Modi and the New Common Sense

AMIT SHAH IS not merely the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) shrewdest electoral strategist. His political acuity hosts a depth of discernment and comprehension of complex issues, which is often overlooked. Very familiar with the nuances of the national political dialect, the Union home minister is extremely capable, when occasion demands it, of using an arsenal of sharp jibes, verbal gut punches, subtle rejoinders and sinuous repartees.

His December 17 speech in Rajya Sabha, during the debate on the ‘75th year of the Constitution’, naturally used all this weaponry to dwell on certain long-under-appreciated facts in the journey to the making of the Constitution. For example, the fact that the makers of the Constitution had felt the need to moor the foundational text in the socio-cultural ethos of the country—and their concerns are thus reflected in the final document. And that attempts to delink the Constitution, which Congress now brandishes as sacrosanct and immutable, from its bedrock of socio-cultural ethos, are of recent vintage.

Far from viewing the founding document as immutable, the makers of the Constitution had themselves written in Article 368 to allow for changes and amendments in consonance with an evolving society, its laws and concerns. In its 55 years in power at the Centre, the Congress leadership made 77 amendments to the Constitution, mainly to reinforce its own political power. In comparison, BJP has made only 22 changes to the Constitution in its 16 years in power, including the terms of both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. These amendments were made to strengthen democracy and ensure equal rights for citizens. The Congress leadership’s character, besides a ruling party’s approach to governance, and its actual commitment to the Constitution were exposed in the purpose and motivations behind the amend­ments, Shah claimed. He was scathing in his reference to the duplicity of Congress.

Shah then claimed that the very first assault against the Constitution came as early as June 18, 1951, during Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure as prime minister, and the First Amendment was voted in by the Constituent Assembly (CA) itself. Article 19A was aimed at curbing freedom of expression, specifically that of speech. The 24th Amendment, on November 5, 1971, was during Indira Gandhi’s prime ministership, and it gave Parliament the right to curb the fundamental rights of citizens. The 39th Amendment was significant overreach which overturned the Allahabad High Court’s August 10, 1975 order that invalidated Indira Gandhi’s election and barred ju­dicial review of her position, with retrospective effect. Shah described this as “a dark day in the history of the Constitution.”

PULLING NO PUNCHES, Shah went on to detail every constitutional transgression by Nehru’s legatees that ranged from the suspension of fundamental rights to a Bill denying reasonable alimony to a divorced and elderly Muslim woman, Shah Bano, during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as prime minister. Parliament passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 that nullified the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Shah Bano case and allowed maintenance to a divorced woman only during the period of iddat, or till 90 days after the divorce, according to the provisions of Islamic law. It instantly drew intense criticism across the board from the Opposition which declared it anti-women and an act of Muslim appeasement.

Pointing directly at the ‘first family’ of Congress, Shah asserted that they treated the party as their personal property and viewed the Constitution as a family heirloom. Drawing on a profound observation by the chairman of the Drafting Committee, BR Ambedkar, Shah stressed that even the best crafted constitution could be failed by flawed leadership at the helm while even a flawed constitution could succeed if those helming the government were capable and committed leaders.

Such hard-hitting by Shah expectedly did not go down well with the Opposition. Distressed after the rout in Maharashtra and having met with the electoral come-uppance it deserved in Haryana, the Opposition had come to Parliament sulking, armed with a slew of issues to embarrass the government with. First, they raked up the issue of industrialist Gautam Adani and his indictment by a US court in an alleged bribery case, demanding a debate. Congress wokes led by the Nehru-Gandhi siblings insisted on publicly exhibiting their antics on Parliament premises, in­cluding sporting T-shirts screaming ‘Modi Adani Ek Hain’ (Modi and Adani are one). Other party worthies followed by donning masks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Adani, in a display of intellectual immaturity. All of this was underscored by daily and rowdy disruption of regular parliamentary work, signalling that banality had become the default address of the Congress leader­ship. Not surprisingly, leaders from the crumbling I.N.D.I.A. bloc, such as those of Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP), chose to keep their distance, insisting that there were more important issues than Adani to discuss in Parliament.

When BJP checkmated Congress’ Adani gambit by insist­ing that targeting Adani to debilitate the Indian economy was a project orchestrated by American billionaire George Soros and by questioning the very timing of the news of the indictment, the Opposition switched tactics to demand a debate on the Constitution. However this, too, did not go well for the Opposi­tion, with Shah and Modi demolishing its act in Parliament.

A deflated Congress leadership then jumped at the allegedly disparaging reference to Ambedkar in Shah’s speech to trig­ger a high-pitched controversy. It should have been obvious to anyone that the home minister’s reference, couched in his at­tack on Congress’ erosion of the fundamentals of the Consti­tution, was specifically to the party leadership reducing their much-touted commitment to the Constitution to lip-service.

Modi defended Amit Shah, accusing Congress of hypocrisy and historical negligence towards Ambedkar’s contributions. Modi posted on X: “If Congress and its ecosystem think they can hide their wrongdoings and insults toward Dr. Ambedkar, they are mistaken.” He added: “The people of India have seen how one party, led by a dynasty, has used every tactic to undermine Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy and insult the SC/ST communities.”

Whether this desperate attempt by Congress to manufacture a controversy will pay dividends politically is difficult to predict at this stage, mainly because politics is never static. But one thing is clear: it has brought out the desperation of the party leader­ship as well as its determination to go to any extent to push its power-hungry agenda. While the face of the engineered wrangle is that of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, a leader hail­ing from the Dalit community, it is the Nehru-Gandhi siblings, Rahul Gandhi in particular, who are the likely beneficiaries of any political gains that may accrue consequently. Rahul Gandhi’s mainly reel-driven politics has been less about key socio-political and economic concerns troubling the nation and more about flexing his biceps in T-shirts, jumping up and down fishing boats in Kerala or cooking Champaran mutton with Lalu Prasad. He places a premium on antics at entryways to Parliament rather than on substantive speeches inside the House.

Congress first played its ‘Constitution (Samvidhan) khatre mein hai (Constitution is in danger)’ gambit during the Lok Sabha campaign when it claimed, without evidence, that Modi was out to torpedo the Constitution and scrap reservation. The cynical manoeuvre met with some success as it led to the whit­tling down of BJP’s tally in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Maharashtra, both key states. BJP swiftly managed to contain the damage and counter it during Assembly elections in both Haryana and Maharashtra—the latter a fertile ground for identity politics. This broke the morale of the Opposition which then started to drift apart. The debate in Parliament on the Constitution was then seized upon to make the deceitful claim that Shah spoke disparagingly of Ambedkar. This is unlikely to be the Opposi­tion’s last move on the political chess board, especially going by the orchestrated white noise emerging from think-tanks on liberal campuses and boardrooms that have taken on the duty of installing democracies of their liking. The subversions can be expected to continue with vigour through this year as well.

Against these manoeuvres, there is a need for BJP, right-wing­ers and nationalist Indians, including those who do not sub­scribe to BJP’s worldview, to forge an effective macro response.

Punditry on the Maharashtra electoral outcome largely focused on how BJP managed to keep its alliance together, how it managed the caste arithmetic when it went about the distribution of tickets and, above all, how it neutralised the ‘Constitution is in danger’ humbug. But what has not got sufficient attention is the response of Hindu civil society, the fact that right from the Warkaris—an ancient Hindu sect specific to Maharashtra which worships Vitthal or Vithoba— to the leaders of various other caste groupings, all united to fashion a much-needed pushback to counter the machina­tions which had led to BJP losing seats by small margins in the General Election just six months earlier. In that election, the Islamic clergy had showcased its agility at manipulating leaders of the Opposition who were more than willing to further their narrow political interests by divisive means.

Sajag Raho, a voluntary organisation floated ahead of the polls to counter leftist propaganda, concentrated on issues like love jihad, land jihad, and vote jihad. An equally important role was played by the sants, kirtankars and bhajankaris. For every political deception from the Opposition, BJP and its socio-cultural allies were able to fashion a telling reply. If UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath coined the ‘Batenge toh katenge’ slogan, Modi came up with ‘Ek hain toh safe hain’, which had the same meaning but was wrapped in a velvet glove in order to appeal to a broader spectrum of society.

The Assembly elections saw the urgent need for 360-degree alertness and a response that went beyond smart political tac­tics. It was imperative to include a hefty intellectual effort that ex­posed the subversion attempted by external forces, such as that of Soros, of all hues aided by political parties for their partisan ends.

GIVEN ALL THIS, it is ironic that it took an order from a trial court for a whole generation to realise that Sambhal, in UP, had a rich but forgotten history and a commen­surate ledger of riots engineered against Hindus. Contrary to more recent narratives in the media, the place today is home to just a 20 per cent Hindu population, with the rest fleeing their homes over time and abandoning their temples. Sambhal figured prominently in the lives and times of many rulers and emperors from the Lodis to the Mughals.

In the 5th century BCE, Sambhal was ruled by the Panchals and later became part of Ashoka’s empire. Prithviraj Chauhan, Delhi’s last Hindu ruler, is believed to have fought battles there. Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the first Muslim sultan of Delhi, then ruled Sambhal. Firoz Shah Tughlaq later crushed its Hindu ruler and his army and supporters and took over Sambhal. Sikandar Lodi made it one of his capitals in the 15th century.

The Mughals then took over and Babar built Sambhal’s Babri Masjid and the region reportedly flourished under his grandson Akbar’s rule but started to deteriorate subsequently in importance. Naturally, most of these historical conquests were inextricably accompanied by the slaughter and plunder of primarily Hindu residents. Will Durant maintained in his 1935 book The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage: “The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great pride the slaughter of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave markets and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam between 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period.”

That tradition appears to have carried over into modern times. On March 29, 1978, 14 Hindus were burnt alive in a sawmill close to Sambhal’s now disputed mosque. In the violence unleashed by the followers of Muslim League leader Manzar Shafi, 25 in all were killed in Sambhal that day. Accord­ing to official records, 23 of them were Hindus.

On November 19 last year, a trial court passed an ex-parte order for the survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid by an advocate commissioner in response to a plea by the Hindu side which claimed that the historic Sambhal mosque was built by Babur in 1526 after demolishing a temple. On November 24, during a second round of the survey, protesting locals clashed with security personnel, leading to major violence. The commotion it created in the media and Parliament saw the Supreme Court stepping in to order a moratorium on surveys. In December, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) made a groundbreaking discovery when its excavations unearthed an ancient Shiva temple, five teerths (sacred spots), and 19 wells in Sambhal district, apparently supporting claims of widespread Hindu desertions from the region over centuries and the burial, demolition and/or destruction of temples.

Such acts of violence, leading to home and temple abandon­ment by Hindus, were not confined to Sambhal. In the Ansari-dominated Madanpura locality of Varanasi, a 250-year-old Shiva temple was found beneath a home in mid-December. The temple, locked up for 40 years, sported spires and intricate carvings and was discovered on December 14 during an anti-encroachment drive. According to local accounts, the temple’s owners, along with over 40 Hindu families residing in the area, had fled following communal clashes in 1978.

Incidents of communal violence in Sambhal and Madanpura, interestingly, date back to 1978. That year, BJP’s earlier avatar, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (as part of the Janata Party), had shared power at the Centre and in UP. So much for the taunts of Modi’s opponents about the hegemonic ways of the Sangh Parivar. Had Yogi Adityanath not been chief minister now, both ancient Hindu temples would have been drowned in the media din and attendant political commotion.

However, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat chose this particular moment to call for “reasoning” and discourage even the efforts to fix accountabil­ity for the assault on the majority faith through history. One can appreciate his saying that people should not go round look­ing for temples under every mosque. But what is jarring is that he has not thought it fit to combine his appeal for reasoned thinking on this subject, in a nation at the threshold of being Vishwaguru, with a call for unearthing and acknowledging the facts of history in all their brutality. In A History of Civiliza­tions (translated 1995) Fernand Braudel wrote: “The Muslims couldn’t rule the country without imposing terror on the Hindus and they looted the temples first and then destroyed the temples to make way for the mosques; that is how brutal and bloody Mughal rule was.”

In Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (A.D. 1000- 1800), KS Lal, who had researched and written extensively on the Islamic invasion of India and its impact on local popula­tions, said that the Muslim population grew exponentially in India in that period by percentage whereas Hindu populations declined because they were slaughtered in numbers greater than even in the Nazi genocide of Jews. Lal clarified he “claims no finality” regarding the pre-Census estimates he provided in the book but it remains among the few works of its kind on the subject. He estimated that about 60 to 80 million people died in India between 1000 CE and 1525 CE as a result of the Islamic invasion of the Indian subcontinent and that about two million people died during Mahmud of Ghazni’s raids alone.

The RSS chief’s contention that the destruction of temples and widespread cases of bigotry through history occurred due to insufficient or flawed understanding of religion is off the mark. These destructions, depravities and vandalism hap­pened because a particular community felt, or was made to feel, that it had a religious duty to punish the kafir or idolator.

One cannot have any quarrel with Bhagwat’s concern for reconciliation in modern In­dian society but for it to genuinely happen, acknowledgement and ac­ceptance of the facts of history are crucial. South Africa’s tallest leader Nelson Mandela posited truth and reconciliation as imperative to move his country forward after the end of Apartheid. “There is a view that the past is best forgotten. Some criticise us when we say that whilst we can forgive, we can never forget. They do not agree that perpetrators of hu­man rights violations should make full disclosure and acknowledge what they have done before they can be granted amnesty. There are also those who urge interference in prosecutions in progress. Even if politicians could agree to suppress the past in these ways, they would be mistaken in doing so. Ordinary South Africans are determined that the past be known, the better to ensure that it is not repeated. They seek this, not out of vengeance, but so that we can move into the future together. The choice of our nation is not whether the past should be revealed, but rather to ensure that it comes to be known in a way which promotes reconciliation and peace. This will also impact on our ability to end violent crime and establish the rule of law, today,” Mandela had said on February 13, 1996. It holds good for India now.

Without acknowledgement of the whole truth, Bhagwat’s stand will only make him a prisoner of the consensus created by a set of people and their ideology that MS Golwalkar and others had fought against since the inception of the Sangh. The time has come not to acquiesce mutely in old conceptions but to forge a “new common sense” which is unapologetic about its role in protecting India’s original and core cultural ethos and harmonising it with the steps needed to make India a developed country by 2047.

Amit ShahCongressForecast 2025Indian politicsMohan BhagwatNarendra ModiOppositionRahul GandhiRSSSamajwadi Party