The power of false narratives

Disappointment on core Hindu issues – Inability of the Hindu voters to see the big picture

On 4th June 2024, the results day of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it is now shockingly clear that the BJP is not able to reach 272 seats, the halfway mark on its own, and settled at 240; it needs to depend on its NDA allies to form a govt with a simple majority. Among many smaller parties of the NDA, the JDU of Bihar and TDP of Andhra Pradesh emerged as king-makers, both parties are old allies of the NDA and supported the Vajpayee Govt. Since then JDU has taken many U-turns and TDP once and is presently in a pre-poll alliance in NDA. Significantly, Mr Naidu also won a landslide State Assembly election in the bifurcated state of Andhra Pradesh, has thrown away the corrupt evangelical non-functional YSRC party, and will continue his work on rebuilding the new state, from where he left it in 2019.

With the biggest electorate of 97 crore (970 million) voters, with about 650 million voters having cast their votes, the nation celebrates the festival of democracy like no other country. The numbers of Indian voters exceed the entire population of many continents. India owns the election process naturally as it is not only the largest democracy, it is also the mother of democracy and diversity in the entire world.

It is unbelievable that the opinion polls and poll trackers by all pollsters which have been going on since Sept-October 2023, as well as all the exit polls that were out on the evening of 1st June 2024 have all unanimously failed to read the strong anti-incumbency undercurrent against Modi Govt, especially in large key states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and West Bengal which straightaway contribute 170 seats and where BJP failed. Almost all polls predicted the NDA to reach between 350-390 seats or more, the NDA has fallen short of more than 70-80 seats. When the entire nation was focused on the polls and Mr. Modi’s and BJP’s relentless campaign in the hot summer of 2024 when temperatures soared 50 degrees Celsius, the unanimous opinion on all channels was given that Mr. Modi would do a hat-trick and return to power with a bigger margin. Mr Modi conducted more than 200 rallies, and dozens of roadshows across the length and breadth of the country in grueling heat and had given nearly 70 interviews to various media channels. As per all indications, the opposition parties were gearing up to create disturbances by holding dharnas across the country following the poll results, questioning the legitimacy of elections, the EVMs, etc, aiming to denigrate India once again on the international stage.

Something seems to have changed during the election season, much after March 2024, that was not effectively gauged by the nation. The opposition I.N.D.I. Alliance (strangely the EC doesn’t think that an opposition alliance with the name of the country is a problem) unleashed a massive campaign of lies and fake campaigns; Many patriots have expressed their anguish several times in debates and on X (former Twitter) that Modi Govt should address these false propagandas effectively as the global left ecosystem has unleashed information warfare against Modi Govt.

• The first and foremost false campaign is on EVMs, which according to them were being hacked and manipulated to give the verdict in favor of BJP and NDA. They didn’t explain how about 50 lakhs of EVMs (polling booths were about 12 lakhs in number) locked up and sealed in strong rooms across the country can be hacked. The opposition parties went to the Supreme Court dozens of times in the last few years, including very recently against the EVMs and VVPAT procedure. The Election Commission’s case was very strong which said it is impossible to hack into EVMs as it’s a foolproof system, they produced evidence that there is not a single case where the EVM didn’t match the VVPAT, and the courts ruled in favor of EVMs. Unfortunately, the courts are ever-ready to entertain all such politically motivated petitions when argued by powerful lawyers who own the system, even when the courts themselves have castigated the petitioners from opposition parties. In fact, if the results were on the expected lines if NDA went `400 paar’, the opposition parties would have gone to the courts once again.

As a constitutional authority, is the EC expected to take action against the false propaganda when it is vilified around the globe? Instead of bureaucratese, when do we see action by the EC? Is it not true that the EC’s inaction is hurting the Modi Govt?

• The second false and insidious campaign was that BJP/NDA was giving the slogan of `ab ki bar 400 paar’ so that the Govt could tinker with the Constitution and end the education and employment reservations which are given for `reserved’ categories of people. It is a laughable claim as the Modi Govt has never shown any inclination whatsoever to even review the Constitution. This baseless propaganda is ironic as well because out of the 100+ amendments of the Constitution so far, about 80 amendments have been done by the Congress party itself when in power.

Which authority will take action against false insidious campaigns while the long haul of elections is underway?

• The third false claim was that the BJP Govt would somehow take away the citizenship rights of hundreds of millions of `minorities’, they carried the false propaganda across the whole world when CAA 2019 was enacted to give the hapless poor and persecuted Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, a one-time fast-tracking of citizenship offer, benefiting a few thousand only. The protesters couldn’t show any proof of anyone’s citizenship being taken away.

Why didn’t the Govt, particularly the Home Ministry not take penal actions against the perpetrators of this false propaganda that has been going on since 2019?

• The claim that Govt is using investigating agencies to target the opposition leaders was repeatedly made.
  While the opposition parties targeted the Govt, BJP spokespersons fell into the trap, debating vociferously on behalf of the courts, EC, ED, and other agencies, all these organizations and institutions which can speak for themselves. While the bureaucracy within the agencies as well as in the Govt of India’s Information Ministry and its various agencies were inactive in defending the investigating agencies and setting the record straight, the hapless BJP spokespeople used to do the job.

Clearly, the false narratives have hit the bull’s eye; ordinary Indian voters did get influenced by the divisive forces’ fake narratives. However, the larger question is, many Indians are aware of the global forces that have targeted the Modi Govt using India’s own internal divisive elements to divide India on caste, communal, religion, region, language, north-south rifts etc, through their own individuals, organizations, media agencies, youtube channels as well as some internal politicians; ordinary Indians are becoming aware through the efforts of patriotic columnists, authors, media and YouTube channels, social media and internet. When ordinary Indians are alert and are constantly exposing and countering the divisive forces on social media, it is not clear what actions the Govt Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies are taking. As stated above, the govt media outlets are virtually silent while ordinary Indians are producing content with facts and figures and are countering the factories of false propaganda. When will Govt take visible penal action against internal divisive elements? When will Govt media agencies work on exposing and countering the divisive forces?

Modi 1.0 and 2.0

While the Govt effectively put the nation on an unbeatable path of growth, economy, prosperity and infrastructure, innovative and smart diplomacy, and excellent external relations including the conduct of people’s G20 befitting a great democracy; India is named as the only economic bright spot in the world while it also extricated 25 crores of poor out of poverty, it also mounted massive welfare schemes for the poor providing them with household toilets, piped drinking water, LPG cooking gas cylinders, electricity, housing schemes, food distribution, and Direct Benefit transfers, each of the benefits reaching multiple crores of people. Simultaneously it dealt with multiple challenges like COVID-19 where it vaccinated the entire population twice over plus the booster doses. It was said that the Modi Govt created another new category of people, the labhaarthis/ beneficiaries, which was a powerful constituency of the electorate. In short, the ten years of the Modi Govt’s development was more than equal to the previous 50-60 years. The abrogation of Article 370 was a historical necessity which Modi Govt successfully accomplished.

The possible causes of BJP’s failure

Yet, when it came to internal security issues, it faltered repeatedly. The Central Govt’s, in particular the Home Ministry’s inability to tackle the orchestrated and coordinated shaheenbagh protests against the CAA 2019, when the capital city Delhi was effectively held for ransom by the protesters with the active connivance of AAP Delhi Govt, supported by Congress party and helped by the courts, the Govt was more bothered about its international image and allowed the protesters to continue indefinitely, which culminated tragically in Delhi Riots in the summer of 2020; only the arrival of Covid dispersed the crowds. After all those calamitous events, it failed to frame rules for CAA for 4.5 years, which it did very recently just before the elections. It is expected to benefit just a few thousands of Hindus and Sikhs, while there are already millions of Bangladeshi illegal infiltrators in the country.

The failure to take action during and after the post-poll violence in West Bengal in 2021 is a tragic reminder that the all-powerful central govt failed to act decisively to protect Hindus, especially Hindu women who were raped and assaulted, and lakhs of Hindus had fled to nearby Assam.

Another major failure occurred when `farmer protests’ raged on in Delhi blocking major highways for nearly a year, against progressive farmer-friendly national Farm Laws, duly passed by parliament. These protests were promoted and supported by non-BJP political parties, especially AAP, Congress, and Communists. Evidence emerged regularly that the protests have been infiltrated and funded by Khalistani elements aided by Western countries, especially Canada. The govt and Supreme Court allowed the protests to proceed indefinitely, virtually annihilating the livelihoods of lakhs of people who were dependent on the MSMEs in the industrial belt of those areas. This illegal road-occupation activity manifested itself into desecration and vandalism at Red Fort on the 26th of January Republic Day of 2021. The Central Govt and the Indian public were mute spectators to the spectacle of armed protestors chasing and hitting the police and the badly injured police personnel running for their lives. This spectacle of routine violation of ordinary people’s rights culminated in the Central Govt withdrawing Farm Laws, once again showing that a few hundred or few thousand armed violent agitators in a nation of 1400 Million people can shake the Govt.

In the realm of electoral politics of Lok Sabha 2024, BJP received its worst drubbing in Uttar Pradesh, where they just got 36 seats out of 80; it is said that the `forward castes’ feel they have been taken for granted. While the electoral arithmetic was worked out with each and every `backward’ community, there was no outreach to the forward castes; the denial of a ticket to Gen V K Singh in Ghaziabad rankled with the Rajput community. The massive victory of the Samajwadi party in UP also propelled the win of a Congress party office manager K L Sharma in Amethi and the win of Rahul Gandhi in Rai Barelli; this speaks of the disgruntlement of the forward castes in UP; unlike south where `forward castes’ and especially Brahmins don’t matter, they matter in UP. While PM Modi was personally invested in Tamil Nadu, it would have been wise to ally with the whole of AIADMK and work against the might, money, and muscle power of the `Dravidianist’ DMK. Once again, the failure to take any action against the `Hindu Dharma/ Sanatana Dharma annihilators’ as well as on anti-brahmin statements in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and UP may have cost the BJP in the north. In the wake of BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s statements, the gruesome jihadi murders of several Hindus with `sar tan se juda’ slogans, and the suspension of Nupur Sharma herself from the party, was seen by the core Hindu voters as minority appeasement.

It is anyone’s surmise that the patriotic core Hindu voters have been unhappy with all these developments during Modi 2.0, most of the failures fall under the purview of the Home Ministry. The `sabka vishwas’ formula that the Modi Govt adopted seems to be only for Hindus, the `Abrahamic minorities’ which have copiously used all the beneficiary schemes, more than double their share of the population, have never voted for the BJP. The core Hindu voters feel that this is nothing but minority appeasement in disguise, which coupled with the inaction on core Hindu issues like `Freeing temples from Govt control, the inaction on `Places of Worship Act 1991 & Waqf Act 1995, the correction of textbooks’, etc has rankled the Hindu voters.

While these issues are real and affect the Hindu psyche, is it fair for Hindus to turn away from the Modi govt and vote for ranked anti-Hindu parties in key states? Have Indian people, Hindus in particular, forgotten the Congress’ attempts to stall the Ayodhya Sri Ramajanmabhoomi issue in courts, have they forgotten the anti-Hindu laws such as `The Places of Worship Act 1991 & Waqf Act 1995’ enacted by Congress? Have Hindus forgotten the attempts at painting Hindus with `Saffron terrorism’ taint by Congress, have Hindus forgotten all the terror attacks where hundreds of Indians were killed by terrorists, have they forgotten all the communal riots that regularly happened during Congress regimes? Have they forgotten the rank minority appeasement policies, support to soft separatism, dravidianism, radicalism and evangelization under UPA? Have they forgotten the corruption, scams and scandals during UPA regime?

Looking forward, the Modi 3.0 may not be a 400-plus Govt, but with effective coalition management, they can still deliver effectively on core Hindu issues if they show political will and determination, while also addressing the development issues. If the Modi Govt does course correction and addresses the core Hindu issues, they can look forward to a resurgent fourth term in 2029.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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Pradakshina

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