At the onset, I don’t live in Karnataka or in India, for that matter. But I am an Indian and a nationalist. So I keep track of what is happening in my country from social media and mainstream media, in that order.
Unfortunately, like many Hindutva supporters, I was disappointed in the Karnataka election results today. Not because BJP is a true Hindutva party, but because of TINA, or rather there is no alternative! The rest of the parties are actually anti Hindus, and BJP is the only centrist party today.
I know this will be shocking to many of my friends who think whatever BJP does is right for Hindus and there’s always a masterplan. I hope for their sake and mine, there’s a masterplan in this loss in Karnataka, as well! So here goes my reasons for this loss.
BJP has left it’s Hindutva agenda and is trying to occupy the space left by Congress to become a centrist party. They are trying to woo the pasmindas, distributing scholarships for the Muslims, chatting up Christian missionaries and overall hell bent of the ‘sabka’ bakwas philosophy. And after all this, BJP got a laughable 2% vote in this election from Muslims! In the process, they have forgotten and discarded their core base, the Hindus and their supporters. So their base supporters get killed in Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and even Karnataka where they even had their government, and they appear weak and ineffective to stop it. Only UP remains as a beacon of hope in this bleak scenario.
Second, Modiji for all his brilliance is bent on becoming vishwaguru. He is definitely the best leader that India ever had, and one of the hardest working one as well. But he hurtling towards becoming a victim of his own persona. The image he has created of a benevolent and politically savvy politician , stops him perhaps to take bold decisions. BJP has become too much oriented on using Modiji to win elections. If you don’t have equally able local leadership, Modiji isn’t going to win elections on your behalf everytime.
Next is the hidden demographic change. There’s a huge influx of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas in the country. You can easily multiply 50 to 100 times the official figures, with their rapid growth and polygamous relationships. They vote enblock to defeat BJP, for whichever party is chosen by their lords to back in a particular election.
Fourth is the over reliance on caste engineering by BJP. That works sometimes, at other times it doesn’t work. Unless you can develop a state leadership which overcomes caste divisions, like Yogi ji and Hemanta da, Hindus will vote on caste lines and not as a block. Rest all communities and religions vote as a block in almost every election, except Hindus who vote almost for every other reason, other than their religion and inevitably suffer afterwards.
Last but not the least. The trend of freebies are going to hurt BJP in this and future elections. BJP needs to bring legislation to put an absolute stop to this or else needs to counter with their own freebies. Boss, it’s simple. India still has a large population who are poor and a larger population who are poor in mind. So most people like things free and don’t care a hoot if it means sleeping with the devil. So BJP needs either stop it through implementing laws or go one up and promise bigger freebies, else people will not vote for you.
Holding onto voting percents are no consolation, like in the Karnataka elections. Either you win, or you loose. There’s no second place in these elections. Here’s hoping that BJP learns it’s lessons and incorporates the learnings into it’s election strategy. And along with it’s founding organisation RSS, goes back to it’s core ideology of Hindutva.
