Godly errors!

I cannot specifically quantify Modi’s contribution to India’s economic growth or our defence capabilities to restrain China at our border. However, I can vouch for his power to make every opposition politician scurry to Hindu temples, donning Hindu attire, or avoiding wearing a skull cap or a kaffiyeh like in the election times.

It was a usual counter battle plan taking on the BJP to consolidate the Muslim votes. In West Bengal, a stiff challenge was posed by ISF, a Muslim minority party trying to consolidate the minority votes. However, the Muslim votes did not disintegrate and stayed with Mamata, who could, in addition, garner much of the votes from the majority Hindus as well. Remember her balancing acts on a wheelchair visiting temples and then mosques. She even revealed her ‘Hindu Gotra,’ wooing the majority voting bloc.

The Assembly elections for Feb 22 are virtually a mandate on Modi’s charisma at the state level. The polls are spread from Goa (West), Uttarakhand and Punjab (North), U.P. (Central) and Manipur (N.E.). Modi and Shah make no bones about their Hindutva leanings, or their temple visits, generously applying sandal paste to their foreheads. The BJP has inaugurated a well-timed and renovated Kashi Vishwanath temple. The Ram Mandir is coming up fast to meet 2024 election deadlines. After all, their party does profess a far-right Hindu ideology, which seems to be unnerving the opposition.

Abhishek Banerjee doing Mangal Aarti, Mamata visiting the Goanese temples, Rahul Gandhi clumsily wearing a dhoti and doing his temple rounds, and the latest, Akhilesh Yadav’s claim of Lord Krishna talking to him are all a different newer trend in poll campaigning. All of them, secular when they want, now have given newer insights into what secularism could be, which is, keeping Modi led BJP out of power anyhow.

For the opposition, when Modi invokes Hindu Gods, it contradicts our constitutional mandates. Still, masquerading as devout Hindus every pre-poll time does not make the others more inclusive or secular.

Hindus were never a voting bloc and supported whoever they wished, spreading out to every hue and colour political parties. The consolidation of Hindu votes is a new phenomenon that directly results from the fault of treating the minority as a voting bloc and not integrating them into society like everyone else. India, as a country, still is inclusive despite its diversity, and efforts to break our citizens into classes and subclasses have been done by wily political parties to satiate their hunger for power.

Let the best win, but please keep gods and religion away to have time to attend to more important things like Covid and climate change.

Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix

Pic: Krishna speaks to Arjuna