The Gujarat election results have underlined several existing realities, exploded a number of myths, exposed hidden warts of our ‘secular’ democracy, and indicated the direction the polity will possibly take in the near future.Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s connect with the electorate continues to be unmatched, in spite of the hiccups caused by demonetisation and GST. His credibility with the voters is still high, who at times may doubt the efficacy of his moves, but not his intent. All the anti-Modi propaganda unleashed by the Opposition against his persona has failed to cut ice with the masses.
Rahul Gandhi, who was dismissed as a non-serious player in the Indian political scene until recently, has emerged as the sole formidable Opposition voice against the ruling dispensation and also as a leader with a lot of flexibility, bordering at times on rank opportunism.During the run-up to the Assembly polls, Rahul, who until recently pretended to be a religion-neutral politician, suddenly turned into a temple-hopping Hindu, visiting 27 of them in over two months. While he himself claimed to be a Shiva devotee, his sidekicks declared him to be a janeu-dhari Brahmin.
Not once did he don the skull cap, an accessory in which he has been seen many times earlier. However, his new avatar of a devout Hindu was out of sync with the conduct of his senior party colleagues, his new-found allies and his overt and covert friends. Kapil Sibal, a noted lawyer and a former minister, vehemently opposed hearing of petitions against the Allahabad High Court judgment in the Babri-Ram Janmabhoomi case by the Supreme Court.
The case has been pending in the apex court for the last seven years. The history of the litigation in this case will complete 133 years in January. Still Rahul’s colleague Sibal had the temerity to ask the Supreme Court as to why was it in a “hurry” to hear the case.Another camp follower of Rahul, young Jignesh Mevani, an articulate Dalit leader from Gujarat, has been busy manufacturing Dalit angst on predictable lines and is seeking to set his community against the rest of the Hindu society. In a recent press interview, Mevani spoke about a joint alliance of the Dalits and Muslims. Against whom?
Alpesh Thakor, a self-proclaimed OBC leader and Hardik Patel were Rahul’s new finds during the polls. Mevani, Thakor and Patel are brazenly seeking to divide the Hindu society on caste lines and pit one section against the other.But the icing on the cake was a letter written by Archbishop of Gandhinagar Thomas Macwan on election eve, to his colleagues in the Church, in which he said, “Let us trust in our Lord Jesus and ask His help” to stop “nationalist forces“ who “are on the verge of taking over the country”.
The Bishop’s appeal was subtle and indirect, but clear enough to tell the faithful to defeat Modi and his party and by implication help Rahul’s party emerge victorious at the hustings. The Bishop’s missive brazenly invoked religion and recalled the victory of Lepanto, a battle fought in Europe about five hundreds ago.The Bishop’s reference to the Lepanto war gives a peep into the mindset of the Church and its possible strategy in India which is still “heathen and has to be saved for Jesus”.
The battle of Lepanto was fought on 7 October 1571, when the Holy League’s fleet of ships, smashed the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras. The ‘Holy League’ was a coalition of European Catholic maritime states arranged by Pope Pius V and led by admiral John of Austria. The event was the largest naval battle in Western history since classical antiquity, involving more than 400 war ships. The Christian side suffered about 7,500 deaths and the Turkish side over 30,000.
It is obvious that the Archbishop has read history till this point, otherwise he would not have quoted this incident to inspire the faithful to “pray the Rosary”, as they had done during the Battle of Lepanto, to “save our country from nationalist forces” during the elections. The aftermath of Lepanto is interesting. In March 1573 the Holy League was disbanded and Venice, an important part of the League, was forced to accept loser’s terms. Cyprus was formally ceded to the Ottoman Empire and got an indemnity of three lakh ducats.
Just 15 years later, in 1588, the all powerful King Philip II launched the Spanish Armada, against Protestant England with the declared objective of reinstating Catholicism there, but lost heavily.
Philip, who had all the blessings of the Pope, considered himself the chief defender of Catholic Europe, both against the Islamic Ottoman Empire and the forces of the Protestant Reformation. However, neither the Pope’s prayers nor his Holiness’ assistance could help the faithful in their war against ‘blasphemous England’.
The medieval era to which the Bishop has referred to was marked by sporadic wars between the Catholic Church and the emerging Protestant movement across Europe. Thousands died in these intra-religious wars and several others burnt at the stakes for heresy and countless hapless men and women fell victim to merciless torture at the hands of the Inquisition teams which were active in most of the churches of both the denominations.
The Gujarat polls are over. Will Rahul continue with his new-found Hindu identity with the verve he had shown during elections? Or was his posing as a janeu-dhari Brahmin merely an election gimmick? How will he reconcile the divisive agenda of his friends like Bishop Macwan with the agenda of a good Hindu who is expected to be committed to the unity and integrity of the society and the country?
We will have to wait and watch.