Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Varanasi blitzkrieg climaxes with the launch of the Kashi Vishwanath corridor with its strong Hindu, Hindutva or Hinduism thrust. The Rs 339 crore project is completed in less than three years.
The reverberation of “Har Har Mahadev”, chants for Shiva, a festive joyous mood and a veiled feeling of re-establishing the supremacy of the Hindu ethos changes a lot.
The Vishwanath corridor certainly opens up the challenges. How it shapes up in Uttar Pradesh will decide the course of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which possibly would have new delimitation to elect 888 Lok Sabha MPs against the present 543. Rajya Sabha will seat 384 against 245 now. Politics in UP is becoming increasingly complex and may finally lead to complicating Indian politics.
The Opposition is in a bind. The compulsion of the Opposition is that it does not want to go against the majority euphoria that has given two terms to Narendra Modi and also put UP in BJP’s kitty.
Now Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav is taking credit of sanctioning the corridor that today eloquently reminds one of Maratha queen Ahilyabai Holkar and the rise of the BJP.
A vexed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has also fallen for the bait and says that now a Hindu government has to unseat the proponents of Hindutva. That is a problem. Careful weaving of religious ethos into politics is setting the election mood. The problems of price rise, kisan, joblessness, difficult business scenario pale into nothing says a UP minister during Varanasi celebrations.
Yes, Narendra Modi has made a difference. Except for once on 3 December 2018 in an election rally, he has never talked of his idea of Hindutva. Responding to Rahul Gandhi, he said, “Oh brother …Hindutva…is a rich heritage. Even the sages never claimed to have full knowledge of Hindu and Hindutva. I am a very small man and I do not claim to have such vast knowledge.”
It is different from what L.K. Advani had said in his party presidential address in 2004: “Hindutva is a sentiment, it is neither an electoral slogan nor should it be confused with religion.” In his view, Hindutva is the core of our nationhood. But Advani was confined by the Supreme Court narrative that it was a way of life. Narendra Modi has made it a wave and connected it with the majority.
The Opposition has lost its secularism plank and now finds it difficult to reject Hinduism in any form, as Varanasi and Lord Vishwanath are its unwritten core. It sways the majority mindset.
Varanasi is very critically located too. It influences directly UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Being a cultural epicentre it touches other regions up to far off Rameswaram in the south. Anything new at the Lord’s abode touches hearts everywhere. The expansion of the temple complex to over 5.3 lakh square feet area, a spruced up city, an easy to access temple, the glory of the new structure and the beautiful Ganga ghats touch everyone.
The temple administration says that one lakh persons can congregate there at any given time. Acquisition of houses and buildings was done to make space for this corridor. To implement this corridor built in a total of 25 thousand square meters, 296 buildings in different localities were bought, out of which 227 were private properties and 31 were buildings belonging to sevaits. Apart from this, five properties of the municipal corporation including 13 temples and 21 assets of various trusts were acquired.
Carefully it has sidelined the issue of the Gyanvapi mosque though it is not outside the larger agenda. The Sangh Parivar wants it solved through a proposal coming from the minority community. The RSS- set up Muslim Rashtryia Manch is trying to carve out a niche among minorities and calling upon Muslims to act against terrorism.
The two-day stay of the Prime Minister and the beginning of a month long celebration at Varanasi are aimed at setting the UP election mood about two months from now. It has set a new political commonness in Hindutva. The opposition Congress, various regional parties, Samajwadi, Aam Admi Party, are now playing on the turf of the BJP. Even the CPI-M is not ignoring the presence of strong Hindu sentiments. It is more pervasive than the SC concept of it being a way of life.
It is a strategic victory of the BJP, carefully carved out by the RSS. The government acquisition of Kashi Vishwanath temple happened decades ago during Congress rule. The subsequent BSP and SP governments became unpopular as they drew the revenue from Kashi Vishwanath to the government account. But for the temple and the corridor, the BJP certainly won.
With the evening Ganga arati with Chief Ministers and Seputy CMs of various BJP-ruled states and a scheduled meet to address a conclave of 12 BJP CMs and nine deputy CMs, the party is all set to sweep the mood, perhaps beyond the 2022 UP polls.
The Opposition has been sharpening its weapons post the withdrawal of the three farm bills. But the Varanasi corridor may make their move to capture power arduous. It might give a push to bring the disunited opposition on one platform with Congress as the leader, Abhishek Manu Singhvi said on Monday. That might make a difference in vote pooling, the Opposition may be hoping as it had once worked against the Congress.
There is one difference. The vigorous campaign mode that the BJP has adopted so far does not look fragile, when Congress is fighting a demoralized battle. The BJP is upbeat and hopes to keep the moves under its control, UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya says. The BJP is not oblivious of the opposition unity move and its campaign managers say that they would undo each of those moves. The Prime Minister’s speech is full of the thrust of supposed BJP preparedness.
But that does not mean that the Opposition is not making efforts to unseat the BJP. Whether they would succeed or not would decide the course not only for UP but Lok Sabha 2024, when 350 seats more have to be contested.
An interesting political phase begins.
Shivaji Sarkar is a senior journalist and political analyst.
The two-day stay of the Prime Minister and the beginning of a month-long celebration in Varanasi are aimed at setting the UP election mood about two months from now. It has set a new political commonness in Hindutva. The opposition Congress, various regional parties, Samajwadi, Aam Admi Party, are now playing on the turf of the BJP. Even the CPI-M is not ignoring the presence of strong Hindu sentiments. It is more pervasive than the SC concept of it being a way of life.