If the BJP had given a few token seats to Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, both during the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, the slogan of “Ganna Vs Jinnah” in western Uttar Pradesh would never have become a weapon against the party.
“What if Modi has lost Kairana etc,” tweeted former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha Thursday evening, as results showed that the BJP had lost most of the 11 assembly by-elections and four parliamentary seats it contested, adding, “He is winning in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore”.
The irony is that just as the Prime Minister, with his inexhaustible energy, may have succeeded in convincing the world that India is willing to shoulder its responsibility as a regional power, his reputation at home as a man of steel may be coming apart.
Over the last four days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been wooed by the president of Indonesia (Joko Widodo told him he has a grandson whom he named Srinarendra) as well as the prime ministers of Malaysia and Singapore, welcomed by business communities, and celebrated by ordinary folk.
During his tour, the PM has visited a mosque, overseen the twinning of Bali and Uttarakhand – his National Security Adviser Ajit Doval hails from the hill state –paid homage in Singapore, where Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes were also scattered, and invited all these ASEAN nations to invest in India.
He has also confirmed that India is changing rapidly, “at a speed and scale never seen before”, and that a New India is taking shape before the very eyes of the world.
The PM is dead right. As political rivals at home dissolved their differences to take on the BJP in the bypolls, knowing that if they don’t stand together they risk being decimated separately, the BJP has retreated into a sullen silence.
The PM hasn’t said a word about the bloodletting at the election booths, but the reading, writing and arithmetic is on the wall.
After all it was in these parts, near where Kairana polled, that the PM declared on the eve of his southeast Asian tour, “Unke liye, unka parivaar hi desh hai/Mere liye, mera desh parivaar hai (For them, family is their country/For me, the country is my family)”.
उनके लिए, उनका परिवार ही देश है लेकिन मेरे लिए, मेरा देश ही मेरा परिवार है।
कमाने के लिए मेरे पास सिर्फ आपका स्नेह है। करने के लिए सिर्फ और सिर्फ इस देश की सेवा है। pic.twitter.com/oJDvwcpwrX
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 27, 2018
But for the first time in four years, voters in Kairana and Bhandara-Gondia and several Assembly constituencies across the country have chosen not to listen to the Prime Minister. While the high-profile victory in Kairana makes Tabassum Hasan the first Muslim MP in all of Uttar Pradesh, the case of Bhandara-Gondia in Maharashtra, in which NCP candidate Madhukar Kukde defeated the BJP’s Hemant Patle, is especially illustrative.
First of all, the bypoll in this Lok Sabha constituency was occasioned by the resignation of Nana Patole, a Congressman who joined the BJP on the eve of the 2014 election and defeated the high-profile NCP leader Praful Patel, and then quit the BJP last year to go back to the Congress.
But some months before he quit, at a function in Nagpur, Patole is said to have criticised the PM in no uncertain terms, saying that he doesn’t listen to anyone – even when he tried to bring up the terrible ongoing farm crisis in the state.
Patole claims he was told by the BJP to shut up, although the party wouldn’t expel him. Ultimately, Patole got fed up and quit.
A far cry from the PM taking the podium Friday morning to deliver the keynote at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore?
At this annual gathering of strategists, politicians and policy-makers from the region and across the world, Modi will have the opportunity to showcase India as a stabilising power in an increasingly turbulent region.
The US, only last week, disinvited China from the world’s largest military exercises, called the RimPac. Thursday evening, Washington announced it had changed the name of its largest military command, the Pacific Command, to the Indo-Pacific Command, in deference to India.
As he visited the Istiqlal Mosque in Indonesia, one of the largest mosques in the world, as an Indian one is forced to think: Why would the honourable Prime Minister not visit a mosque in the home country?
In the historic city of Delhi, where the PM has lived for four years, he has never once visited the Jama Masjid, built by Shah Jahan in 1656. But in various other Muslim nations, like the UAE and now Indonesia, who have been charmed by him, Modi has made it a point to honour his hosts by visiting their beloved places of worship.
If only the Prime Minister reached out to Muslims at home – with the same warmth that he does abroad. If the BJP had given even a few token seats to Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, both during the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, the self-diminishing slogan of “Ganna Vs Jinnah” in western Uttar Pradesh would never have become a weapon to beat the BJP with.
Certainly, the Prime Minister still remains the most popular leader – there still isn’t anyone else within miles. As he returns home after a successful visit abroad, he is the only one who can pick up the pieces from the effect of the combined opposition hurricane that has just swept through the country. Question is, will he pick up the gauntlet?
Asean is comfortable with India’s rise, views it as a natural hedge against China. PM LKY of Singapore was the first to recognise India’s potential, helped make it feel welcome in the regional grouping. Last year, China’s trade with Asean was a little more than half a trillion dollars, with a surplus of about $ 40 billion. India did $ 70 billion, with a small deficit. Our exports have stagnated during the last four years, we are turning protectionist, have little appetite for FTAs or joining regional trading blocs like TPP or RCEP. Asean is part of global manufacuring chains, benefits from globalisation. India needs to reform, grow faster for its friendship with Asean to blossom. Historical / cultural ties and shared wariness of China are not sufficient.
Ganna vs Jinnah is a very local issue that affected one group of Farmers very acutely – the fact that the Jats are fighting for self identity is also a factor. And considering that PM Modi doesn’t campaign in these bypolls gives the opposition great confidence in winning them.
The BJP will obviously have to factor in the Dalit-Yadav consolidation – which will be its biggest threat. The Yadav’s being staunchly castist will be hard pressed to sustain any alliance with Mayawati – but the Dalits did vote for the BJP in numbers and it is to them that the BJP must go the extra mile to reach out .