Addressing Tejashwi Than Trump

 The Goods and Services Tax (GST) reforms are being framed as a smart response to the impact of Trump tariffs or rather American sanctions against India. The new reduced rates aim to put more buck in the consumer’s hands, who is expected to buy more and create more demand in the economy. But is that all? Domestic economic decisions are mostly triggered by local political exigencies. There is one around corner –– Bihar elections.

The Bihar elections are expected to be held in November 2025. And it has already generated considerable heat. Giving the example of one assembly constituency of Mahadevapura in Bengaluru, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi accused the NDA government of having stolen all the elections to the state assemblies and Parliament.

The accusation defies logic at many levels starting from the Karnataka assembly polls of 2023: Congress won 135 seats, which were more than double that of the BJP’s seat count of 66. Later in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, Rahul won the Rae Bareli seat polling 6,87,649 votes with a margin of 3.9 lakh votes, which was better than his mother’s performance in the 2019 elections.

In fact, Rahul Gandhi’s victory margin was more than double that of the Prime Minister’s. While Rahul polled 6.8 lakh votes, Modi garnered only 6.12 lakh votes in Varanasi and won by a much lesser margin of 1.52 lakh votes. So, if a party is stealing all the elections, won’t it secure its leader’s seat with the best of margins? Conversely, won’t it steal Rahul’s Rae Bareli seat as well? After all, Rahul knew that he was losing his Amethi seat in the previous election and had hence travelled southwards to choose a safe seat with a majority of Muslim and Christian voters.

While these questions defy the logic of the “Vote Chori” campaign, it needs to be said that the campaign has indeed struck a note with at least those inimical to the BJP, if not the larger public. Rahul’s “Vote Chori” press conference was indeed convincing and compelling. Politis is not merely statistics. So, the accusation stuck, however absurd it might sound to extrapolate an assembly constituency to the entire country with thousands of such constituencies and many of those won by the Congress.

The “Vote Chori” accusations and the subsequent “Vote Adhikar Yatra” campaign were launched amidst the Special and Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. The SIR and the Vote Chori accusations have got linked and mixed up to become a potent campaign in favour of the Opposition. And the elections are just two months away.

The GST reforms should be seen in this context.

The Indian middle class is an anomaly because those who earn Rs 6 lakh per annum and those who take home Rs 60 lakh a year would happily call themselves middle class. Having climbed the steep ladder of relative success and prosperity in one generation, this class is cost conscious. Price reduction is something that matters to them. But this class cannot offset the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs. They will not buy the export-priced apparel or footwear or gem and jewellery. Why, they won’t even consider cooking the export-quality shrimp.

Their consumption pattern is not going to change, but they might consider voting for Modi and Nitish Kumar again for reducing the price of everything from toothpaste to motor bikes to mid-sized cars. This is more a winning political formula than a geoeconomic measure against a global bully. The middle classes are India’s whining multitude, they make opinion. Modi has offered them the ultimate sop –– telling them that more and more consumables are within their reach. This could change the topic of conversation in the run up to the polls.

But for brief interludes, the NDA has been continuously in power in Bihar since 2005. That is a long stint by any measure in an almost ungovernable state with the greatest levels of poverty. Thanks to the complete polarisation of the polity, caste and communal considerations often override biting anti-incumbency. Yet, the NDA fared badly in Bihar in 2024 Lok Sabha polls with just 30 out of 40 seats whereas it had won 39 in 2019, 31 in 2014 and 32 in 2009.

The Opposition to SIR was expected to exacerbate the communal divide as the attempt was to identify non-citizens, a euphemism for illegal Muslim migrants from Bangladesh. The more the Opposition from the Congress and the Lalu clan to SIR, the worse the Hindu-Muslim divide would get –– could have been the calculation. However, when the “Vote Chori” campaign gets mixed up with the SIR, the end result would be something else making even the fence-sitters wonder about the truth behind the allegations.

When a bonanza is announced at that very moment, the political climate gets altered, introducing a political or electoral equivalent of a feel-good factor. Bihar is the land of the desperately poor, the poor and the lower middle classes, where every paisa counts. If the Income Tax slab revision just four days before the polling could fetch bountiful votes for the BJP in the 2025 Delhi elections, the GST rejig offering massive price reduction to the working classes could be a welcome relief.

And it is important to look back at Modi’s Independence Day speech. There were two very important messages: lowering of GST rates and unqualified praise for the RSS. Many Sangh insiders believe that apart from price rise, the lack of enthusiasm of the RSS could have played a big role in the BJP losing the simple majority in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The I-Day speech addressed both these issues. Modi is going out of his way to accommodate the RSS, without which the BJP becomes a cadre-less party like the Congress; and also, to arrest price rise.

Here is a consummate politician recalibrating his policies to suit the demands of the electorate, which was getting increasingly apathetic towards the government. The Bihar results may prove him right.

 Emergency, Regime Change and Iran

No amount of foreign interference can justify the arrest of Opposition leaders, but the inimical West did make Indira vulnerable to regime-change threats after Bangladesh liberation and nuclear test

   Source: Congress party's post on X

The brouhaha over the fiftieth anniversary of the Emergency brings up certain unpleasant questions: Have we really analysed why Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency? Was the “foreign hand” (her favourite expression those days) going to succeed in deposing her? Since then, have we got used to the foreign hand so completely that nobody bothers to research the impact of foreign interference against the Indira Gandhi government? The interference was real, however excessive her response might have been. The response was indeed excessive. No amount of foreign interference can justify the arrests of all the Opposition leaders or all the atrocities unleashed in the guise of Emergency.

 

Yet, it needs to be retold that Indira Gandhi was a victim of foreign interference. Like all the leaders who stood up to western hegemony, Indira too was felled, politically and then physically. It is inconceivable now that a High Court would entertain an election petition, cross examine witnesses, conduct a trial and then hold the Prime Minister guilty of election malpractices over discrepancies between the date and notification of the resignation of her Officer on Special Duty Yashpal Kapoor. All the other charges read like a litany of a loser’s lament --- like the district magistrate and superintendent of police getting involved in the preparations for the PM’s rally and the use of Airforce aircraft for her transport, etc.

 

It is strange to believe that Indira after coming back to power in 1980 never tried to really investigate or expose the conspiracy, if any, to depose her, though she kept on provoking the West by talking about a foreign hand. She had won the 1971 elections on a Left Wing platform trumping the combined Right Wing forces with 352 seats, proving that her splinter group --- Indian National Congress (Requisitionists) --- is the real one. She tackled a refugee situation of well over 10 million who were running away from a genocide of 3 million people, mostly Hindus, in East Pakistan. She was snubbed by US President Nixon, pushing her to seek “peace, cooperation and friendship” with the Soviet Union.

 

Later that year she went to war changing the global map, creating a new sovereign nation --- something only colonial powers and victors of WWII had done hitherto. She went further. She tested a nuclear device thereby ensuring India’s sovereignty. In May 1974 when Buddha Smiled at the Pokhran test range in Rajasthan, Indira made India the first nation outside the charmed P5 circle to possess nuclear capabilities. She was obviously a prime target --- the leader of a miserably poor, post-colonial nation, that too a woman, trying to punch way above her weight. 

 

In fact, much before all this, a leader of an Opposition party (the party of feudal lords and princelings) was hobnobbing with the CIA. Frances Stonor Saunders in her brilliant book Who Paid the Piper; the CIA and the Cultural Cold War refers to Minoo Masani as ‘the’ leader of the Opposition party in India, who was closely linked to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a covert CIA operation. The bhishmapitamah of the Indian Opposition, its moral force, Jayaprakash Narain, was the chairman of the Indian Congress for Cultural Freedom, and when the CIA connection got exposed some time in 1967 he wrote, “It is inconceivable for me how anyone who believed in freedom, in the open society, in the moral correspondence between means and ends, could have thought it proper to accept funds from an agency of international espionage…” (as quoted by Saunders in her book). 

 

This was the backdrop of the competitive politics in India when Indira rose to become an unchallenged leader of the masses liberating Bangladesh and testing a nuclear device.

 

Then why didn’t she call for early elections in June 1975 when hit by the Allahabad High Court verdict? Why did she squander away all her fiercely-won nationalistic capital by imposing Emergency and destroying her democratic credentials for ever? Did her Soviet friends inform her about an impending coup or removal through lawfare or worse, India imploding? Or did the Soviets for their own geopolitical interests want her to become a dictator? Well, her defeat and that of her son in an election held during the Emergency is proof of how free and fair the elections were. No dictator holds free and fair elections to lose them. Indira obviously believed that there was a regime change attempt being made against her. The Emergency was her response to this attempt, not an endeavour to become a dictator.

 

Now, when Iran is being bombed for its efforts to build a nuclear weapon, India needs to pause and ponder that it was in a similar situation in 1974 --- a post-colonial nation inimical to the West trying to build a nuclear weapon to assert its sovereignty and status as a regional power. The Iran-Israel conflict is a reenactment of the continuing India-Pakistan conflict. A civilisational nation plundered and subjugated by the West for centuries is being pitted against a post-war creation of colonial powers (sure, Balfour Declaration goes back to 1917). All Western arguments over freedom, democracy and nuclear non-proliferation fail miserably when applied to the deeds of the last born darling of the British empire, Pakistan.

 

Iran still does not have a nuclear weapon, Pakistan has about 170, but it is not a threat and Iran is. Both are Islamic nations, and both have nurtured proxy terrorist outfits, and both have been inflicting a thousand debilitating cuts on its neighbours. However, Iranian semi-state actors haven’t got caught like Kasab in Mumbai in 2008 or identified like the three Pahalgam terrorists who killed tourists checking their religion in April this year. Why semi-state actors, a serving Pak army officer Col R. Sadatullah of Special Communications Organisation bought the Voice over Internet Protocol connections for the Mumbai attackers to talk to their Pak army handlers.

 

Yet, Pakistan is an honourable western ally to be feted, fed and cheered by the President of the United States of America. And in turn a self-promoted Field Marshal would nominate that very President for the Nobel Peace Prize. Irony dies a miserable death every day in Islamabad and Washington DC. The nomination came in while the US was bombing the three nuclear facilities in Iran. At least Obama got the peace prize before he set out to drop 26,000 bombs in seven countries.

 

 Modi@11: three big challenges

Complete dependence on US Big Tech; paucity of infrastructure for mobility; and lack of farm produce procurement in pockets of poverty are glaring gaps

         Source: wikimedia.org

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise has been phenomenal to say the least. Equalling Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of three consecutive national election victories might sound like a statistical milestone, but it is much more than that. Nehru was riding the wave of the national movement that defeated colonialism, and each Congress candidate was more or less a genuine freedom fighter in an idealistic era with no need for fact-checkers. Whereas, Modi’s 2014 victory was a spectacular throwback to the single party rule, which was deemed impossible in an era of coalition governments.

So, any attempt to analyse his achievements and failures in the eleventh year of his prime ministership should also be made in accordance with the grand scale of his political presence across the country, notwithstanding the reduced mandate in the 2024 elections. His successes are many and are well-advertised. So, there is hardly any need to reiterate them. In fact, his greatest success is in keeping the Sangh Parivar in power these last 11 years --- a fact grudgingly acknowledged by the RSS leadership, which has been sulking for long.

However, Modi’s challenges are many, and if they do not get addressed urgently in his third term they may become grand failures:

Complete dependence on US Big Tech

The US has a monopoly control over technology and tech-business in India. The earnings from India of Google, Meta, Microsoft, X, Apple, Amazon and others are not even spoken about in trade tariff negotiations because without these companies and the products they offer, India will come to a standstill. India does not have a single homegrown tech startup that can even attempt to conceive a mobile or desktop operating system. This article cannot be written without MS Word and iOS or published without Google.
 
While in India, an email, a message, a video or an image cannot be sent or received without a Big Tech platform or server, the Chinese have HarmonyOS for mobile applications and have unveiled OpenKylin for desktops. Indians can only drool over the latest Huawei laptops. No Indian can consume and produce entertainment, news or mundane “paper” work for regular home or office use without the US Big Tech hardware, software, servers and platforms. In fact, Google controls the entire Indian digital ad-tech sector worth billions of dollars.
 
So long as this monopoly situation remains, the US administration will continue to fete Pakistani dictators and hyphenate India and Pakistan, humiliating India to no end.
 
Infrastructure for mobility

In the infrastructure sector, the achievements of this government are not mean by any measure. As a railway beat reporter 22-23 years ago, I had reported on the design challenges of the Chenab bridge, which became a reality last week. Yes, it took about 28 years to build this railway line from Jammu to Srinagar. Former Integral Coach Factory General Manager Sudhanshu Mani’s Train 18, which became Vande Bharat is also a feather in Modi’s cap. Something that should have happened at ICF long, long ago.
 
But this is not enough. On February 15, there was a stampede in the New Delhi railway station that killed 18 valid passengers because the railways could not handle the passenger rush either in terms of restricting train tickets or managing space on the railway station platform. It is a great shame that a department which could design the Chenab bridge did not display basic passenger management abilities when they were required the most. If immediate punitive measures are not taken against local officials their apathy towards poor passengers will continue.
 
The eastbound trains from Delhi serve the poorest of poor from Delhi’s slums, who are the backbone of Delhi’s economy. Their bare subsistence-level wages run Delhi-NCR’s factories, offices and homes and it is impossible to imagine life without them. It doesn’t need a design marvel to double the capacity in this trunk route --- simply build tracks overhead and manufacture fully airconditioned coaches.
 
Worse is the case of Mumbai suburban trains, which carry over 70 lakh passengers every day. A few days ago, four passengers died when 12 of them hanging on the footboard fell off. Apparently 7 of them die every day with one of them falling from a moving train. This almost reads like an 18^th century horror story factoid. Total number of deaths on western and central suburban rail networks in the last 20 years is unbelievable --- 51,802. All the suburban trains need to be turned into fully airconditioned coaches within a year.
 
In 11 years, 55,000 kms of new roads have been built, but their quality needs to be audited badly. Landslides during monsoons, literally from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, have turned the national highways into a joke. And all this points towards corruption and nothing else. Unless strict action is taken against local officers and the contractors there can never be accountability for the huge amounts of money spent by commuters by way of toll tax.
 
Procurement of farm produce

Odisha’s starvation hubs of Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput did not become capable of offering food to its children (instead of selling them for a morsel of rice) because of foreign charity, missionaries or NGOs. The miraculous turnaround happened with government procurement of agriculture produce. That is all that is required of the government to make people stand on their feet and do farming. Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are great examples of what government procurement can do to lift people with farmlands up from abject poverty. This must be replicated in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Farming should be made remunerative to sustain lives in the villages. The mass migration of the poor from Bihar and UP to Delhi and Mumbai has made the cities burst at the seams. Indian cities do not have the capacity, particularly Mumbai, to build more slums. Life in city slums is nothing that a government should be offering its citizens. 
 
And, of course, Modi’s biggest challenge of job creation will also be addressed while investing in agriculture, which employs the greatest proportion of the workforce in the country.

Trump’s ceasefire claims underscore US’s bipartisan support for Pakistan

 

While the phone call was a bailout plan for Pakistan, the ceasefire announcement was an attempt to embarrass Modi, which Trump continues knowing well how it is playing out in Indian domestic politics

                   Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

 

The least that a mature democracy is expected to offer its men and women in uniform is a bipartisan consensus on military affairs. No cadet, when he signs up, wants a politician to berate a soldier's efforts, while calling another politician names. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s latest jibe, “narendar-surrender” --- amplified by the Congress party spokesman, who called the PM a coward --- is a debilitating blow to the morale of the polity. Not because the PM has been attacked in the vilest possible terms, but because a successful military operation has been turned into a mean political joke. For, “surrender and cowardice” are terms that shouldn’t even be remotely associated with a military mission.

 

But wasn’t this expected? The BJP scored a domestic political point by trashing all the names offered by the Congress and hijacking the best speakers from the Opposition benches for its outreach to the rest of the world. Asaduddin Owaisi, Shashi Tharoor, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, Manish Tiwari and Salman Khurshid were simply superb in their articulation of the national cause. The best oner-liner was from Kanimozhi. A mischievous European reporter, who came tutored about her party’s politics of Tamil linguistic pride, asked the prickly query on India’s national language. She nonchalantly replied that it is “unity in diversity”.

 

The embarrassment all this has caused the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi is immense. Three former Congress ministers have violated party’s written diktat (list) and crossed over to join the government’s team, while remaining party’s MPs. It was a body blow to Rahul and he took it badly. Rahul has claimed that US President Donald Trump made a phone call and asked Modi to stop fighting --- “Narendar surrender” is how Rahul fictitiously paraphrased Trump’s conversation. The alliteration is pedestrian and sounds like crass street politics, not statesman-like geopolitics. Then, how else could Rahul have responded to his best speakers (though he does not give them their rightful due) being stolen? He hit back the way he knows best.

 

Therein lies the problem. He did a comparison between his grandmother Indira Gandhi and Modi and claimed that nothing, not even the mighty US Seventh Fleet, could make Indira change her mind. Indira’s foreign minister Swaran Singh had signed the Indo-Soviet treaty of friendship, peace and cooperation on August 9, 1971, four months before the war began. Rahul doesn’t seem to have read Article IX of the Indo-Soviet treaty, which says, “ In the event of either Party being subjected to a threat thereof, the High Contracting Parties shall immediately enter into mutual consultations in order to remove such threat and to take appropriate effective measures to ensure peace and the security of their countries.” If this isn’t a military alliance, what is?

 

In 1971, the Soviet empire spanned across two continents from China’s border in the east to Berlin in the west. And to thwart the threatening presence of the Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean, the Soviet Union had deployed nuclear-armed destroyers and a submarine from Vladivostok. Thus, it was not Indira’s resolve but the Soviet missiles that cowed down the US bully. But politicians are wont to be flexible with facts, which is par for the electoral course. 

 

Now, the Russian Federation is a mere shadow of its mighty predecessor, fighting bleeding battles with what was once a part of its civilisational past, just to remain afloat as a major power, not a Super Power. In this geopolitical context, a phone call from Trump can be heeded, particularly when India’s military objectives have already been met. 

 

India was ready for de-escalation soon after hitting the terror infrastructure. There was no point in going up the escalator of escalating damages. Already 11 airbases deep inside Pakistan were targeted, there were no tactical or strategic objectives to be met, it was the right moment to push the ceasefire button. War after all is diplomacy by other means and not an end in itself. Also, Trump’s call underlined in no uncertain terms that India cannot obliterate Pakistan, it cannot bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age”, and that the West will not remain a mute spectator to the humiliation of Pakistan. The West will intervene, discredit India and protect Pakistan and reaffirm the Western solidarity with IMF and World Bank loans.

 

In fact, the biggest takeaway for India from this limited conflict is that the US foreign policy remains bipartisan despite Trumpian eccentricities. All the electoral sloganeering of ab ki bar Trump sarkar and mera dost Donald Trump hasn’t made any difference to the US establishment. It began lecturing India about buying arms from Russia, not long after Trump’s phone call. The timing couldn’t have been just coincidence as Trump keeps on talking about his mediation --- the latest was during his conversation with President Putin on June 4, which was reported by Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov. 

 

Was Trump’s intervention only a quid pro quo for a crypto currency deal that Pakistan has allegedly made with his family-owned company World Liberty Financial Inc or was it also meant to embarrass Modi? His out-of-turn announcement of the ceasefire, sure had the Trump signature, but also the desired destabilising effect on domestic Indian politics. The ceasefire announcement and the repeated reference to it have elements of the long term regime change plan which the previous administrations and the so-called Deep State actors like George Soros had laid down over many years in India.

 

This was a much needed reality check for the Modi government. Something that our national security planners should factor in while wargaming kinetic counter measures against terror strikes by Pakistan’s semi-state actors. If the West continues to treat Pakistan as a military ally for whom it will make calls that would embarrass the Indian leadership, should not the latter rethink its membership of Quad? Is Quad really beneficial for India? If Quad is the only reason and provocation for China’s aggressive standoffs at Doklam and Ladakh, wouldn’t India be better off stepping out of NATO's replica in the Indian Ocean? There are no nuclear-armed destroyers and submarines waiting to sail into Bay of Bengal at India’s call. The West watches India with suspicion. India has to look East.

Fragments of a failed society

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The Tribune, September 20, 2018

Sewer deaths exemplify our pyramidal caste system with its oppressive feudal facets


Sanitation workers belong to the lowest of the low rungs in the caste ladder.



Rajesh Ramachandran

We ought to be a failed society to send our neighbours down the septic tanks to certain death or a life of filthy ignominy. Eleven people have died in seven days this last week in septic tanks and sewers, six of them in the national capital. Their corpses, their needless deaths are exemplifiers of our pyramidal, hierarchical caste system with all its oppressive feudal facets. We believe that a certain group of people are born to carry on their head others’ waste and excreta. When the dry toilets gave way to more modern ones with flush tanks, our modernity pushed the same old unfortunate people into newer septic tanks and municipal sewer lines. The IITian Chief Minister who wielded the broom — the symbol of the sanitation workers’ servitude — to seek their votes still has not thought about a mechanised alternative to people diving into pools of excreta. Did the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi or the Centre stop him from getting the Delhi IIT or the Kharagpur IIT to design robots to clean the clogged sewers? According to the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, one sanitation worker has died every five days since January 2017.

Sanitation workers belong to the lowest of the low rungs in the Indian caste ladder, whatever their religion be. Hindu, Sikh, Christian, or Buddhist, the sanitation workers are discriminated against, often by even other Scheduled Castes. The worst aspect of Dalit politics is that it has always been dominated by the agricultural labour or cobbler castes like Jatav, Mahar, Mala, Pulaya or Holaya, to the extent of making the children and grandchildren of sanitation workers invisible in public life. So far, Valmikis or Madigas or Thotis have not really mattered in politics or bureaucracy. The token Dalit representative of the Congress was always from castes other than sanitation workers, so was the anti-Congress Dalit messiah Dr BR Ambedkar, a Mahar. India’s first Dalit President KR Naryanan, the celebrated Congress leader Jagjivan Ram, the BSP founder Kanshi Ram, his heiress Mayawati, the first Dalit Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, the first Dalit Speaker of the Lok Sabha, GMC Balayogi, Bihar strongman Ram Vilas Paswan… the list of Scheduled Caste leaders from the agricultural labour class is endless. So was the case when the BJP chose a Dalit to be President of India.

Worse is the situation in bureaucracy. Some leaders listed above pushed their children into the civil services, cornering quotas and denying opportunities to the children of manual scavengers. Now, reservation in politics and bureaucracy is just preservation of privilege for the children of empowered people. Their politics, too, is a curious extension of the colonial constructs of the separate nation and separate electorate meant to Balkanise the idea of India. Gandhi’s idea of eradication of untouchability, which he believed was more important than Independence, was to live and work with sanitation workers, impart dignity to their work and confidence in them as fellow beings, while shaming the upper castes and forcing them to clean their own toilets. The British countered this with the idea of a separate electorate and rituals like celebration of the Mahar valour during the battle of Koregaon. The greater instance of Mahar valour was the battle of Srirangapatna, when on May 4, 1799, a grenadier of the Bombay Army, possibly a Mahar soldier, shot Tipu Sultan through the temple, thus silencing the roar of the Tiger of Mysore and helping East India Company take control of the western coast.

So, while creating separate electorates and separate nations for Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Anglo-Indians and SCs, Koregaon — and not Srirangapatna — was convenient for the British rulers to create a narrative of fractured identities, mutinying against one another. This colonial narrative cannot create an equal society, but only sharper divisions. Instead of militantly agitating against the state and the Centre for continuing with the inhuman practice of pushing men and boys into sewer lines, the so-called Dalit radicals continue sharpening the edges of the colonial percepts of our fractured identities, celebrating the victory of a British contingent against an imbecile Peshwa some 200 years ago, for what? About a century ago, identity politics of the Hindutva, Islamic and Dalit varieties have all been at the behest of the British. VD Savarkar had sought mercy and was granted freedom by the British, Ambedkar was a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council and Jinnah was a British ally and all three were opposed to the Quit India movement. So, it was no surprise that while opposing Gandhi, Ambedkar had, in 1931, praised the Hindutva proponent Savarkar as a true friend of the Dalits, “I however wish to take this opportunity of conveying to you my appreciation of the work you are doing in the field of social reform. If the Untouchables are to be part and parcel of the Hindu society… you must destroy chaturvarnya. I am glad that you are one of the very few who have realised this.” According to Ambedkar’s biographer Dhananjay Keer, in 1937 Ambedkar’s publication Janata wrote that “Savarkar’s service to the cause of the Untouchables was as decisive and great as that of Gautama Buddha himself.”

Savarkar’s followers claim that Ambedkar tried to help him while he was being tried for Gandhi’s murder. Manohar Malgonkar in The Men Who Killed Gandhi quotes the Savarkar Memorial Committee publication to claim that Ambedkar told Savarkar’s counsel in January 1949, “There is no real charge against your client; quite worthless evidence has been concocted… But take it from me there just is no case.” This may not be true at all, but it is sadly true that some Ambedkarites do celebrate East India Company’s victories and worship Mayawati’s statues, instead of forcing her to disassociate forever from Hindutva forces and to rescue manual scavengers from the sewers.

After Sabarimala, women priests

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The Tribune, October 15, 2018

It is for all religions now to embrace the spirit of the SC verdict


No science here: If faith becomes rational, can it be termed faith?



Rajesh Ramachandran

The Sabarimala verdict is being treated as a gender issue and a victory for women’s rights. As a Sabarimala pilgrim since my childhood, I can vouch that this verdict allowing fertile women access to the hill shrine is neither. The petitioners are not devout women devotees who are dying to seek Ayyappa’s blessings, or demanding rights of temple entry for their comrades-in-faith. In fact, they remind one of the BJP’s concern for Muslim women and triple talaq. The ban on menstruating women to the Sabarimala temple is a mix of a pre-modern sense of hygiene, tradition and superstition, which have all come to be packaged as faith. In Kerala, most Hindu households used to light a lamp in the evening, when the elderly and the children used to sit down to chant shlokas, recite spiritual Malayalam poetry or simply sing devotional movie songs (depending on the relative education of the household).

The woman of the house usually lit the lamp. And she didn’t do it during her periods. In an era before sanitary pads, the womenfolk probably thought it better to keep away than soil the puja room with bodily fluids. This applies to boys and men too, who were debarred from anything pious without a bath. Obviously, the logical extension was to keep off temples, too, during menstruation. The Sabarimala trek used to be a long arduous one through dense forests. The difficulty, the longevity and the unpredictability of the trek, and the Buddhist origins and traditions around the temple could also have been a deterrent for women. So, only girls below 10 and menopausal women used to make the trip; though there have been exceptions galore.

Whatever was the reason that kept women out of the temple for so long, the verdict is welcome as a judicial intervention in faith. It is difficult for a society to reform itself without an outside agency. Here the Anglo-Saxon law, the Constitution and rationalism displayed by judges, who probably do not believe, have decided to force open the closed minds of the faithful. Women are doing everything that they should wearing sanitary napkins. Now, why should the menstrual cycle stop them from going to a temple? It is very difficult for a woman devotee to logically shake off centuries of habit and traditions, which have the force of superstition. A belief becomes an oppressive compulsion when it is accompanied by fear. The wrath of God has kept societies in darkness. Unfortunately, rationalism is often the privilege of the entitled class. A weak person, miserably poor, with nothing but blind faith to help her suffer the ignominies of life cannot obviously afford to take the risk of inviting God’s displeasure.

The Supreme Court has now asked the women of Kerala to do exactly that. And that is why this verdict is indeed path-breaking. Otherwise, not going to Sabarimala is not like being thrown out of the marital home without alimony or becoming the fourth wife of a wife-beating, marital rapist or being denied equal property rights or representation in elected bodies or raping a nun. Not going to Sabarimala was part of a ritual for a devotee, just like going to Sabarimala was. There are women who wait for their hysterectomy to make the trip. If faith becomes rational, can it be termed faith? For instance, there is a Devi temple in Kerala where the goddess is believed to menstruate and the idol won’t be available for darshan those four or five days in the temple’s calendar.

Every religion has such quaint practices that seem abhorrent to someone from an alien culture. The verdict is an outsider’s gaze into the temple practices of Kerala. Only an outsider can easily pick out what is outlandish in customs that are the norm for a society. Now, this gaze has to be consistent in two ways. We need to look at all religions from a gender perspective and only then will we see the repressive patriarchy that rules all religious institutions. Menstruating women going to Sabarimala is a very minor issue when compared to the misogynist tyranny of the temples, mutts, deras, churches and mosques. Kerala has been a progressive state for all reasons. The Kerala society, instead of hanging on to moth-eaten traditions of a pre-napkin era, should herald a revolution by appointing women head priests in all temples. The majority community should always take the lead in social reform measures, for only then will the minorities gain confidence in its motives in bringing in a positive change.

Kerala had the first Dalit vedic priest in a traditional temple. Why not women? There ought to be a 50 per cent reservation for women in all big temples of India. Women priests should worship God, just as they fly aircraft, send rockets and run this country. As a next step, the Supreme Court should take note of the anti-women activities that are going on within other religious denominations, particularly the Catholic Church. In the very same state, five nuns had to do a sit-in for a fortnight for a rapist bishop to get arrested. The alacrity shown by the petitioners in the Sabarimala case ought to have been repeated here, but was sadly missing. It took almost three months for the bishop to get jailed and no Marxist leader of Kerala found it amiss.

The Sangh Parivar has all along thrived building a Hinduism-under-siege bogey. This narrative has started playing out in Kerala, highlighting the differentiated approach by the law-enforcing authorities towards Sabarimala and the bishop’s rape case. The Sabarimala petitioners can restore the balance by seeking to intervene in two issues: the treatment of nuns by the ruling clergy, and misuse of confession, a holy sacrament, by some unscrupulous priests to blackmail and rape the faithful women. Here, too, the solution is pretty simple: allow women to become priests in all denominations. Let the petitioners demand women bishops for the Catholic Church in India.

Truth and reconciliation

nous indica 

The Tribune, August 31, 2018

Khalistan agenda is not a freedom of speech issue as UK tried to make out


Rajesh Ramachandran


Last year, around this time, a convicted rapist and a murderer, Gurmeet Ram Rahim, managed to get about 36 of his own followers killed to prove his clout. Recently, a bishop brought in busloads of his flock of faithful sheep to show his strength when he was getting questioned in a rape case. We, as a society, are so blind, ignorant and greedy that any felon could get a few truckloads of supporters to defend him. Religious and social organisations have copied the depraved politicians so well that the charlatans have all become one indistinguishable vile whole. What fuels these tricksters is money. The pro-Khalistan sloganeers among the Punjabi diaspora are no different. When a poor Punjabi is offered asylum in the name of religious persecution, he is forever obliged to shout the slogans of those who made him a citizen of the first world. The logic is so simple and compelling that the Khalistan 2020 rally in London was merely a rerun of many things past.

Why just blame the asylum-seeker? Even a well-heeled columnist while seeking foreign hospitality recently snarled at The Tribune for this very same reason. The Tribune has been taking on foreign governments in its editorials and news pages for supporting, sponsoring and sheltering religious secessionists. So, like one of those faithful in the bus (business class for sure), this columnist too shouted slogans against The Tribune. Ideally, such people ought to be writing for The Civil and Military Gazette (the pro-British newspaper which was The Tribune’s competitor in Lahore) or its contemporary Internet versions. The Khalistan agenda is not an issue of freedom of speech as the UK government recently tried to make out. The Khalistan religious secessionist movement has claimed the lives of a Prime Minister, a Chief Minister and thousands of innocent Punjabis, mostly Sikhs. So, a Khalistani flag symbolises two decades of terror, deprivation and death. And that was unfurled early this month at Trafalgar Square because the UK government seems to be completely unaware of all those years of murder and mayhem in Punjab and thought it was the secessionists’ right to “gather together and demonstrate their views, provided that they do so within the law”.

Whose law? The imperial law obviously, which did not apply to the colonies. The religious secessionist militancy is truly dead and buried in Punjab. All the attempts to revive it are only being made abroad, primarily in Canada and the UK. In fact, the religious fanatics seeking a separate Islamic state of Kashmir, too, made common cause with the Khalistanis in London. Well, the British policy on J&K was explicit from the days of the initial trouble in October 1947. “It would have been natural for Kashmir to eventually accede to Pakistan on agreed terms,” Narendra Singh Sarila quotes the then British secretary of state for Commonwealth relations in his brilliantly researched book, The Shadow of the Great Game.

The creation of Pakistan, this former ADC to the last Viceroy Mountbatten argues quoting chiefs of staff, was a British strategic requirement. General Leslie Hollis even predicted an India-Pak war as early as May 1947: “Our link with Pakistan might have a stabilising effect on India as a whole, since an attack by Hindustan on Pakistan would involve Hindustan in war, not with Pakistan alone, but also with the British Commonwealth.” The Partition was done not out of love for Jinnah but for strategic facilities like the Karachi port and the north western air bases. The Muslim League was routed in the 1937 elections, winning just 108 out of the 408 seats reserved for Muslims. Even the North West Frontier Province, with 95 per cent Muslims, had overwhelmingly voted for the Congress, thus proving beyond doubt that the separate electorates did not automatically endorse the two-nation theory. Yet, the British nourished and nurtured Jinnah to the eventual strategic objective of India’s Partition. General Hollis had explained it plainly: “Quite apart from the positive arguments in favour of this course we would draw your attention to the sorry result of refusing an application by Mr Jinnah — which would, in effect, amount to ejecting a numerous and loyal people from the British Commonwealth. We should probably have lost all chances of ever getting strategic facilities anywhere in India (the subcontinent); we should have shattered our reputation in the rest of the Muslim world and could not look for the continued cooperation of Middle Eastern countries. From the military point of view such results would be extremely bad.”

It was the British military goal of containing a rising Soviet Union and manipulating the oil-rich Muslim world that led to the holocaust and the forced migration of millions of people. But why should the UK host the Khalistan 2020 meet now, particularly when the Indian agencies are shouting from the rooftop that they have proof of ISI involvement in the entire enterprise? Now that Pakistan and China are staunch allies and Russia is supplying hardware and training the Pakistanis, does it really serve the Anglo-Saxon purpose to keep mutilating the Indian soul? The assault on the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee head in the US and the heckling of Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the UK by Khalistanis are proof of the hospitality offered to them.

No people have loved their old colonisers as much as Indians. Our national movement was a strange combination of admiration for colonial institutions like the judiciary and hatred for foreign rule. Shakespeare is more important for us than Bhasa. But as a society we need to rethink whether it is a good idea to invest in countries that promote religious secessionism in India. You can always get a few people in your bus to call us names, but that only underscores our integrity.

Maitreyi College Governing Body Membership

I had declined the membership of the Governing Body of Maitreyi College, Delhi University, as soon as I got to know about the nomination. I had sent an email and also a letter by post informing the college about my decision in August, 2015 itself.

Why bypass due process of law to term Rohith non-Dalit?

Polibelly/Economic Times
February 1, 2016
Rajesh Ramachandran
It doesn’t make any sense for BJP to accuse the family of Rohith Vemula of forging a caste certificate. Rohith is a victim of our academic system, political interference and campus rivalry. His victimhood does not get altered because he was pitted against ABVP. By claiming that Rohith was not a Dalit, the BJP leadership is questioning the victim’s integrity and terming the family frauds.
This political strategy can only further alienate from BJP those who are grieving for Rohith. 

There is a legitimate method to probe whether a caste certificate is genuine or not. The government of Andhra Pradesh can ask the district collector of Guntur to verify the caste certificate issued to Rohith. The district collector after hearing Rohith’s family can present his findings to the government, which at the highest level can decide to set aside Rohith’s caste certificate. There are guidelines for issuing, questioning and cancelling caste certificates, endorsed by the Supreme Court.
BJP is bypassing this due process of law to jump into a conclusion based on some secret police reports, why? It seems BJP believes that if Rohith is proven to be a non-Dalit, the issue will lose its political gravitas. Well, every unlettered Dalit is aware of the threat of an enquiry into his or her caste certificate. It is but natural for a desperate Dalit to hide his caste to escape oppression and then to reveal it to get governmental benefits. 

So, an attack on Rohith’s caste certificate will make ordinary Dalilts bristle because the only identity that Rohith held dear as a student was that of an Ambedkarite. As a meritorious student who did not use his caste certificate to get into the University of Hyderabad, he had the option of calling himself an OBC Vaddera as his estranged father was a Vaddera. But he chose to uphold the Dalit Mala identity of his mother. An offspring of a mixed marriage, Rohith could have got his caste certificate because he was brought up in a Mala neighbourhood as a Mala. 

Whatever be the reason, Rohith chose to be a Dalit and an Ambedkarite. Sure, there are non-Dalit Ambedkarites, but in this caste-ridden society no non-Dalit would want to be called a Dalit. When Rohith calls himself a Dalit, without using or misusing his caste certificate, he has every right to his identity. For someone from the lowest stratum of the society, there is nothing to be proud about being an outcast. Only burning idealism could have turned him into a fullfledged Ambedkarite. 

Forget for a second Rohith was a Dalit. There cannot be any argument over his identity as an Ambedkarite and that is the most potent political label for a Dalit. BJP should understand that it is not reassuring the Dalit masses by questioning the dead student’s caste and by challenging an Ambedkarite’s identity. The BJP leadership, instead of taking on its political rival, Rahul Gandhi, is wasting its time targeting Rohith.

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid=31815&dt=20160201

Rohith as a Dalit Metaphor

Sunday ET
January 24, 2016
Rajesh Ramachandran
Campus politics rarely impacts the larger world outside. Over the years, agitational politics of Jawaharlal Nehru University ( JNU) and other central universities could not influence mass politics or become electoral determinants. Even the much-lamented murder of JNU students' leader Chandrashekhar Prasad in 1997 could not turn the tide of caste politics in Bihar. But the unfortunate suicide of Rohith Vemula has the potential to change the dynamics of Dalit politics.
Food for Thought
ABVP, sure, is a political outfit. But Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA) is not. It is a congregation of Dalit students who come together to fight discrimination and oppression within campuses. Old-timers of Hyderabad's universities remember how the first amorphous Dalit group fought for its right to be served food along with the upper castes.
In fact, one of their first political acts was to support the Mandal commission recommendations for other backward classes (OBC) reservation, though they did not benefit from them. Now, the ASA is a potent body that pursues radical politics along with Dalit empowerment. But its members do not necessarily have a political affiliation. For instance, Rohith started off as a Marxist and turned a bitter critic of his old party, Communist Party of India (Marxist). Most of his colleagues from ASA have been articulating views critical of all the mainstream parties. They are primarily Ambedkarites and so will never challenge Ambedkar's role in drafting the Constitution or promote a philosophy that demeans the Constitutional institutions of the country.
An Ambedkarite by definition cannot seek to overthrow the Constitution. So, it may be counter-productive for the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to dub the Ambedkarites anti-national. Students do take radical positions to be intellectually fashionable in campuses and this need not be held against them by seasoned politicians and members of Parliament. The political leadership should not act prickly about a protest march against death penalty or a beef festival.
Unlike upper caste radicals of JNU and elsewhere who would happily wear the anti-national label on their sleeve as a fashion statement, a Dalit would be scared of losing the prospects of a government job — her only promise to prosperity. This attack on Dalit students could only add to their woes and make them more strident in their opposition to the Sangh Parivar Politically this move by the BJP can only further alienate the Dalit students and their families.
The community is up in arms all across the country. It is as if Rohith has suddenly become a catalyst in radicalising, politicising and energising a community that believes in Ambedkar's dictum that Dalit salvation is through education.
People are flooding the traditional and the new media across the country and across languages with angry articles.
Cause & Effect
No instance of atrocity in the recent past — and there are terrible atrocities committed on Dalits all across the country — has made the community come together like this to express its outrage. This may not get converted into a deluge of votes in favour of one party or the other. Interestingly, every Dalit activist is not even protesting against the Sangh Parivar or the BJP.
In Kerala, a woman Dalit scholar took on the Leftists, exposing their hypocrisy, asking the Marxists why they are supporting Rohith now when they had harassed her earlier in the campus. Another one from Hyderabad used this opportunity to ask why the underground leadership of the Maoists is primarily upper caste. Yet another one quoted Rohith to prove that the CPI(M) has never had a Dalit member in its politburo.
So, Rohith's suicide has triggered a sudden crystalisation of identity politics among Dalits who feel betrayed by the system. This pan-India phenomenon may act out in different ways in various states. It may help Mayawati keep her flock together in Uttar Pradesh or help K Chandrashekhar Rao gain Dalit support in Telangana. But politicians are aware that they need to underscore their support for the Dalit cause. And that explains the visit of Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal to Hyderabad soon after the suicide.
Kejriwal is a serious contender in Punjab, where Dalits comprise over 30% of the population and the Aam Aadmi Party hopes to upset the Akali-BJP combine and the Congress in the next polls in 2017. Beyond electoral politics, Dalits all over the country want this incident to act as a sharp reminder to the community that it is time to protect itself from the final pushback from the portals of progress. They know that if they give in now, they will never be equal citizens ever.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/rohith-vemulas-suicide-has-triggered-a-sudden-crystalisation-of-identity-politics-among-dalits-who-feel-betrayed-by-the-system/articleshow/50698953.cms

The first story on Advani as Dy PM. May 24, 2001

Parivar wants Advani as deputy PM? By Rajesh Ramachandran
May 24, 2001 

The Times of India News Service 

NEW DELHI: The Sangh Parivar-Prime Minister Vajpayee tension may be heading towards a solution after a series of closed-door meetings and high-level consultations. According to Sangh Parivar sources, the crux of the solution could be the appointment of home minister Advani as the deputy Prime Minister. 

The Parviar hardliners maintain that the deputy PM option is the only one available because any change of leadership at this stage would weaken the government as a whole. A senior Parivar leader, however, said, "It is left entirely to PM Vajpayee to take a decision. Either way, we would honour his decision." Parivar sources suggest that the PM's enforced hospital stay for knee surgery in mid-June could be an opportune moment for the announcement. 

This development comes as a consequence of a series of events since the March 'Armsgate' expose. While the government was attacked by the Opposition, the Sangh Parivar focused its attacks on the PMO. The subtext of the Parivar attacks on Vajpayee's foster son-in-law and principal secretary Brajesh Mishra was the grouse that the PM had strayed too far away from the Sangh Parivar and its ideology. This was followed by the poor performance of the BJP's allies in the recent assembly elections, a factor that has had a negative effect on the government's image. In these circumstances, there has been a growing feeling within the Sangh Parivar that the government's future can be salvaged by making Advani the deputy PM. 

There was some speculation about the PM formally handing over charge to Advani before he went in for his earlier knee surgery. But this did not materialise. This time around, with changes in the political situation, opinion has built up within the Parivar in favour of an image- lift for the government, especially with the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh scheduled as early as October or latest by March 2002. 

A section of the Parivar also feels that the public perception of Advani as a tough customer could help in redeeming the government's tottering image. More importantly, Ayodhya and Hindutva could still be the rallying points in UP, with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad all set to begin its agitation programme in September. 

"Advani can formally help out the PM. Contrary to rumours, the PM is healthy. He merely needs a strong No 2 who can keep tabs on the administration. Vajpayee will still be the undisputed leader of the NDA, in total control of the government," said a senior Parivar leader. The RSS leadership is wary about making any public comment on the issue. For the record, they maintain that the question of Advani being sworn in as deputy PM never arose during the May 11 luncheon meeting that RSS leaders had with the PM.

When a climber becomes a banyan tree

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/riding-piggy-back-on-local-allies-is-there-a-pattern-to-bjps-growth-across-the-country/articleshow/45006355.cms

My Sunday ET column, November 2, 2014

If the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has to be visualised as a plant, it can best be thought of as a lithe, fast-growing climber that seeks nourishment from the body of an older, bigger, rooted ally, which is part of the local flora. But unlike the climbers of the plant world, the BJP as a political entity replaces its older partner so completely that it doesn't leave a trace of the original body on which it grew.
The first BJP government in Maharashtra is being touted as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal achievement. But is the Maharashtra victory due only to Modi's strategic vision and Amit Shah's tactical brilliance or is there a pattern to the BJP's growth across the country, riding piggy-back on local allies?

Political Fillip

Now, it is difficult to imagine Gujarat as a non-Hindutva state. But in the 1971 Parliamentary polls, Congress (O) had about 10 seats, the Swatantra Party one in Gujarat and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) political outfit, Jana Sangh, had none. Around that time, one of the significant victories against the Congress from Gujarat was that of Maniben Patel, the daughter of Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Despite contesting against Congress, she was not part of Jana Sangh.

The RSS grew as a political entity primarily during the days of the Emergency, bringing all the right-wing forces — its own Jana Sangh, the feudal lords' Swatantra Party, the right wing within the Congress, the Congress (O), and the Socialist bloc — together on the single platform of the new Janata Party. It borrowed the election symbol of Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal and swept the 1977 Lok Sabha polls.

But when the Janata Party split and the BJP was formed in 1980, there was no Swatantra Party or Congress (O). Instead, the BJP became a bigger entity occupying their space in states where these two parties dominated. After the Janata experiment, the RSS got its next political fillip when VP Singh led his anti-Congress Janata Dal to victory. The BJP got a share in power in Gujarat for the first time in 1990 along with Janata Dal's Chimanbhai Patel, the chief minister who conceived the Narmada dam, the ports and the power plants of the state.

A Footnote in History
Soon, Janata Dal became a footnote in history and most of the party merged with the BJP in Gujarat, turning a minor player into the dominant political force. Many RSS leaders such as Shankersinh Vaghela, Keshubhai Patel, Suresh Mehta and Narendra Modi contributed to this stupendous task of turning Gujarat saffron.

In Rajasthan, too, the Jana Sangh was at best a bit player. The leader of Opposition in the Rajasthan assembly in much of the '60s and the '70s was the state president of the Swatantra Party and the head of the All India Kshatriya Mahasabha, Maharawal Lakshman Singh of Dungarpur. Though Bhairon Singh Shekhawat became the first non-Congress chief minister of Rajasthan in 1977, it still was a Janata Party government.

Even in 1990, he could become the chief minister only with the support of Janata Dal. And it was only after the complete assimilation of the remnants of the Janata Dal, Rajasthan's politics became a contest between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Another example is Karnataka. The first non-Congress chief minister of the state Ramakrishna Hegde, originally from the Congress (O) stock, had sort of inherited his guru S Nijalingappa's support base among the Lingayats of the state.

When Hegde with his Lok Shakti switched sides to support BJP in 1998, the saffron party made an impressive performance winning about 13 seats. Then, it was just a matter of a few years before it grew in stature to share power with Deve Gowda's Janata Dal in 2006 and then to win the assembly polls in 2008.

Is not the story of BJP's growth in Maharashtra similar? The BJP rode the anti-Congress wave in 1989 accepting the leadership of Shiv Sena to gain a foothold in the state. Later, it shared power with Sena in 1995 and now it is a bigger party, primarily because of Sharad Pawar's decision to force a four cornered contest in the state.

Political commentator Kumar Ketkar while agreeing with the Gujarat parallel insists that BJP may not be able to replace its allies to turn Maharashtra into a politically bipolar state like Gujarat or Rajasthan or Karnataka.

“Unlike Gujarat, where trade and commerce are the determining factors, Maharashtra is dependent on farming. The BJP does not have the farmers’ politics in its DNA. The BJP’s success may depend largely on Modi and the longevity of Sharad Pawar’s politics,” said Ketkar.

However long it lasts in Maharashtra, the BJP brand of climber-politics is only expanding its footprint. Next fertile stops are Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where the sisters and mothers of local politics had for long nurtured the saffron seeds.

Modi Should Now Sing "Ishwar Allah Tero Naam..."

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31816&articlexml=Polibelly-Modi-Should-Now-Sing-Ishwar-Allah-Tero-30092014006018

Polibelly, my ET column

Sep 30 2014 : The Economic Times





Mahatma Gandhi is the nation's moral compass. When an RSS volunteer-turned-Sangh Parivar politician like Prime Minister Narendra Modi appropriates Gandhi at a global stage in New York's Madison Square, the compass itself gets recalibrated: the needle mindlessly swings from the Right to the Left. Impossibly incompatible ideas like Gandhi's pluralistic tolerance and celebration of religious diversity get mixed up with Savarkar's monolithic Hindutva and aggressive assertion of the Hindu identity. Gandhi's killer, Nathuram Godse, had opened an RSS shakha at Ratnagiri where VD Savarkar was interned after writing out an abject apology to the British to escape the cellular jail. Savarkar was a co-conspirator in Godse's plot to kill Gandhi, though acquitted by the trial court and mysteriously let off by the prosecution without an appeal.
Savarkar coined the term Hindutva, theorising that India belonged to only those who revere it as their pitru and punya bhumi (father and holy land), and thereby delegitimising Muslim and Christian citizens.
RSS' political outfits, Jan Sangh or BJP, never professed Gandhian pacifism or ahimsa.Sure, BJP had talked a lot about Gandhian Socialism when it was founded in 1980, without ever really defining what it meant by the term. After BJP assumed power, leading a coalition in 1998 and then in 1999, it shockingly hung the portrait of Savarkar in Parliament's Central Hall. Then home minister, LK Advani, had even got the airport at Port Blair renamed after Savarkar.
Now, there is a complete U-turn by Modi, the biggest political symbol of Hindutva power. After becoming Prime Minister, Modi has never publicly spoken about Savarkar, the RSS founder Hedgewar or its brightest chief ever, Golwalkar. And he has also not stopped speaking about Gandhi. Is there is a shift in RSS and Sangh Parivar ideology? Is there a re-thinking of Hindutva, a refashioning of Hindu identity to accommodate all of this nation's diversity?
It does not seem so. The riots of Western Uttar Pradesh, the hate speeches of certain BJP leaders and their political outcome were still fresh to give traction to the Love Jihad campaign in that state, recently. No official Eid party was held in Lutyens Delhi after Modi became Prime Minister. Even the tokenism of the Muslim cap lies rejected. So, why appropriate Gandhi, who stands accused of fathering political tokenism, minority appeasement, deflating the Indian machismo and much else?
The answer lies in the transformation that Modi seeks. He is already a bigger Hindutva icon than Savarkar and all his disciples, including Advani, put together. Sure, he needed all of them in his journey atop Raisina Hill during which he paid a rich tribute to 15 RSS leaders, including Madhukarrao Bhagwat, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's father, in his Gujarati book “Jyotipunj“.
But now Modi wants to shake off his partisan appeal, seeking wider acceptance. And who else but the global messiah of peaceful resistance can offer him the perch of international acceptance? Swatch Bharat, celebrating the centenary of Gandhi's return from South Africa and his 150th birth anniversary are all great markers of India's nationhood, no doubt.But to be seen sincere, Modi should also sing along, “Ishwar, Allah tero naam...“ And for Gandhi this new admirer is no good news. People who call him casteist now will soon call him worse names.

ഈ പാവം മരത്തെ ഇനിയും ചങ്ങലക്കിടരുത്

രാജേഷ്‌ രാമചന്ദ്രൻ

സുധീരനെ കാലുവാരാൻ വേണ്ടി മാത്രം മെനഞ്ഞ ഈ സമ്പൂർണ മദ്യനിരോധന തന്ത്രം KPCC പ്രസിഡന്റ്‌ സധൈര്യം നേരിടണം എന്നാണ് ഒരു മദ്യസ്നേഹിയായ ഈയുള്ളവൻറെ വിനീതമായ അപേക്ഷ. ചാണ്ടി മുറുകുമ്പോൾ തൊമ്മൻ അയയണം എന്നാണല്ലോ നിയമം. തത്കാലം ആ നിയമം കോട്ടയം ജില്ലക്കാർ പാലിക്കട്ടെ. തീരദേശ കേരകർഷകരെങ്ങനെയാ റബ്ബർ പോലെ മുറുകുകയും അയയുകയും ചെയയുക?

ചാണ്ടി കേരളത്തിൽ ബാറുകൾ പൂട്ടട്ടെ, ചില്ലറ മദ്യവില്പനശാലകൾ ഒന്നടങ്കം അടച്ചുപൂട്ടട്ടെ. ഇത് കേരകർഷകരുടെ കാത്തിരുന്ന ധന്യനിമിഷം. വിസ്കി, ബ്രാണ്ടി, റം, വോഡ്ക എന്നിങ്ങനെ പലപേരുകളിൽ പലതരം കുപ്പികളിൽ പലനിറത്തിൽ കേരളത്തിൽ വിറ്റു കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നത് വെറും സ്പിരിറ്റ്‌ ആണ്. വാറ്റി ഉണ്ടാക്കുന്ന മദ്യത്തിനു നിറമില്ല, അത് ധാന്യങ്ങളിൽ നിന്നായാലും ശരി മുന്തിരിങ്ങ തുടങ്ങിയ പഴവർഗങ്ങളിൽ നിന്നായാലും ശരി. വർഷങ്ങളോളം ഏറ്റവും മുന്തിയ മരം കൊണ്ടുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന വലിയ ഭരണികളിൽ സൂക്ഷിച്ചു വക്കുന്നതിലൂടെ ഈ മരഭരണിയുടെ നിറവും മണവുമാണ് മദ്യം സ്വായത്തമാക്കുന്നത്. അവയിലെ രാജാവാണ് ഫ്രാൻസിലെ കോണ്യാക് ജില്ലയിലെ പ്രസിദ്ധമായ ദ്രാവകം. ഇത് ഏതു ഇന്ത്യൻ ഡിസ്ടിലറി മുതലാളിയും കൊതിക്കുന്ന വസ്തുവായതിനു കാരണം കോണ്യാക് പ്രദേശവാസികൾ ഇതത്രക്കു ശ്രദ്ധയോടെ, അർപണബോധത്തോടെ, അഭിമാനത്തോടെ ഉണ്ടാക്കുന്നു എന്നുള്ളത് കൊണ്ടാണ്. അതുപോലെ പ്രസിദ്ധമായ സ്കോട്ട് ലൻഡിലെ സിംഗിൾ മാൾട്ട്. ഒരൊറ്റ വാറ്റുശാലയിലെ മുളപ്പിച്ച ധാന്യങ്ങൾ വാറ്റിയെടുത്തു ഒരേതരം ഭരണികളിൽ സൂക്ഷിച്ച്‌ മറ്റു വാറ്റുശാലകളിൽ നിന്നുള്ള ദ്രാവകങ്ങളുമായി കൂട്ടിച്ചേർക്കാതെ, ബ്ലെണ്ട് ചെയയാതെ സ്വന്തം മദ്യത്തിന്റെ സത്യസന്ധത കാത്തുസൂക്ഷിക്കുന്നത് കൊണ്ടാണ് അവ സിംഗിൾ മാൾട്ട് ആകുന്നത്.

നമ്മുടെ വാറ്റുശാലാ മുതലാളിമാർ നമുക്കു തരുന്നത് എന്താണ്? വെറും നിറം ചേർത്ത സ്പിരിറ്റ്‌. യന്ത്രശാലകളിൽ ഉണ്ടാക്കിയ രാസവസ്തുവോ കരിമ്പിൻ നീരിൽ നിന്ന് വാറ്റിയ ചാരായമോ, രണ്ടായാലും ഇവ ബ്രാണ്ടിയും വിസ്കിയും അല്ലെന്നു ഉറപ്പ്. ഇത് ഇന്നേക്കും എന്നേക്കുമായി നിർത്തിയതിനു ചാണ്ടിച്ചനു സ്തോത്രം. ഇനി മുതൽ നമുക്ക് സ്പിരിറ്റ്‌ വേണ്ട. നമ്മുടെ നീണ്ടും, നിവർന്നും, വളഞ്ഞും, കുലച്ചും നിൽക്കുന്ന കല്പവൃക്ഷത്തിൽ ഊറിയ ശ്വേതസുന്ദരസുരാമൃതം മതി.

പക്ഷെ, അതിനുവേണ്ടി ചാണ്ടി സഹോദരൻ ഒരു ചരിത്രപരമായ നെറികേട് തിരുത്തി തരണം. തെങ്ങിനു പൂട്ടിയിരിക്കുന്ന സർക്കാർ ചങ്ങലകൾ അഴിച്ചുമാറ്റണം. ഒരു നിമിഷം ചാണ്ടിയും മാണിയും കണ്ണടച്ച്‌ ഈ നീണ്ടും നിവർന്നും വളഞ്ഞും നിൽക്കുന്നത് തെങ്ങല്ല അവരുടെ പ്രിയപ്പെട്ട റബ്ബർ മരമാണെന്നു കരുതണം. അവർ കണ്ണു തുറക്കാതെ തന്നെ ഞെട്ടും. റബ്ബർ കർഷകനായ ഉടമക്ക് മരം ചെത്താൻ പാടില്ലെന്നോ? ചെത്തിയ പാൽ വിൽക്കാൻ പാടില്ലെന്നോ? സ്വന്തം ആവശ്യത്തിനു ഉപയോഗിക്കാൻ പാടില്ലെന്നോ? ഇഷ്ടപ്പെട്ട ചെത്തുകാരനെ ഏർപ്പാടാക്കാൻ പാടില്ലെന്നോ? തോന്നിയ കടയിൽ വിൽക്കാൻ പാടില്ലെന്നോ? ഷീറ്റ് അടിക്കാൻ പാടില്ലെന്നോ? ഷീറ്റ് തട്ടിൻപുറത്തു സൂക്ഷിച്ചു വച്ച് കൂടിയ വിലക്കു വിൽക്കാൻ പാടില്ലെന്നോ? ചുരുക്കം പറഞ്ഞാൽ റബ്ബർ സമ്പത്തും അതിൽ നിന്നുണ്ടായ സാമൂഹികവും സാമുദായികവുമായ വളർച്ചയും നശിച്ചുപോകുമോയെന്ന് ഓർത്ത് ഭയന്ന് അവർ തീർച്ചയായും ഞെട്ടും. കാരണം അതാണ് കേരകർഷകനും കേരകർഷകസമുദായങ്ങൾക്കും സംഭവിച്ച ക്രൂരമായ വിധി. നട്ടവന് ചെത്താൻ പാടില്ല; ചെത്തിയവന് വിൽക്കാൻ പാടില്ല. ചെത്തുതൊഴിലാളി സംഘടനകളുടെ പേരിൽ ചെത്തുകാരന് സ്വന്തമായി കച്ചവടം നടത്തി ജീവിതമുന്നേറ്റം നടത്താനുള്ള അവസരങ്ങളും കൊട്ടിയടച്ചു. കേരളത്തിന്റെ പല ജില്ലകളിലും ചെത്തു തന്നെ ഇല്ലാതായികൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു എന്ന് കേരവികസനബോർഡിന്റെ കണക്കുകൾ സൂചിപ്പിക്കുന്നു.

ഈ അവസരം കൂടി പാഴാക്കുകയാണെങ്കിൽ സുധീരന് കേരകർഷകർ മാപ്പു കൊടുക്കില്ല. ബ്രിട്ടീഷ്‌കാര് നട്ടിട്ടു പോയ മരത്തിനു നൽകിയിട്ടുള്ള എല്ലാ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യവും സംരക്ഷണവും തെങ്ങിനും ലഭിക്കണം. ആർക്കും നടാം, ആർക്കും ചെത്താം, ആർക്കും എവിടെയും വിൽക്കാം എന്ന സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം. എല്ലാ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യങ്ങൾക്കും സീമകൾ ഉണ്ടല്ലോ. ഒരു ഭക്ഷണശാല തുടങ്ങാൻ ആവശ്യമായ നിയന്ത്രണങ്ങളും അനുമതികളും കേരസുരപാനത്തിനും ബാധകമായിരിക്കണം. അത്രമാത്രം. ഷവർമ കഴിച്ചു ശവമാകുന്ന മലയാളി ഇതുവരെ കണ്ടിട്ടില്ലാത്ത തരത്തിൽ വൃത്തിയും വെടിപ്പുമായി, കള്ളും കൊഞ്ചും കരിമീനും, കൊട്ടും കുരവയുമായി, മലയാളി വിളംബട്ടെ, കഴിക്കട്ടെ.

ആർക്കും നടാം, ആർക്കും ചെത്താം, ആർക്കും വിൽക്കാം എന്നായാൽ സർക്കാർ നിയമാനുസ്രിതമായി, രാഷ്ട്രീയ ഒത്താശയോടെ, കൈക്കൂലി വാങ്ങി നടപ്പാക്കുന്ന ആനമയക്കി, ടയസിപാം തുടങ്ങിയവ കലക്കിയ കഞ്ഞിവീഴ്ത്‌ എന്ന എക്സ്സൈസ് വകുപ്പ് സ്ഥിരം നാടകവേദിയുടെ വിനോദപരിപാടികൾ അവസാനിച്ചു കിട്ടുമല്ലോ. IMFL ൻറെ കുഞ്ഞനിയൻ മാത്രമല്ലോ ആനമുദ്രയുള്ള ആനമയക്കി.

നമ്മളെക്കാൾ ചെറിയ രാജ്യമായ ശ്രീലങ്കയിൽ പോലും ഏറ്റവും നല്ല മദ്യം എന്നവർ ഊറ്റം കൊണ്ട് വിൽക്കാൻ വച്ചിരിക്കുന്നത് അവരുടെ സ്വന്തം റാക്ക് ആണ്. അതെ, തെങ്ങിൻ കള്ള് വാറ്റിയുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന ഒന്നാന്തരം റാക്ക്. പക്ഷെ, കള്ളവാറ്റുകാരന്റെ കൈയയിൽ നിന്ന് വാങ്ങിയ കാശു കൊണ്ട് മാധ്യമ വീരശ്രിന്ഖല പണിയുന്ന നമ്മുടെ രാഷ്ട്രീയ നേതൃത്വത്തിന്റെ ആവശ്യം മണിച്ചന്മാർ മാത്രമാണ്. റെമി മാർട്ടിനും ഹെന്നസിയും ഖാവോ ഈലയും പോലുള്ള ചെറുതും വലുതുമായ ബ്രാൻഡുകൾ ഉയർന്നുവരുന്നത് ഇവർക്ക് സഹിക്കില്ലല്ലോ. മൈക്രോ ഡിസ്ടിലറി അല്ലങ്കിൽ കുഞ്ഞുകുഞ്ഞു വാറ്റുശാലകളിൽ നിന്ന് റാക്കും പുന്നെല്ലിൽ വെള്ളവും നെല്ലിക്കാവെള്ളവും കശുമാങ്ങ വെള്ളവും ഒക്കെ വാറ്റിയും കഴിച്ചും മലയാളി സമ്പന്നനായാൽ IMFL എന്ന പതിനയിരകണക്കിന് കോടികളുടെ തട്ടിപ്പു നടക്കില്ലെല്ലോ.

എല്ലാ മലയാളി കുടിയന്മാരുടേയും പണം മലയാളദേശത്തു തന്നെ, തനതു പഞ്ചായത്തുകളിലും മുനിസിപാലിററികളും തന്നെ ചേർന്നാൽ പിന്നെ ഡിസ്ടിലറി മുതലാളിമാർക്ക് എന്തു ലാഭം? ലാഭമില്ലെങ്കിൽ പിന്നെ അതെങ്ങനെ വീതിക്കും? വീതം വച്ചില്ലെങ്കിൽ പിന്നെ നമ്മുടെ വെള്ളച്ചട്ടകളുടെ കറുത്ത കീശകൾ എങ്ങനെ വീർക്കും?

സംപൂർണ്ണ മദ്യനിരോധനം ഒരു സംപൂർണ്ണ മദ്യദുരന്തം വരെ മാത്രമേ നിലനിൽക്കുകയുള്ളൂ എന്നാർക്കാണറിയാത്തത്. നമ്മുടെ നേതാക്കൾ ഒന്ന് ആഞ്ഞുപരിശ്രമിച്ചാൽ ഒരുഗ്രൻ ദുരന്തം എപ്പോൾ വേണമെങ്കിലും ഉണ്ടാക്കാനും സാധിക്കും. അവർ തന്നെയല്ലേ നമ്മുടെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ ദുരന്തം.

ഈ അവസരത്തിൽ ചാണ്ടി സുധീരനെ വെട്ടുന്നതും നോക്കിയിരുന്നാൽ നഷ്ടം മലയാളിക്കാണ്. ഒരു നൂറുകൊല്ലമായി സായിപ്പിന്റെ സാംസ്‌കാരിക ഉച്ഛിഷ്ടമായി കരുതി മോന്തിയിരുന്ന രാസവസ്തുക്കൾ ഉപേക്ഷിച്ചു നമുക്കു സ്വന്തം സ്വത്വം ദ്രാവകരൂപത്തിൽ വാറ്റിയെടുക്കാം. നെല്ലിക്ക തലയിലും ഉള്ളിലും ചെല്ലുന്നത് മലയാളിക്ക് അത്യാവശ്യമാണ്. ജോണി വാക്കർ എന്ന ഗോതമ്പിൻ വെള്ളം പോലെ എന്റെ സ്വന്തം നെല്ല്ലിക്കാവെള്ളത്തിന് രാജേഷ്‌ രാമചന്ദ്രൻ എന്ന പേരുമായി ഞാൻ കാത്തിരിക്കുന്നു.

Princes And The Parivar

Here is a 10-year-old piece that I wrote for The Times of India on the rise of BJP in Central India, riding the princes and their Swatantra Party.

By Rajesh Ramachandran

April 17, 2004
Dance of Democracy, The Times of India

Poll pundits predict BJP victories in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the tribal belts of Chhattisgarh and Orissa. The BJP’s stranglehold in these areas is often ascribed to the penetration of the RSS and its offshoots like Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh.

   The RSS network in this region, though strong, is not the only reason for the BJP’s phenomenal growth. The RSS pracharaks worked on the credibility and the feudal edifice lent to them by the former rulers who promoted the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS) and the BJP.

   Without Dilip Singh Judeo and his father’s active participation there would have been no Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in Jashpur. The tribal belt is dotted by rulers and jagirdars who were anti-Congress: Bastar, Kanker and Jashpur in Chhattisgarh; Dhenkanal, Kalahandi, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Patna in Orissa; Udaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur (Vasundhara Raje is married to this family), Karauli, Dungarpur, Jhalawar, Kota, Jaipur (of the famous Gayatri Devi), Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. Gwalior, Rewa, Dhar, Narsinghpur, Satna and their jagirdars in MP all lent their princely status to seek votes for the Swatantra Party, BJS and BJP, as did the princelings of Gujarat.

   The BJS’ early gains were in MP and largely due to the late Rajmata of Gwalior, Vijayaraje Scindia. When she was in Congress in 1962, BJS had three MPs from the state, but after the anti-Congress Bastar prince’s murder, the tide turned and in 1967 there were seven BJS and six BJS-supported independent MPs.

   Vijayaraje’s political advisor Sardar Angre says, “The RSS made progress entirely because of the so-called Samants. Though ideologically affiliated to the Sangh, most princes were nervous about supporting BJS because of the allegations over Gandhi’s assassination. There was a baseless allegation that the revolver used came from Gwalior. And Swantantra was better funded by Bombay’s industrialists. But Rajmata was braver than the rest and joined Jan Sangh while most others opted for Swantantra’’. Ideological distinctions between Swantantra and BJS were blurred. In 1967, Vijayaraje contested for Parliament on a Swatantra ticket and the assembly on a BJS ticket.

   Though exonerated in the Gandhi assassination case, Alwar and Bharatpur princes were under a cloud and the Alwar PM N B Khare later became the Hindu Mahasabha president. It would have been natural for the rulers to align with the new power centre, Congress. Yet, many opted for Swatantra. Angre calls Swatantra a “good stepping stone for rulers and BJS’’. His brother-in-law finance minister Jaswant Singh was in Swatantra, a bigger Opposition party than BJS in Rajasthan, Orissa and Gujarat.

   Angre is clear that without the princes’ help BJP would never have grown into a ruling party: “RSS had influence over princes who influenced people and so BJS and BJP became viable alternatives to Congress.’’

   After Nehru proposed a land ceiling law in 1959, the princes who had their titles, privy purses and land to protect formed the Swatantra Party. It came second in the 1967 LS elections with 44 seats and 8.67% votes, becoming number one in Gujarat (12 seats), Orissa (8) and Mysore (5) and second in Rajasthan (8). After Indira Gandhi nationalised banks and abolished privy purses, Swatantra, BJS, Congress(O) and some socialists formed the Grand Alliance. Of these, only Swatantra fought in Orissa and was ahead of BJS in Rajasthan and Gujarat. In MP alone there were 8 princes under the BJS banner or as BJS-supported independents.

   Today, the sangh parivar no longer depends on princes for its survival in these areas. The anti-conversion campaign has acquired its own momentum and, if anything, the Judeos of the area today need the parivar and its ideology to remain politically relevant. TNN

The cadre gets who it wants

Rajesh Ramachandran
The Hindu Business Line Edit page, September 14, 2013

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/the-cadre-gets-who-it-wants/article5125088.ece#comments

It is not easy for a cadre-based organisation to turn an individual into an issue and fiercely fight for his endorsement by peers and elders. That is exactly what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership has successfully done for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s anointment as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Prime Ministerial candidate for next year’s Parliamentary polls.
There was no doubt about the disciplined charioteer, L. K. Advani, coming around to accept the choice of Modi, despite issuing a letter of disappointment to party president Rajnath Singh.
Though he remains the tallest leader in the party, in the absence of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee due to ill health, Advani’s personal ambitions and arguments against Modi find no resonance within the Sangh Parivar.
True, Modi is divisive, capable of polarising the polity, pushing the Muslim voters to the waiting laps of the Congress; he has used and forgotten the Parivar cadre in Gujarat, even disowning Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders who made him the “Hindu hridaya samrat”; from BJP leader Sanjay Joshi to former minister Maya Kodnani to former DIG D.G. Vanzara, there are many old friends who have turned foes; he may even push potential allies into forming a khichdi non-Congress-non BJP third front government rather than letting him be Prime Minister.
The Parivar too has analysed all these negative consequences of building up the Modi persona and concluded that one compelling reason is good enough to create, sustain and bank on brand Modi: the RSS cadre and their supporters.
Be it the English speaking NRIs fighting the Sangh battle on social media platforms, the middle classshakha-goer of small towns or the unlettered saffron voter of the Hindi hinterland or the honchos of the corporate world, the Indian Right wants Modi --- and it wants him now.

THE NEW MASCOT
“A curious case of the cadre dictating terms to the leadership,” is how a veteran RSS leader explained the Sangh Parivar’s decision. For some of the RSS workers from Uttar Pradesh who had converged in Delhi for a farmers’ meeting at Ramlila Maidan on Friday, this was an inevitability, which even Advani could have avoided only at the risk of inviting the wrath of the supporters. “The cadre would have laid siege on the BJP HQ had this not happened,” says Virender Singh, former BJP Member of Parliament from Mirzapur in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Now with Modi leading Team BJP, Singh and many others hope the BJP would win 50 out of 80 seats in UP.
This is not the first time the Parivar has been dwarfed by the stature of its own creation. Vajpayee was as much an RSS pracharak as Modi. Though many in the Sangh did not approve of Vajpayee’s carefully crafted image of a moderate leader, no one could ignite the aspirations of the RSS’ core constituency of Brahmin-Bania-Thakur (BBT) votes better than Vajpayee, particularly in Uttar Pradesh.

CASTE ARITHMETIC
If Vajpayee was the electoral mascot for the BJP in 1996, 1998 and 1999, there ought to be yet another leader who can connect with the cadre, force them out of the homes to work for the party to make a difference at the polling booth. Modi becomes crucial for Sangh’s designs as the party looks at signs of revival in Uttar Pradesh, where the BBT vote bank appears restive seeking to return to the BJP fold.
It is indeed strange that it was always a non-Brahmin who created the wave that swept the upper caste votes in the Hindi heartland. Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti, two leaders from the other backward community (OBC) of Lodh Rajputs, shaped the destiny of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and articulated the aspirations of the BBT voters elsewhere.
Probably, the BBT voters feel most reassured when an OBC leadership emerges to safeguard and protect the Hindutva model that includes the pyramidical caste hierarchy. All calculations of BJP achieving the best possible results in the cow belt now are again based on a surge in non-Yadav OBC votes.

CRYSTALLISING EFFECT?
Modi, also from a backward community, has clearly inherited the polarising effect of Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti, without really sweating it out arousing the masses over decades. And his opponents within the Parivar and the National Democratic Front have termed Modi a liability for his ability to polarise voters along communal lines.
Well, for BBT voters and Sangh supporters, this is not a polarising effect but a “crystallising” effect --- and this cannot be achieved by any other leader talking about secular issues like food, homes, jobs, economic growth or education.
Caste and communal pride refurbish the saffron party’s unique selling proposition. Advani’s Rath Yatra did exactly that, but he was soon done in by the hawala probe, which catapulted Vajpayee to the top.
Advani’s later attempt at moderation in 2005 terming Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah “secular” was a disastrous public relations exercise for the Sangh cadre. The mantle of the Hindutva leadership, which Advani had carefully nurtured from the days of the destruction of the Babri Masjid, now has fallen on Modi’s shoulders.
After all, it was Advani who was responsible for retaining Modi as chief minister after the Gujarat riots. At the Goa national executive meeting soon after the Gujarat riots in 2002, Vajpayee had to recant hisrajdharma lessons and agree to continue with Modi in Gandhinagar. There began the creation of the myth of Modi and the birth of a new Hindutva icon.

GAME NOT OVER
But like Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti, Modi too is dispensable for the Sangh leadership once the polls are over. The internal wrangling till the very last moment of Modi’s anointment only proves that Advani’s stature is not diminished within the BJP leadership.
In fact, he created much of the party’s present leadership. Leaders of Opposition in both the houses of Parliament, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, were handpicked by Advani, and he is not a pushover yet.
Though RSS is the engine that drives the Parivar and it has decided to put its might behind Modi, every political party has its internal structures and dynamics. All levers of power matter, particularly in an internal competition for the top post. Advani, the man who created the party from scratch, charting the career graphs of most BJP leaders, still makes Modi sweat to reach the top.
The situation can actually turn in Advani’s favour if Modi “crystallises” or consolidates only the Hindutva votes and reinforces the fault lines, but fails to fetch the numbers that the NDA would need to gain power.
The 86-year-old veteran can then don the mukhota or the mask of moderation to suit Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and other new allies who may help him to become Prime Minister. But if the Parivar has its way, Advani could well become the archetypal bridesmaid of Indian politics.