Religious centres are seeing a grand revival under Modi’s BJP. A long-standing grouse like namaz at private places has started finding expression in Gurugram. Campaigns on cow protection and ghar wapsi have gathered momentum. Much of it has gone unreported, but 2021 was a year of silent consolidation and confidence for the foot soldiers of Hindutva. The Opposition free-for-all begins in 2022. It may see its votes preyed upon by TMC and AAP even in Gujarat and Himachal elections later this year. If the Congress loses Punjab despite its advantage, fails to upstage a shaky BJP in Uttarakhand, and sees another washout in Uttar Pradesh despite Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s personal involvement, it will be in a bad space. It has covered Goa with billboards and money. Mamata Banerjee’s TMC has already elbowed out both the CPM and the Congress in Tripura and is bracing for a direct showdown with the ruling BJP. It is their democratic right.Ī victory in Punjab (a few early opinion polls have given it an edge) and a decent showing in Goa may actually make this the year of Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. But are the new parties to blame for aspiring to fill the yawning vacuum left by the Congress? No. The aggressive encroachment of its space by parties like TMC, AAP, and AIMIM plays right into the BJP’s objectives of splitting the vote against it into smaller fragments. If there is a matrix at work on the dramatic realignment in the Opposition space, as conspiracy theorists and rational analysts alike have started talking about, it should worry the Congress the most. On the other hand, wanton street violence under the cover of victim-playing, heartstring-tugging protests have forced the government to rescind the much-needed and reformative new farm laws and delayed implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act.Įxpect more such high-visibility street protests and anarchy in 2022, most likely over disinvestment and other crucial reforms. The judicial route challenge to it has also repeatedly failed, as orders from Rafale to Ram Mandir have shown us. Electorally and in Parliament, the Modi government is almost unassailable. The Opposition and powerful international networks have realised that the only way to stop or stall this government is through street anarchy. And mind you, the now delayed 2021 Census may not entirely rely on manual door-to-door data collection. The government needs extremely accurate data for delimitation, building a credible National Population Register, and perhaps eventually an India-wide National Register of Citizens. The Bill in Parliament to link Aadhaar with voting is one of the many intricate stitches being made to make the electoral system leakage-proof, protected against fake voters and illegal immigrants. It also knows that chaos and opacity, especially when it comes to demographics, will always be skewed against it. It works to a well-laid-out plan and does not like surprises. It has meticulously collected data on returning migrants during Covid, for instance. It fine-tuned Aadhaar to help block leakages and reach beneficiaries of its schemes in a targeted manner. The Narendra Modi government greatly values big data. It too is quite relevant in Indian politics today. This quote can be attributed to ancient Greek statesman Pericles with a fair bit of certainty. “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.” One may not be able to put a finger on the whats and hows, but anybody following India’s politics lately is likely to have wondered if unfolding events are part of a larger, invisible matrix controlled by visible and invisible powers.Ĭonsidering nothing is random, one can make a few guesses about 2022 based on glimpses of what we have already seen. The words of Roosevelt, or whoever put them in his mouth, has aged well in India. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” It goes: “In politics, nothing happens by accident. A quote often attributed to former US president Franklin D Roosevelt but never authentically sourced will perhaps capture what is to come in Indian politics.
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