SDid Rahul Gandhi criticize the situation in today’s India when he spoke in the UK? Is this the equivalent of asking white people to colonize India as some BJP supporters have suggested? Or is he simply following in the footsteps of Narendra Modi, who was not always complimentary on foreign soil about the situation in India, especially in the years after he first became prime minister? Is the BJP making the mistake of assuming that attacking Narendra Modi’s rule is tantamount to attacking India, as Congress supporters claim?
There are no ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers to these questions as we have seen over the past few days as the controversy escalates. My guess is that people supporting the government will criticize Rahul, while Congress supporters will argue that if he is asked about how things are in India, he should be telling the truth, not lying, to make Modi look good Needed
Either way, how you approach this debate is largely determined by what you already believe.
So I am not going to waste your time by going over the arguments of last few days. Instead, I’m going to ask a different question: Is the BJP doing Rahul a favor by making him the center of a new controversy every week?
Consider the reality of the situation. Since becoming the chief campaigner of the Congress, Rahul has suffered one setback after another. He lost the 2014 election to the charisma of BJP and Modi. He tried again in 2019 but lost again in his own constituency, Amethi. During his period as the most visible leader of the Congress, the party lost state after state. Its top leaders, many of whom were friends of Rahul, have either left the party or are at least trying to leave. The general consensus is that Rahul will not be able to defeat Modi in the next election as well.
Given this background, does it deserve so much attention? As the BJP itself has told us, he is not fit to be a leader; In fact, it has said even worse things about him, all of which cannot be repeated here. So if he is such a useless person then why is BJP so obsessed with him? Why does it spend so much energy attacking it?
Read also: “RSS Fascist…Modeled On The Lines Of Muslim Brotherhood”: Rahul Gandhi Attacks Sangh In UK
BJP is a party of lovers
You could argue that one of the reasons Rahul has such a high profile and still acts as if he is the pre-eminent opposition leader, despite the Congress’s dismal electoral performance over the years, is because the BJP takes him so seriously. . No other opposition leader is under the kind of scrutiny that the BJP puts Rahul.
In the early days of the BJP’s Rahul obsession, I used to think that the one-sided focus on the Congress leader was strategic. Perhaps, the BJP wanted to shine a spotlight on Narendra Modi to show him in a better light. But that time has long passed. Nobody sees Rahul as the man who will defeat Modi in the next election. So why does everything he says bother the BJP so much?
My conclusion is that the BJP, despite its clever strategy, is becoming a party of passion. Take BJP’s obsession with Nehru. It might be wiser to rubbish Nehru for once to defame his descendants. But that ploy has run its course. Even those who support Rahul today do not do so because his great grandfather, who died some 60 years ago, was a great man.
The BJP’s obsession with Nehru has now extended to criticism of the freedom struggle. It is perfectly valid to say that we have given too much importance to Nehru and neglected other freedom fighters. But is it necessary to insult MK Gandhi and praise his killer Nathuram Godse as members of the Sangh Parivar have done?
Certainly, this does not help the BJP electorally. The attacks were not carried out for sound strategic reasons but because a section of the family has its own bizarre quirks.
Continuing the freedom struggle past a point makes sense only when the BJP feels that the Congress benefits enormously from its history as the party of Nehru and Gandhi. But is it really? Does anyone believe that this version of the Congress is the party that Gandhi once mentored? I doubt whether the Congress will get any votes on that basis.
If the BJP believes that their leaders have not been adequately recognized for their role in fighting the British, then there is an argument to be made about the freedom struggle. But this is not the case. BJP was established only in 1980. The Jana Sangh, its predecessor, was established only in 1951.
it should be OK. Most of the parties in today’s India did not exist before India became independent. They don’t try to rewrite the history of a struggle they weren’t for or abuse those who were. Then why is BJP so worried?
Read also: You saw a new Rahul Gandhi in Parliament. I saw the change in Kashmir itself
Why does BJP do what it does
Yet such is the BJP’s obsession with creating alternative symbols that it strains naivete by hijacking historical data. Yes, there were differences between Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru. But then Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani did the same. This does not mean that Advani did not accept the ideology of BJP. So it is with Patel who banned the RSS too. And so is the case with Bhagat Singh who was a leftist (also communist) atheist who had nothing to do with the ideology that the BJP now follows. And yes, Subhash Chandra Bose definitely had differences with Nehru and Gandhi but he was hardly a supporter of Hindutva. He named a brigade in the Indian National Army (INA) after Nehru and after the war it was Nehru who saved INA veterans from persecution by the British.
The case of VD Savarkar is also complicated. Yes, he was a patriot and a freedom fighter who had to suffer for his views. But to consider Savarkar as your icon against Gandhi, you have to explain a lot: his apologies to the British, his differences with the RSS, his support for eating beef, etc.
So here’s my point: Why is the BJP upset? Those who vote for the BJP support it because they admire Narendra Modi, respect his achievements and perhaps because they believe in the vision of a Hindu India. No one votes for BJP because of what happened in the freedom struggle. Or because the party now glorifies Bose or Bhagat Singh.
The only possible explanation is that on some issues – Jawaharlal Nehru and his descendants, the freedom struggle and especially Gandhi – the BJP goes beyond strategy and succumbs to an obsession. It is an involuntary lapse for a party that is otherwise so pragmatic and worldly-wise.
But I suspect it is beneficial to Rahul Gandhi as it always keeps him in the news and at the center of public debate.
Vir Shanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweeted @virsangvi. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)