In denial that Rahul Gandhi has an image problem, his supporters can’t see beyond Hindutva.
Speaking in Baghpat on the eve of a Lok Sabha bypoll in next-door Kairana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did no Hindutva positioning.
His 50-minute speech was a long list of what he sees his development achievements are – from housing to LPG cylinders, from MUDRA loans to road construction. He attacked the opposition and most importantly, promised OBC sub-quota (for most backward OBCs or MBCs).
The western Uttar Pradesh region is one place where Hindutva polarisation worked wonders for the BJP in 2014. Keeping Kairana’s Jat voters in mind, he could have resorted to Hindutva. Yet, he limited himself to promising to look into the woes of the sugarcane farmers, who are mostly Jats.
On the same day, in an address on the NaMo app, he said the distribution of LPG cylinders under the Ujjwala scheme had improved the lives of Muslim women, who have to wake up early to cook sehri in the Ramzan season.
Narendra Modi is not renouncing Hindutva, but there is, so far, no indication that it will be his main calling card in 2019.
No competition
There is only one national party that believes in Hindutva, ie., the BJP. There is only one regional party that does so too, the Shiv Sena, but it can’t even win its home state on its own. There is simply no competition for the Hindutva vote-bank. If the BJP alienates Hindutva, the core constituency has nowhere else to go.
But, to win elections, the BJP needs a lot more than Hindutva polarisation or jingoism. It presents itself as the party of governance, it uses caste, and it builds on to the cult of its leader, Narendra Modi.
If Hindutva polarisation alone could make the BJP win elections, L.K. Advani would have become the prime minister in 2009. In that election, he made the recent memory of the 26/11 attacks the main issue, accusing the Congress of being soft on Pakistan and refusing to hang Afzal Guru for ‘Muslim appeasement’.
If Hindutva alone could help Modi win elections, he wouldn’t have re-cast his 2002 image. We would never have heard of the Gujarat model of development, and vikas would not have been the main campaign point of Modi in 2014.
Rahul Gandhi Defence League
But India’s fuddy-duddy liberals remain in denial. They can’t see anything other than Hindutva. They speculate Modi will use Ram Mandir or go to war with Pakistan or do something spectacular like bring back Dawood Ibrahim from Pakistan.
If any of these things were so easy, Modi would have done them by now. But the hand-wringing liberals and the Congress acolytes and the radical Left can’t see beyond Hindutva. There is no GST on screaming ‘Hindutva, Hindutva’ all day, because GST can be applied only on value created.
Even the Congress party understands that Hindutva is overplayed. With his temple run, Rahul Gandhi has managed to irritate the BJP because that makes it harder to call the Congress anti-Hindu.
The liberal intelligentsia has come together to form a Rahul Gandhi Defence League (RGDL) because what other option do they have? A key mistake of the RGDL is that it continues to think that Hindutva polarisation is the make or break issue in Indian elections. It’s a sad commentary on how far removed they are from the reality of the common man.
Voter persuasion
Indian voters elect politicians who they think are best placed to deliver them prosperity. If Modi has fallen short on that promise, they will see what other options there are. If there’s a better option, they’ll go for it.
A year after Delhi’s voters gave the BJP all 7 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, they gave the same party only three of the 70 seats in the Delhi assembly election. They gave the rest 67 seats to the Aam Aadmi Party because Arvind Kejriwal managed to convince them that he’d do a better job of improving their daily lives with amenities like bijli and paani.
If Rahul Gandhi can convince voters in 2019 that he’ll do a better job of running the country and delivering development and economic prosperity, they will vote for him.
In Karnataka, many expected the Congress to emerge as the single-largest party. Modi’s rallies – an act of voter persuasion – took the BJP past 100 seats. Despite Rahul Gandhi’s campaigning, voters did not give the Congress another chance.
The job of persuading voters is not an easy one. Few voters actually get to meet and talk to top leaders. Their sense of the leaders is through the media, and that’s where image becomes important. Modi understands this, and that’s why he works so hard at a hyper-communication strategy.
Rahul Gandhi deserves better
May be Rahul Gandhi will make a great prime minister, but he has to first persuade voters to make him the prime minister. The Rahul Gandhi Defence League is in denial that he has an image problem. When you don’t even acknowledge a problem, how will you solve it?
Why was Karnataka not moved enough by Rahul Gandhi’s rallies to vote the Congress back to power? Before you could ask if Rahul Gandhi has a poor image among voters, the RGDL will scream Hindutva! Hindutva! It’s an old trick of the Congress party and its supporters to label all criticism as Hindutva. That’s why they are on the wrong side of history.
The Rahul Gandhi Defence League is uni-dimensionally obsessed with Hindutva polarisation to the extent that it happily becomes the other pole of this polarisation and actually aids it.
Modi uses NaMo app to grab attention, but the RGDL says Hindutva! Hindutva! Modi masters the caste calculus but the RGDL says Hindutva! Hindutva! Modi talks endlessly about his welfare schemes but the RGDL says Hindutva! Hindutva! Even Rahul Gandhi deserves better than these deracinated liberals.