Eugene Correia
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that the election fight is for the heart of India. For the BJP, it seems the election is nothing but to sustain the Hindu soul of India. In between these two extremes, the true-blooded Indians, by their virtue of having been either born in the land or born to Indian parents and either living in India or out of India, the election is the fight within themselves to make head or tail of what these parties are saying. The heart is indeed bleeding to see these politicians scramble over each other to secure for Indians what’s already within them – their Indian heart.
The heart of India is intact and not lost, if the Congress wants us to believe them that the heart has been either misplaced or gone missing. Similarly, the soul of India resides in each Indian no matter what’s the person’s creed or caste. In the cacophony of the noises that’s around us at this time of election, it’s easy to get fooled by the variant voices of discord among the politicians and political parties. Each of the politician who matter most at this election, be it Narendra Modi, the Gandhis – mother, son and daughter – and those on the election frontlines have their own spin to what India needs or what India lacks.
The noises from the politicians is one thing, there’s also noise from TV screens. The talking heads are there day-in and day-out to decipher for us what the netas are sayings. First comes the hearing bombardment from the leaders and next follows the whys by the spokespersons of the parties on what so-and-so was said. In between comes the analysis of those unconnected to the parties, some of them showing off their biases. In the medley of TV debates and talkshows, the voter or the end-user, to use a commercial term, is either left more confused or left satisfied to have got his answers.
The ordinary person is baffled by the streams of news and propaganda emanating from different sources. There’s so much of political rhetoric that it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. One party leader’s version is challenged by another party’s leader. And so it goes. Tit-for-tat. Of late, family feud between the Gandhis is evident. It looked so family-like when Varun Gandhi publicly admired Rahul Gandhi’s work in Amethi that the BJP’s wrath came down on Varun’s head for speaking his mind out loud. Sometimes filial love transcends political barriers.
Perhaps, Varun’s father, Sanjay Gandhi, took a tumble in his grave. Or, perhaps both Sanjay and Rajiv embraced each other in joy wherever they are. Whatever drove the families of Sanjay and Rajiv to part ways, seems like the parting of India into two – India and Pakistan, never the two to meet again except, it seems, on the election stage. Whoever said there’s no love lost between the two Gandhi families, must think again.
The heart of India is where Mahatma Gandhi said it was – in rural India. For the Mahatma, India lived in its villages and it still does. For the “other” Gandhis to search for this India, they have to don the Mahatma’s garb, both in reality and spirit. It’s no point in telling “other” Indians how to live the Mahatma’s philosophy of life. These Gandhis take the Mahatma’s name in vain. Oh, I remember, they take his name for the sake of votes.
The Congress was never the Mahatma’s home. Though Nehru was his political heir, these Gandhis can never claim to be the heirs to the Mahatma’s political legacy. Unfortunately, for the Congress and those who want to claim the Mahatma, the Mahatma’s grandson, Rajmohan Gandhi, chose to contest the election for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). For AAP, it was indeed a coup to net the grandson, next to claiming the Gandhi cap. So much for the politics of retribution. On the other hand, the Congress and BJP are reduced to the politics of attrition.
In an ironic way, Narendra Modi is also in search of the heart of India. It’s the Hindu heart that he’s after. In his body beats a Hindu heart. If Congress is on a wild goose chase for Hindustantiyat and Bharatiya, Modi is searching meticulously for those who he thinks are a curse on Hindu soul of India . For him, India needs to be cleansed of minorities to regain for itself its Hindu pride. Modi cloaked adherence to secularism is a vote-gaining strategy. Wooing minorities by overarching to Muslims, despite his own fear of breaking his Hindu back, and leaving his not-so-rigid BJP members, such as Manohar Parrikar and the latter’s Christian cabinet colleagues and Christian political chums, albeit temporary, to bring the Christians onside with secular flag-waving, Modi wants to conquer the very soul of India.
The love of the county is the very soul of India wherever he or she is that keeps the person united to her motherland. It doesn’t take a Modi or a Gandhi to tell a true India where his or her loyalty lies. It lies deep within the person not to believe what the politician of any shade or colour tells him or her. Elections come and go and so do politicians. India, for that matter Bharat, remains in whatever shape and form it has been or whatever form it may become. Fanning nationalistic passions in Indian hearts is not one of the surest ways to win votes.
