The (un)importance of September 25 for BJP and its rivals

Sept 25 is Modi govt's 'Antyodaya' day; farmers' unions have called for Bharat bandh, opposition protests and a public rally to mark Devi Lal's birth anniversary

Commemorating historical events and birth and death anniversaries of iconic leaders is imperative for regimes and political ideologies. It helps secure legitimacy, expand influence and appropriate history. Such commemorations are equally essential to discredit and delegitimise events and personalities associated with the glory of competing ideologies.

Take, for example, the following dates – August 5 and September 25.

August 5 has emerged as the ideological leitmotif of the second tenure of the Narendra Modi government, just as September 25 was the all-important day during its first tenure from 2014 to 19.

On August 5, 2019, Parliament watered down Article 370. On August 5, 2020, a year later, the foundation stone for the Ram temple in Ayodhya. This year on August 5, as the Indian men's hockey team won a medal after 40-years at the Olympics, Modi drew the nation's attention to the parallel between the three events in a televised address.

Is it a coincidence that August 5, the Modi government's "new India" day, and August 14, its recently proposed "Partition Horrors Remembrance Day", fall in the same fortnight as August 9, the Quit India day, and August 15, the Independence Day? The latter two days are associated with India's freedom movement and recall the Congress party's contribution to that struggle.

August 5 and 14 are the sharp edge of the Sangh Parivar's polarising ideology deployed more fervently during the second tenure of the Modi government. However, the challenge before the BJP during the Modi government's first tenure was to push out the Congress from the public memory as the party for the poorest.

During the first term of the Modi government, September 25 was an all-important day. September 25 is the birth anniversary of the founder of Jan Sangh, the earlier avatar of the BJP, Deen Dayal Upadhyay. In 2014, the Modi government declared it the "Antyodaya" day to reflect its objective of helping the poorest.

The political flak it received on the land bill of 2015 and Rahul Gandhi's jibe of "suit-boot sarkar", or a government of and for moneybags, convinced Modi to jettison the image of a reformer. Fresh from the loss of the Assembly polls in Delhi in February 2015, Modi told the BJP's Bengaluru national executive in April of that year to commit itself to "Garib Kalyan", or welfare of the poor.

A little over a year later, at the BJP's Kozhikode national executive in September 2016, with months left for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the PM announced Upadhyay's birth centenary celebrations as his government's "Garib Kalyan" year.

Ironically, farmers have announced a Bharat bandh on this year's September 25. Farmers unions and opposition parties will protest the three contentious farm laws, inflation and unemployment. The protests will come in the wake of the latest increase in cooking gas prices and rising prices. Interestingly, the Ujjwala scheme was the Modi government's flagship programme launched five years back in 2016 to commemorate Upadhyay and his vision of "Antyodaya", or helping the poor. And now the opposition parties have prepared an 11-point charter of demands that attacks the Modi government's "anti-poor" policies.

Interestingly, September 25 will also see some of the BJP's current and former allies getting together to commemorate the 107th birth anniversary of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal. His son, former Haryana chief minister, Om Prakash Chautala, will host Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu and Shiromani Akali Dal's Sukhbir Singh Badal.

Of late, Nitish Kumar, an ally of the BJP, has disagreed with it on a proposed population control law and the Pegasus snooping controversy. He has also been vehement in his demand for an OBC caste census. The rally would also put political pressure on Haryana's Deputy Chief Minister, Dushyant Chautala, a coalition partner in the BJP-led government in the state.

September 5 and September 17

Meanwhile, farmers will collect at a mahapanchayat at Muzaffarnagar on September 5 to launch their protests in the run-up to the UP Assembly polls in February-March. It is a coincidence, but the BJP did have a tense September 5 last year as well. Celebrated every year as Teachers' Day, on September 5, 2020, young women and men had taken to social media in significant enough numbers to complain of lack of job opportunities. By evening, the Centre announced it would conduct the first stage of computer-based tests to fill 140,000 vacancies in the Railways.

But that isn't all. Some of the BJP's frontal units have announced they will mark September 17, the birthday of Modi, as "Kisan-Jawan Samman Diwas", a day to celebrate the contribution of farmers and soldiers. However, activists have given a call to mark it as "berozgar diwas", or joblessness day. The Congress party has constituted an "agitations committee".

But the Modi government and the BJP, who claim to believe in a vibrant democracy and remind us as much every June 25 and 26, the day the Indira Gandhi government imposed Emergency in 1975, should be the last to complain about the opposition marking days that are ideologically important to it.

Since 2014, the Modi government has observed October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, assassinated for his efforts to restore communal harmony, merely as Swachhata, or cleanliness, day.

In 2014, within seven months of coming to power, the Modi government urged all to observe Christmas as "good governance day" to mark the birth anniversary of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. A national holiday, it made Christmas a working day that year.

Also, the Modi government came to observe the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, which falls on October 31, as the "national unity day", making the "national integration day" marked on November 19, the birth anniversary of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, irrelevant. The previous Congress-led governments observed October 31 as "anti-terrorism day" since it is also Indira Gandhi's martyrdom day.

Earlier this year, during Prime Minister Modi's visit to Dhaka, India and Bangladesh agreed to mark December 6 as "Maitri Diwas", or friendship day. India recognised the Bangladesh government on that day 50-years back in 1971. Until 2019, Hindutva outfits had celebrated "shaurya diwas" on December 6 to mark the razing of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya on that day in 1992. Interestingly, the then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras had paid his respects, the first for an RSS chief, at BR Ambedkar's memorial in 1987. But since 1992, Dalit intellectuals believe the Hindu right-wing outfits deliberately picked December 6 to raze the Babri Mosque.

As we await the events to unfold this month, it is safe to assume that the battle for commemorating events and personalities to earn legitimacy or discredit opponents will only gather pace until 2024.