An appeal to the angry BJP voters

Since 26th May 2014, the BJP has been at the center of Indian politics. It has been a bit over 8 years since that day. As a result, many BJP voters and workers are now reminding the BJP of its promises and questioning its ideological commitment.

 

 

 

Many BJP voters are experiencing anger, disappointment, and a sense of betrayal. And this article is not to say that such feelings are unreasonable. But it is to point out that perhaps there is a possible oversight towards what is known as ‘the Overton window.’

 

 

 

For almost all of these voters who are angry, they allege that the ruling party does not care about Hindus or does not make policies to protect and advocate their interests. But the Overton window is one of the better ways of evaluating these claims and allegations. Joseph Overton, an American policy analyst stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. This range which he refers to is known as the Overton window.

 

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The above image shows the general population’s or the voters’ response to a particular policy at a particular time. Let’s look at the issue of the article 370. 10-15 years ago, doing nothing about article 370 was a popular policy. Prosecuting the perpetrators of the 1990 Kashmiri Hindu genocide was sensible on the right, while on the left, denying the genocide was sensible. The abrogation of article 370 was acceptable on the right while giving more special rights to Kashmir was acceptable on te left. Annexing POK was radical on the right, while making it an autonomous state was radical on the left. Changing Kashmir’s demography back to its original status of a Hindu majority, was unacceptable while on the left giving Kashmir to Pakistan was unacceptable. Today that has changed entirely. What was sensible on the right (prosecution of 1990 Islamic murderers) is underway. What was acceptable (abrogation) already happened on August 5, 2019. Today, for a large section of society at least, what was radical (taking back POK) is sensible. And what used to be unacceptable (Changing Kashmir’s demography) is now acceptable.

 

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Similarly, we can see the narrative changing on CAA, NRC, and UCC. Today we talk about freeing Hindu temples which almost nobody talked about 10 years ago. We talk about Kashi and Mathura while Ram Mandir is already settled in the favor of Hindus. Today we discuss and sometimes even criticize the Modi govt on the economy. But we criticize it from the right, not from the left. On the economy, BJP gets heavily criticized for not privatizing PSUs including banks (PSBs) fast enough, It gets criticized for distributing free rations even after the pandemic is over, and it gets criticized for keeping BSNL alive. Again, 10 years ago, all this criticism used to be in the opposite direction. Why is BJP privatizing PSU? Today only Rahul Gandhi does that. Why isn't BJP giving free food to everyone? Today only Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal do that. Why is BJP allowing the private sector into the telecom industry? Again, today only Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal do that.

 

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The one thing on which the government has not acted as much as it should have is the physical security of its karyakartas and supporters, especially when it comes to radical Islam. Recent events in Karnataka have fuelled that anger even more and the government seriously needs to focus on ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ threats, because the Islamists have shown time and again that they have the audacity to actually act on those medieval threats. We criticize the BJP over the Nupur Sharma controversy, but the fact is Nupur Sharma is not under arrest, the state has provided her security, and on social media, people are discussing the same issue (Prophet Mohammad) in a language that no Islamist would like. People are actually discussing Quran and its verses which is again something that no Islamist or pseudo-liberal would like. All these are ideological victories for the Right which now we take for granted. All of which were not even possible just a decade ago. The narrative has shifted radically in the last 8 years.

 

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This is the change that we have witnessed in the last 8 years. The Hindu, Nationalist narrative is making huge gains. Yes, there are things yet to be done, but the BJP voters cannot afford to lose diamonds in search of gold.