What better way to divert people's attention from the failures and shortcomings of governments than to use the strategy of communal polarization and a particularly venal brand of identity politics? Over the next year, starting April, there will be important State Assembly elections. Those political forces who have everything to lose from informed debate about government policies, or the lack of them, and everything to gain from the spread of fear, hatred and division are busy in ratcheting up sectarian, harmful politics.
Right now, there are at least two prominent illustrations of the dangerous games that some political parties and leaders are playing.
Take the example of Kaliachak in Malda in West Bengal. As in other parts of the country the protests by Muslims here were against the derogatory and provocative comments made against the Prophet by one Kamlesh Tewari, a member of the Hindutva brigade. However a section of the massive crowd went on a rampage, torching a police station, burning buses and vehicles. Instead of ordering a credible inquiry, the Chief Minister of West Bengal had not a word of condemnation against the violence and, in fact, shielded the criminals involved, by dubbing it as a local issue against the Border Security Force, which was among the mob's targets.
This is not the first time the Chief Minister has tried to minimize issues where it is clear fundamentalists and extremist elements of the minority community are involved. There are also close links between her party and such elements, not just in Bengal but in Bangladesh too, including a Trinamool member of parliament who was reportedly using Sarada scam money to help fund extremist elements across the eastern border.
After the October 2, 2014 bomb blasts in Burdwan, when all evidence pointed to the operation of members of the banned Jamaat-e-Mujahideen (JMB) organization from Bangladesh, Mamata Banerjee chose to accuse RAW of planning the blasts. This bizarre statement, which was seen as a defence of the criminal extremist elements involved, led to an unprecedented response from Bangladesh when the country's Junior Home Minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, told the
Telegraph "People of our country have realized that Mamata Banerjee is helping terrorists."
The Trinamool's shameless defense of extremist elements within the minority community has provided just the right pretext that the BJP-RSS combine were looking for to communally polarize the people. In their communalized view, it is not fundamentalists but the entire community which has to be pilloried for the Malda violence. BJP leaders are making blatantly communal statements designed to create communal hatred whereas they have not uttered a word to condemn the statement of Kamlesh Tewari, a member of their extended
parivar.
The truth is that both the Trinamool and the BJP need each other, and strengthen each other with their respective sectarian politics. The former protects minority fundamentalist forces with a view to "managing" growing discontent against its government among the minority community who constitute 27 per cent of the electorate. This is in the background of growing resistance of the people of Bengal across communities to the highly criminalized assaults on democratic and social rights by the ruling regime. The other, the RSS-BJP combine, blatantly communal in its approach, is trying desperately to cash in on people's alienation from the Bengal government by using communal slogans. Such sectarian politics with an eye to the forthcoming State Assembly elections are disastrous for Bengal. Bengal is a state which turned its back on communalism and fundamentalism of all hues and maintained an unblemished secular record for the better part of over three decades under the Left front Government. It is indeed a challenge for the people of Bengal to resist and defeat the dangerous games being played by the ruling parties in Bengal and in the Centre today.
The second illustration which has a much more wide-reaching impact not limited to one State, is the design of the Sangh Parivar to bring
mandir politics back to the centre stage.
People have begun to question the Modi government's policies. The claims of development are crashing on the graphs of hard facts - exports down, manufacturing down, few jobs created, increased farmer suicides, lower average rural wages and relentless price rise of essential food commodities. The October 2015 Credit Suisse Report points out that 1 per cent of the richest Indians own 53 per cent of the country's wealth. The Modi government's policies have intensified these inequalities.
The failures have had an electoral fallout. The thrashing in the Bihar elections has been followed by a string of significant reverses in rural local elections, including in its stronghold of Gujarat as well as in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and now in some urban bodies in Maharashtra. The UP elections, considered critical for the BJP, are just a year away.
So what is the strategy? In the eyes of the Sangh Parivar, the managers of the BJP, there can be no better way to divert national attention - when all else fails, turn to Lord Ram and the holy cow. This also fits in well with the RSS goal of a Hindu
rashtra.
While the vicious campaign targeting the Muslim community on so-called cow protection continues, orchestrated statements from leaders of the Sangh Parivar and the BJP on the Ayodhya Ram Mandir issue signal a renewed design to build up the Ram Mandir campaign.
The RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat gave the signal on December 3 with his statement that "the temple will be built in my lifetime...a good mix of
josh (passion) and
hosh (sanity) is needed" (to build the temple). The country is witness to the "josh" unleashed by the Hindutva brigade in the name of the "Ram Mandir" leading to catastrophic results of communal violence, riots, thousands killed; even today, 13 years after the Babri Masjid was destroyed, the country is still paying the price.
But for the RSS, its agenda has always been supreme, not that of the nation. Around the same time as Bhagwat's statement, it was announced that two trucks with stones were unloaded at Ram Sewak Puram, a VHP property in Ayodhya. In early January, this year, a
PTI report quoted the President of the Ram Janambhumi Nyas, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, as having said, "Now the time has come for the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. Lots of stones have arrived in Ayodhya. We have signals from Modi Government that mandir construction would be done now." The BJP leader Subramanium Swamy had told Zee News a day earlier, "There is a division of labour between the Prime Minister and me. He focuses on governance and I focus on the Ram Mandir." There has been dead silence from official quarters to these atrocious statements, giving rise to the legitimate concern that top leaders at various levels of the ruling regime are part of the plan.
As is known, the Land Titles case is before the Supreme Court. There is a stay against all construction at the "disputed" site. The criminal cases against those leaders involved in the demolition of the Masjid, including LK Advani, Uma Bharati and others is also pending before the Supreme Court. The drumming up of support for the Ram Mandir issue is also to put pressure on the court in these related cases.
Taking all these developments together, 2016 threatens to be a trying one for all those committed to democracy, equality and secularism. The beam of sunshine lies in the growing voices of resistance which combine the struggle for equality and justice in the economic sphere with the rights of all communities to live in harmony and peace in a secular India.
(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.