Why I can’t endorse BJP

I have often been awarded epithets such as Rice Bag by some people in social media who have no idea of what I am. My disapproval of the Right wing politics in the country provokes too many people. So I thought of explaining why I can never endorse BJP and its policies particularly under the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

   My only real objection to BJP lies in that party’s hatred of certain sections of citizens. In fact, the entire superstructure of BJP is built on hatred. They think that the Hindus have been discriminated against by the Congress after Independence. They think that the Muslim rulers discriminated against the Hindus before Independence. They think that the British discriminated against them by bringing Christian missionaries to the country.

   Some of these notions are not entirely wrong. But they are only fractional truths. First of all, if the Muslim rulers were indeed as ruthless as the Right wingers in India believe them to be, India would have been a Muslim country before the British entered it. Most Muslim invaders did that to other countries which are today Islamic nations. But India has remained largely Hindu precisely because the Muslim rulers here were less brutal than elsewhere.

   Even if we take into consideration the atrocities committed by them, the solution is not replicating what they did. Becoming like our enemies is a very facile solution but that doesn’t need any ideology or leadership. Any thug can accomplish that. It is that thuggery of BJP which makes it a repulsive party for me. It is that thuggery which I question.

   Secondly, looking back at the past and kicking up dust devils in the forlorn lanes of history is the silliest thing that a nation can do especially when the world is moving forward at dizzying speeds towards progress and development. We need to look at the future, not at the past. “Let sleeping dogmas lie,” as Shashi Tharoor says in his latest book, Why I am a Hindu.

   Heaping blames on someone else is the silliest thing that a leader can do and BJP has done little else under Modi and Shah. They keep blaming Nehru for all the present woes of the country. True as it is that the Congress had become an abominably corrupt party in the last few decades, it’s no use becoming a hero by cocking a snook at the old legends like Nehru and Gandhi or the new icons like Rahul. That just doesn’t serve any purpose except win votes perhaps.

   The country today stands polarised along communal lines. “Fools and knaves divide the kingdom,” says a proverb in English. In other words, dividing the nation into two rival groups is not governance, let alone leadership. Any knave can do that.

   These are my objections to BJP. I can stomach its craze for power and all the corruption that is an ineluctable concomitant of power. But the hatred that sustains the party, the hatred that the party is spewing out day in and day out is what I find absolutely deplorable. If there are mistakes, correct them instead of blaming past leaders. Let the nation move forward, not backward. “Let noble thoughts come to us from every side,” as the Rig Veda says.

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