Kamal Nath RSS video row: Sambit Patra gets it wrong, but Congress too must stop acting like ‘fancy dress Hindus’
With crucial assembly elections underway, sadly our political discourse has been reduced, from vital issues, to who likes Hindus more.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra recently tweeted a video of Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath, addressing a group of Muslims, claiming it “exposed” the true face of “fancy dress Hindus”.
But in the video, which Patra attached with his tweet, Kamal Nath is saying nothing of the sort — he is, in fact, saying people from Nagpur will try to rile up Muslims, and while the Congress will “deal with them” post-polls, till then, the Muslims should show restraint.
In times when BJP ministers threaten even the Supreme Court of the “consequences of Hindu anger bubbling up”, what Kamal Nath said seems fairly sage advice. Also, the RSS does not represent all Hindus, and “dealing with the RSS” is not at all an “attack on Hinduism”.
But Patra, and sections within his party, have run away with the statement, reportedly stating it showed the Congress leader was threatening to “fix Hindus”.
Alongside, the Congress manifesto for MP has spoken of restricting RSS activities in government offices — to many, this seems a welcome step, since neither the RSS, nor any other religio-political body has any business using government offices for their events.
But Patra and his ilk have tried hard to project even this as the Congress saying it would apparently “ban the RSS” in Madhya Pradesh if it came to power.
Of course, the BJP has not even released a manifesto for MP yet. The state goes to the polls on November 28.
When prominent party leaders twist statements, quote them out of context, or resort to open falsehoods, it says a lot about a party’s insecurity, a lack of confidence in its performance, and an urgent readiness to utterly jettison ethics in the pursuit of power.
However, in one aspect, Patra’s description is accurate.
The Congress is, indeed, behaving like “fancy-dress Hindus”, just as it behaves like “fancy-dress seculars” or “fancy-dress liberals” as and when it sees fit.
If the national discourse today has become all about competitive communalism, the blame for that lies far more at the Congress’ door than the BJP’s.
In the run-up to the Madhya Pradesh polls, the Congress has been at pains to describe Rahul Gandhi as a 'Shiv bhakt'. Its manifesto promises a gaushala in every gram panchayat, a ‘Ram Van Gaman Path’ tour to retrace Lord Ram’s footprints, and the setting up of a “new religion and spiritual department that plans to begin commercial production of cow urine and dung cakes in gaushalas”.
Every time the Congress gives in to “soft Hindutva”, it ensures elections become all about competitive polarisation — and all other issues are drowned out.
Let’s look at some of the other issues the Congress could have focused on.
Madhya Pradesh, governed by the BJP for the past three terms, is facing massive anti-incumbency.
Farmers are in a state of distress, as evident in several recent protests, including the one in Mandsaur last year where five farmers were killed in police firing. According to this HT report, about one-tenth of the farmer suicides in the past 16 years in MP took place in one single year — between February 2016 and 2017.
Unemployment is on the rise. According to the 2017 economic survey, 14.1 lakh youth are unemployed in MP — of which 12.9 lakh are educated.
According to the state economic survey presented in the Assembly last year, only 129 people got jobs in 2016.
This is a breath-taking fact. But one that seems to have eluded the Congress, the main opposition fighting for MP.
It's not just joblessness. Corruption, especially among the bureaucracy, has been plaguing the common person. The Vyapam scam, the e-tendering scam, the mining scam, each has tainted the incumbent government.
According to recent NCRB data, the state topped the charts in crimes against Scheduled Tribes, reported the highest number of rapes, and the third highest number of crimes against children in the country.
When the think tank Public Affairs Centre (PAC) came out with its annual Public Affairs Index in July, it put Madhya Pradesh in its list of worst-governed states.
But the most noise we hear in the run-up to polls is around whether Rahul Gandhi really likes visiting temples, and if the Congress really likes cows or not.
The Congress had enough issues to corner the government on. Why did it not succeed in keeping the discourse around farm distress, unemployment, rising crimes?
Of course the Congress has every right to reach out to every constituency, every voter block. Rahul Gandhi cannot be stopped from practising his religion in public. But it is up to the avowed guardian of India’s secular fabric to ensure that elections are centered around ‘secular’ issues — issues of health, education, infrastructure, unemployment, safety, issues that affect voters of all religions.
The Congress’ constant flirting with Diet Hindutva has ensured Muslims and other minorities are marginalised even more — something its own senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad admitted recently, when he said he is no longer called for poll campaigning by his “Hindu brothers”.
The argument that the Congress needs to reach out to Hindus in a “measured” way, because its apparent “abandonment of Hindus” is what led to the RSS and BJP gaining ground, is specious. The Congress never “abandoned” Hindus, it manipulated them as and when it deemed fit, just like it manipulated other groups too.
The BJP today is doing the same far more brazenly, more aggressively — and far more dangerously.
The way to counter that is not offering a paler, more palatable saffron. It is to take the discourse away from religion, to issues that matter to voters of all identity groups.
In July this year, when the BJP attacked Rahul Gandhi over a fake report of him saying “Congress was a party of Muslims”, the Congress president had tweeted a lofty concept of what the party stood for.
It is time Gandhi walks the talk.
He and his party owe it to the country’s secularism, which he seeks to champion, and the country’s electorate, whom he seeks to represent.
Also read: Will Yogi Adityanath be able to make a difference for BJP in poll-bound states?