Sikandar Noorani
SECOND term of BJP rule has proved very problematic for India on many accounts during the initial one and a half year. Saner quarters in India are more concerned about unbreakable chain of undesired events emerging one after another at internal and external fronts in BJP’s rule. PM Modi and his trigger happy team has displayed tremendous talent of creating disputes through aggressive manifestation of extremist policies. Recent episode of unprecedented protest by the oppressed farmers is just the continuation of disasters crafted by the extremely skilful team of PM Modi. Public reservations or objections on any new legislation, being a very normal activity, should not be dealt as a matter of national security by any reasonable democratic government. Otherwise, genuine representatives and rulers are expected to be aware of society’s collective pulse on matters of public interest. This is obvious that BJP either miserably failed in sensing true pulse of farmers or intentionally imposed controversial legislation.
The Modi regime did not bother to pay any attention to the initial cries of protest from Punjab against unwise biased legislation. BJP’s media warriors and self-styled analysts made sure that the path of reconciliation must be avoided by PM Modi. This non-flexible anti-public stance of Modi government eventually pushed the outrageous farmers towards the bitter option of protest. As per media reports, nearly half a million farmers from Punjab have gathered at border of Delhi and are demanding revocation of controversial legislation. After sufficiently spoiling a genuinely governance matter, BJP’s inconsiderate leadership held five rounds of talks with protesting farmers. All these rounds meaningfully remained inconclusive. As of now, the 6th round of talks was cancelled by the government side. It is simple to establish that BJP’s harsh and non-flexible approach eventually led to deadlock in dialogue. While totally misunderstanding the sentiments of farmers on a vital issue related to their hard earned bread and butter, BJP is further spoiling the situation by judging the matter with the lens of patriotism. Old tactics of diverting the attention from own follies, is being applied with full vigour, by throwing the blame on rival neighbours.
All of a sudden, BJP stalwarts have discovered Khalistan element out of ongoing protest of farmers. Modi’s favourable media quarters propagating that Pro-Khalistan activists have been spotted in those protests which were organized in the US, UK, Canada and. In order to make their false claim more acceptable to an internal audience, BJP extremists have started pointing fingers at China and Pakistan as well. Union Minister Raosaheb has taken lead in blaming Pakistan and China for backing the farmers’ protest. No one has yet questioned the BJP leaders that how come two rival countries managed to trap India in controversial legislation? Why didn’t the government pay any attention to the peaceful demands of farmers for realistic review of controversial legislation? It has become an unwritten law in India to blame Pakistan for serious failures at internal front without analyzing own blunders. The fact of the matter is that second term of Modi expedited the unmasking of the real extremist face of Indian state. Artificial claim of being world’s biggest democracy and multi religion secular state has evaporated at an unimaginable pace under Modi’s ultra-hyper regime.
Before blaming Pakistan and China for self-created crises, Indian quarters should try to find out that why Canadian PM Justin Trudo had to express solidarity with protesting farmers? Why have more than thirty British parliamentarians joined their voice with the oppressed farmers of Punjab? Unprecedented protest gathering of farmers at the borders of Delhi has exposed the reality of fascist ruling regime to the core. Though, farmers didn’t announce any pro-Khalistan agenda but Indian State’s inbuilt fear of past follies is now coming in circles. Who doesn’t know that thousands of Sikhs had to leave India after facing state sponsored brutalities in the mid-80s. Brutal atrocities in Punjab, operation Blue Star at Golden Temple and subsequent Khalsa massacre after Indira Gandhi’s retaliatory assassination left incurable scars at the collective memory of Sikh community. Most of the Sikhs settled abroad are the victims of Indian State-sponsored atrocities. They were compelled to leave their motherland after being tagged as traitors. Rule of RSS ideologues in Delhi is nothing short of a nightmare for religious minorities.
First of all, the bloodthirsty BJP regime targeted Kashmir and revoked quasi-autonomous statehood status. While the Kashmir was facing state sponsored terrorism, the Hindutva brigade launched offensive on the Muslim minority with the weapon of CAA. India is in a war-like situation with China at the LAC since the last eight months. There is no pause in ceasefire violations at the LoC. As exposed by Pakistan in recently released dossier, New Delhi is deeply involved in sponsoring terrorism through Afghanistan-based proxies. India is vigorously accelerating fresh arms race in the South Asian region with extremely destructive designs of fighting a two-front war with China and Pakistan simultaneously. Mishandling of farmers’ demands has turned an easily manageable issue into a complex crisis. BJP’s unwise provocative statesmanship is now dragging China and Pakistan in one of its self-created internal crises. Unprecedented protest at the borders of Delhi is exposing many black spots of the Indian State.
—Islamabad-based writer is a retired army officer and occasionally contributes to national press.
