Nupur Sharma Suspension: A Tactical Loss For A Strategic Victory?

Nothing has made BJP's core constituency more upset than the party's decision to suspend Nupur Sharma, a young politician, a feisty woman, and BJP's articulate spokeswoman for many months. I happen to believe strongly in corporate loyalty in the RSS tradition. This means I always frown upon supporters and workers going ballistic over matters that seem to be out of line with the ideology. However, perhaps for the first time in my entire political life, I too found myself rather peeved. I felt that people like me are being taken for granted by the leaders of the ideology.

The reason perhaps is the brazenness of it. Muslims are abusing our dharma openly, and a most reasonable counter rooted in Islamic scriptures, makes the entire ummah go violent. And mind you, I am not complaining about their behavior. I found it appalling that we, the supposedly militant, warrior-like ideologues, who mocked the "softness” of Hindu leaders from Gandhi to Manmohan Singh, we who bravely fought for Ram Janmabhoomi successfully against all odds, capitulated abjectly before murderous supremacists! This was really galling. Exasperated, here is what I wrote to a small group of committed Hindu Nationalists:

"This is unacceptable behavior by BJP. I hope supporters' pressure brings BJP to its senses soon."

However, I always lecture to all that politics requires us to be cool-headed, and perhaps slightly cynical too. In politics, we cannot go berserk with our emotions. We have to assess options coolly in every situation that comes before us. So, I too reflected on what might have happened, and here are the thoughts that followed:

    1. One thing is sure - both BJP and RSS really have ears to the ground. I am talking about top leadership. So there will be corrections.

    2. The only possible (not sure of this too) flaw in Sangh Parivar might be - they still have not developed a thorough knowledge of Islam. Of course they know all about Islamic behavior. But I am not sure if top leadership understands Mohammed and his doctrines so well.

    3. They knew how people would react to this move. Then why exactly did they do it? They are getting no additional vote or support.

    4. Gulf business does not mean so much to India that we should do such a thing. The only thing for which we depend on them is oil. I don't think these countries were going to stop oil supplies. India has a fair amount of diplomatic clout too. The international image doesn't matter anymore. Suspending Nupur Sharma actually worsens India's image.

    5. Then what did BJP expect to gain out of it? If Rahul Gandhi were to do something like this, we could ascribe it to his stupidity. Just can't imagine what BJP is thinking.

    6. Before this there have been only two major political defeats. The first was land acquisition bill. We could argue BJP was too new to push a major thing like that in the face of opposition. The second was Farmers Bills. That is easily explained with votes – we were losing Western UP which we could not afford to. But this suspension of Nupur Sharma?! Nothing seems to explain it.

As of now, I do not have any definite answer. But it is very reasonable to believe that there is some deal that we do not know about. And it is unlikely to be a pure capitulation to ummah's pressure. I would only urge all to bear patience and BJP will deliver something positive on this too. Remember the anguish we felt when Farm laws were repealed. It resulted in a sweet victory in UP. If you were deciding for BJP, and UP election results were to be jeopardized by sticking to the Farm laws, would you rather stick to those laws and risk losing UP to goons and jihadis or would you rather do as BJP did?

I rest my case for patience and forbearance.

Loss Of Favorable Narrative Worries Muslim Intelligensia

In the aftermath of the jihadi-inflicted bloodletting in the Kashmir valley, Rana Ayyub tweeted “we have screwed up Kashmir like never before”. That is as close to a mea culpa we are going to get from this jihadi sympathizer. We have other jihadi sympathizers like Beydoun and Werleman trying to appeal to the Hindu better senses by saying that India can learn from Indonesia. While that is wrong on many levels, what it tells you is that they are realizing that constantly attacking and trying to shame Hindus is not working.

Let's try to analyze these two thoughts. Have the Hindus become shameless? No, we have not. So something else has happened. As Thakur in Sholay tells Kaliya - jao ja kar Gabbar se keh do, Ramgarh walon ne pagal kutton ke samne roti dalna band kar diya hai. Yes, the Hindus (despite what their leader utter in public)  have realized that appeasement of Muslims or appealing to their better senses has never worked. So instead of ignoring a red herring name like Gyanvapi for a mosque, or a Hindu symbol at the bottom of a mosque wall or maqbara or living in cities named after genocidal maniacs, and accepting the status quo in the name of social harmony, the Hindus have said ENOUGH!!

They have decided to ignore distorians like Habib, Thapar et. al. They have begun to question the very nature of Indian secularism which is founded on Hindus guilted into accepting the Mughal years as the glory days of India while ignoring our real history. They are noticing and rejecting movies with not so subtle pro-jihadi narrative with the evil Thakur, benevolent Maulana and kind Rahim Chahcha. 

This began in 2014 with the election of our first true Hindu conservative as the PM who rejected to toe the familiar lines, the tropes associated with that office. No iftar parties or wearing mesh topis or keffiyeh or taking the foreign dignitaries to Taj Mahal. To the chagrin of some, he does insist on “sabka saath sabka vikas” but that is a side effect of his love for the nation and propensity to look at the big picture. And in that light he cannot be faulted. 

Since then an awareness has crept into the Hindu psyche as it is clearly visible on social media and other arenas. A new generation of historians like the mysterious Bharadwaj or Vikram Sampath or J Sai Deepak et. al. have questioned and demolished what used to pass for Indian history. Griha vapsi programs run by RSS, Agniveer group, Arya Samaj have challenged and attempted to stem the demographic rot. Twitter handles like @GemsOfBollywood have changed the way people look at movies.

These are small changes but together they show a trend that is challenging the leftist-jihadi ecosystem and changing the Hindu consciousness. While that does little damage to the ecosystem the trend clearly worries them. This loss of pro-Muslim narrative built on the backs of selfish and useful idiot Hindus is a very scary specter for them. 

It is this loss of narrative and sense of control that scares people like Ayyub, Shahid Siddique and other so-called Muslim social leaders. That narrative made them relevant, rich, and powerful. They are not afraid of this so-called Hindu hate - they know Hindus are a pacifist lot. They are afraid of irrelevance.