This refers to the article, “End communal discord, fight for unity” by Eugene Correia (Herald, Comment, December 17, 2018). We know that the British game of Hindu-Muslim divisive politics had culminated in bloodshed and a partition. We had learnt from our past bitter experience what was the cost of allowing divide and rule sort of politicking to vitiate our mindsets. As a result, Indian voters cannot be swayed by Ali versus Bajrangbali or samsan versus kabrasthan kind of narratives for long.
Moreover, the 2006 Sachar Committee report placed Indian Muslims below SCs and STs in terms of their backwardness as well as their under-representation in the administration. The fact of the matter is that many Indian Muslims are poor and backward. So, the poor and backward among Muslims and the poor and socially challenged Dalits among Hindus cannot be divided on religious line as they all are the victims of inequality and lack of inclusive growth.
We must not forget that the BJP got a huge majority in 2014 Parliamentary election with the help of secular and inclusive slogans like toilet over temple and sabka sath, sabka vikas. But the people of our country got disillusioned by watching the mindless game of name changing, cow prioritising and spending a bomb for statue building while ignoring its election pledge of solving unemployment, agrarian and corruption issues.
On the other hand, the assembly election results have clearly shown that on corruption matter, people cannot like the bottom-tight-top-loose kind of approach.
While the policy like demonetisation took the water away for small fries, big crocodiles happily survived on the land without water with the help of plastic money. Moreover, soft dealing with macro bank loan defaulters and the hard approach on farm loans does not go down well with the farmers.
Finally, Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s constant questioning of why the ruling party has been fighting shy of setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Rafael deal seems to have given him an electoral dividend.
