BJP: The Best Washing Machine in India (Part 1)
Or should I say, the world!!
Move over LG, Samsung, Miele, Bosch, Euromaid or whoever you are, there is a new washing machine in the market, and it is called the BJP a.k.a the Bhartiya Janata Party. And so, says the Indian opposition, the “liberal left media (intelligentsia…left is always intelligent😊)”, “Lutyens Media”, “Khan Market Gang” and the “Usual Suspects”. Sorry, who? Err, who? Are these people? See that is where I have a point. Patience, and I will get to it. I promise!
After Ajit Pawar broke away with his uncle’s POWER and joined the BJP-Sena led Maharashtra state government, the opposition and its cabal: both national and international, terranean and subterranean, explicit and implicit once again pointed out that the BJP is acting like a washing machine. They have a point here and they have been making it for a very long time. It is true that the BJP has chosen strange bedfellows and slept with strangers and enemies (like Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP) and sometimes with politicians who they have charged with corruption. The opposition rightly points out that how can the BJP call people corrupt and then welcome them into its fold.
However, the opposition is conveniently silent about how it courts individuals and parties which are rabidly communal and if they are Muslim centric parties, they are called secular while Hindu centric ones which come into its fold become secular (from communal) overnight. Thus, the Indian Opposition led by the Congress party has a washing machine which converts communal parties into secular ones while the BJP led NDA has a washing machine which converts corrupt into honest.
The Larger Game: A Social Change
However, the larger point is that, this is argy-bargy and will continue forever in an acrimonious demo(n)cra(z)cy. And, the Indian opposition can perhaps not see beyond the obvious or in fact the very reason they have been crying hoarse is that their worst nightmare is coming true. So, back to where I promised you for patience. What the opposition misses out on is not the washing abilities of BJP from corrupt to honest but its ability to change the narrative at a deeper level. Now that’s what I call real WASHING.
How many of us had heard of terms like “liberal left cabal”, “Khan Market Gang”, “Aandolanjeevis”, “Lutyens Media” and so on and so forth before 2014. A whole generation of us had grown up hero worshiping BBC, NDTV, Prannoy Roy, Karan Thapar, Vir Sanghvi, Barkha Dutt, Medha Patkar, Rajdeep Sardesai and so on and so forth. These and many others were the narrative builders and we the people of India (those who cared and owned a sofa and TV) were the fodders. It was only after 2014 that slowly people started realizing that the so called “Hindu Right Wing, Fascist, Nationalist” party called BJP was making some sense. People realized that the Congress that they had voted to power for a long time had delivered little through its 5-year plans and the India they lived, loved and hated was terribly managed. Hindus were divided, Muslims were added, Rice Christians multiplied, the rich migrated, the poor became poorer, middle class subtracted and the nation as a whole was limping into oblivion. “Chalta hai” attitude and “India ka kutch nahi hoga (Nothing will change in India)” had taken hold of the masses. India was in fact a Hindu Pakistan hurtling slowly towards “Ghazwa -e — Hind”.
So, the best washing achievement of the BJP was its conversion of large swathes of Congress voters (and politicians) into its own voter base. Along the way many tests were done by BJP, most succeeded but some failed. But for the fear of failure, they didn’t stop. And this resulted in many firsts.
For the first time, many Indians got a sense of identity and were ready to defend it. For the first time, people bought the idea that India was not a country created in 1947 by the valor of Gandhi and Nehru. For the first time, people became aware of anti-Hindu laws and policies of the Congress dispensations (Article 370 & 35A, Waqf Act, Places of Worship Act, Minority Affairs Jumlabazi etc. etc.). For the first time, people started doubting their history and took interest in what the country’s geography was and is. For the first time, people started thinking about why they were not proud to be Hindus (and Indians), why Governments controlled Hindu temples and why the government couldn’t maintain law and order as well as it should. Why the courts in the country had millions of unsolved cases and where were the infrastructure and services that they paid taxes for? Why was India ruled by family centric parties and bunch of commies, who controlled the narrative and worked for a few.
Fundamentally, for Hindus, the identity question has been deeper. A Hindu now feels agitated why the Nalanda university was destroyed, why the country was plundered, why 40,000 temples were destroyed, why Indian women were sold in markets of Kabul and Central Asia, was Taj Mahal really Tejo Mahalaya, what stood in place of the Gyanvapi “mosque” and why and why so many bad things happened. Just like people question the 10-year rule of Manmohan Singh and call it the “lost decade”, Hindus call the last millennia, the “millennium of slavery”.
For the unwashed, this BJP WASHING is akin to radicalization of the Hindu mind, the rise of saffron terror, a challenge to sickularism, the rise of intolerance, the rise of Hindu nutcases, an end to unity in diversity and goodbye to the India that they had loved (or were confused with). To them, I say that the Hindu is now even questioning whether he should be called a Hindu? He questions, why he doesn’t wear the tilaka, why his saints wear saffron, why he is not taught the Gita or the Vedas from childhood. The Hindu and the Indian in general have grown uncomfortable with how he and his society has been defined by the conquistadors and how their narrative has been used to judge, malign and use one Indian against the other. The Indian realizes the deep states of this world that are out to torment and control his country and wishes true freedom and independence.
The anger is deep and dangerous, and it is like what Chazz Palminteri (Agent Dave Kujan) feels in “The Usual Suspects” when in the climax of the movie he realizes that Kevin Spacey (Verbal) is the villain Keyser Söze whom he had been looking for. He is frustrated as all along Söze had been telling him a made-up story. And before he can catch Söze, Spacey walks away and it is too late. Similarly, the Hindu is wary of all the narratives that he has been sold and is ready to examine everything afresh. He feels cheated and disenfranchised and longs for knowledge of his history, religion and culture. This is the greatest WASHING that the BJP and its affiliates have achieved. They have washed away the effect of centuries of sleeping pills which the Hindu had consumed. But still the washing is far from complete. In fact, it has just begun.
Summary:
In fact, the greatest WASHING achievement of the BJP has been that for the first time since 2014, Indians have been taking sides. Many fence sitters now have to choose where they belong. The question is clear: Do you want 2 kgs of free rice, cheap petrol and subsidies on electricity or an India that is strong, secure and stable. None of the latter would be achieved without shaking up the social divisions with the Indian society. Bad habits which had crept into India’s people through centuries of foreign influence has to be weeded out.
Now India has more issues (previously unknown, unfelt and unheard) than it can tackle and by abrogation of Article 370 (and 35A) and resolution of the Ram Temple issue, the BJP has raised hopes, and this has become the perfect bait for the shark that the Hindu has become. While this shark’s appetite continues to grow, the BJP continues to wash India and the world targeting critical areas like foreign policy and macroeconomics. The problem now is not if the washing is effective but if it is too slow and if the detergent is of good quality. Can the BJP ensure that the detergent in its washing machine can work wonders? Can it be Miss Chamko? Read in Part -2
