After the conclusion of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections and the announcements of the results, there has been a surge of hate crimes against several parliamentarians and members of political parties, particularly of the BJP and other progressive right wing voices in our country.
What does this signify and what parallels can we draw with global events? Let us discuss below.
Table of Contents
The Incidents
Kangana Ranaut
Actor and politician Kangana Ranaut recently was slapped at the airport by a CISF female jawan. A spat between the two happened when Kangana called a group of protestors as ‘Khalistani’. It is true that Khalistani flags were raised and slogans shouted when the protestors hit the streets of Delhi during the 2020 Farm Bills introduction, a bill that would have industrialized Punjab and brought Punjabi people out of poverty. The jawan justified her actions by saying that her mother was part of that farmer’s protest. While this CISF jawan’s mother can have her own private opinion, Kangana Ranaut apparently cannot.
Kangana has posted statements citing that she is safe but worried about the condition of free speech in our country.
Meanwhile, the CISF lady’s family was honored by certain sections of the Khalistani society.
Kurupuswamy Annamalai
K. Annamalai was the second victim of such a horrendous display. The man who dragged his party the BJP from 2% vote share to 10.4% vote share and made the BJP the leading party in almost all constituencies.
A video where DMK workers attaching a photo of Thiru K Annamalai avl to a goat and beheading it in using the jhatka method and a child is screaming “Annamalai ade Bali azhi”.
While Korban, or goat sacrifice, is a Jewish ritual that has come to Bharat through the entry of the Jewish ideology called “Islam”, this sacrifice of a goat is seen as a “bali”. Considering the hateful views of EVR Naicker against the Jews, such practices should be banned in the greater Tamilagam.
Trends
This has an overarching parallel to the “Storm the Capital” movement in the USA when the conservative candidate Donal Trump lost the election. This made many protestors, dressed up in Viking clothing (not something they would regularly wear) and make grand displays demanding Trump be reinstated to power.
While the entirety of Bharat is going through revival of Sanatan Dharm, there are sections of society which are conservative in nature and do not like these changes. It demands them to change their views and beliefs and faith, which is why they oppose the current wave of Sanatan Dharm in exchange for their conservative, secular and socialist superstitions.
The Mandate of the People
The 2024 Lok Sabha Elections could not have given the country a better mandate. While on one hand the Modi government is humbled into keeping their ears to the ground, the left’s regressivism has also simultaneously been rejected.
Every country has two camps: the conservatives and the progressives. The conservatives are those who claim that they founded a country, they established its rules and constitution, they defined its culture and they are responsible for establishing the country. Conservatives want to preserve it as closely as possible. Opposed to them is usually the progressive, who identifies the foundation of the nation, but looks beyond that and towards a better life for its people and a future for culture to come. Progressives want to take the country forward, and want to challenge the old to establish the new.
In Bharat’s case, the conservatives are the Nehruvians, those who united the country and fought for independence by non-violent means. They established the culture of the nation using secularism. They wrote the constitution and enshrined these values in all people. They may have been founded in 1850, but they were truly established in 1950 in independent Bharat.
The progressives are the Hindutvadis, who fought alongside the communists for an armed revolution in Bharat, who wanted independence through violence, and were established in independent Bharat in 1982, under the new name BJP. They respect the constitution, but want the culture of the country to evolve ahead with time.
This sort of history was seen in the USA, where George Washington’s slave owning past is often downplayed, but it had led to a massive anti-Washington sentiment across the USA during the era in parliamentary debates. This critic of a dictatorial, pro-slavery Washington, as well as the propping up of alternative historical figures like Alexander Hamilton, who is still revered greatly in the arts today, led to a synthesis which eventually created the USA of the 1900s, with its movement for civil rights and democracy and the American Dream. While this same USA is in its twilight today, and we can definitely learn not to repeat its mistakes, the parallels give us an important message.
In Bharat, the left and the right, the BJP and the INC, the progressives and the conservatives, the Nehruvuans and the Hindutvadis, they need to talk. Productive dialogues are the only way bridges are built. The 2024 Lok Sabha election has given us the perfect chance to do so. With a nearly equal mandate, with a slight lean in favor of the NDA, shows that the country wants progress, but it wants this progress to be a synthesis of all sides. Nehru must accept Hindutva as much as the Modi era has to accept the constitution in spirit.
This nearly equal mandate, which has created a stalemate for the parliament, is perfect for making structural changes to the country. These changes have been desired by many across the political spectrum. Both Nilakanthan RS in his ‘South vs North’ book and Gautam Desiraju in his ‘Bharat: India 2.0’ book have preferred a presidential system. Both Shashi Tharoor in ‘An Era of Darkness’ and J Sai Deepak in ‘India that is Bharat’ have considered the modern education system a function of theological colonialism.
The problem lies in the hostility and echo chamber between the two. Where historian Vikram Sampath can write a book on the ‘Bravehearts of Bharat’ invoking the Dharmic past of ours, authors like ‘Anirudh Kanisetti’ who seek to “dismantle the notion of the Dharmic past” are unable to theologically set it up in the first place, relying on colonial and post-colonial historical sources instead.
The Need of the Hour
The 2024 Lok Sabha election mandate is a call from all Bharatians to tell these two echo chambers to talk: and to come to a synthesis. We have also already decided on a bias, but we want to cut the jargon. The Americans did it in their history, the “Pagan vs Christian” debates in Europe led to the Renaissance, the entire world has done this. It is now Bharat’s turn for its two sides to talk to each other.
It is time for all of us to sit and talk to each other. While in the parliament there is a Kangana Ranaut for a Mahua Moitra, and a Spuria Striate for a Sudhanshu Trivedi, these conversations must enter our homes, between our friends and families. We have to shun strawmans, name calling, labelling things as “right and wrong” and simply embrace the other side as well as ours. We must learn the other side. We must come to a synthesis amongst ourselves.
As for the political stalemate that both parties find themselves in, as for the calls that “Modi is fascist” or “Nehru was fascist” or “Savarkar’s apology letter” or “Gandhi’s 5 star jail”, as for these things, they must be put to rest because all of them are true and more. The real problems are systematic. Whether it is Umar Khalid or Nupur Sharma, both need justice.
Whether inside or outside the parliament, the discourse should rapidly switch to new solutions, how can the system be improved, etc.
Reservation should be removed, Hindi should be removed as the official language and replaced with Sanskrit, a Presidential system should be introduced instead of the FPTP system, Pension Scheme must be removed to expand the forces of bureaucrats and diplomats, party members should be allowed to disagree with their party on decisions, the history syllabus and its representation, state reorganization to prevent delimitation, one state one vote; the potential to bring these changes to the system itself is endless. It will help break the political stalemate the country is in today, and ensure that neither side can coup the system and enforce their will on the people.
This political stalemate is the perfect chance for parliamentarians to reimagine the system without losing the core ideals of both the country and the civilization. We must start these conversations in our own home, and then expect the parliamentarians to do the same in parliament and turn them into action. Everything must be questioned, and every answer should help us progress towards a better system.
As we see the conservative Congress-secular leftist wing suddenly become emboldened to make such radical decisions against Kangana and Annamalai, they should be warned that their emboldening will only drive the moderates away. The country has still chosen Modi, and the national narrative is still in favor of his Prime Ministership. People and politicians come and go, but their ideals live forever. Hence, only through conversation, based on facts, without rhetoric of praise or insult, is how the country will move forward. Hindutva and Nehru must reconcile with each other.
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