Politics

India-wide trend under BJP & Modi: Hate is normalised & blatant now!

Who would have thought that when a minister’s son deliberately ran over four farmers in that state, the same ruling party actually has actually all the 8 seats in that region? But, that is Uttar Pradesh and currently, that is the India we live in, today.  

The thumping majority in the recent 5 state’s elections (and especially in UP) for the BJP is a clear indication of how a majority of voters have voted for hate to thrive. “We have shown what matters to us and what doesn’t. Communalism was subtle before, it is blatant now. It makes no difference to say this but for what it’s worth, I am deeply sorry to the Muslim citizens of this country,” said a tweet on BJP’s UP win. 

If one looks at the BJP’s winning streak, there are videos and evidence which claim that EVMs were changed, they were sold publicly and some more endless evidence against the BJP’s claims of winning votes. Despite all this, it is rumoured that the Election Commission itself has played its part in pushing this below the carpet discreetly. 

In UP, the BJP not only kept the Brahmin and core BJP vote intact; but like 2017, pulled in the Yadav votes from the OBC, and the Jatavs and non-Jatav votes from BSP too. From the numbers which appear in UP, BSP is down to just 2 seats. BJP has snatched the Dalit vote completely from the BSP. 

From Agra, for example, the BJP fielded former Uttarakhand mayor Baby Rani Maurya against the BSP. The plan worked and the BJP is leading on all the Agra seats. A part of the Jat vote too went to the BJP. 

The BJP, finally, never let Hindutva in UP take a back seat. Though Ram Mandir rarely emerged in the narrative of UP Elections 2022, it was a strong brownie point for the BJP. Not just that, but the saffron party managed to even go to the extent of claiming that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who built the State of Equality in Telangana, which was the brainchild of Telangana CM K. Chandrasekhara Rao. 

Now, despite all the victories for the saffron party, one thing ruling across India that the BJP has injected into the country is “hate.” A seething hate in deliberately decimating the very institutions that are meant to safeguard against the breakdown of law and order. 

There is an urgent need to think beyond candle-lit marches and social media outrage. We as a nation need to organise better, coordinate better and come up with concerted efforts, including grassroots activism, judicial activism, political oppositional unity, and fighting misinformation on social media in order to arrest the country’s slide into imminent authoritarianism.

Bearing in mind lessons learned from regional tensions left to simmer through history, the Indian people must forge new paths for the struggle for India’s secular and democratic character, because in the end, our fate is in our own hands, as it should be. But, going by the direction the country is currently taking, it looks like “hate” will be normalised into our psyches by the saffron party’s propaganda, without our knowledge. 

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Tejaswini Pagadala

Communications Consultant: TEJASWINI PAGADALA is an independent communications consultant. She has previously worked with the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s Office as the Communications Officer where she has written English speeches for the CM, managed English media communication from the CMO and handled social media accounts of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and the Government.
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