized kids.
What it means to Opposition and the Congress:
It means to the Congress and the
collective opposition that they must stop fooling people. It is amazing looking
at the Congress manifesto which reeks of pathetically low opinion they have of
Indian masses. The elitist minds who advised Rahul Gandhi should be sacked for
making such a shoddy agenda paper and Rahul Gandhi should be sacked for
accepting and releasing it. The position they took on AFSPA, article 370 and
Sedition under the garb of Freedom of Expression somehow gives one an idea as
if the election was fought in Kashmir where majority people hated the Indian
Army, hated the idea of India. Such a manifesto might have given them some
seats in Kashmir, but to expect this manifesto to bring them vote in India was
absolutely stupid. Someone ought to have told Rahul that being in opposition
doesn’t mean opposing everything that BJP does. It could also mean countering
it by better promises. If BJP promised removing Article 370, If Rahul Gandhi
had sense, he should have cited the failure of Narendra Modi to do it in last 5
years and promised to remove it in first six months of gaining power. And then,
there is another message for the Congress. The elite birthday party club of
Vadra family does not hold any meaning for the masses of India. The ship has
sunk under the weight of its own entitlement with Jyoiraditya Scindia, Vaibhav
Gehlot, Deependra Hooda, Sushmita Deb all going down, including Rahul Gandhi in
Amethi. It shows that India is coming out of the new generation Princedom and
will not be subservient to a slavish sense of loyalty. Then Candidates like
Kanhaiya Kumar and Atishi Marlena going down with a pathetic performance shows
that the candidates propped by media houses win only in literature festivals,
not on the ground. There is a ShivpalGanj of Rag Darbari out there in India
whose inhabitants far outnumber the inhabitants of Middlemarch. These Ganjahe,
much to the chagrin of the strategists of the opposition, are not much impacted
by the vicious and vile editorials in Washington Times. They are beyond
Cambridge Analytica.
What it means to Modi Supporters?
The wars of civilization do not
end in one season. They run through centuries. When Islamist invaders started
spreading Sufis around promoting conversion, they weren’t looking at five
years. When the missionaries landed in Kerala, they were not looking at next
five years. These are civilizational wars which run into centuries. It is not
only the Government which will do it, it is the people who need to become a
participant in this. We have ceded much and need to say, this much and no
further. We have to be one, be great people and continue to demand great
leaders to lead us. We must not fall into the trap of fighting amount
ourselves. We all, who are the product of a shared history and shared
civilization stand as one. If we start running now, there will not be enough
Earth for us. Let is pin our heels down and stand guard, irrespective of Caste,
Language, region and Religion. There will be attempts to guilt trip the Hindus for standing up for the political party which has for the first time openly embraced their cause. Hindus must guard against that. The Constitution has been changed much and secularism has been used by the political parties to create vote banks. Hindus must be watchful against that as the Left which in the dark forests of Chattisgarh raises an army to overthrow the constitution, throw the same at Hindus. It is important to read and know the facts. Even in 1947, apart from atheist Nehru, we had great many men in the Constituent Assembly who were not ashamed and embarrassed about acknowledging the expectations of Hindu majority. Somewhere down the line, possibly to compensate for the popularity of Patel which Nehru did not have or later to over-compensate for the atrocities against the Muslims by Indira Gandhi during Emergency, narrative was stitched in which Statesmanship equaled appeasement. Arun Shourie once famously said, BJP is just Congress with a Cow. One needs to see to it that the Cow doesn't wander away.
The Curious Case of Missing Muslims:
There is very little Muslims
representation in the Indian polity. It does not augur well that whatever
little representation is there, is limited to people like Azam Khan. Instead of
Muslim leaders, we should have leaders who are Muslims. This is little
confusing but it makes perfect sense. A Muslim leaders will advocate cow
slaughter because it rubs Hindu noses in to dust. A leader who is Muslim will
be representing Hindus of his constituency and will take care of the faith of
his Hindu electorate. He will of course, be loved and voted into power. Once his electoral success is sure, he will not be ignored by the leading political party. Congress has been chiefly responsible for the alienation of Muslims from the electoral process. Muslims of India have been relegated to the role of rubble-rouser and vote bank. The intellectual class has been complicit in the act with its pronounced hypocrisy and selective outrage. They have used the pulpit of intellectual priesthood they hold to tell the Muslims that it is alright to be concerned exclusively with Muslim causes or the issues where Muslims are victim and be blind to the cases where Hindus are victim. How often do we find vocal Muslims on social media condemning a killing of Dhruv Tyagi? These intellectuals in fact, through their writings, utterances and behavior, tell the Muslims that it is alright not to be concerned about atrocities against their fellow Hindus or Sikhs, that their embrace of otherness is perfectly alright. Funny that they are the first to complain about the alienation of the Muslims. In a nation, where Hindus and Muslims worked together for common causes, from Nana Saheb to Savarkar to Bismil, we have come a long way where Muslims are not bothered about say, Sabarimala and only concerned about Haj Subsidy; not concerned about Colleges being run well, but are concerned with Madarassas.
An example of this is APJ Abdul Kalam who was a leader
who happened to be a Muslim. Just as Modi is an Indian leader who is a Hindu.
Just as George Fernandes was not a Christian leader, he was an Indian leader
who was a Christian. His issues were national, his causes were of the
collective. Muslims need to find such leaders and Hindus must support such leaders.
We need to work out ways to outnumber Owaisi with Ashfaqullah Khan. It is a
time for the Muslims to step out of the Ghettos and vote and work for India,
not for the community.
We are at the cusp of a new dawn.
Let us, as Indians, rise to the occasion.
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