When concerns about jobs, prices and democracy dominate the electoral discourse, a demagogue would definitely invent an emotive controversy to escape accountability. That explains Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desperation to trigger passions over a false allegation that the Congress is opposed to Lord Ganesha.
While the bogus allegation that the Congress kept the Ganesh idol behind bars in Karnataka warrants no consideration, the prime minister’s attempt to present the controversy about his visit to the residence of the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud as objection to his participation in the Ganesh festivity is a lethal propaganda technique. The objection to his visit is essentially about political propriety, nothing to do anything with religion. This tendency to manipulate public discourse through distortions and diversionary tricks has reated an abnormal political atmosphere in the country.
This is not a new technique; fascists use both ideas and rhetoric to manipulate public discourse to their advantage the world over. In India, political parties are grappling with this trend for some time. Recall what happened with Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi’s recent visit to the United States. The issue was the political critique of Modi’s governance; the tangible evidence of the threats to democracy and secularism.
What was debated, instead? The LoP’s personal sagacity, political maturity and patriotism. That showed how easily we can be trapped in a web of deceit. This is a tried and tested plot — ignore the substantive aspects of the critique and create a ruckus about a non-existent mal-intent. A George Soros conspiracy, for instance. George Soros — who? A potent weapon to silence Modi’s critics. Soros, an American businessman of Hungarian origin, who is accused of funding all the political projects to destabilise Modi, may be chuckling to himself after seeing his hand in every political activity in India. Conspiracy theorists have so badly vitiated the political space by their wild imaginations.
Also read: Modi Defends Ganesh Puja with CJI Amid Questions of Impropriety, Dilution of Separation of Powers
What Gandhi said in the United States indeed merits a response from the government. He talked about weakening democratic institutions, divisive politics, media capture, fusion of politics and religion and the prime minister creating fear through coercive politics. These are the same issues he has been raising in India for years.
Threat to secular democracy is the fundamental concern in India today. This is not hidden from the world. Political theatre is an open space and every country knows what India is going through. The global powers don’t depend on Gandhi to know these basic facts. Global institutions and rating agencies have articulated concerns about diminishing democracy in India over the past few years.
The Modi government can’t escape the reality and has been forced to deal with these questions at different platforms during the last decade. All other leaders have to face the truth. Benjamin Netanyahu is facing global outcry over Israel’s genocidal repression on Palestine. Donald Trump’s politics has come under scrutiny in America and elsewhere. People across the globe know how the land lies and what kind of politics is happening where.
But the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party (RSS-BJP) ecosystem chose to create mistrust and suspicion about Gandhi’s patriotism. The government itself launched a vicious campaign to legitimise these suspicions about Gandhi’s intent and deepen the prejudice against him. They wanted an emotional frenzy against Gandhi instead of a reasoned debate. Ministers openly questioned the patriotism of a leader whose father and grandmother have sacrificed their lives for the country.
The atmosphere became so toxic that ministers and minions ran amok, tarnishing Gandhi’s image as a responsible leader. If a pedestrian BJP leader issued a veiled threat, telling Gandhi that he will be assassinated like his grandmother, a central minister called him a terrorist. An MLA from an ally of the BJP in Maharashtra announced cash reward for anybody who slits Gandhi’s tongue. The entire hysteria was raised on false premises that Gandhi threatened to rob Sikhs of their religious rights and suggested scrapping of caste-based religion. Gandhi was, to the contrary, advocating a socio-political culture that honours minority rights and insisted that reservations cannot be ended till India became a fair place.
Also read: In Defence of Chief Justice Chandrachud
Isn’t it a shame for a great democracy like India to debate falsehood and get inflamed? But who will check this tendency of setting the house afire on false alarm? The prime minister himself leads the brigade that instigates masses on fake issues. By hyping up bogus subjects and spurious opinions, Modi has constantly ensured real issues are not debated and accountability is not fixed.
Modi knows his visit to Chandrachud’s home is not about worshipping Ganesh. Being the chief minister for 12 years and prime minister for 10 years, he is expected to know the political and social implications of his personal visit to the house of the chief justice of India. The BJP rebutted the charge by putting out a video that showed another chief justice at Manmohan Singh’s iftaar. The iftaar hosted by the prime minister has hundreds of guests from the political class, judiciary, executive and the media. That can’t be compared with Modi’s private visit to Chandrachud’s home where no other leader was present.
Giving it a mischievous religious twist, Modi went on to say, “Even at that time of freedom struggle, the British who followed the policy of divide and rule used to hate Ganesh Utsav. Even today, the power-hungry people busy dividing and breaking the society are having problems with Ganesh puja. You must have seen that the people of Congress and its ecosystem are angry because I participated in Ganesh puja.”
Ganesha had to be invoked before the Maharashtra election where the BJP is in a hopeless situation. Many television anchors, as they regularly do, sang along, wondering if Ganesh was not a uniting factor and why the opposition objected to the prime minister’s social visit. This is the same prime minister who harped on “Bhains and mangalsutra” when questions about democracy dominated the public discourse. This is the same prime minister who was referring to “people who produce more children” who would walk away with all the largesse that naturally belonged to the majority Hindu. This is not innocence or stupidity. This is a wicked ploy to bury the reality beneath the brute power of propaganda. Those who don’t agree need some tutorials on post-truth mendacity and propaganda techniques that took shape during the Nazi Germany.
Sanjay K Jha is a senior journalist.
