The Mute Button Gone

 

It was February 2014. The sun had started to shine a bit more warmly across the fog. The atmospheric god had impregnated the late winter air with seeds of spring to smile in March. India was also waiting for a spring, a blossoming of hopes, rejuvenation of broken dreams, and avid aspirations for the ‘good days’ to come. There had been a thaw in the retired history professor’s frozen pension funds. After much hassles and bruises to his panicked self, he had the financial support meant for his old age. A new dream waited India in May after the whirlwind of multiple-phases of elections in April to May, when a billion people would go to vote, the mahakumbh of democracy!

For all that he had believed and consequently undergone, the professor had every reason to pitch for the BJP. With his knowledge and academic background, he was eligible to give what and whys of the more suitable political choice. The BJP candidate, been informed about ‘that’ episode, had canvassed his all out support. Nursing the injuries and consolidating his belief in his version of history, the old academician went overboard in his support to help India have a new dream in new hands, in Modi’s hands, who had single-handedly changed the fate of Gujarat.   

Why the BJP brand of politics is a safer bet for the Indian democracy at present? He used his ideas and opinions to woo the educated voters for the BJP. He had regained his confidence and no longer just wrote in the journals. He could thunder from the public platform. After all he was singing hymns to the rising sun only which would just provide him warmth after the frigid winters during the day. He spoke with authority, with conviction, as a politician:

Family politics is one of the biggest issues that plague the Indian democracy. The Congress led by Gandhi-Nehru clan and the smaller regional offshoots has checked the flow of democracy from reaching the grassroots level. That’s the reason Swaraj is still a distant, almost impossible, reality even after 66 years of independence. Even within the folds of democracy, only autocratic tricks can succeed in maintaining power concentrated in a particular family. In this regard Gandhi-Nehru type of manipulations have done the greatest harm to the spread of democracy and independence across the widespread strata in India. Consequently, things did not change much for the common man of India post-independence.

The BJP’s brand of politics is in sharp democratic contrast to the Congress in this regard. Atalji headed the NDA as the Prime Minister.  He could focus just on his democratic duties instead of wasting resources and institutional powers in consolidating family fiefdom to keep it floating across generations. The new BJP Prime Minister designate, Narender Modi, will be in a far better position to function as the topmost administrator of the country in comparison to let us say somebody from the Gandhi-Nehru clan. The latter will again have to go into undemocratic manipulations, directly and indirectly, to maintain their grip as the first political family in the country.

In the present conditions the BJP is the only option for the spread of democracy in India. Under Modi, the BJP will take the Indian democracy to the next stage when Swaraj will be a possibility under the care of the new rising son of mother India!