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.