Hindu fanatics are rising alarmingly in number. Some ignorant servitor of the Jagannath Temple in Puri has raised objections to the West Bengal Chief Minister’s visit to the famous shrine because she had said cow slaughter for table purposes cannot be banned in a secular country.
Interestingly, at a television debate, Odisha BJP leader Samir Mohanty tried kept beating around the bush by failing to hide his ignorance about the Constitutional provisions, violation of which would be a crime. Mamata Banerjee is a pure Hindu with a strong secular spirit.
The world knows that more than two-thirds of the pilgrim-tourists to Puri are from West Bengal, without which the pilgrimage-tourism–linked revenue would not flow in. The Puri servitors need more awareness and skill training, particularly the Constitutional prescriptions, to ensure the secular spirit.
Modi is undoubtedly a popular figure who pulls votes. His dramatic skills are just amazing. Even when he delivers crap, ordinary masses consider it as superb wisdom. For instance, his speech emphasises expressions like ‘pro-poor’ and ‘good governance’ without being able to realise that once good governance comes in place, all good things happen.
The BJP decided to shift from UP to Odisha all on a sudden because UP was captured already, but Odisha needed instant doing as the party bagged some seats in the panchayat polls. The iron there was hot enough to be hit hard now. So, they rushed to Bhubaneswar to hold the national executive meet in an expensively-built air-conditioned tent house.
A multi-star hotel would have cost less. Interestingly, the party did more to attract people’s attention by showcasing Modi than concentrating on party executive issues. Founder lK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi were simply put up as wax statues throughout the two-day session. Modi came in style, his huge motorcade dazing the waiting crowd. The skilled orator remained hung from his car for quite a distance like a black cat commando does. Then, he stepped down onto the road to accept a flower bouquet or a letter from whoever could break the barricade and come near. People who were crazier to go close to the PM were excessively seen on television and heard on radio. But some people did raise the issue of his failure to bring back black money and give employment to crores of youths. No one from the BJP responded to this anxiety fittingly.
This humble story is not to undermine Modi’s good intentions or contributions. The objective is to make clear that the latest BJP tactics to capture new or lost territories are not perfect. Yogi Aditya Nath is just a superb guy, but under pressure he too has begun erring on rhetoric. His views on triple talaq are fine, but the analogies drawn from fictional Hindu epics do not agitate minds. Historical allusions would have been better. More disturbingly,
BJP spokespersons keep saying Odisha and Bengal politicians are coming together because both are commonly entangled in ponzi scams. But it’s not appropriate to malign a party for individual criminals or crooks in the fold. The BJP too has been fielding candidates with criminal antecedents. Not long ago, a CID team arrested a BJP Mahila Morcha leader, Juhi Choudhury, from a place near the India-Nepal border. She is one of the three accused in a child smuggling racket. Even in Odisha, Dilip Ray has been named as an accused in a case for irregularities in the allocation of the Brahmadiha coal block in Giridih in Jharkhand to the CTl in 1999. It is also true that the CBI is not bringing Babul Supriyo under its purview of investigation as he is a BJP leader and a Union Minister. He was very close to the Rose Valley management and he allegedly availed undue benefits. In this case, the BJP may be blamed because the CBI has behaved like a caged parrot.
For all this, the BJP revelling over a tiny success in Odisha does not mean the BJD would vanish in 2019. There is no sign of Naveen Patnaik losing the trust of the masses. Yes, it’s true that some of his colleagues and bureaucrats have turned arrogant and ill-behaved and are allegedly corrupt, for which the party may suffer a setback. But Naveen, being a crook-fixer par excellence, is expected to uproot the weed before the poll time. If by any personal compulsion, he fails to do the cleansing work, there is a big possibility that the BJP would succeed in overthrowing the BJD outfit.
It seems Naveen has realised that mingling with the masses means a lot. He rushed to Bhadrak post riot and took stock amid masses. He is also smiling more when in public glare. Further, his routine two-liner public responses have expanded lately to small speeches. To become more people-friendly, he has to talk in Odia more frequently without caring for the accent.
Modi’s populist display of being simple and humble has endeared him to the masses. He does not conduct himself as a statesman, but Naveen, with little effort, can portray himself as one. A statesman acts by a bedrock of principles, a moral compass, a vision and the ability to build a consensus to achieve his vision. He does not govern only by public opinion polls but makes his decisions by following the dictates of his own moral compass which is rooted in a sense of absolute right and wrong.
A statesman’s foresight is one of his most important qualities as he must be able to recognise problems on the horizon and be able to come up with solutions. A populist politician, in contrast, lacks the ability to build a consensus around his vision and his efforts to change policies, laws, and the course of history largely go in vain.
A statesman-politician brings together most of whom serve with him in the government to support his initiatives. To become popular, he does not use sleek advertisements and PR campaigns because propaganda is a tool of the despot. His lifelong study of great books and lessons of history allow him to speak in intelligent, potent and well-reasoned arguments. He has to be a ‘master orator’, no matter how small his speech.
Naveen speaks Hindi , English and French fluently; he has authored multi-topic books, guided global celebrities around places, seen the world too well and can differentiate crap from substance better, all by himself. But Modi has the ability to become a leader by populist tactics. Naveen, as a statesman-politician, has only to mingle around and communicate directly with the people to become a mass leader. Statesmen-politicians are difficult to be dismissed because they nurture a vision which everyone is bound to accept as universally beneficial and for long. So, they last longer in public life.
lastly, Odisha is yet to have an acceptable BJP face. Dharmendra Pradhan has to work harder to endear the masses in Odisha. The first skill he has to pick is ‘stop aping Modi in style and tone’. Jual Oram, who enjoys being called a ‘jewel’ phonetically, is far from being convincing. Kanak Vardhan and Bijay Mohapatra are just not sure of themselves. Modi and Shah have to devise a special strategy for Odisha to demolish the Naveen fort by proving better practically like in the Mahanadi and kerosene issues.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)