BJP’s explosive growth in the North East is blowing apart the “idea of India”

Simply put, the “idea of India” is that there is no such thing as India. The Republic of India is supposed to be a forced union of disparate identities put together by the oppressive hand of the super-villains called “Brahmin-Bania males” of the Hindi speaking areas of the North. This provided the intellectual justification for the dominant Left to support just about any anti-India force, from terrorists in Kashmir, to insurgents in the North East to Naxals in the tribal heartland. Because India itself should not exist, any act of violence against the Indian state came to be celebrated. This lies at the core of liberals scoffing at any sign of patriotism. India itself is a joke to them. They laugh at the idea that anyone could give a damn about India.

Not surprisingly, former colonial powers have also endorsed this view, resulting in fat payoffs to eager Gunga Dins at every level of India’s academia, intelligentsia, media and judiciary (don’t forget the judiciary!).

The exact same goes for “Hindus”. The idea that there is a unifying thread running through all our linguistic and social identities is anathema to the leftist narrative. Again, “Hindu” being seen as a forced label created by villainous upper castes, the left has an intellectual justification for trying to choke every public observance of Hindu culture : Durga Puja, Diwali, Holi, Dahi Handi, Rakshabandhan, Jallikattu, etc.

This also explains the extreme hatred of India’s liberals towards the BJP. The BJP is supposed to be a party of upper caste, Hindi speaking vegetarian Hindu males who are out to enforce their way of life on all the subject peoples of the non-nation forcibly labelled as “India”. 

Here is a short list of all the kinds of people who are required to hate Hindus and India:

A) Dalits

B) Tribals

C) Non-vegetarians

D) Non-Hindi speakers

E) Kashmiris

F) People of the North East

G) Followers of secular religions like Islam and Christianity

H) Women

That, my friends is a first list of all the division lines that the left expects to draw across India. So when any of these demographics starts showing a clear shift towards the BJP, the leftist narrative goes for a toss.

The Left suffered a tremendous psychological blow when the BJP began dominating the two main tribal states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The fierce liberal campaign against B S Yeddyurappa was not just because he belonged to BJP. A huge role was played by the fact that a BJP government in Karnataka really hurts the liberal narrative. And liberal ranks went into extreme panic when Dalits started voting in large numbers for Narendra Modi in 2014.

The latest in the list of liberal troubles is the explosive growth of BJP in the North East. First of all, in Bengal itself…all Brahmins relish their meat. Bengal can hardly be accused of being a Hindi speaking area with a huge vegetarian presence…lol…to say nothing of the North Eastern states beyond Bengal. But BJP has taken Assam…and now the bypoll results are in… all showing massive further vote shifts towards BJP in Assam, Arunachal and even Tripura. In Tripura, the BJP has established itself as undisputed main opposition…easily kicking out the Congress. Tremors are also being felt in North Bengal, where BJP is firmly in No.2 position, banishing CPI(M) and Congress to the margins.

Liberals are at a loss to explain this. They are losing all the cards in their hand. The common citizen in the North East breaks every single stereotype that liberals have circulated about the average BJP voter…the so called “Bhakt”. 

It’s almost like people of India don’t think that India is a prison house of nationalities. It’s almost like people of India are able to see…just like they always did… that there is a common unifying thread running through our diversity. It’s almost like people of India don’t want to tear the Republic apart.

 

You have to see it from the point of view of a liberal. India is supposed to be a “prison house of nationalities” and yet it doesn’t seem to be breaking apart. How does the liberal explain this? He/she cannot concede the existence of our common sense of nationality. For the liberal, the Dynasty now becomes the only acceptable explanation. All Indians are united by a common loyalty to the Gandhi family monarchs. With Modi having removed the monarchs from power, the liberal is sure that all these separate nationalities within India will revolt.

But what happens when these so called nationalities do not revolt? What happens happens when the “Hindu baniya party” is welcomed into the North East? What happens when tribals and Dalits welcome the so called “Hindu baniyas”? Worse… the man leading the imposition of the Hindu Brahmin way of life is not even a Brahmin himself and Hindi is not even his first language. What happens now? Total ideological chaos follows. The nation is a very dark place for a liberal today. He/she calls it “intolerance”.

PS: I am amused by some Congress cheerleaders celebrating a reduction in the BJP’s margin of victory in the Shahdol Lok Sabha bypoll this week, compared to the margin in the 2014 Lok Sabha. First of all, let me tell you that cheerleaders like this are the worst enemy of Congress (not that I really mind). When you aim so low that you end up celebrating a loss by as many as 60,000 votes, you are setting yourself up for failure. Now, for the record, let me tell you about Shahdol. It is definitely a safe seat for BJP, but not as one-sided as Congress cheerleaders would like to believe. Here is the history of the seat

2009 winner : Congress (margin = 13000 votes)

2004 winner : BJP (margin = 29000 votes)

1999 winner : BJP (margin = 19000 votes)

1998 winner: BJP (margin = 39000 votes)

1996 winner : BJP (margin = 53000 votes)

In particular, look at the 2004 margin of just 30,000 which came only 5 months after BJP had swept to power with 3/4 majority in Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh. The victory margin for BJP on Tuesday was 60,000 votes, which is totally in line with the history of this seat. It is in fact the largest margin of victory in Shahdol in the last 2 decades, with the exception of 2014.