By
Sagarneel Sinha
One
of the important lessons that political parties should learn from the assembly
election results of the last leg of 2018 is that the voters are more concerned
about issues which affect their daily lives. The three states namely
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan that went to polls are mostly
agrarian states and voters voted for the opposition Congress to replace
incumbent BJP.
The
BJP and RSS tried their best to raise the Hindutva agenda to make it a
significant issue for the polls. RSS along with its associated saffron outfits
like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) went further attempting to fish in the
troubled waters over the issue of Supreme Court deferring consideration of the
Ayodhya dispute case till January, 2019.
The
BJP also deployed Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the hardliner
Hindutva campaigner, to campaign in the elections, aiming to polarise the
Hindus. In fact, Yogi addressed the highest number of rallies than any other
BJP star campaigner, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In
Mizoram, where the Congress was the incumbent, the party played the Christian
card. Mizoram is a Christian state with 87% of the population practicing
Christianity and the Church playing a major role in the state. However, when
the results were out, Congress not only lost miserably to Mizo National Front
(MNF) but came third behind the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM). Not only this,
the incumbent chief minister Lal Thanhawla lost the two seats he contested.
But
the major disappointment is that some critical issues were overshadowed in the
election campaigning with polarising statements by political leaders dominating
the narrative. According to an upcoming report by Center for Monitoring Indian
Economy (CMIE), a think-tank tracking business and economic developments,
unemployment is steadily rising in India spiking to 7.1% which means that
around 3.1 crore Indians are jobless. Not only this, last year the Union
government informed the Supreme Court that more than 12,000 farmer suicides had
been reported since 2013. Just one month ago, lakhs of farmers marched to New
Delhi demanding an end to the agrarian crisis.
Apart
from all these significant issues, there is competition among the parties to
lure the majority Hindus, who account 79.8% of the Indian population,
particularly by BJP. However, from the verdict of the assembly elections, it is
apparent that voters voted for issues affecting their daily lives. Ram Temple
in Ayodhya is definitely an emotional issue for the majority Hindus but they
don’t want political parties and their governments to use it as an excuse for
not providing good governance.
It
doesn’t mean that Indian voters are not religious. According to a Gallup poll
in 2008, as much as 90% of Indians responded that religion was important in
their daily lives. However, what the parties don’t understand is that Indian
electorates, although religious, don’t want political parties as sole agents
for their religions.
It
is high time for BJP and RSS to learn lessons from the teachings of Swami
Vivekananda, the great Hindu monk credited for introducing Hinduism in the West
and pioneering nationalism in colonial India. BJP and RSS highly revere
Vivekananda; even Prime Minister Narendra Modi considers the Swamiji as his
idol. In one of his lectures, Swamiji quoted, “Did not our Gurudeva used to say
— An empty stomach is no good for religion?”. Political parties, especially the
ruling establishment, would do well to heed to the message of 2018 elections
and focus on critical issues like youth unemployment and farmers’ distress. (IPA Service)
The post Religion Does Not Appeal To The Hungry appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
