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Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
I came across a research paper authored by Neil Stewart published in Science & Society/Volume 15, No. 1, Winter, 1951/, Divide and Rule: British policy in India (https://www.jstor.org/stable/40400043). The article conclusively suggested that the 'Divide and Rule' policy was started in India by the British company that ruled India -- The East India Company -- after the successful suppression of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the First War of Indian Independence.
Neil Stewart writes:
'The Indian Mutiny of 1857 resulted in the transformation of British policy in India. It meant the end of annexationist policy, and the support of the Indian princes as the bulwark of British interests against the tide of nationalism. Towards the people and the army, it meant an emphasis on differences of caste and creed, in order to prevent, as Sir John Strachey once wrote, "The growth of any dangerous identity of feeling from community of race, religion, caste or local feeling". It was realised that "the existence side by side of the hostile creeds is one of the strongest points in our political position in India".'
After the First War of Indian Independence was won by the British forces, there were several strategy options available to the rulers. One was to increase the number of European troops from 40,000 that existed before the First War of Indian Independence to 80,000. However, it was found that one European soldier was eight times more expensive to maintain than his Indian counterpart.
Since increasing the white troops was not economically feasible, it became necessary to ensure that even as the empire employed natives in the Indian armed forces, they kept these men within the narrow confines of their caste and religion.
The solution that was finally arrived at by the British rulers was to abandon the practice of 'general mixture' of Indian troops wherein, for example, the Bengal Regiment was a mixture of Muslims, Brahmins and Rajputs of Awadh (north eastern parts of present-day Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar.
The indiscriminate mixing among ranks of different religions led to bonhomie among the troops and a general sense of collective resentment against the British officers and soldiers. It was felt that the close physical contact between Muslims and Hindus led to unity among them with a shared sense of animosity against the British soldiers who never mixed with the native troops and earned much superior remuneration and were offered much better living conditions.
Thus started the policy of 'Divide and Rule' in India. This general practice in the armed forces had a spillover effect in politics too.
The Indian Council Act of 1909 was the first step towards the Divide and Rule policy of the British Raj. Under the Act the central legislative council and the councils at provincial levels were extended to include Indians to become part of the viceroy's executive council.
However, more importantly and more dangerously for the country's unity, the Act introduced the the idea of a distinct electorate for Muslims. In a sense this Act 'legalised communalism' as it ensured that the Muslim members were to be elected only by Muslim voters.
In Independent India, the reservation for elected representatives in a few constituencies is limited to the contest being reserved for the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates, but the right to vote is available for all eligible voters, without any distinction of caste or tribe.
Just as Lord Minto, the 17th viceroy and governor general of India, is known as the father of communal electorateW in India, because he introduced separate electorates for Muslims in 1909, another politician of contemporary India, Rahul Gandhi, is trying to divide Indian politics into several factions.
I give a few instances of the chasms that Rahul Gandhi, the newly appointed Leader of the Opposition, has tried to create in our society.
Let me give specific examples to give credence to my assertions.
Dividing Indians between Hindus and others: In the first week of September 2023, Udhayanidhi Stalin, minister for youth development, sports and two other ministries in Tamil Nadu, equated Sanatan Dharma with 'mosquitoes, Dengue, Malaria, fever and Corona'.
Stalin Jr further said, 'Few things cannot be opposed, that should be abolished only. We can't oppose dengue, mosquitoes, malaria or corona. We have to eradicate this. That's how we have to eradicate Sanatana Dharma.'
Stalin Jr is not only a minister in the Tamil Nadu government, he is the son and heir apparent of the top-most DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin.
The powerful Udhayanidhi made these utterances at the 'Sanatana Abolition Conference'. So, Stalin Jr was not making an off-the-cuff remark. He knew the purpose of the conference and his utterances were directly and explicitly hurtful to Hindus, at least of the northern part of India who are staunch followers of Sanatan Dharma.
Rahul Gandhi's Congress and Stalin's DMK are allies and the Congress depends on the powerful Stalin factor to win a few seats in Tamil Nadu. In fact in the 2024 general elections, the DMK ensured that the INDIA bloc won 100% of the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and one in neighbouring Puducherry. It helped the Congress send 9 MPs to the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu.
Rahul Gandhi, who is a janeudhari (sacred thread wearing) Hindu (as claimed by R S Surjewala) didn't come out with any condemnation of this Hindu/Sanatan bashing by Udhayanidhi Stalin.
The question that arises is, why did Rahul Gandhi not condemn the attack on Sanatan Dharma by Stalin Jr? Did he not fear its negative effect in the Hindi heartland states? The answer lies in the fact that Rahul's party accurately calculated that the electorate of the rest of India would hardly be impacted by what was spoken in Tamil in the southern state.
In his first major speech in the Lok Sabha on July 1, 2024, Rahul Gandhi articulated that those who claim to be Hindus are violent and hence not Hindus at all. In fact, Home Minister Amit A Shah responded in the Lok Sabha that the 'Leader of the Opposition said those who call themselves Hindu talk of violence. He doesn't know crores proudly call themselves Hindu... connecting violence with any religion is wrong.'
I personally believe that the BJP may be trying to get disproportionate mileage from a passage of speech made by Rahul Gandhi and blowing it out of context. However, the major beneficiary of all this noise will be Rahul Gandhi as it will help the Muslim community develop further affinity for his party, something that Rahul's ally, the Samajwadi Party, must be wary of.
Rahul has perfected the art of winning Muslim votes, even as he is seldom seen taking up their perceived causes with any vigour.
Dividing Hindus between backwards and forward castes: Rahul Gandhi has done well by neutralising the impact of consolidation of Hindu votes towards the BJP by raising the issue of proportionate representation of all castes in the power structures that exist in India. He has been very belligerent about it, even to the extent of asking journalists their caste identities.
This is for the first time that any political leader has raised the issue of break-up of caste among the top echelons of newspapers and top companies. His advocacy of caste-based surveys and his promise to ensure that all castes will get proportionate representation in the government (if the INDIA bloc is voted to power) seems to have struck a favourable chord with the Other Backward Classes or the OBCs, a caste bloc that was solidly behind the BJP in the 2019 elections.
In building up the case for caste-based appointments, Rahul Gandhi has not made even one passing reference to the merit-based advancement of individuals. Everything for him is about 'Jiski jitni sankhya bhari, uski utni bhagidari'. This translates to a war cry of 'The numerical strength of a sect in the overall population will solely determine that sect's participation in power.'
However, Gandhi never made these assertions in southern India, because that would have meant supporting a greater number of Parliament seats for north Indian states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with their ever-burgeoning populations.
The Congress's narrative of the BJP wanting to get to the 400 seat mark in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections because it wanted to amend the Constitution also helped in his attempt to divide the Hindus between forward and backward castes.
The Congress campaign that the BJP would remove reservations that benefitted the backward castes was something for which the beneficiaries of reservations fell for, hook, line and sinker.
Dividing Hindus between Ram devotees and the rest: This is the theme on which Rahul Gandhi and his think-tank may be working on a slowburner. Its impact may be felt in the months to come.
Rahul Gandhi and his partymen were never much interested in the building of the Ram temple. As the BJP's poor showing in the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh has indicated, the Hindus in general love their Lord Ram but are not too enamoured of voting for a party that seeks to draw any political mileage from the temple construction.
The BJP and its allies won only 36 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in UP in 2024, much lower than its tally of 71 in 2019. Rahul Gandhi has not visited the Ayodhya temple even once and this helped him establish his secular credentials among Muslims.
The crafty politician that Rahul has become, he displayed two pictures in the Lok Sabha on July 1. He displayed a picture of Lord Shiva and not of Lord Ram and I believe it was a deliberate and well thought move.
Lord Shiva and Lord Ram are revered by all Hindus but Shiva even more so among the scheduled castes and OBCs. It was Rahul's clever signalling to make a nuanced attempt of equating himself as the one who is with the Shaivites, the followers of Shiva. It was also his attempt to woo to the temple town of Kashi, the holy abode of Lord Shiva, that has sent Narendra Modi for the third time to the Lok Sabha but with a reduced margin.
The other picture that he displayed was of Guru Nanak Devji. It was like a thanksgiving to the Sikhs who voted massively in favour of the Congress in Punjab.
In his shrewd style, Rahul Gandhi has done well by shifting the focus away from Lord Ram to the other popular deity of the Hindu faith. By displaying the picture of Lord Shiva, he has sent a message to all those who accuse him of being pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu. He wants to be seen as a Hindu who may not be a Ram bhakt, but is a Shiv bhakt. Here he has taken a leaf out of Mamata Banerjee who likes to portray herself as a Durga devotee.
In not holding the placard of Lord Ram, he has reassured his Muslim supporters that he is a different kind of Hindu. Holding Ram's picture would not have gone down well with his Muslim followership, that seems to be on the rise in all states except West Bengal.
Dividing Indians between North and South Indians: In 2019, Rahul Gandhi was elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad in Kerala. He had lost the Lok Sabha election in Amethi in 2019 to Smriti Irani and would frequently visit his constituency in Kerala. In February 2021, Rahul created the North-South divide by a comparison of the quality of electorate in India's geographically opposite parts.
In his 15 years of being an MP from the North, Rahul said he was used to a different kind of politics and that he found the politics in South very refreshing as people in South were interested in 'issues, and not just superficially but going into detail of all issues'.
Rahul's comments were seen as some kind of indictment to the people of North India as if they were lacking in intellectual capacity as compared to their southern counterparts.
This led to a sharp attack from the BJP and Modi criticised the remarks in Puducherry, attacking the Congress party for its 'divide, lie and rule' statements'.
Dividing Indians between the poor and non-poor: Rahul Gandhi's theory that called for conducting wealth surveys to assess the gap between the haves and have-nots didn't incite fear among the rich and the middle class but it did create excitement among the have-nots.
His promise of sending Rs 8,500 into the bank accounts of poor women every month in a jiffy ('khata-khat') sent joyous ripples among the poor. There have been videos in social media of women flocking to Congress offices with the so-called certificates issued by party leaders that promised immediate release of money into their bank accounts. While the veracity of these videos is not established, there is a consensus that the poor, especially in Uttar Pradesh, voted in favour of INDIA bloc, partly impressed by the promise of 'khata-khat' money.
The elections in some parts of the Hindi heartland, like Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, saw significant purchase for this poor versus non-poor divide. The Modi government's achievements of building houses and toilets for the poor and bringing tap water to most households didn't evoke sufficient traction to neutralise the 'khata-khat' narrative.
Rahul Gandhi has tried recently to create a rich versus poor divide among students in relation to the paper leak controversy surrounding NEET. He claimed, without substantive argument, that NEET favoured rich candidates and was skewed against candidates who came from underprivileged backgrounds. How paper leakage is linked to the class status of students is something that beats common sense!
Dividing businessmen between Ambani-Adani and the rest: Rahul Gandhi has a special liking for the Ambani and Adani empires. He has made references to them in almost every public address.
I quote from NDTV on did Rahul Gandhi said about Anil Ambani in 2019:
Anil Ambani, who was chosen by Rafale manufacturer Dassault for an offset contract in the Rafale deal, has never made a plane in his life, Rahul Gandhi said, and added 'I guarantee Anil Ambani won't even be able to make a paper plane'.
It is a well-known fact that many Indian business houses have in the past formed JVs with foreign companies in business sectors where the Indian partners had no expertise. But it didn't stand in their way of achieving success in their later years.
Similarly, many Indian businessmen have made it very big during the non-NDA regimes. It is also a matter of fact that many businesses thrive due to government patronage and support. However, Rahul Gandhi believes that the Ambanis and Adanis are the only ones that deserve his condemnation.
His tirade has remained confined to the Ambani and Adani groups. Is it because their promoters have Gujarati roots? Why has Gandhi not spoken against a digital learning platform that is mired in financial controversies? Is it because its founder is from Kerala?
The Congress party received Rs 1,351 crores (Rs 13.51 billion) by way of electoral bonds and a significant contribution has come from a business house that is beset with environmental controversies. Why is Rahul Gandhi silent about the general lack of ethics and corporate governance in the Indian corporate sector? Why is he only against two Gujarati-owned business houses?
Rahul Gandhi has found a new lease of life in 2024 by winning 99 seats in the Lok Sabha. The Pappu (the naïve one) tag is now confined to the dustbin of history and he looks set to lead the Opposition charge on the government.
The question that I am asking is this: Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections?
I realise that it is the job of the Opposition to put the government on the mat but must not the Leader of the Opposition remain bipartisan on at least some issues?
We are a nation of 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan' ethos. The kisans/farmers need farm reforms and our fauj needs several structural changes. The Indian Army must become leaner, and 53% ov its annual budget shouldn't get exhausted in salaries and pensions alone. We need to have a national consensus on dealing with aggressive and difficult neighbours like China and Pakistan.
The farmers must be weaned away from disproportionate reliance of wheat and rice cultivation. We need to have a consensus on farming strategies, land reforms, more and more economic reforms. We need more debates on privatisation of PSUs and on PLI schemes for self-reliant Bharat in electronic manufacturing.
Similarly, we need to have some kind of parliamentary decorum where bills are not passed without debates. We need very few walkouts by the Opposition and even fewer expulsion of MPs by the Speaker/Chairman.
The elections are over and the mandate is for Narendra D Modi to lead India in the best traditions of participative democracy. He has come back to power with a shrunken mandate. At the same time the people of India have not asked Rahul Gandhi to be at the helm yet. They may be testing his calibre as Leader of the Opposition first.
The onus is also on the LoP to put an end to his divisive campaigns and show his positive side to the Indian public.
We need both the government and the Opposition to rise and shine.
Dr Sudhir Bisht, author and columnist, writes from New Delhi.