A tale of two elections, two different narratives and two starkly different socio-cultural sensibilities hangs in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s different public rallies on consecutive days — on April 13 in Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu, and, a day later, on April 14, in Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh and Kathua in Jammu.

In Ramanathapuram, barring a passing mention of defending the country and tracking down terrorists/jihadis, the Prime Minister devoted almost his entire speech, delivered in English, to development, poverty alleviation and infrastructure creation, while also invoking former President APJ Abdul Kalam. He wondered how overjoyed Kalam (a popular personification of the country’s syncretic culture) would have been at the firing of India’s anti satellite weapon.

Rising nationalist pitch

Describing his vision of “New India”, the Prime Minister told his audience: “I am an MP from Kashi, which is connected to Ramanathapuram by bonds of faith and spirituality. Coming to Ramanathapuram reminds me of the great Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. He had several dreams for our nation. Today, it is our duty to fulfil those dreams and take India to new heights of growth and glory. Dr Kalam would have been so happy on the recent success of Mission Shakti, the A-Sat missile test guided by the mantra of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas . We are creating the India that Dr Kalam imagined.”

Contrast this with the volatility and anti-Pakistan rhetoric in the Prime Minister’s two rallies in Kathua and Moradabad a day after his tour of Ramanathapuram. In Kathua, he was at his strident best, regaling the raucous audience chanting “Modi, Modi” with a heavy dose of militaristic nationalism. He accused Congress of being “suspicious” of the Armed Forces. He swore to rid the Kashmir Valley of the Abdullahs and the Muftis, “the two families who ruined Kashmir” and accused Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh of “insulting” the martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh. The same day, deeper into the Hindi heartland, in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, the pitch rose even higher.

“Pakistan attacked us earlier and the Congress went crying to everyone. But this is ‘New India’. We don’t do that any more. So, when Pakistan makes a mistake in Uri, we make them see stars in the daytime. Phir pulwama hua to hamne ghar me ghus ke mara (When Pulwama happened, we invaded their homes and killed them). They have now understood that if they make a third mistake, there will be a heavy price to pay,” the Prime Minister said in Moradabad on April 14.

Clearly, political discourse was tailored to suit the different aesthetics and sensibilities of audiences in the two regions. Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas embellished Modi’s address in the South but the messaging acquired a distinctly strident nationalist tone up North.

Muslim vote divided

In Moradabad, on the last leg of the campaign, a group of local leaders, journalists and intellectuals discussed politics late into the night even as the town seemed to have been engulfed in the festivities of Shab-e-Baraat (Prophet’s birthday). All issues aside, elections in these parts — be it Moradabad, Rampur, Amroha or Sambhal — are usually polarised on communal lines and the stark reality is that in all these constituencies where Muslims account for anything between 45 and 53 per cent, there appears to be far greater unity and consolidation around the Prime Minister’s nationalism pitch since the 2014 general elections.

The famed “Muslim vote”, which is known to poll strategically, has been consistently divided among the local Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress, which had won the Moradabad seat in 2009 on the star appeal of cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin.

This time, according to Sat Pal, brass exporter and former Chairman of the Export Promotion Council of Handicrafts, there is “uniform support for Modiji” on one side while the Muslims are still confused about whether to vote for the Congress, which has fielded a charming young poet from Pratapgarh, Imran Pratapgarhi, or the Grand Alliance of SP/BSP/RLD, which is represented by the local bigwig, ST Hasan.

“Modiji is good for the country. He has enhanced our prestige across the globe. We are now a power to reckon with. That is what we would vote for,” said Sat Pal, indicating that the election would still be held around the “H/M (Hindu/Muslim) line”. The BJP’s supporters are delighted that the Muslims, who account for 9 lakh among the total 19 lakh voters in Moradabad, are “confused” about whether to vote for SP or the Congress.

“There is a lot of attraction for Pratapgarhi (Congress candidate) in the town. Let us see who we support in the end,” said Mohammad Talha, the fresh-faced owner of the popular local restaurant Gulshan-e-Karim .

According to local handicrafts exporter Nadim Khan, the BJP, in the last five years, has managed to successfully bridge caste cleavages that have thus far aligned the different castes on party lines — Jatavs with the BSP, Jats with RLD and Yadavas with the SP – into one Hindu identity in constituencies with a relatively larger Muslim population. Muslims, on the other hand, get divided.

Even in this election where the Mahagathbandhan has got together as one block of different dominant castes among Dalits and OBCs, the Congress is attracting the minority vote while the BJP is working to consolidate the Hindus.

The campaign has thus centred around one pitch, especially from the BJP’s side, — “nationalism” — which was used metaphorically as anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In Dhakia (Rampur, western UP) on April 20, Amar Singh, former general secretary of the Samajwadi Party, campaigned for BJP candidate Jaya Prada on the ground that he traces his ancestry to the “Great Thakurs” who were born to “fight the Mughals and the invaders. I am the inheritor of Maharana Pratap and Rana Sanga who warded off the Mughals”.

Simultaneously, the Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, addressed a rally in Afzalgarh in Bijnor district on April 20 and asserted that the “BJP is fighting for nationalism” while the others, especially the Congress, are supporters of naxalwaad aur atankwaad (left-wing militancy and terrorism)”.

Clearly, as the elections have advanced through the different phases, the basic tenor of the BJP’s campaign in the North, Central and Western parts became more focused on issues around nationalism, terrorism, security forces, all of which are used metaphorically for communal polarisation.

The candidature of Malegaon terror accused Pragya Thakur against Digvijay Singh of the Congress in Bhopal, the increasing reliance on surgical strikes, Armed Forces and attacks on Pakistan in election rallies — all point to the ruling party resorting to the tried and tested method of defeating political mobilisation around caste lines in the Hindi heartland by a bigger communal polarisation.

Pitted against an alliance of strong, caste-based parties in the politically-critical UP with 80 Lok Sabha seats and Bihar with 40 seats and a surge of Congress’s prospects in the rural hinterland where its pro-farmer outreach wrested three States — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — from the BJP in 2018, the ruling BJP has fallen back on the “hard state/nationalism/anti-jihadi” formula for success.

Ajay Sangal, an RSS worker in Shamli, western Uttar Pradesh, explained that “polarisation” decides the fate of elections in North India. According to him, there are two kinds of polarisation.

Dhruvikaran do tarah ka hota hai – jatigat aur dharmik. Is chunav me abhi tak dhruvikaran jatigat aadhar par ho raha hai (There are two kinds of polarisation – on the basis of religion or caste. So far in UP, the polarisation has happened around caste lines),” Sangal told BusinessLine just before campaigning for the first phase of elections in western UP was getting over.

Thus, when jatigat dhruvikaran (caste polarisation) and rural distress started weighing on the election, the BJP simply reworked the campaign pitch.

Says Badri Narayan, Professor, GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad: “Hyper-nationalism is not gaining traction in Uttar Pradesh, the way it is in Rajasthan and Gujarat which are border States. Unlike in 2014, the election in UP this time is centred more around backward caste assertion, with the larger narrative of nationalism and Hindutva is not working as well as BJP would like.

With the mahagathbandan as a major force, the BJP is being forced to respond to the caste question. The BJP’s narrative is trapped in its own crisis.”

The Prime Minister, who has acquired an almost metaphorical value for the RSS/BJP brand of political mobilisation, stressed on the day of the release of the ruling party manifesto on April 8 that his party stands on three guiding principles — “ rashtravaad (nationalism), antyodaya (welfare of the poor) and sushasan (good governance)”.

Rashtravaad ” is the first chapter in the manifesto and at least in the northern parts, this forms the bedrock of the BJP’s campaign strategy against the Congress, which is fighting more on issues of rural distress, political economy and welfarism, and the regional parties focusing on consolidation of their traditional caste support base.

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