Uneasy lies the head...

Of Kashmir, Manipur, and other flashpoints

Image courtesy this tweet

THE games people play: the section of the media that is willing and able to follow instructions is being encouraged to refer to the incoming government as “Modi 3.0”, while Modi ostentatiously eschews any mention of himself in the third person and pointedly invokes the “NDA government” at every opportunity.

Much of this stems from the friendly fire the RSS has been directing at its political wing. Modi dodged a bullet when he got the “NDA Parliamentary Party” (within quotes, because there is no such statutory body) to acclaim him as leader of the coalition, neatly side-stepping the RSS demand that the leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party be elected by the party MPs through ballot.

Modi would have won such an election — but a section of the elected BJP MPs was poised to vote for Nitin Gadkari, the RSS choice, and Modi could not afford the ignominy of the public knowing that he was not the universal choice.

This led to a series of developments. RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat called a vishesh yog of his organisation and delivered a speech that is worth listening to in full:

Bhagwat said the Opposition should not be treated as the enemy, that it is not an adversary; that it is the job of the Opposition to present the other side of any debate and that this is the bedrock of Parliamentary democracy; that Manipur has been strife-torn for over a year and that peace must be restored.

As far as the Sangh is concerned, there is only one parivar, Bhagwat said. (Perhaps coincidentally, or not, Modi took to Twitter to tell his followers that the nation has given NDA a mandate and to ask them to remove ‘Modi ka Parivar’ from their social media handles.)

There is more in the Bhagwat speech, and much of it is thinly-veiled criticism of how Modi and Shah ran Modi 2.0. This was immediately followed up by a signed piece by Ratan Sharda in the Organiser that was a rebuke aimed at the BJP. He makes the points that (A) The BJP did not reach out to the RSS for help in the elections; (B) The notion that Modi is the candidate in all seats is self-defeating; (C) That BJP MPs and MLAs are unapproachable even to the party’s own workers; (D) That the “masterstroke” of splitting parties and also of inducting dozens of Congressmen into the BJP fold was both avoidable and counter-productive, etc. (In this connection, an analysis in The Print finds that Shah’s tactic of getting various Opposition leaders to turn coat proved costly — of 26 such leaders who joined the BJP and were given tickets, 21 lost.)

Like Bhagwat’s speech, Sharda’s piece is also worth reading in full, not merely because it confirms what so many of us picked up on during the election campaign, but because it underlines the BJP’s need to introspect and course-correct, and that right quick.

The next tussle between the BJP and its ideological parent is already unfolding behind the scenes, and it concerns the selection of the next BJP president to replace JP Nadda, who has been elevated to Cabinet rank and who, during the campaign, brought internecine squabbles into the open with his statement that the BJP is all grown up now and does not need the help of the RSS to win elections. The RSS wants one of its own — or someone whose first loyalty is to the Sangh — to lead the party while Modi and Shah want someone who is loyal to them. Keep an eye on how this plays out over the next day or three.

Home is where the hurt is

Home Minister Amit Shah is busy — and god knows he has much to be busy about.

Today is day 406 since civil war broke out in Manipur — and the cycle of violence has not merely escalated, it has spread to relatively peaceful areas. Jiribam district, an oasis of relative calm, saw tensions escalate in the first week of June with around 60-70 houses torched and over 2000 people displaced. This spurt in violence was triggered by armed militants set two police outposts and several houses on fire.

Chief Minister N Biren Singh was due to tour the district, but that was nixed after militants ambushed a security convoy that was inspecting the route along National Highway 37, from Imphal to Jiribam town.

Significantly, the CM’s office said it had warned the police and security forces multiple times of the possibility of violence in Jiribam. A BJP MLA has called for an inquiry into the lapse in security, and has demanded that the concerned officers be held accountable.

Then there is Kashmir. In 2023, the Rajouri-Poonch sector became the latest hotspot, with 134 killings reported of which 33 were security personnel. In contrast to the bombast of earlier years about the Modi government being tough on terror, 2023 saw the government conspicuously silent as attack after terrorist attack made it to the news.

After the usual winter lull, terrorists have again gone into overdrive. On 9 June a bus carrying pilgrims from the Shiv Khori temple to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Katra was hit by gunfire, resulting in the bus toppling into a gorge and killing 9 while over 40 people were injured.

On 11 June, terrorists opened fire on a joint checkpoint manned by the 4 Rashtriya Rifles at a location along the Bhadarwah-Pathankot road. The same evening, three gunmen threw a grenade and fired at a house in Kathua district, following which security forces killed one terrorist in a shootout. Kathua is close to the border with Pakistan; security experts are meanwhile worried about what appears to be a shift in terrorism, from targeting security forces to training their guns on civilians.

And in the most recent incident, datelined late last night, five security personnel and an SPO were injured in a terrorist attack on a checkpost in Doda district.

So yeah, there is much for the Home Minister, who is in charge of internal security, to be busy with — but for the moment, Amit Shah is preoccupied with pacifying disgruntled allies, particularly Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, and with trying to out-manoeuvre the RSS in the matter of the selection of the next party president.

Meanwhile, last I checked the PM’s Twitter handle, he has been busy thanking world leaders who greeted him on the NDA win. He interrupted himself to post three separate messages relating to the coming International Yoga Day including a set of videos that he hopes will inspire us all.

There is also a word salad about the decision to “further expand” the PM Awas Yojana. This refers to a decision taken in the first NDA Cabinet meeting to “assist construction” of three crore more houses under the scheme. Given the media gush over the announcement, it feels churlish to point out that the scheme, launched in 2015, was supposed to have given every poor person a house by 2022. The official website says:

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U)(71) a flagship Mission of Government of India being implemented by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), was launched on 25th June 2015. The Mission addresses urban housing shortage among the EWS/LIG and MIG categories including the slum dwellers by ensuring a pucca house to all eligible urban households by the year 2022, when Nation completes 75 years of its Independence.

What is missing is at the least a pro forma mention of the triple strike in Kashmir, let alone a word of regret for the lives lost.

Surprised? Don’t be — our “brave jawans” have served their purpose.

The two BJP problem

In a piece co-authored by Yogendra Yadav, Rahul Shastri and Shreyas Sardesai in The Print, I found this bit intriguing:

A closer look at the state-level vote shares shows that this is not the story of the political establishment losing in some areas and gaining in the rest. This was indeed a vote against the political establishment, except that the BJP did not represent the establishment everywhere. Let us think of two different BJPs that contested this election: BJP (Establishment) and BJP (Challenger). The Establishment suffered serious electoral reversals, while the Challenger had a good electoral outing. While the anti-establishment vote for the BJP in some states partially masked the national mandate against the BJP this time, this is a short-lived if not one-shot windfall that the ruling establishment cannot bank upon.

Law and disorder

In my previous post, I’d mentioned that the Opposition in its legislative agenda is prioritising a push for the three new criminal laws to be debated and discussed before it comes into effect on July 1.

Senior lawyer Indira Jaising has now written to Minister for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, requesting a deferral of the laws. The money quote(s):

As and when the new three criminal laws come into force, the existing laws will continue to apply perhaps for another 20 years or more until cases filed under them reach their fruition beginning with the Magistrate Court and ending with the Supreme Court of India. This we know as the average lifespan of a case in our country.

In effect, we will be having two parallel criminal justice systems for the foreseeable future, which can range from 20-30 years.

Aide memoire: The three bills, whose names I am damned if I can remember, were introduced on 12 December 2023 and passed on 20 December with minimal debate. Not that a debate would have been of much use — 97 Opposition MPs were absent as they were suspended, with 49 of those being suspended on 19 December, the day before the new laws were passed in the Lok Sabha. (An explainer by The Hindu and this piece by Disha Verma for the Internet Freedom Foundation are worth reading, if the laws escaped your radar.)

Looking South East

Nirupama Subramanian has a nuanced piece in the Tribune that looks at how the South East region looks at the incoming NDA government. The money quote:

But for the diverse people of a region that has seen — and seen off — its share of strongmen and who have held India’s pluralism and its secular democracy in admiration, Modi’s democratic downsizing is an inspiring moment. There was concern at the erosion of these values in India over the last 10 years and for the fallout on their own polities. They have greeted India’s 2024 verdict with relief. Especially in countries struggling with the authoritarian creep of their own leaders, it has restored faith in India’s democracy. Across South Asia, there is admiration for the Indian voter.

Read: Ashoka Mody on India’s looming financial crisis

Watch: Anurag Kashyap asks the question about India’s big wins at Cannes recently: What has “India” got to do with it?

EOM