Hinterland onslaught

POLITICAL STABILITY HAS PITFALLS TOO. It allows shift of attention to issues unattended for years or decades. Such issues could have potential to disturb social amity. Some of them are well known to those who matter, but they refuse to open their eyes for fear of consequences. 

Larger worries for cascading effects of political instability preoccupied people for two and a half decades. And they ignored social upheavals taking place in their backyards. In those years of collective social disbelief, nature-loving tribals in Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh were lured by benefits of education and healthcare along with other material gains to become Christians. The governments, both at the Centre and states, knew well of the goings-on, but chose to become silent approver or collaborator at some places.  

That the Christian Missionaries savoured poverty of tribals in India's hinterland is a fact commonly known. And the manner in which tribals of Jharkhand and other states turned Christians is brazen to speak the least of the Missionaries. Also, to say that Missionaries broke all the rules of the book will be just an under-statement, for they in the process showed that they had least respect for India's Constitution. 

In Congress they found a benign political patron. And, the Missionaries went about their proselytizing jobs in the hinterland with impunity, while Sonia Gandhi remote-controlled the Manmohan Singh government for a decade. The Congress rule earlier in a few of the states directly (Andhra Pradesh) and in proxy (Jharkhand) gave them the kind of hunting ground for proselytizing they just dreamt for.   

Yet, tipping point came after the emboldened Missionaries began targetting Dalits for conversions. And their brazenness brought them at staring glance of those who sought out to defeat their designs through their own trade in the tribal land.

Incidentally, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an affiliate group of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS), had been trying to slow down conversions of tribals with their educational activities in Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. Former Jharkhand chief minister Babu Lal Marandi is a product of this RSS offshoot, besides many others. However, it could not match the wherewithal of the Missionaries who could afford to bribe the poor in lieu of change of religion with the might of foreign fund flow. And the foreign fund flow ballooned in the last one decade, with Sonia Gandhi making the Manmohan Singh government bend to the extreme.

Ironically, Manmohan Singh had questioned the NGOs getting foreign funds after they tried to stall the Koodankoolam Nuclear Power Plant and many such bodes came under the scanner of the FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act). The Centre ensured fund flow squeeze. But no such clampdown happened on those brazenly carrying out conversions by the UPA government for a decade.

HOWEVER, the BJP with Narendra Modi changed the status quo. And the Christian zealots had since been angry with Modi. They are yet to fathom how could a Hindu "hawk" become Prime Minister of the country. 

K V Thomas

Prof. K. V. Thomas is one such Christian Congress leader from Kerala. He became Union minister in Monmohan Singh Cabinet by taking care of Sonia Gandhi's taste buds. Congress leaders would tell gleefully, that Thomas would bring freshwater fishes to 10, Janpath straight from Kerala for years, and the reward later ensued in him becoming a minister. 

Now, he's an angry man.
  
"He's a dictator. Can you believe, this government sent non-Catholics to represent India when two Indians were canonized by the Pope. Earlier, only Catholics were sent. I called up Sushma Swaraj to tell her that never ever non-Catholics had been sent to Pope, but she was unaware of who had made the decision and was helpless. Only one man calls shot in this government and he's is Modi," ranted Thomas.

Incidentally, Thomas is not a solitary angry bird. Sonia Gandhi had been more angry than him and any other Congress leaders. Her eagerness to rally her MPs and those of the Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha to create ruckus has been noticed on numerous occasions.   

And she finally succeeded during the Winter session of the Parliament to paralyse the Rajya Sabha, with the CBI stung Trinamool Congress more than willing to eat out of Sonia Gandhi's hands. The Mamata Banerjee brigade along with the Congress paralyzed the Rajya Sabha on an alleged incident of re-conversion,which allegedly took place in Agra in Uttar Pradesh. Taking part in a discussion on the same issue, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav refuted any tension in his state and wondered why was it being discussed in the Lower House. 

COMING Coming back to the issue of conversions and simmering tensions, the Congress must take credit for exponential rise of Christian population in the country. The Congress prepared the grounds for the Missionaries for their proselytizing activities by keeping education and health care infrastructure moth-eaten.   

Children in this country are at the mercy of the Missionary schools for their education. The poor in the hinterland can not access reliable health care except for those offered by the Missionaries. And there is no free lunch in the world is not lost on these evangelical zealots. They've extracted the price by swelling their numbers. And the governments, both at the Centre and in the states, have done just lip services to these twin areas, which make people, especially the poor, vulnerable. And, it's to the credit of the Congress, that people in this country largely are at the mercy of the Missionary schools and nursing homes for the basic needs.

Going forward, there may be more confrontation among the offshoots of the RSS and the Christian zealots. The design to proselytize can not be defeated by replicating the modus operandi for lack of financial muscle. So, the war will need to be won at the psychological level, that by the use of the muscle.

And, it's true, that the lack of monetary wherewithal could well be compensated by that of the muscle. That seems to be the strategy now to turn away the tidal wave of religious conversions.

Postscript:

ARTICLE 25 of the Indian Constitution grants the freedom to practice and preach one's faith. No right comes without reasonable restrictions, which in the case of preaching (and promoting religion) is that there should not be any inducements. The Central government never bothered to codify these restrictions. But the state of Odisha did it first followed by Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand would soon do it. 

"My freedom ends when my elbow touches someone else's body,"

Bhartruhari Mahatab

said erudite BJD MP in Lok Sabha Bhartruhari Mahatab, while taking part in a discussion on the issue of conversion. 

He detailed extensive conversions of tribals in South Odisha carried out by the Missionaries and explained how the anti-conversion law enacted by the state has now become a role model for other states.  

The elbow has not just touched, but bruised others. 

And that calls upon the Centre to enact a strong law to define and codify room for the elbow to swing.

Besides, there is a strong need with the right intention to block the foreign fund flow for religious conversions and let there be a CAG audit of all the religious bodies receiving donations from abroad in the last one decade.  

Autocrat, who?

Fortified people are mostly prone to script strategies, which end in self-goals. 

Uniqueness of 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, running into over two months, is about too many self-goals by the Congress. And, if a self-goal is scored in the very beginning of a game, most likely players become panicky to run helter-skelter thereafter.

And first such self-goal came off in unleashing of a propaganda campaign by Congress to target Narendra Modi as an autocrat and dictator. That came off first from Union minister Jairam Ramesh, who is a key member of "war room" of the Congress and also in-charge of manifesto making committee.

Jairam Ramesh

Ramesh would tell to all ears tuned in to him, that "Modi is a Hitler and that Yashwant Sinha has told him, that he would not be part of Union Cabinet if Gujrat CM became PM". Some journalists fell for the propaganda, who would later say in hushed voices: "Boss, even Hitler ran a very successful campaign to rise to power in Germany."

Propaganda by its very nature impacts minds. And some of them last for decades and some for centuries.  

If not for successful British and American propaganda, history may have recorded Adolf Hitler as a warmonger, who was drunk on colonial envy, and as a megalomaniac and a racist. But the world knows him as a dictator and autocrat. 

Incidentally, dictators seek to prolong their rules even at the cost of national interests. They do not gamble with wars, which could eclipse them. And, Hitler was clearly a gambler, who used people as pawn to play the war game of chess with the British and French colonial powers.  

Arguably, Modi's comparison and even an attempt to bracket him with Hitler should have been dismissed by matured minds as deeds of idiots of the worst order. But, hold and behold, this outrageous propaganda was latched on by the Congress leaders with electric speed. And that laid bare the bankruptcy of ideas in the "war room" of the Congress.

Incidentally, world history has seen most autocrats in the African continent. That clearly reveals a linkage between extreme poverty and authoritarian rule. Some came up in West Asia where power flows from the oil wells. And China is a story of an institutionalized one party rule, which sprang up also because of excessive poverty in the rural areas.

But India does not fit into any of the above mentioned pattern to produce autocrats. Indian culture is too strong a bulwark to allow any such autocrats to gain foothold in the highly fertile lands nourished by so many rivers, that poverty of the kind seen in Africa could be here. That gives an ideological framework to India, which, incidentally, is the most vibrant democracy in the world.

Authoritarian and authoritative are words with contrasting meanings. And Indian political system did produce leaders who were or are authoritative in nature. Two contemporary examples will suffice to explain the subject.

First is that the BSP chief Mayawati. The last press conference of Mayawati was held in her majestic bungalow in New Delhi. Before she came into the conference hall, two men in blue blazers roamed around to see all arrangements were perfect. They were Satish Chandra Mishra and Dara Singh Chouhan (leader of the party in Lok Sabha). 

Mishra would tell camera persons of TV channels to remove the wires attached to loud-speakers, because "Behen ji's sandle could get stuck in". Chouhan also did similar things. While Mayawati spoke for an hour, these two men stood besides reporters as guards. That's the style of functioning of Mayawati, which one can term as that of an authoritative leader.

Second is that of Mamata Banerjee, the mercurial and gutsy leader, who ended 34 long years of Left rule in West Bengal. When Parliament is in session, she is glued to TV channels to keep a watch on performances of her MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Bhartruhari Mahatab

While Lok Sabha was discussing Lokpal Bill, Banerjee was glued to TV channels in her office

in Kolkata. Her party was supporting Lokpal Bill. Then she heard Bhartruhari Mahatab, a learned MP of Biju Janata Dal (BJD), punching holes in the Lokpal Bill by highlighting the adverse impact on federal structure. She found merits in his arguments. 

And, so, she rang up Ratan Mukherjee, her pointsman, to connect her to Kalyan Banerjee. But he could not do so, as Lok Sabha was in session and thus the message was not passed, that there was a change of heart in Kolkata. And to her dismay, Kalyan Banerjee passionately Lokpal Bill. But in the evening all hell broke against Kalyan Banerjee. 

The next day when Lokpal Bill was taken up in Rajya Sabha, Ms Banerjee's command was followed by her MPs, who most viciously opposed the legislative proposal. 

Interestingly, Ratan Mukherjee (Ratan Da for Bengali reporters), who had been man-friday of Mamata for over a decade, could not survive mood swings of his leader and is now virtually out of the power equation and staying in New Delhi.  

The first one has never won elections in Uttar Pradesh in succession and the second is struggling to keep her popularity intact just after three years of historic win in West Bengal.

But Modi has won three elections in succession. And, majority of the six crore Gujrati voters are quite educated and well off to elect an "autocrat" for the past 15 years. 

Autocrats can not be popular. Popularity inherently demands appeal among the followers. And people in democracy punishes arrogant politicians with quite ease. That also explains why Nitish Kumar even after delivering reasonably well for first six years of his rule in Bihar seems to have lost the favour of the people in the state. But Modi by all accounts remain a popular leader of Gujrat even after 15 years at the helm of the affairs. 

Flag-bearer of BJP at Buxar

Indians, who take fluency in English for their status symbol, also happens to be most abusive when it comes to usages of words. And, we use terms like "dictator", "Hitler", "autocrat" in a manner as if none other than us know English. 

The 2014 election campaign is seemingly turning out to be the most engaging electoral exercise in India's democratic history. And there will surely be lessons for all of us, besides the Congress and its fortified strategists.