If you listen to many liberal voices, the problem with today’s India is that we have handed seemingly unlimited power to the BJP. Not only is the secular character of our Constitution being undermined but our entire legislative system — from the Election Commission to the presiding officers of both Houses of Parliament — is being subverted. Even the balance of federal power is now sought to be changed with the Hindi–belt states gaining more representation in a parliamentary delimitation exercise.
I have one fundamental difference with the liberal position. I don’t blame the BJP. I blame the so-called secular politicians.
Whatever you may think of Narendra Modi or Amit Shah or even Yogi Adityanath, every one who voted for them knew what they stood for. None of these leaders ever misrepresented their positions or pretended to be liberals or secularists. They are simply implementing an agenda they have long advocated.
Sadly, that is not true of many of the politicians who once told us that they subscribed to liberal values and assured the minorities that they would stand up for their interests. Liberalism, it now turns out, was nothing more than a flag of convenience for them.
Consider the sordid spectacle of what is happening to the Trinamool Congress. People who campaigned all over West Bengal less than a month ago, attacking the BJP and saying that they were fighting for a pluralistic vision of India, are now prostrating themselves before the very same BJP they once abused and embracing the policies they once said they abhorred.
These are people who would heckle the Prime Minister in Parliament and shout slogans against him when he made a speech. They are the people who went from village to village warning of the terrible consequences that would follow if the BJP came to power in their state.
And now, with no explanation at all, they have executed shameful about-turns, pretending to believe in everything they once opposed.
They are not the only ones.
Something similar is happening in Maharashtra with the Shiv Sena. And plans are said to be underway to repeat this strategy in UP.
I don’t think we even need to condemn these people; their hypocrisy and greed are all too evident. They have every right to support who they like or to believe what they want, but they have no right to lie to the people of India; no right to bitterly oppose someone one week and then fall at his feet the next day slobbering in adoration.
The turncoats
At the swearing–in ceremony of West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari (himself a former Congressman), at least three of the other BJP Chief Ministers present were defectors from the Congress.
Nobody even bothers to comment on these defections and turnarounds any longer. Take the example of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He is one of India’s smartest and shrewdest politicians. The story of his departure from the Congress is relatively well known: he has recalled how Rahul Gandhi kept playing with his dog and paid no attention to him when he went to see the Congress leader.
A few years ago, when Sarma came to national prominence, people called him the Yogi Adityanath of the east because his rhetoric matched Yogi’s. In the years that have followed, Sarma has outdone the UP CM and every other BJP chief minister in his rhetoric about Muslims.
He has been criticised by liberals for the things he has said. But few people even bother to ask the obvious question: is this how he felt about Muslims when he was a Congressman? How come his rhetoric changed once he joined the BJP? Which version is the real Sarma? The Congressman or the BJP Chief Minister?
It is ironic. At no time since Independence has there been a greater ideological divide between the ruling party and the country’s national opposition party. And yet, at no time in history have so many Congress leaders been so willing to join the BJP and echo its rhetoric.
Do these people have no core beliefs? Do they really care about nothing apart from their own advancement? And their own enrichment?
I don’t think I need to answer that question. You already know.
Also read: Why Mamata Banerjee joining Congress would be a terrible idea
Politics without conscience
The defectors can’t even pretend that it makes no difference to anyone which side they are on. They know that the BJP is harvesting MPs only so that it can pass precedent-shattering legislation on delimitation, simultaneous elections, and a civil code. These are all important issues where the defectors — especially the ones from the TMC — have always taken stands that are totally at variance with the BJP’s positions.
But just watch: every one of them will forget what they have said and will enthusiastically vote for legislation that may transform India.
There are very few democratic countries where ideology counts for so little and opportunism reigns supreme. In Canada, which inspired our federal structure, and in the UK, which inspired our parliamentary system, defections from a major party to one that opposes its ideology are rare. In India, they are so common that they don’t even surprise us any longer.
Much of this has to do with the calibre of today’s politicians. Too many of them treat politics as just another career and their aim is to get rich and to get ahead. Ideology is a nuisance and power is their only goal.
But the fact that they get away with continually lying to the Indian people is not an indictment of them. It is an indictment of us. We continue to re-elect politicians who have no values and no character. We demand no accountability or answers from them.
And unless we stop accepting these lies, false promises, and regular defections, we will get what we have come to deserve: politics without conscience and the betrayal of the promise of Indian democracy.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)