In the early years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term, there was an interesting debate centred on the Government’s approach to change. Would Modi, it was asked, be a radical reformer— and most people had Margaret Thatcher in mind — or would be prefer incremental change?
After five years, there is no agreement on the type of change the Modi Government has ushered. I personally feel that the Government’s approach has been quite radical in certain respects: increasing the efficiency of the state, rolling back the tide of corruption and leveraging economic growth to enhance global influence. The septics, mainly those committed to market-oriented reforms, on the other hand, criticised Modi for dragging his feet on privatisation, for not reducing the size of the state sector and for persisting with the Congress’ welfare schemes. This debate has been inconclusive and is likely to remain so. The main point of interest is that — in rarefied circles at least — the criticism of Modi has been most persistent from the Right, rather than the Left.
There has been another criticism of the Modi Government, this time from radical Hindu nationalists. According to them, in the haste to focus on the GDP and economic growth, a Government with a BJP majority failed to act on the ideological front. In their eyes, the Government dragged its feet on issues such as curriculum changes, Muslim personal law reforms, the Ayodhya dispute and other similar concerns.
It is still too early to proffer any definite views on the direction the second Modi administration will take. Many decisions are shaped by events over which the Government has no control. Then, the problem of a lack of a majority in the Rajya Sabha, a problem that the Government faced over the past five years, is not going to be fully overcome in the foreseeable future — this despite the fact that the numbers will be more favourable after 2020. Finally, although the Opposition is in complete disarray now, its revival could complicate matters for the Government and act as a brake on radical impulses. Certainly, the Government will have to be extra vigilant on initiatives relating to citizenship, Jammu & Kashmir, Ayodhya and Muslim personal laws.
It is in this context that two interventions in the Lok Sabha assume significance. The first was Home Minister Amit Shah’s reply to the debate on the extension of President’s Rule in Jammu & Kashmir. For a long time India has become accustomed to Minister’s conducting themselves in a bland, bureaucratic way in Parliament. Since the main objective was to get a piece of legislation through, if possible with the cooperation of the Opposition, Minister’s piloting the Bill preferred to gloss over the rough edges of politics, leaving the confrontations to backbenchers. Shah departed from this approach in two ways. First, he was extremely combative; and secondly, he used the opportunity to quite lucidly, yet aggressively, reaffirm the BJP’s traditional distinctiveness on the integration of Jammu & Kashmir. Shah was explicit in identifying the Nehruvian origins of the Kashmir problem and he made no bones about the fact that he was very mindful that Article 370 was a “temporary” provision of the Constitution. It is also significant that he spelt out that the Government and security forces would fight terrorism in a pro-active way, if necessary by taking the fight into the homes of terrorists.
The importance of Shah’s intervention in the Lok Sabha should not be underestimated. It is quite apparent that the Home Minister, who is also doubling up as the BJP president, is quite clear that the resounding mandate for the party was both an endorsement of Modi’s leadership and a thumbs up for the larger political approach of the BJP, including its stand on Kashmir which was clearly spelt out in its manifesto. If the logic of this intervention is extended, it would seem that the second Modi Government will not be hamstrung by inhibitions over its political programme. The BJP, it would seem, will also cater to its loyal supporters, particularly those who have worked tirelessly to recreate India in a nationalist image.
The second speech, while unimportant in policy terms, was the feisty intervention of Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Maitra. Hers was interesting not because of what she said about the imminent danger to India from fascism — this is a hoary theme that has been flogged to death — but the wild enthusiasm with which it was greeted by a beleaguered section of the media and Establishment. Those who have been dejected by the scale of the Modi victory in an election they had hoped would generate an opposite result, went quite ecstatic and proclaimed a new star is born. Whether the TMC member lives up to the expectations and becomes another Kanhaiya Kumar, who was quite decisively rejected by the voters of Begusarai, will be worth watching. What is more significant is not the singer but the song.
It would seem that the intellectual class that led the Opposition up the garden path are both unreconciled to the verdict of 2019 and unable to look beyond the tired slogans of the past. They still seem enamoured of the Tudkre-Tudkre approach of the fringe. They are still conducting themselves in a manner more suitable for a campus audience in the West, rather than an instinctively nationalist India. The more the likes of Moitra capture the Opposition imagination, the easier it will make the task of Amit Shah.
In a battle involving invocation of Bharat Mata on the one hand and shrill indignation about emerging fascism, the BJP’s advantage is secure. A puerile Opposition has abandoned mainstream concerns in favour of an irrelevant fringe.
