Opinion column: ‘The Hindu’ News paper Political Line 08 April 2024

Political Line

08 April 2024

India’s political landscape explained every week by Varghese K. George, senior editor at The Hindu.

Revisionism in the service of BJP’s campaign
Repurposing and reinterpreting past events in pursuit of a political objective is nothing really new in the history of popular mobilisation. Myth-making and invention of tradition are all part of politics. But the current BJP is pushing the boundaries on this count by raking up old controversies and inflaming dormant passions. Three ongoing revisionist themes that the ruling party is advancing are instructive of this unrestrained and danger-laden strategy.

The first is the controversy over Katchatheevu, an uninhabited island in the waters between India and Sri Lanka. The BJP — the Prime Minister himself — is citing a 1974 India-Sri Lanka agreement that ceded the islet to the latter as a surrender of Indian, rather Tamil, interests. The purpose is to undermine the Congress-DMK alliance in Tamil Nadu, where the BJP hopes to make inroads.

Since 2014, foreign policy has become a topic of political conflict in India, but the questioning of an international treaty signed by a previous regime is new. Sri Lanka has responded, saying it sees no reason for reopening talks on an issue that was resolved 50 years ago.

Talking about foreign policy in elections, and domestic politics, recent reporting by a foreign newspaper about India’s alleged covert operation against terrorists in Pakistan has been owned by the BJP campaign. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are among those who have cited India’s willingness to undertake covert operations in foreign countries as the mark of a new resolve. All this could very well earn the BJP a lot of admiration among Indian voters, but it could have implications for the country’s reputation.

Last week, I had shared with you my reporting from India’s border with Bangladesh in West Bengal, about how the people see the effect of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). Islamist violence against Hindus in Bangladesh is undeniable, and the politics that follows in the aftermath of the violence and displacement can take different shapes. The Left and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal discourage the memories of the violence, and encourage both Hindus and Muslims, who have shifted from eastern parts of the Bengali-speaking region over decades to the west. The BJP’s politics in West Bengal involves a constant effort to bring back the memories of the past communal violence.

That brings us to the second theme — the BJP’s enthusiasm to celebrate ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’. Last month, the Central government had announced its decision to celebrate September 17, the day on which the princely State of Hyderabad merged with the Indian Union in 1948, as ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’. The Nizam of Hyderabad had refused to join the Indian Union, then New Delhi sent troops to force his hand. The BJP has been trying to revive those memories. This is an ongoing project; a movie released last year was on the same lines. But the conflict was multilayered. By ignoring the complexities of a conflict, particularly class interests, and emphasising the religious nature of it, religious mobilisation is facilitated. Leftist commentators, on the other hand, refuse to see the communal components of conflicts and insist on the class aspects.

The third piece of revisionism, which is quite brazen, is the proposed revision about ancient Indians in the Class 12 history textbook of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). While technological advancements in recent years could conclusively prove, based on genetic evidence from skeletons excavated in Rakhigarhi in Haryana, that people from central Asia moved into present-day India, the NCERT suggests the opposite. Since the evidence is quite conclusive that Central Asian populations moved into the subcontinent, the NCERT’s wording of denial is rather careful. It says “large-scale immigration of the so-called Aryans” is ruled out. But it goes a step further to suggest that there were migrations out of India, which genetic analysis completely rules out. The Hindu has reported on all these issues quite extensively, and this story on the NCERT textbook revision will take you to links to many of our earlier stories.

Federalism Tract – Notes on Indian Diversity
How much can States borrow?
The Supreme Court has referred to a five-judge Bench the question whether a State in the Union has an “enforceable right” to raise financial borrowing limits from the Union government and other sources. This comes after Kerala filed a petition accusing the Centre of arbitrarily restricting its borrowing limits, with the State not being able to fulfil its financial obligations. The Centre, on the other hand, has characterised Kerala’s public finances as “unhealthy” for allegedly misusing the funds. It is not merely a Centre-State dispute, but the question of division of power in the Constitutional architecture of India.

You can find a detailed explainer on the issue here.