Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and activists must be wringing their hands in despair. It’s a lost opportunity. Imagine the Congress or another Opposition party issuing a statement opposing the singing of the revised official version of the national song, Vande Mataram, in schools and colleges. Think of that party’s MLAs saying that they were Christians and so wouldn’t accept the ‘motherland’ being personified by Hindu goddesses—Durga, Saraswati and Lakshmi.
And think of students refusing to get up from their chairs when Vande Mataram was being played at their convocation ceremony.
These are not imagined or hypothetical situations. They happened in Nagaland last week. Hell hath no fury like a BJP leader having to tolerate such an ‘insult’ of the national song composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee—that, too, just weeks before the Assembly election in West Bengal. In another scenario, BJP leaders would have been calling the ruling party of that state anti-national, urban naxal and ‘Muslim League’ and even demanding the government’s dismissal. In this instance, however, BJP leaders have kept their mouths shut, choosing to look the other way.
That’s because there is a National Democratic Alliance (NDA)—not Congress—government in Nagaland. The deputy chief minister of Nagaland, Y Patton, is from the BJP. The ruling party that issued the statement opposing the singing of Vande Mataram is the Naga People’s Front (NPF), the BJP’s coalition partner. And the MLAs who spoke against the national song inside and outside the state Assembly are from the NPF.
The ruling party at the Centre has to keep quiet about Nagaland’s thoughts on Vande Mataram if it wants to enjoy power in the state that will go to polls in early 2028. Last October, the ruling National Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) merged with the NPF. It came in the backdrop of the BJP and its allies losing four of the five Lok Sabha seats in Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland. The Congress wrested the Outer Manipur seat from the NPF and the lone seat in Nagaland from the NDPP after a gap of 20 years, a result that was seen in the context of the Manipur ethnic strife with Christian Kukis at the receiving end. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma had blamed people “of a particular religion” for those results.
The NDPP-NPF merger is also seen as the regional parties’ attempt to keep themselves ready if they have to part ways with the BJP ahead of the next polls. The BJP would, therefore, be wary of stepping on the toes of its Nagaland allies on Vande Mataram.
From a single seat in the 60-member Nagaland Assembly in 2013 to 12 each in the subsequent two Assembly elections, the BJP has come a long way in Nagaland, where Christians constitute 88 per cent of the population. In a state where money and patronage are major swing factors in elections, the BJP still needs alliance partners to survive. Vande Mataram will be its rallying cry in this Bengal election, but not in Nagaland.
Also read: Muslim objections to Vande Mataram are about faith, not rejection of India
BJP’s paradoxes
It’s only the latest of the many paradoxes marking the BJP’s politics. It woos Christian voters in the Northeast and Kerala, but looks the other way when Christians are targeted for allegedly indulging in conversions.
It can threaten fish-sellers in Delhi and ban the sale of meat and fish near religious and educational institutions in Bihar, arguing that it promotes “violent tendencies”. In Kolkata, the party says Bengal will have its fish and meat.
PM Modi can harp on sabka saath, sabka vikas aur sabka vishwas but won’t induct a single Muslim in his Cabinet. He can denounce ‘revdi’ culture as dangerous for the country, but allow his party to distribute the same.
He can condemn family-ruled parties as the biggest threat to Indian democracy but embrace them in the NDA.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s son, Nishant, joined the Janata Dal (United) on Sunday. It is said to be a part of the succession plan that the BJP has been instrumental in laying out in exchange for Kumar handing over the CMship to the BJP.
In Maharashtra, after Deputy CM Ajit Pawar’s death, his wife, Sunetra, replaced him in the government and took over the Nationalist Congress Party presidentship. Her son, Parth, is set to enter the Rajya Sabha now.
Let’s look at a few other family-ruled parties in the NDA—Lok Janshakti Party of Chirag Paswan, Rashtriya Lok Dal of Jayant Chaudhary, Apna Dal of Anupriya Patel, Janata Dal (Secular) of HD Deve Gowda, Telugu Desam Party of Chandrababu Naidu, Hindustani Awam Morcha of Jitan Ram Majhi who is a minister at the Centre and whose son is a minister in Bihar, Rashtriya Lok Morcha of Upendra Kushwaha whose wife is an MLA and son a minister in Bihar, and National People’s Party of Conrad Sangma. The list goes on.
Speaking of Sangma in the context of BJP’s paradoxes, PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had called the Sangma government in Meghalaya the most corrupt in the country in the run-up to the 2023 Assembly election. That was despite the fact that the BJP had a minister in that government until the NPP and the BJP decided to contest the election separately. After the election was over, the BJP rejoined the Sangma government and has a minister in it again.
Also read: Vande Mataram was anti-British. Here’s how it became ‘anti-Muslim’
Weaponising the MHA order
The fact is that the BJP managed these paradoxes rather well in the past. Its victories in the last three Lok Sabha elections and so many Assembly elections are a testimony to that.
It’s probably because of PM Modi’s charismatic appeal. And also because the BJP keeps changing the goalposts successfully and leaves its political adversaries huffing and puffing.
The party’s stance on Vande Mataram is a big paradox, politically. How does a party that ostensibly reveres Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Subhash Chandra Bose condemn the truncated version of the national song that these two icons of Bengal had approved? And how can a party that talks about developed India by 2047 do, for one election, what’s extremely dangerous for the country in the long run?
Read the Vande Mataram order of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs carefully. I will cite just one example. “In all schools, the day’s work may begin with community singing of the National song,” adding that school authorities should make adequate provisions in their programmes for popularising it. In Nagaland, students sat through the singing of Vande Mataram during the convocation ceremony, and the ruling party opposed it publicly. They could do it because the BJP needs them in Nagaland. The BJP’s and authorities’ reactions may not be the same elsewhere—say, if Christian or Muslim government servants don’t get up and sing it at an official function or if Christian and Muslim students in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh or Maharashtra do in schools and colleges what students in Nagaland did.
If the administration in a state or district decides to politically weaponise the MHA order, communal tensions would become the order of the day. There goes the Viksit Bharat 2047 slogan and dream. That’s the larger message the BJP and the NDA government at the Centre need to draw from what happened in Nagaland last week.
By the way, how many BJP MPs and MLAs can recite the revised official version of the national song? Let’s wait for a ceremony when PM Modi and HM Shah, along with other ministers, sing it in full.
Aside: In 2015, in a much-hyped ceremony in New Delhi, the Government of India signed a Framework Agreement with the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The frame remains empty 11 years later as a final accord remains elusive. Meanwhile, RN Ravi, the Naga peace talk interlocutor who signed that agreement, has become the West Bengal governor. Making peace—with the elected government in this case—isn’t exactly his forte, as his record in Chennai Raj Bhawan suggests. Why he has been brought to Bengal, where the BJP is confident of forming the government in a couple of months, is a moot question.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)