Bharat Bhushan: BJP losing the narrative in UP

By Dilip -

NB: That citizens of UP are disgusted with the ruthless, cruel and incompetent BJP regime was to be expected. Equally expected is the desperate effort of this regime to stoke up communal animus and hatred. That senior ministers of the Indian Union should try and divide Indian citizens is truly an abomination, but this is what we have become used to. This is their one and only political strategy: government by means of hate and intimidation. 

People of Uttar Pradesh and India in general should beware of this habit of the Sangh Parivar. They will use their governmental power to start trouble, because they are completely bankrupt, morally and intellectually. They worship only money and power. Indian citizens should do their best to uphold peace and harmony between people of different faiths. They should form Mohalla Aman Committees to prevent violence and commotion. We should remember the 2015 Bihar election, when mischief makers tried to stir up communal riots. Decent people of different communities successfully prevented this from happening.

Let us do our best to save our democracy by peacefully exercising our right to vote. Jai Hind. DS

In election-going Uttar Pradesh, candidates and campaigners of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are being chased away by the people and their campaign vehicles attacked. These unprecedented incidents are not limited to Western Uttar Pradesh, the area most impacted by the farmers’ agitation. In Eastern UP, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya was heckled in his home borough of Sirathu in Kaushambi district. Women were seen slamming doors on him and he faced hostile sloganeering.

The video of a BJP campaigner, allegedly a sitting legislator in UP, threatening the people stoning his car with a pistol, has gone viral. Union Minister Smriti Irani was heckled in her parliamentary constituency of Amethi, UP Sugarcane Minister, Suresh Rana, was abused by farmers in his home constituency Shamli, legislator Suresh Pasi from Amethi faced an irate mob, the BJP’s campaign carcade was attacked and some windscreens broken in Baghpat, sitting BJP MLA Pooran Prakash was chased away by the locals in Mathura’s Baldev constituency and the cars of BJP canvassers in Meerut stoned.

Similar incidents have been witnessed in Vrindavan, Sivalkhas (Meerut district), Khatauli, Chaprauli, Sambhal and Bulandshahar. In the face of local anger, Devendra Singh Lodi, sitting legislator from Syana constituency in Bulandshahar issued a video appeal to his constituents  saying, “… for all the mistakes I have committed up to now, I seek your forgiveness by bowing my head at your venerable feet. I promise not to commit such mistakes in the future."

Political observers believe that instances of taking down BJP candidates in Western UP could have a copycat effect in other parts of the state, turning into a free for all that would damage the electoral prospects of the party.

There are signs of panic in the party. Union Home Minister of India Amit Shah had to station himself in Kairana constituency directing door-to-door campaigning -- a constituency where he has made considerable effort to communalise the out-migration of some Hindu families. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed a single rally, real or virtual, in the three weeks since he abandoned the Firozepur rally. One reason for abandoning it, it is said was the dismal attendance at Firozepur. The banning of road-shows and rallies by the Election Commission of India till January 31 citing the Covid pandemic may have given the BJP’s chief campaigner some much needed respite.

Meanwhile, youth protests which started in Patna against alleged irregularities in the Railway Recruitment Board – Non-Technical Popular Categories (RRB-NTPC) examination have spilled over to UP. In Prayagraj, after protesting students tried to stop a train, the UP police resorted to baton-charging and raided hostels and lodges where they suspected some protesters were hiding.  After political parties backed the students “protesting unemployment”, the Union Railway Ministry has stayed new exams of NTPC categories and Level 1 of the RRB. A committee will hold discussions with the previous examinees and submit a report to the ministry. Whether this will be sufficient to contain the despondency of the student protesters, remains to be seen.

What is clear, however, is that BJP seems to have lost the narrative in UP. While its campaigners, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, are campaigning to polarise the voters along religious lines, they have not met with much success. Going by the viral videos posted on social media the protests against BJP candidates in Western UP constituencies, are about lack of “vikas” (development) and jobs. Clearly, the millions of tax-payers’ money that the Yogi government has spent on propaganda about its developmental efforts has benefited only the media recipients of his largesse. There seem to be few takers for UP Minister Siddarthnath Singh’s claim that the Yogi government had created 2.64 crore jobs in 4.5 years. Sceptics scoff that this figure even exceeds the less than 2 crore jobs created in the entire country under Prime Minister Modi.

India’s former Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu in a tweet presented a more realistic picture: “In Uttar Pradesh between 2016 & 2021 working age population rose 146.9 mill(ion) to 169.2 mill(ion) & number of people with jobs fell from 56.4 mill(ion) to 55.8 mill(ion). Much of this loss had occurred before the pandemic--a result of policy focus being on grand projects rather than human welfare.”

Youngsters stare at a bleak future apprehensive of going past the age of qualifying for government jobs. They were at one point the main supporters Prime Minister Modi because of his promise of job creation. UP voters are also angry because of price rise, falling incomes exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the menace of stray cattle exacerbated by the government’s restrictions on the cattle trade and the non-payment of sugarcane dues from previous harvests. These are economic issues are neutral across caste, community and religion.

While the main Opposition, Samajwadi Party and Rashtirya Lok Dal, are busy converting the election into a caste elections, the BJP is trying to draw this discontent into a communal discourse. It has not been successful in doing so up to now in because of the acuteness of economic woes. If there is negative voting in UP, it is the SP-RLD alliance that would be the main gainer despite its caste-based approach. However, the alliance, it is understood, are wary of communal occurrences that might yet polarise the UP election, pushing livelihood issues to the background. Even if such an incident were to take place in some other state it might be played to the BJP’s advantage in the UP campaign. Their fears may rest on no more than the adeptness of the BJP to play the communal card in every election.

https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/bjp-losing-the-narrative-in-up-1075155.html


Bharat Bhushan - 'Entire political science' lesson: Peoples' power trumps people in power


Bharat Bhushan: Burden of bigotry may break Indian democracy's back


Bharat Bhushan - Incitement to violence: When will Supreme Court take note?


Bharat Bhushan - Save the Election Commission: Common electoral roll can wait


Bharat Bhushan: Frontier of warfare? Wrong to securitise civil society discourse


Election Commission responsible for spreading Covid-19, should probably be booked for murder: Madras HC // Bharat Bhushan on the departing CJI: Good riddance


YANN PHILIPPIN - Sale of French Rafale jet fighters to India: how a state scandal was buried


Anne Michel and Simon Piel - Rafale case: Fresh moves towards a corruption investigation


Bharat Bhushan - Scania Scandal: Need to step up to the challenge


Cutlet for Cutlet


Rafale Papers: France opens judicial probe into fighter deal with India, new revelations emerge // Opposition Parties Say it's Time for Investigation in India Too


Bharat Bhushan - Pegasus impact: Loss to Indian Republic and government is much greater


Bharat Bhushan: Has Modi government compromised national security through Pegasus? / Pegasus spyware: the export of self-censorship / Saudi Government used Pegasus to murder journalist Jamal Khashoggi / Global fightback against spyware



Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the ...
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227...
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested...
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certai...
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, ...
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the...
Read more

James Gilligan on Shame, Guilt and Violence

By Dilip -
Shame, Guilt, and Violence / James Gilligan During the past 35 years I have used prisons and prison mental hospitals as "laboratories" in which to investigate the causes and prevention of the various forms of violence and the relationships between these forms and to what I will call (with a nod to William James) "the varieties of moral experience." In the course of that work, I have been struck by the frequency with which I received the same answer when I asked prisoners, or mental patients, why they assaulted or even killed someone. Time after time, they would reply "because he disrespected me" or "he disrespected my visitor [or wife, mother, sister, girl-friend, daughter, etc.]." In fact, they used that phrase so often that they abbreviated it into the slang phrase, "He dis'ed me." Whenever people use a word so often that they abbreviate it, it is clearly central to their moral and emotional vocabulary. But even when they did n...
Read more