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Congress may be left with ashes from intolerance wildfire

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Abhijit Majumder
Abhijit MajumderNov 07, 2015 | 22:16

Congress may be left with ashes from intolerance wildfire

First, many of those who wallowed in decades of Congress patronage started returning their awards in protest against what they called rising intolerance in Narendra Modi-ruled India.

The narrative was strong. The campaign was intense, and travelled in media with the speed and ferocity of a bushfire. Professionals such as Raghuram Rajan and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who had no obvious political leanings, sounded the needed for caution and restraint.

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And last week, convinced that the issue has damaged its rival enough and it was time to claim credit rather than keep fanning it from the deep background, the Congress stepped out in the full glory of autumn sunshine on Raisina Hill. The party’s “High Command”, Sonia Gandhi, flanked by loyalists like Ahmed Patel and Salman Khurshid, marched to Rashtrapati Bhavan to submit an indignant memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee.

So, did the Congress gain from the blazing episode? One would think not. Here’s why.

1.     Anti-Hindu image: The Congress’ growing image of being anti-Hindu and pro-minorities — rightly or wrongly — just got reinforced. This is what AK Antony’s internal report and some Congress leaders had warned against after the Lok Sabha election rout, apparently prompting vice president Rahul Gandhi to make his highly-publicised trip to the holy Kedarnath.

But social media is again awash with rightwing claims that the Congress reserves all its sympathies when tragedy strikes minorities, whereas rape of a Hindu girl by alleged Bangladeshi immigrants in Bengal or killing of a minor in Rampur communal violence doesn’t make Rahul rush to the spot.

It also gives the right wing a chance to build a narrative that the Congress favours cow slaughter. That is unfortunate for a party, which has struck down cow slaughter in most states it ruled.

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The Congress can no longer afford polarisation. Any Hindu vote consolidation helps the BJP. There are too many in the race for minority votes, and entry of a firebrand and charismatic Muslim leader like Asaduddin Owaisi leaves very little of that pie for the Congress. It has to shed the anti-Hindu tag, and recent signaling does the reverse.

2.     Friend of the media: There has been steadily rising anger among the Hindu middle and neo-middle classes against the media. Many channels, newspapers, owners, anchors and columnists have been regularly attacked for what many view as highly selective outrage and coverage, as well as for involvement in corruption cases.

By unerringly speaking in the same voice of those whom VK Singh infamously termed “presstitutes”, the Congress is rubbing much of that outrage on to itself.

The Congress spokespersons were known for avoiding the language of the extreme. Their opinions were largely considered and restrained, their approach disciplined. It started changing in UPA-2. Somewhere, the Congress spokespersons got sucked into the shrillness and hostility of the TV studios or openly wooing votebanks.

Instead of trying in vain to outdo Modi at aggression, the Congress has to rediscover its modest, balanced way of communicating.

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3.     Idea of Nation: Modi rode to power on a strong nation-first campaign. At that time, even intellectuals sympathetic towards the Congress had warned it of ceding the nationalistic space to the BJP.

The Congress, however, has again walked straight into a trap with the “intolerance rising in India” spiel, instead of keeping its attack narrowly targeted at the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. The BJP has cleverly turned it into an insult-to-the-nation issue, citing India’s redoubtable record of tolerance.

4. Ghosts from its past: By fanning and robustly backing the intolerance narrative, the Congress has unwittingly brought the spotlight on the many sordid episodes from its own past. Emergency, anti-Sikh massacre, Mumbai, Assam and Muzaffarnagar riots, killing of activist Safdar Hashmi, overturning the Shah Bano judgment, Islamists chopping off hands of a Kerala professor, stabbing of an anti-cow slaughter activist in Karnataka recently…the list is embarrassing long.

5. Bihar misfire: If Congress upped the attack keeping Bihar in mind, it has fired a blank. Few in rural Bihar have heard of a certain Nayantara Sahgal or Arundhati Roy, and have even less interest in what they have to say. In the tiny, mainly urban, pockets it may matter, this extremely high noise level may actually consolidate votes against the Congress’ own friends.

While the raging intolerance debate has showed us how influential an out-of-power Congress could be (read), it may have overplayed its hand.

Last updated: November 07, 2015 | 23:32
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