JOIN USA medal that united, a speech that divided
August is a special month, not just because one of our two most important national occasions fall in it, but also because on the ninth of this month in 1942, the final call to Quit India was given to the British colonisers by the Mahatma Gandhi-led freedom movement.
But that's not what the prime minister remembered about August in his recent address, which made headlines. August 5 was the day our hockey team won the bronze in Tokyo. It was also the day Narendra Modi chose to launch his party's campaign for next year's UP polls by interacting online with select beneficiaries of the free ration scheme launched during the lockdown last year and revived this year. Not only is the scheme called the Pradhan Mantri Yojana, but this year, the ration is being distributed in bags with the PM's and the Uttar Pradesh CM's faces on them, in case the poor forget who they should be grateful to by the time the elections come around.
Choosing August 5 to start his campaign made perfect sense for Modi: as he reminded his audience, that was the day two years ago when Article 370 had been abrogated, thereby "strengthening the feeling of One India, Best India, and making every citizen of Jammu and Kashmir a stakeholder in all rights and facilities." It was also the day when, a year ago, he had laid the foundation stone of the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya, something that he said "crores of Indians" had wanted for "hundreds of years." And it was on August 5 that after four decades, the nation was gifted an Olympic medal for the sport by which India was known, he concluded.
Modi's election speeches have always been meticulously planned. This one, too, revealed his mindset. For one, it showed that for him, nothing is above politics, not even Olympic victories. He contrasted the hockey team's achievement with the Opposition "scoring self-goals" by disrupting Parliament. But more important was the insight the speech gave us about his vision of Indians.
While recalling how "the feeling of One India, Best India" had been strengthened on August 5, 2019, did the PM forget those affected directly, the residents of Jammu and Kashmir? If indeed the intention of removing Article 370 was to make these citizens "stakeholders in all rights and facilities", why did the Centre impose a total communications
lockdown on the state, which was completely lifted only 17 months later, after the Supreme Court's prodding? The reaction of these "stakeholders" to their new status could be gauged by the 23 petitions filed in the Supreme Court against the Centre's decision, not only by politicians, all of whom were under arrest, but also by editors, traders, and ordinary students deprived of basic communication facilities. For three months after August 5, the Valley observed a voluntary "people's curfew." Indeed, deserted streets behind barbed wire became the defining photograph of "Naya Kashmir."
If Kashmiris don't make the cut for the PM, do Muslims in the rest of India? Not really, going by his August 5 speech. Surely he knew that the "crores of Indians" who had waited "hundreds of years" for this temple didn't include Muslims? The temple was being built on the very site where stood the Babri Masjid, demolished by members of the Sangh Parivar, of whom the PM remains a part.
Leave aside Muslims, even the majority of Hindus aren't ardent supporters of this temple, as evident from a post-2019 general election Lokniti survey, which found that only 36.7 per cent wanted a temple at the site. It was an important issue for just 0.4 per cent. For the thousands of Hindus and Muslims who lost family members in the riots caused by the Ayodhya campaign, what meaning would this temple have?
Both the events that, according to the PM, made August 5 "special" have divided the country. August 5, 2019, increased the chasm between the rest of us and those in Jammu and Kashmir. August 5, 2020, was a triumphalist launch of a place of worship built on a foundation of killings and hate. In contrast, our athletes in the Tokyo Olympics unified the country as no one else has in recent times.
One cannot expect a prime minister belonging to an organisation that never participated in the freedom movement to link August to Independence Day and the Quit India anniversary. But certainly, one cannot accept a prime minister linking an event that filled all Indians with hope and pride with events that humiliated and divided Indians.
(The writer is a journalist)