Counting Swallows before summer: Political wind could be shifting

Among other things, even the BJP's plan to field a larger number of film stars and cricketers in elections than in the past suggests it realises the Modi tsunami of 2014 may be losing its force

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expends a considerable amount of energy trying to prove that everyone else is unfit to govern India. Its president declares that the BJP will rule India for the next 50 years. Political weathercocks, however, indicate that the wind may be shifting.

Bollywood film star Amitabh Bachchan must be more sensitive than most to changes in the political wind. His has been quite a political trek from the Congress, to the Samajwadi Party to brand ambassadorship of BJP-ruled Gujarat.

Suddenly, early this year, Bachchan started following Rahul Gandhi and a host of Congress leaders on Twitter. Did his omniscient “Computerji” perhaps tell him to lock on to figures re-emerging in Indian politics?

One swallow, however, does not make a summer. So how about two or three or even four?

Take another weathervane — Mohan Bhagwat, Chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fount of the BJP. The recent lectures he gave on ‘Bhavishya Ka Bharat (India of the future)’ contain noteworthy signals.

His public acknowledgment of the Congress for leading India’s freedom movement and celebration of the “many great souls who sacrificed a lot and continue to inspire” would be anathema to the BJP. Why did he further rile it by saying that the RSS is for “yukta (inclusive) Bharat” and not “mukt (exclusive) Bharat” — surely a negative reference to the BJP call for a “Congress-mukt Bharat (Congress-free India)”? His declaration that Hindutva would be incomplete without Indian Muslims also sounded near-heretical because the RSS was founded precisely to oppose the political mobilisation of Indian Muslims in the Khilafat Movement. For good measure, Bhagwat added that the RSS was an open and democratic organisation.

Why did Bhagwat feel called upon to make statements that fly in the face of the history and practices of the RSS? Could he have been buying insurance against a possible shift in political power by attempting an image-makeover of his organisation and distancing it from the BJP’s public postures?

He knows that should the government change in 2019, legal cases could be initiated against cow vigilantes who have murdered Muslims and Dalits. The RSS, too, could face restrictions on its activities for spreading hatred against the minorities.

Further, cases against all the ‘saffron terror’ accused like Lt Col Srikant Purohit, Swami Aseemanand and Sadhvi Pragya, currently out on bail, may be re-tried. So could the cases against the RSS associates accused of the Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif and Samjhauta Express blasts. A retrial of the ‘exonerated’ Gujarat policemen and politicians accused in the 2002 Gujarat riots and the mysterious encounter deaths of alleged terrorists subsequently, is not impossible.

In such a scenario, Bhagwat’s primary duty would be to protect his organisation and stay on the the right side of the political dispensation of the day. Remember, the RSS is drawn to power – it supported Indira Gandhi after 1971 and Rajeev Gandhi after her assassination in 1984.

Even the BJP’s plan to field a larger number of film stars and cricketers in the general election than it has in the past suggests that it realises that the Modi tsunami of 2014 is losing its force.

It is preparing to form alliances with film stars and their parties. In Kerala, Malayalam film star, Mohanlal, could be fielded against Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvanthapuram; in Andhra Pradesh, there are attempts to form an alliance with film star Pawan Kalyan; and in Tamil Nadu with Rajanikanth’s political party. Among the Bollywood stars it wants to woo, Akshay Kumar apparently tops the list. There are rumours that it may also field former Indian cricket captain Kapil Dev, among others.

There was a time when the only electoral star on the political firmament was Narendra Modi. Now he needs the magic of others to rub off on him.

Another indicator of the political weather turning is that political parties which developed in antagonism to the Congress are now preparing to join hands with it. The best example of this is the possible tie-up between the Telugu Desam Party and the Congress in Andhra. This is also the case with the socialist parties of various hues which thrived on anti-Congressism.

Internationally, too, the acceptance of the Modi regime is declining after India decided to throw its lot with the US. Donald Trump’s declaration of friendship for both the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Prime Minister Modi in the same breath is unlikely to have gone down well in the European and other world capitals. The reception that Congress President Rahul Gandhi got in Europe also suggests an anticipation of political change in India.

There are also signals that the Socialist parties of the continent are no longer sanguine about the domestic politics of the Modi regime. Nine Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have urged the European Union to cancel all agreements with India unless the Modi government releases the 10 civil liberty activists it has imprisoned. The MEPs asked how the European Commission could have “contacts and agreements” with a government that “defends that there are first- and second-class humans, indiscriminately kills Adivasis, Dalits and religious minorities, and imprisons human rights activists”.

Four of the nine MEPs from Spain to Finland are members of the “Confederal Group of the European Left–Nordic Green Left” while five belong to the “Group of Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats” in the European Parliament.

Former French President, Francois Hollande may have thrown Prime Minister Modi under the bus on the Reliance offset deal, not only because of allegations of quid pro quo in the Rafale fighter jet purchase but because he may share the disenchantment of European Socialists with India. The BJP’s claim of an international conspiracy brewing against it, may be no more sinister than global disillusionment with its governance.

It may be difficult to say just yet what kind of political situation will emerge, but uncertainty is in the air. There are enough straws in the wind to suggest that ‘the times they (could be) a changin’.

The writer is a journalist based in Delhi