A balancing act in Hindi heartland

NARENDRA Modi is a shrewd politician. He is also lucky. The Supreme Court’s verdict on the validity of abrogation of Article 370 by his government came on the heels of his party’s resounding success in the Assembly polls. He is on a roll.

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The INDIA bloc thought of a stick to beat Modi with — the caste census. But it will only aggravate divisions within the country.

He has capped the BJP’s poll victory by choosing a tribal leader, Vishnu Deo Sai, as the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, which has 32 per cent tribal population. He picked another first-timer to lead the government in Madhya Pradesh; Mohan Yadav is an OBC leader and the son of a tea seller, like Modi himself. In Rajasthan, he balanced the caste arithmetic by appointing a Brahmin, Bhajan Lal Sharma, as CM. Two Deputy CMs were appointed in each of the three states so that no caste would be neglected. Modi can easily paper over differences as he is today the master of all he surveys. The Congress could not have pulled off such a feat.

The only shaky bridge he needs to cross is the US government’s demand that he bring to justice the Indian government official who allegedly hired Nikhil Gupta, who is facing an investigation in Gujarat for drug trafficking, to assassinate designated terrorist and US citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on US soil. The US is not amused. It is the most powerful nation in the world. Only a powerful country like the US is sufficiently ‘empowered’ to take out a serial offender holed up in another country.

During President Obama’s reign, the US mounted an operation to exterminate its most wanted foreign-based criminal, Osama bin Laden, who was being sheltered by the ISI in Pakistan. Such adventures should not be undertaken by countries still far away from the No. 1 or No. 2 position in the world. This is just common sense, not gratuitous advice.

It has been suggested that some junior operative in our governmental set-up may have been carried away by all the plaudits Modi received at home when he presided over the G20 for a year. If that turns out to be true, I would not blame the officer for his overenthusiasm. He must have been influenced by all the propaganda hurled at us, ordinary folk, by the BJP’s propaganda machine led by IT cell convener Amit Malviya.

Reportedly, Pannun has vowed revenge. National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval has an unenviable task at hand. He needs to infiltrate Pannun’s Sikhs for Justice to scuttle attempts to cause destruction to the lives and property of Indians in India or abroad. In 1985, Khalistan supporters had planted a bomb on an Air India flight from Toronto, killing all passengers and crew. The majority of those who lost their lives were of Indian descent.

Our external intelligence agency has contacts with sister agencies in the US and the UK and, I dare say, other friendly countries. Senior RAW officers, known to the host country, are stationed in our embassies. They must already be on high alert after the Canadian and US governments went public with their complaints against us. In the midst of electioneering, Modi must have gone into a huddle with the External Affairs Minister and the NSA to sort out this highly sensitive matter, which I fear is not going to vanish in a hurry.

I would have been a misfit in an intelligence agency. I am not competent to advise Modi or even comment on this unpleasant episode. But, as a proud citizen of the country of my birth and the land where my ancestors lived for thousands of years, I sympathise with the Prime Minster and wish that he finds a way to get us out of this mess.

Modi has had resounding success at the hustings. Even where the BJP was a minor player, as in Telangana, it has improved its tally. In the South, where it had no voice or presence before 2014, it has now made a beginning. In Tamil Nadu, it has got an IPS officer, K Annamalai, to head its party unit after he resigned from the police service. In Kerala, a Catholic Archbishop has shown interest in what the BJP is offering to its Christian subjects!

Modi’s real problem is the fringe in his party, as reflected by the conglomerate of sadhus in Uttarakhand who want Muslims out and loudly and persistently call for violence against them. The fringe has become a part of mainstream Hindutva. It helped Modi attain power in 2014. It is intrinsic to domination in the Hindi-speaking states. He has used them. He cannot wish them away now.

But Modi is a clever politician. He can find a way if he wants India or Bharat to be united in its march to glory. If it is divided on communal lines, like the Hindutva forces have succeeded in doing just to win elections, his party will be in power for some more years while he is around, but India will never be a country that sits at the high table in the comity of nations.

Recently, Opposition INDIA bloc thought of a stick to beat Modi with — the caste census. It will only aggravate divisions within the country. Many divisions already exist, including the one based on religion, which the BJP has promoted. One based on caste will be disastrous. In my state, Maharashtra, voices against including Marathas in the OBC category of Kunbis have already been raised. They are getting louder. Fortunately, they are confined to shouts at present. God forbid if they graduate from shouting to fisticuffs or worse.

It is not only castes but sub-castes also which want a piece of the pie. While electioneering in Telangana, Modi met a leader of one of that state’s Scheduled Sub-Castes. The leader sought reservation in jobs for his sub-caste and Modi promised to consider the demand sympathetically. There will be a plethora of such demands in a caste-ridden country like ours.

Modi later said that there should be only four castes in India — women, youth, farmers and the poor. His job, he said, would be to make these four ‘castes’ or segments of society happy and contented. We could not agree more — that is, only if he really means what he says.