When the year 2020 set in, Amit Shah had emerged as the shining star of Indian politics. He wielded maximum authority after Narendra Modi. Many perceived him as the future prime minister of India.
Two months later, although Shah can still brandish all his powers, his authority has evaporated. Shah now appears clean bowled as an administrator. After the rioting and violence in parts of Delhi and the Central government’s failure to intervene in time to save lives, Shah’s ability to effectively function as the home minister is being questioned.
His fall has been sudden. Remember, Narendra Modi still exhibits maximum political authority among all politicians and Shah is known as his chosen one. Shah implemented Jan Sangh’s old agenda in Kashmir without evoking a backlash from mainland India or the valley, he was emerging as the hero of Hindu nationalists. But today it is being asked whether his party or anyone else will repose faith in him to handle critical situations.
It is not relevant whether the rioting in Delhi was due to some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders’ provocation, or a Bhim Army-Popular Front of India (PFI) conspiracy, or both. Nor is it necessary to ask whether Hindus started it or Muslims and whether it was Kapil Mishra of BJP or Tahir Hussain of AAP who is to be blamed for the mayhem. Provocations and conspiracies have been a part of this nation’s life from the beginning, and it will be so in the future too. The question is whether those in charge are farsighted enough to anticipate the situation and display the ability to control it. Shah has scored zero out of a hundred in this test.
What was brewing in Delhi over the past few weeks and months was well known. A large part of it was Shah’s own making. He conjoined CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens), and spoke about it as though it was a great political weapon. But in reality the whole exercise was centered on identifying and expelling Bangladeshi Muslim illegal ‘immigrants’ without harassing Hindu ‘refugees’. There continue to be question marks around whether it will be possible to do this and then whether there would be a taker for those expelled.
However, Shah never spoke of it as a plain administrative exercise. He played with it to polarise the Hindus in his favour. So, given the track record of the BJP in Gujarat, the Muslims felt terrorised. Not about the CAA so much, but about its perceived (thanks to Shah) conjoined twin NRC. It’s not pertinent therefore to ask whether fundamentalist groups or reactionary elements misled the common Muslims. If the ground is ready, miscreants everywhere take advantage of it. It was Shah who prepared the ground.
Modi himself appeared to overrule Shah on the question of implementing NRC after CAA, but by then it was too late. Many Muslims had occupied roads in parts of Delhi including Shaheen Bagh, and the protests got wide publicity. Now, as Delhi police is under the union home minister, Shah had two options: Either to clear the roads by force, or to talk to the protesters. He overlooked both the options, and used the situation to milk it for political benefits in the Delhi Assembly election.
Had he won that election, he would have become very dear to Hindu nationalists. But his Gujarat-style campaign failed, and it was proved that he was both politically inept to judge a situation and to adopt a suitable strategy. Earlier he had similarly failed in Jharkhand, but that is another story. In Delhi, his strategy only made the situation more volatile than it already was.
When the clashes started, the Delhi police played the role of a rescue team instead of a force to quell violence. It allowed the situation to worsen from Sunday afternoon (Feb 23) to Tuesday afternoon (Feb 25). These forty-eight hours crushed Amit Shah’s dream of shaping himself as the ‘iron man’ of New India.
Shah appears to have paid the price. From Tuesday evening, Ajit Doval (the National Security Adviser, a bureaucrat) took charge, and contained the violence. He moved around Delhi, visited both Hindu and Muslim mohallas, promising safety to all and urging them to forget the colossal failure of the state with the words “jo ho gaya so ho gaya” . Shah the politician, meanwhile, was confined to his office! It has dented Shah’s administrative authority as a minister severely.
While Delhi was burning, Shah’s political authority was challenged by his own party member Sushil Modi in Bihar. On Tuesday (Feb 25), the Bihar assembly passed a unanimous resolution against implementing the NRC. BJP legislators, led by Sushil Modi, the deputy chief minister, agreed to be a party to it. In simple terms, Sushil Modi dumped Amit Shah to please Nitish Kumar, the chief minister and JD(U) supremo.
Till the end of last year, we witnessed the meteoric rise of Amit Shah. Now, what we are witnessing is akin to a meteor shower. Amit Shah has no one to blame but himself. Each Indian state is different. Delhi, Bihar or Bengal is not Gujarat. Neither is Karnataka, Tamil Nadu or Telangana. The same political trick cannot be used in all states. The North, the East, the North-East, the South, and the West, all have different characteristics, different viewpoints on socio-cultural issues, and even different ways of life. If Shah has to redeem himself, he will have to acquaint himself with such divergence, and respect it. Otherwise, not only will he flop time and again, but the Indian people will have to pay a heavy price for his inability to learn.
(Diptendra Raychaudhuri is a Kolkata-based journalist and author of books including, A Naxal Story. He is a deputy editor at the Bengali daily, Aajkal)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.
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