Counterblast From The Cowshed

Counterblast From The Cowshed

The Awardwapsi campaign and the Intolerance Memorandum presented yesterday to the president, are both of a piece. It has rapidly sprouted contributors from home, abroad, and from different walks of life. 

But with the politically crucial Bihar Legislative Assembly election coming to an end on the 5^th of November, will it begin to peter out?  Was it really all about Bihar in the first place, because if it were, it might have been barking up the wrong tree.

In mofussil Bihar, quite taken up by Modi’s promise of vikas and money from the centre, a clamour in Delhi may not be of any interest to nonplussed man or beast.

It is, after all, a noise about freedom of expression, beef, milk, the undoing of the Nehruvian narrative, isolated Dalit and Muslim killings, the lies told by Nehru about Subhash Chandra Bose, Robert Vadra being investigated, RSS men supplanting  faithful Congress nominees, the FTII, Shiv Sena with its black paint, etc.

How does all this matter to a Bihari trying to make up his mind between Nitish and Modi?

As a protest, it has certainly been well choreographed. Congress is hoping, no doubt, to degrade Modi’s standing both at home and abroad. But did it bargain for a counter-offensive?

Why has it, in turn, sprung up now? Is the NDA confident of a win in Bihar? Is that why it has chosen this watershed moment to send the opposition flying back to the margins? Will it truly proceed to place the Nehruvian narrative in the dustbin of history next?

To start with, there was a march of aggrieved Sikhs, still ostensibly hurting from the Congress organised pogrom in 1984, surging alongside the Congress walk of 140 to Rashtrapati Bhavan on the 3^rd.

And on Friday coming up, there will be a counterblast of artists, actors, intellectuals etc.  who will be marching up Raisina Hill to condemn the insult given to the nation by the Awardwapsis.

Of course, the scattered counter offensive has been gathering momentum on TV, in the press, and on social media for some days. Finance Minister Jaitley has fired several volleys himself of late.

Still, the integrity of the mincing and cheeseparing original protest seems doubtful.  It is curious how none of these troubled protestors, many of whom have lost influence with the advent of the Modi government, thought it inappropriate to object to far bigger riots, pogroms and squashing of individual freedoms over decades past.

But, once the ball was set rolling, they were joined by the ignored and discarded from other sides too.  A backbiting LK Advani, his acolyte Sudheendra Kulkarni recently beloved of the Pakistani establishment, Yashwant Sinha, carping, unmindful that his son is a well-regarded minister of state in Modi’s government. And then there is Arun Shourie, hilariously likening the goings on as ‘Congress plus Cow’ thereby setting the cat amongst the pigeons. For more comedy, he also averred that the prime minister was not the official presiding over a homeopathic apothecary.

Of course, there were those who want to behead the would-be beef eating CM of Karnataka, and send Shahrukh Khan to Pakistan. Besides, former dictator and terrorist trainer, Pervez Musharraf, wants Shiv Sena banned.

In Patna, Shatrughan Sinha, the power hungry cine actor, said the BJP today is just Modi, Shah, & Jaitley. He visualised them, all three, bunched up collegiately on the same ‘scooter’.

Intolerance of criticism then it cannot be, can it?

To wit, vintage socialite cum author Shobhaa De protesting oxymoronically: people were scared to speak out before but now they are not. Huh?

 As it stands, the Awardwapsi/Intolerance movement has all the hallmarks of a well-executed PR offensive. And perhaps it was led on by the fact that BJP has done nothing till now to counter the calumny being heaped upon it.

After all, it was winning every assembly election. This, together with the sarkari Man Ki Baat, AIR and DD in tow did Modi just fine. There were the well-received foreign jaunts, the “Obama is my friend” Republic Day, the pin-stripe suit. Then suddenly, came the rout in Delhi.

This gave the devastated Congress its second wind. If political novice Kejriwal could take on Modi and win, so could the halting, hesitant, Rahul Gandhi.

And so Rahul began, with his ‘Suit Boot Sarkar’ jibe, followed by the parliament roko thereafter. Modi was stymied.

But if the 8^th of November does throw up an NDA win, it may lead to very different outcomes from the one Rahul and his handlers anticipated.  

For: The Quint

(754 words)

November 4^th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee