Bharat Bhushan: Amit Shah's campaign reminiscent of Sanjay Gandhi
NB: A very perceptive piece. I would add that this is the Sangh Parivar's work. The Shah - Modi regime is their gift to the Indian people. DS
The first six months of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term have heralded the coming of age of trusted lieutenant Amit Shah. Without doubt the face of Modi 2.0, strong parallels can be drawn between his style of functioning and that of Sanjay Gandhi, the bete noir of the Emergency and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son.
Asad
Rehman: Police action in Gorakhpur: Shaken and scared, residents recount day
police ‘barged in’ // Adityanath’s Police Raj
The first six months of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term have heralded the coming of age of trusted lieutenant Amit Shah. Without doubt the face of Modi 2.0, strong parallels can be drawn between his style of functioning and that of Sanjay Gandhi, the bete noir of the Emergency and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son.
Of course there are
differences between the cast of characters then and now. Unlike Indira
Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, neither the Prime Minister nor his Union
Home Minister Amit Shah, come from ‘entitled’ political families. They have had
to work their way up, dedicating themselves in the service of the ideology of
Hindutva. Prime Minister Modi’s faith in his Home Minister, unlike that of a
mother in her darling son, has been built on his good counsel and excellent
performance in both party organisation and elections. And while Sanjay Gandhi
was an unconstitutional centre of power, Amit
Shah has risen by democratic processes.
The political
situation is also different even though some have referred to the Modi regime
as an “undeclared Emergency”. No articles of the Constitution have been
suspended this time around. They have nonetheless been changed through
parliamentary procedures and their interpretation influenced by the loudness of
the dominant political discourse. Nor are the government’s actions extra-legal.
It uses existing laws to invoke sedition against the regime’s critics and
provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act against parents who allow their children
to protest against the government.
The obiter dicta of the
judiciary lend further legitimacy to the Executive’s unprecedented misuse of
law. Just as the Emergency was backed by big business, they too are backed by
some of the largest corporates for reasons of expediency, the aging scion Ratan
Tata, being the latest to join in singing paens to the “visionary” duo.
The strongest
similarity with the Sanjay Gandhi moment however, is the persona of the man
spearheading PM Modi’s national agenda, Amit
Shah. Sanjay Gandhi was driven by a “development” agenda – promote
adult literacy (with slogans like “Each one, teach one”), abolish dowry and the
caste system, save the environment (clear slums and plant trees) and most
contentious of all, population control (through the infamous “nasbandi”
or forced vasectomy). This, Sanjay Gandhi thought, would perpetuate his mother
in power.
Shah’s driving vision
is to build a Hindu majoritarian state. His means are as
ruthless and as bereft of any understanding of how long-term changes can be
brought about as Sanjay Gandhi’s. All opposition must be pulverised into
submission. While Sanjay Gandhi and his mother jailed only individuals, Shah
‘jailed’ the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir for nearly five months and is
forever looking out for “Urban Naxals” and illegal immigrants to put behind
bars. If Sanjay Gandhi asked state governments to organise sterilisation camps,
Amit Shah would multiply detention centres for “illegal” entrants across the
country.
Both are/were men in a
hurry, willing to bend the power of the state to their ends. However, the Prime
Minister and Home Minister are able to maintain the veneer of legality and
democratic process, unlike during the Emergency. The Citizenship Amendment Act
has been created by Parliament, and the collection of data of citizens by the
National Population Register follows a “census-like” procedure (but without any
of its safeguards) and has the National Register of Citizens embedded in it.
The sequence of enfranchising the select and disenfranchising of “others” can
proceed legally helping Amit Shah to sculpt an electorate of a ‘people’ that
the BJP can
trust.
As they beat India
into desired shape, politicians of the past are projected as having been
“slothful” or worse, politically compromised, in not completing what they call
“the unfinished business of Partition”. By contrast they are the “doers”, with
the charge led by Union Home Minister doing what Prime Minister Modi could not
do in his first term. He has broken with the methods of his mentor to give
greater momentum to “cleaning up the mess” created by Nehruvian socialists. The
message to his “saheb” is that tremendous usurpation of power by the government
is useless unless directed to propelling forward their political agenda and
perpetuating them in power.
The ruthless remaking
of governance has increased several-fold after he assumed power as Union Home
Minister. Pragmatic individuals have been actively sought and appointed heads
of crucial institutions, so that the bureaucracy, politics and some would claim,
even the judiciary, danced to his tune as they once did to Sanjay Gandhi’s
baton. Another dangerous
parallel with the Emergency is patronising radical elements to discredit the
centrist politics. Indira
Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi patronised Jarnail Singh Bhinderanwale to
shrink the middle ground in Punjab. Modi and Shah too have promoted extremists
with criminal antecedents in public life. A hate-monger like Adityanath,
implicated in several criminal cases, has been promoted as Chief Minister of
Uttar Pradesh.
Although
Bhindranwale’s challenge to the Akali leadership of Punjab was
extra-constitutional and Adityanath’s militancy was promoted through electoral processes,
the radicalisation is similar. Once placed in legislatures and appointed to the
Executive, extremists can use the laws of the land and the machinery of
government to marginalise political opponents. They do not need to be
themselves armed or even call upon armed vigilantes. Just as Sanjay
Gandhi’s power overshadowed “Mummy”, the Union Home Minister has also put his
“saheb” in the shade. His aggressiveness shows no sign of abating before the
rage of public protests across India. The damage is evident in the UN criticism
of India’s move towards a discriminatory citizenship regime and the European
parliament’s resolution against India for moves towards a majoritarian state.
Indira
Gandhi initiated her own denouement by announcing elections which
pliant intelligence agencies told her she would sweep. How the cookie might
crumble for Prime Minister Modi is uncertain. Can he rely on what wags call,
his “paseena-facial” (literally, the sweat of his brow) a la his advice to
students recently - to preserve the sheen of his visage?
see also
