BJP made ABVP look foolish in JNU fiasco

Have the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliate, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), committed tactical blunder by escalating a small campus issue in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) into a national dispute which now has the potential to become another bone of contention between the ruling party and a combined opposition in the forthcoming Budget session of Parliament?

Playing victim in politics is an essential strategy for growth. Everyone in the BJP reached their positions by projecting herself or himself as a targeted party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constant pillorying by adversaries enabled supporters to project him as the "most vilified" political leader in India.

The sympathy generated in the wake of such presentation contributed significantly to Modi's success in leading the BJP to its spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. The shoe is now on the other foot and the ruling establishment is seeing anti-national activity in every form of protest. Bharat Mata, instead of being the strong and robust nation that it should be, is constantly being painted as a touch-me-not.

Also read - 'Anti-national' JNU clash over Afzal Guru: Death of free speech on campus

In fact, the BJP and ABVP have completely lost the script in the JNU issue because what began as a political campaign between two contrasting ways of looking at the political narrative in Jammu and Kashmir has snowballed into an all-out attack on anything liberal and opposed to the politics of the Sangh Parivar. Since those being targeted in JNU too have political backers, the issue is going to cost the BJP politically. Former prime minister Indira Gandhi paid the price for painting everything as having a "foreign hand" and now the BJP claims that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed has a role in every political action in India!

Amid the din, there is need to remember two vital issues - firstly, the president of the JNU Students' Union (JNUSU), Kanhaiya Kumar, was not the organiser of the "objectionable programme" on the campus on February 9. Instead, in a speech now freely circulating on the internet, he affirms loyalty to the Constitution and opposes anyone who may question it. Secondly, we must not lose sight of the fact that the day after the incident the JNU administration initiated an inquiry into the entire issue.

Also read: Take it easy Mr Modi, student power is dead

Once such a probe was ordered, there was no necessity for home minister Rajnath Singh and subsequently human resources development minister Smriti Irani to jump into the fray. Their statements gave encouragement to BJP MP Maheish Girri, who was the co-founder of the Jan Lokpal movement, to file a FIR in the hope that the action would earn him kudos from the party leaders. A case was registered by the East Delhi MP, unmindful of the fact that the JNUSU president's organisation, All India Students' Federation was the students' wing of the CPI and an adversary of the Democratic Students' Union which organised the contentious programme in JNU.

Delhi Police, at this stage, propelled by Rajnath's claim that he "will not spare those who raise anti-India slogans", filed sedition charges against Kumar in the hope that this would please the home minister and improve their annual confidential reports. This decision raised the government's stakes in the entire issue and now there is no escaping escalation of campaign against radical students and their liberal backers.

Tomes have been written on psychology of the nouveau-riche who after rising to a higher economic status end up flaunting new-found wealth and become objects of ridicule. The BJP and affiliates of the Sangh Parivar too are behaving in the same vein. In the Hyderabad University, the ABVP complained to the local MP and minister Bandaru Dattatreya when it should have limited its political campaign against Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula to the campus. In the end, whichever way one views the tragedy over Vemula's suicide, even die-hard Sangh supporters will agree that its political support among Dalits has come under pressure.

Also read: JNU crackdown proves Modi sarkar has abused sedition law

Similarly, Rajnath's statement will only add to the immediate political woes of the government though supporters will claim that his response to the incident has to be viewed in the context of the RSS' long-term agenda. But then, will such "farsightedness" be approved by Modi? His task, after all, is to regain control of the government and bring governance back on track. Last year, it was communal polarisation which derailed Parliament. Now this is being coupled by labelling anyone with a viewpoint different from the Hindutva worldview as anti-national.

Rajnath's handling of the issue is perplexing because he has a background in students' politics and handled the youth wing of the BJP during crucial years in the 1980s. The ABVP is one of the oldest student bodies and was formed in 1949 after MS Golwalkar was released from jail after failure of the government to link him to the conspiracy to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi. The ABVP is not alone in being anti-establishment in principle. In the years that the Congress was in power, the NSUI (I) gained only by non-ideological methods whereas the ABVP and Left organisations were always intensely anti-government.

The ABVP has failed to keep in mind that it is essentially oriented towards seeking support from a particular demographic group and its contest with other student bodies is limited to a section. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh retains its pro-labour stance and acts as a watchdog on economic issues. It has allowed Modi little elbow room on important labour issues and keeps stressing that ease of doing business cannot be accompanied by anti-labour politics.

Rajnath should have allowed the ABVP to fight its own battles. The ABVP too, in order to remain a student organisation, firm on course of further rise, can serve its cause by picking a leaf or two from the BMS' book. It would be politically prudent for the BJP too to diffuse the crisis it is faced with by releasing the JNUSU leader. But will the BJP eat the humble pie?

(Editor's note: An earlier version of the article had erroneously stated that Maheish Girri had joined the BJP from AAP. He was actually a co-founder of the Jan Lokpal movement.)