INDIA Bloc Caught In BJP’s Ram Mandir Trap

By Sushil Kutty

Ram Mandir and Hindu revival are the talk of the town in the Hindi heartland. The BJP talks of a 400-plus Lok Sabha seats harvest in the 2024 general elections riding on the back of Ram Mandir, the symbol of Hindu revival. Can anyone stop the juggernaut? The Hindi heartland, to which recent BJP acquisitions – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan – also belong, backs temple politics and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s return to power for yet another term of authoritarian streak.

The INDI-Alliance, formed to give Modi a run for his money, started on the wrong foot and remains on the back foot. The problem about INDI-Alliance is that the bloc cannot pinpoint what it set out to do and what it is doing? If the aim was achieving the elusive opposition unity, a modicum has been achieved. But “what it is doing” is the difficult part to digest for most in the “north”.

Even before it started, the INDI-Alliance lost its way. Some partners appear to be working at cross-purposes, almost as if trying to trip one another. Ask a “north” voter and he questions why the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is forever baiting Hindu and this voter might not even be a BJP supporter. He might be RLD, Samajwadi or even an AAP man.

Also, he wouldn’t be “Hindu bigot” like the INDI-Alliance is prone to characterize a rightwing Hindu who likes the idea of Ram Mandir and does not mind “Hindu revival”. He would normally vote Congress/Secular, but he wants to know what the Congress is doing standing with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s Hindu-baiting DMK?

The question is valid. The Tamil Nadu-centric Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is doing its best to turn the Hindi heartland into the graveyard for INDI-Alliance parties that have roots and votes in “gaumutra states”. It defeats logic why the Congress is clinging on to DMK coattails, is it okay with the Congress if it loses ‘N’ number of “gaumutra states” for winning ‘X’ number of “Dravida Nadu seats”?

The whole point is, the Congress appears to be doing its utmost to be the party of the “south”, a cousin/crony of DMK, much to the disgust of the Hindi heartland, especially after DMK politicians called ‘sanatana dharma’ “dengue, malaria, leprosy…”, a far cry from early post-Independence days when Nehru refused to acknowledge ‘Periyar’ and the Congress notched electoral victory after electoral victory with “north” voting overwhelmingly Congress.

Why is today’s Congress standing with a party that is playing the “south” against the “north” and vice versa? Recall how Rahul Gandhi compared Amethi with Wayanad and found the “north Indian Amethi voter” slow to grasp things. Is Rahul Gandhi still of the same frame of mind, and does he think, like Udayanidhi Stalin and Dayanidhi Maran, that people of the “north” are dense?

This constant ribbing of the “north” by DMK leaders has become an epidemic and is hurting the plans of top INDI-Alliance leaders such as JD-U’s Nitish Kumar. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s ministers have a very low opinion of the “Bihari”. The other day a DMK leader said “People of UP/Bihar come to Chennai to clean our toilets.” Nitish Kumar is a wannabe Prime Minister and he does not find such humour palatable.

Bihar, once distinguished as a “bimaru state”, is now disparaged as one of Hindi heartland’s “gaumutra states”. Bihar is also big on unemployment and jobs are scarce. The Bihar migrant worker earns his bread and butter in developed states like the DMK-ruled Tamil Nadu, which takes perverse pleasure in vilifying “the UP/Bihari who come to Chennai to clean toilets”.

For some reason, it is always the UP/Bihari migrant worker at the receiving end. “Why the ire?” is a mystery. The UP/Bihari migrant worker does his work and pays his rent. He sends money-order home and even learns to speak a little Tamil. Why, then, is he demonized and labelled “toilet cleaner”, whatever happened to the “meek and orderly madrasi”?

Has there been a change of roles? Or, is it the case of “everybody is a Simham at home”? That is not the story – the story is to create a north-south divide; the “south” for INDI-Alliance and the “north” for the BJP. Does calling north Indians “toilet cleaners” and “Paani Puriwala” fetch votes for Dravida parties? Nobody ever thought cruelty runs in the Tamilian. Those “outsiders” who have experienced Tamil Nadu would agree this must be a new Tamil in wolf’s clothing.

By the way, Tamil Nadu is not a “bimaru state”. So, why the bile and the bullying? Nitish Kumar considers himself prime minister material? Nitish Kumar thinks himself the most fit successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So, what’s MK Stalin’s beef with Nitish Kumar? Is it part of a subplot? Why is the DMK all set to write Kumar’s epitaph? Standing with someone who calls “sanatana dharma” dengue, malaria, AIDs and leprosy is a sure shot ticket to the end of days.

The Bharatiya Janata Party must be glad the issue of jobs is off the electoral table. Unemployment and jobs are youth related and the ‘Marans’ and ‘Stalins’ should up and concentrate on winning over 18, 19 and 20-year-olds for the INDI-Alliance, instead of alienating them. The INDI-Alliance should concentrate fire on some of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s more cockeyed policies instead of fanning Ram Mandir and north-south.

People who broke Parliament security and jumped into the Lok Sabha were shouting about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “tanashahi” and citing “unemployment” for the startling intrusion which led to the suspension of 146 MPs because Union Home Minister Amit Shah refused to make a statement on the security breach.

Shouldn’t “unemployment and jobs” be the INDI-Alliance’s preferred election issue? The feeling one gets is, the Opposition has given up on unemployment and jobs. This tells a lot about the Opposition’s preparedness for the general elections. The way things are shaping up, the INDI-Alliance is at the vanguard of the “Pran Prathistan” of the Ram Mandir.

Right now, at this juncture, the Bharatiya Janata Party and BJP governments, aided by friendly media, are busy making sure INDI-Alliance parties get bogged down nose deep in Ram Mandir politics. The question is, has INDI-Alliance walked into a Hindutva trap? Can INDI-Alliance win the majority of the “south” Lok Sabha seats, and perhaps one-third of the “north” Lok Sabha seats by goading, encouraging the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to continue with its Sanatana dharma spiel? The DMK will gain, but will the Congress/INDI-Alliance get buried in the Hindi heartland? Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin like God Almighty strategizes in mysterious ways. (IPA Service)

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