India has witnessed a tectonic shift in it’s politics. The much touted middle class has become politically irrelevant and meant only to be milked by taxman and business alike.
You, my dear reader, are most likely to be offended at my assertion as you likely embody the Indian Middle Class, though you’ll secretly see the truth about it as you read on, hopefully with an open mind.
Lets start at the very beginning.
In 1947, after Nehru took the reins of power, he quickly realised that in order to create a near-perpetual route to power, he should make Muslims a vote bank. Why? The Hindus were a disparate lot, busy fighting themselves. His daughter refined it further, coining the famous “Garibi Hatao” *slogan*.
Both were vote banks. Massive enough to tilt election results in the first-past-the-post system Nehru conveniently ensured became India’s electoral system. Ignoring the superior proportionate representation systems already in vogue in other democracies. He even rejected the proven US system, a democratic system far older than all except the UK khichadi he was comfortable with.
In order to keep these vote banks, it was necessary to keep them poor & illiterate – as he and his ilk did for 70 years! Muslims lived in ghettos, consigned to low tech manual skills like mechanics, welders etc. and the rich-poor gap only exploded. The poor never could afford to send their kids to schools instead of becoming another pair of hands to toil and earn meagre wages. This was most pronounced in the rural & agricultural sectors. In turn leading to migrant workers clogging urban spaces.
The Nehru-Gandhi clan succeeded admirably in keeping this suppressing system going, till the tectonic shift came along in 2013-14.
The Advani era (he was the “ideologue” of note in the then BJP, not Vajpayee) saw an unworkable building of a vote base. The Baniya (traders) were his mainstay and that extended somewhat to an urban middle class. This was only enough to give the party a paltry two seats in the Lok Sabha. And practically no state governments. The ‘Middle Class’ had no political payout. They don’t even vote!
The Hindutva platform was and is highly focussed on the population dense states of the Hindi belt. The religion card was played – but in a somewhat apologetic way – and the BJP could get power with lots of “allies” who were around only for the power with scant agreement on ideology.
Vajpayee’s famous loss of confidence in the Lok Sabha by 1 vote (?) triggered a sympathy wave amongst the vast illiterate & poor in the Hindi belt. So BJP learnt it’s first lessons. Forget the Middle Class. It’s the rock bottom of the pyramid – the bemaru states with a sea of ‘low level’ farm workers and menial, manual workers – was the route to power. Hindutva was born in realpolitik, leaving the erstwhile ‘good’ image of Hindutva (Ram Rajya) behind for use as a fig leaf whenever needed.
Advani’s failure to win after an India Shining Election gave Modi-Shah the lever for his exit, which they swiftly executed with great efficiency, bottom up.
Now is when the tectonic shift became obvious to the rest of us mortals.
Vajpayee was a poet.
Advani remained the ‘Intellectual’ ideologue. Too theoretical (“highflown”) for the illiterate masses to idolise.
Vajpayee-Advani were a mere sharing of workload, Advani doing all the (dirty) work.
On his own, without a magnetic personality, Advani was a political loser.
Enter Modi-Shah. Accountability for the debacle was demanded.
Modi was and is the ‘Spin Master’, couched as a ‘Visionary’.
Shah was and is the ‘Organiser’ par excellence. He deserves a Case Study by Harvard Business School as a management model.
Modi roped in the RSS (being a pracharak himself) with its far reaching network of volunteers and placed it at the hands of Shah.
Shah used this network to build the Party it’s own “karyakartha” army. Yes, Army. In it, yours was not to question decisions handed down. Yours was the job of asking “how high?” when asked to jump. The “Unoriginals” were born. Just like in the Army. A force of enforcers.
The Revenge of the Unoriginal*This is not a battle between one ideology and another.It isn’t a battle between religions, as they’d have us believe.It isn’t a battle between one party and another.It isn’t a battle between our country and the neighbouring ones.It isn’t a battle between capitalism and socialism.This isn’t even a war between the “right wing” and the “left wing”This is an unspoken war against the original thinkers of the world, led by those who have never had an original thought in their lives.
So the war machine was created with ease. BJP became the largest political party in the world. Even “thinkers” signed up in the hope that the looted & distraught India left by the Nehru-Gandhi era would be “saved” by the phenomenally successful slogans promised.
Acha Din Ayenge
Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas
Then an after thought: Sabka Vishwas
One india One Law
One India One Tax
and so on…. the Spin Master was unbeatable. The Shah of the Karyakartha Army was unchallenged.
So what is the tectonic shift?
The “Intellectual” Middle Class was abandoned in all except spin. The stay-at-home using voting day as holiday crowd was anyways useless to politicians of any hue.
The new base was the poorest of the poor, rural and agricultural masses. Remember, they constitute 70%+ of the voting population. Illiterate. Easily manipulated emotionally and aroused to take the streets in shows of strength needed to project political invincibility.
The irony is that the fat Middle would even applauded these moves to “raise the bottom”. And rightly so! India would indeed become stronger.
But in seven budgets, the middle class was taxed more (directly / Indirectly), health facilities neglected and ignored when they point to “promises” made by the ‘Hindutva’ brigade: Temples remain looted by governments. One Civil code is not even on the table. But J&K action, Triple Talaq criminalising Law & Ram Mandir came with great speed – immensely pleasing the Unoriginals.
Conspicuously, some good talent in the BJP was kept out of Government or even any significant forums of power. Two high flier Ministers in NDA-1 were subdued in NDA-2. And mediocre minions took up powerful ministries, easily controlled by the PMO. Sadly, some proven duffers were made ministers, now unmasked by the Covid crisis.
Enter the Chinese Curse – Covid 19.
The first wave made sure how incompetent the GOI was experienced by hoards of migrant workers. A part of the BJP vote bank.
The fiasco called the “Demonetisation” would have opened the eyes of even the die hard Unoriginals.
The Oxygen & Hospital debacle in the second wave of the virus – a direct result of GOI acting as if India “had” defeated the Chinese Curse and dismantling infra built up and exporting vaccines, medicines and even oxygen!
Only an unthinking idiot would not expect multiple waves, seen all across the globe! That’s the telling assessment of the “Intellect” of this government. The Unoriginals!
If the middle class (“Intellectuals”) don’t get it that they’re just fodder to the election winning beast, much like data they provide to FaceBook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc is for sale, then they deserve their fate. Be milked and Sold.
Before you hasten to chastise me as a snob, an elitist or anything else (because this is an age of labels, after all, where “intellectual” and “liberal” and “leftist” are used as derogatory terms), at least think about this theory and test it against facts in the public domain over the last seven years.
The real irony is that the imbeciles that constitute the “opposition” fall into the trap so cleverly set by the BJP. No hope there!!!
Tail piece: You are irrelevant to the politicians. Get it? Unless the Middle Class rises above it’s petty differences and asserts itself as a block. At all levels of Government: Municipal, State and Centre. And please don’t shoot the messenger!
I’m on Twitter @jsvasan
* quote from Padmakumar N in a whatsapp forward.