Giriraj, Togadia et al: Narendra Modi’s excess baggage

With friends like these who needs enemies? First BJP leader Giriraj Singh tells a rally “Those opposing Narendra Modi are looking at Pakistan. In the coming days, such people will have no place in India. They will only have a place in Pakistan.” Then Vishwa Hindu Parishad president Praveen Togadia tells a group of Bajrang Dal activists they should take possession of a house purchased by a Muslim businessman in Rajkot and stick a “Bajrang Dal” board on it. The businessman is given 48 hours to vacate the house. “If he does not relent, go with stones, tyres and tomatos to his office. There is nothing wrong in it,” said Togadia. He added that an election was exactly the right time to “pressurize Congress or BJP for the sake of Hindus’ safety”. Then he boasted that he had done it in the past and Muslims have lost both property and money. Praveen Togadia and Narendra Modi have butted heads before and there’s no love lost between them. In 2008 Modi got VHP members arrested in Gujarat because they were opposing the demolition of temples when roads in Gandhinagar were being widened reports India Today. So Togadia could have been trying to embarrass his bête noire. [caption id=“attachment_1489413” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  With friends like Giriraj, who needs enemies?[/caption] But Singh is a Number One fan. He has doubled down on his comments. “In democracy, everybody can oppose… but nobody has a right to act against national interest and appear to be speaking the language of a foreign country which has been known to act against our country,” says Singh. Translation: In India speaking against Modi is not opposing, it’s against the ’national interest’ aka treason. And he is just referring to Candidate Modi, not even Pradhan Mantri Modi. As I said, with friends like these does Narendra Modi need enemies? The BJP is distancing itself from Singh’s fulminations in red-faced haste. “Irresponsible” tweets Sushil Modi, BJP leader in Bihar. Spokesperson Nirmala Seetharaman clarifies that the BJP has nothing to do with Singh’s words. This is not even a slap on the wrist for Singh. Instead of pushing Giriraj Singh away from the party, the party has meekly moved itself away from him. No wonder Singh seems even more unapologetic about his statements. Distance, in this case, has made Singh’s heart grow even fonder of Modi. This comes at the most inopportune time for the Project Mellow Modi. The BJP is dropping it’s “main desh nahin mitney dunga” anthem because it’s “needlessly dire and apocalyptic” reports the Times of India. “Getting Modi to speak the lines was also not a good decision as he comes through in ‘hard’ tones,” a BJP leader tells TOI. Modi has been in very much a meethey bol boliye incarnation these days. “I may also have used harsh words against Soniaji, Rahulji and Nitishji,” Modi said in a television interview. “This is not permanent.” Even damad-ji got a bit of a break from this maganimous Modi. The law should take its own course with Robert Vadra, Modi said, adding “no government should work with a vindictive mindset”. Now Modi will need to prove that this “kinder, gentler” image is not just an election mirage. Giriraj Singh after all sounds like the chest-thumping unapologetic poster boy of the “vindictive mindset” that Modi so piously disavows. The BJP did, allegedly at Modi’s behest, hastily dump Pramod Muthalik of Shri Ram Sene notoriety. But that was relatively easy though embarrassing. Muthalik was a Johnny-come-lately and not formally a part of the BJP before his sudden induction. Giriraj Singh is part of the BJP, a former minister, its candidate from Nawada and much harder to disown. But they are cut from the same cloth. Muthalik’s goons were physically throwing women out of pubs. Singh is rhetorically shoving Indians out of India. That’s the only difference. The BJP might want to say Singh is just a storm in an election teacup but it proves that in 2014 you do not need a rerun of Gujarat 2002 as some of Modi’s foes are warning us against. Intimidation can happen in far more insidious and chilling ways. As Ruchir Joshi writes in The Telegraph “Modi is clever enough to know that the whole world, including important trading partners in the Middle East, Indonesia and Malaysia, will be watching very carefully as to how he deals with India’s largest minority, and religious minorities in general.” But he warns that “this time the attacks will not necessarily consist of mobs armed with gas cylinders and phone and address lists, they may be more indirect, though no less vicious for all that.” Giriraj Singh and his ilk form Exhibit A of that kind of intimidation and intolerance even before a Modi sarkar is a reality. And while Togadia might be an old troublemaker and Singh might have little traction outside Bihar, the BJP has also re-embraced Dr. Subramanian Swamy who wrote in that infamous op-ed that if India’s Muslim community failed to properly condemn “the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India”, India should “Implement Uniform Civil Code, make Sanskrit learning compulsory and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India as Hindu Rashtra in which only those non-Hindus can vote if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus.” There is no evidence that Dr. Swamy has distanced himself from those comments or the BJP has questioned him about them as it welcomed Swamy back into the fold. Anyway all this talk of “distance” in a party that harps about parivaar is meaningless. Like many other political parties BJP has nurtured its lumpen muscle, its hatemongers and its holy-book thumpers as foot soldiers for its political ends especially as it tried to build its base while out of power. The likes of Singh, Swamy and Togadia are part of the checked-in baggage Modi has inherited as he tries to now fly into Delhi. He has to decide what to do with it. He may decide to dump the inconvenient excess much as he did in Gujarat but mere “distancing” is not going to be an option.