Rajneeti As In Upsetting The Apple Cart
When the NDA was elected in May 2014, with the first
majority in 30 years, it sent shock waves through the complacent body politic. Entrenched
ecosystems were suddenly orphaned, though the various were still ensconced in
their positions of privilege. The only problem was they no longer had a direct
line to the higher echelons.
It was infuriating for people who had ruled the roost
on a bogus socialism that never alleviated poverty. These worthies had also made
a profession of sneering at the very
people who were now in power, including the prime minister, risen high from
extremely humble origins.
When the NDA won a second term with a comparable majority
in 2019, it proceeded to consolidate its hold on the Rajya Sabha as well.
Parliamentary power to influence legislative outcomes
was snatched away from the Congress Party and its like-minded friends for at
least five years more. This is the singular reason that it is now agitating in
the streets.
What was still a basis for smirking defiance and noisy
obstruction in Modi 1.0, on the thought that the incumbent government would be
ousted in 2019, did not come to pass. Instead, it began to look increasingly like
the BJP alone was settling in for decades to come.
There has been some opposition defections, both
amongst the politicos and their supporters in the bureaucracy, judiciary,
police, academia, media, institutions. But these were just the early recognisers
of the new reality.
By 2021, the speed of Congress disintegration is seen
to be accelerating. Similar difficulties apply to the RJD, the SP, the DMK,
even the stand-offish BSP.
The TMC, under siege from the BJP as it goes to the
polls in West Bengal very soon, is the only BJP critic that still runs one of
the biggest and most important states. If it is ousted from government, it will
mark the fall of the last bastion. If Maharashtra returns to the BJP from the
troika that rules it presently, then the circle of big states in its grasp is
almost complete.
Of course, the forthcoming elections additionally in
Assam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will all have significant bearing on both the
BJP and the Opposition for 2024. The fate of Punjab in 2022 is also something
of a question mark.
Within Congress, a new pressure group dubbed the G23,
made up of prominent erstwhile loyalists of the Gandhi family is trying now to
oust it.
The great dismantling of Congress-laid foundations is
due to the power of electoral success, but doing away with the erstwhile
axiomatic bases of policy is highly significant too.
The foundations on which the Nehruvian ‘Idea of India’
was built had a legal and near brick-and-mortar aspect to it, apart from the myth
and hagiography that went with it.
The peculiar status accorded to Jammu & Kashmir
using the ‘temporary’ Articles 35A and 370 is gone. A lot of demographic
jiggery-pokery favouring our massive minority was routinised in J&K,
including the clandestine importation of Rohingyas. The creeping radical
Islamisation of the J&K region was in the works for decades marking it as perennially
unstable and a happy hunting ground for cross border subversion. The entire sinister process has now been
upended.
Then came the path-breaking Supreme Court ruling on
the grand Ram Temple at Ayodhya. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1991 by
hundreds of incensed Hindu nationalists, marked the rise of Hindutva politics.
Ever since, the spurious secularism of the Nehruvian era has been under attack.
The Ayodhya verdict came after over a century of legal
and administrative interventions. The
historical commentary on the prior existence of a temple at the site is
documented by British historians from the 1600s.
The verdict, after copious final submissions, resulted
in the expulsion of the destroyed Babri Masjid, and the losing side, to the
outskirts of a highway leading away from the holy city. A leading Muslim
archaeologist, KK Muhammed, part of the team that carried out two excavations in
1976-77 and 2003 established that the Babri Masjid, like many other such
edifices around the country, including the mosque at Qutb Minar in Delhi, was
built, by demolishing a much older temple complex.
The grand Ram Mandir’s foundation stone was laid by
the Prime Minister himself. It will encompass over 70 acres or more around the
actual new temple for gardens, a museum, a library and so on. The symbolism of
the entire recreation of Ayodhya city and environs by the Uttar Pradesh state
government much beyond the temple itself,
is of the greatest importance to Hindutva politics.
That process is far from complete in March 2021, but it
is definitely a juggernaut on the roll. Many things like the reclaiming of
other key temples at Mathura and Varanasi from the mosques that usurped them,
and the establishing of a Uniform Civil Code have yet to come. This will
perhaps stretch to a period beyond 2024 and a possible third consecutive term
for the BJP at the centre.
But a slew of modernisation programmes, enhanced
electricity, gas, water, digitisation of administrative processes and banking, atmanirbhar
manufacturing, national security vis a vis China, infrastructure, diplomatic
wins, economic, land, labour and agricultural reforms, are all surging ahead. So
is a recovering GDP. Still, the clamour from the ousted Opposition, if anything,
is getting louder.
The agricultural reforms in particular are designed to
double the income of the small farmer. This is important, as even today about
60 % of the population continues to live in the rural areas and is directly or
indirectly connected with agriculture. That farming is in a crisis of low
yields and poor incomes resulting in much misery and a high suicide rate, is
why it is urgently in need of reform.
If GST which did away with multiple cesses in favour of
just one, was the signal economic reform of Modi1.0, the massive defence
manufacturing and indigenous acquisition programme marks Modi 2.0 so far.
India is also accelerating its capabilities as the
pharmacy to the world after the challenges of developing vaccines to fight the
Covid -19 pandemic.
But the biggest beneficiary for the rural masses will
come from the effects of the changed farm laws. The so-called Farmer Agitation,
which has just crossed its 100th day is due to another classic
unmasking of a cabal. A group of no more than 50,000 agents, or Arthiyas, has
relentlessly forced the production of wheat and paddy of questionable quality
from the state of Punjab. It has forced the use of excess canal and ground
water, resulting in growing salinity, and the overuse of toxic chemical fertilisers. This, in order to
extort minimum support prices (MSP) from the Government of India for produce
far in excess of requirements.
They do so to earn a rapacious commission of 2.5% on all
the paddy and wheat bought under MSP, for themselves. The same cabal does
nothing to encourage the small farmer to grow other cash crops and vegetables
which are both in demand, and could generate better incomes for them.
The MSP system applied to the procurement of wheat and
paddy, started in the 1970s so that India could become self-sufficient in these
staple crops. It has long outlived its usefulness. Many other states such as
Madhya Pradesh produce a better quality wheat and paddy in abundance now. The
Food Corporation of India (FCI) is currently holding over 200% of its
requirement of buffer food stocks despite a huge population of nearly 1.5
billion people.
The Modi government passed three farm laws which freed
the small farmer from the clutches of the official state ‘mandis’ and their Agricultural Produce market Committee (APMC). It empowered farmers to grow what they wanted and
sell the produce to whomsoever they chose at their own negotiated prices. This
process is facilitated digitally via the internet, via special trains to carry
produce around the country, via private contract farming, and also through the
existing APMCs. But the MSP regime is no longer empowered as a monopoly.
The government has since followed up the three farm
laws by stating it will only pay MSP directly into the bank accounts of the
selling small farmer and not via the agents.
Early favourable results of the farm law reforms are
pouring in from other states. But the Punjab superstructure of parasitical agents
is effectively ruined by virtue of this legislation. Therefore, the agitations
may continue despite the government’s refusal to repeal the laws. But yes,
another pillar of the Nehruvian order has fallen into the dust.
(1,421 words)
For: Sirfnews
March 14th, 2021
Gautam Mukherjee
