Jharkhand result: A clear verdict on CCA-NRC

“Ghuspathiyon ko zaroor nikalenge, ghuspathiyon ko nikalna chahiye ke nahin? nikalna chahiye, zor se kahiye nikalna chahiye ki nahin, nikalna chahiye,” was the BJP president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s loud resonating campaign war cry in the Jharkhand Assembly elections which his party lost very badly.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his trusted second-in-command Amit Shah pointedly sought votes in the name of the much touted Citizens’ Amendment Act (CAA) and, as Shah repeatedly reiterated, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a surreptitious proposal to disenfranchise a large section of the Muslim population.

The CAA was passed in Parliament during the campaign for the Jharkhand Assembly elections, obviously keeping an eye on these polls and logically hoping to reap a huge bonanza from this.

Therefore, this election was in fact a referendum sought by the ruling BJP from the people of Jharkhand on CAA and NRC and to that extent, it won’t be inappropriate to conclude that the people of Jharkhand decisively voted against CAA and NRC. And why not?

The mood of the youth of the entire country is evidently very clearly against the most blatant act of Modi/Shah to turn India into a majoritarian state. Imagine for a moment if the BJP had been voted in or even succeeded in forming a government like in Haryana and Karnataka, what would have been the reaction of the BJP? No guess work needed.

They would have gone to town describing this as a referendum on their divisive policies, and rightly so because that’s all Modi and Shah have talked about in their campaign.

But perhaps, his intelligence had already sounded Modi on the outcome of Jharkhand polls and, therefore, Modi’s Ramlila Maidan public address to the people was a study in contrast to Amit Shah’s assertions on NRC day in and day out.

The Prime Minister, as is his wont, blamed the Opposition and his critics for talking of detention centres, even as his recently sworn-in government in Karnataka was shown readying one so soon after coming to power.

Today, they are blaming Raghubar Das’ misgovernance for their rout. And poor Das, sensing the mood of the high command in Delhi, immediately offered his head to the guillotine. But was Das alone to blame for the public lynchings of Tabrez Ansari and that of Alimuddin Ansari?

Did the Prime Minister and his Home Minister, till then just BJP president, ever utter a word of caution and warning to the Jharkhand administration, the way they keep doing to the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government over every small incident of student agitation?

No. Because they were complicit in the act of communal polarisation through lynchings by saffron mobs. On the contrary, because Das was dutifully and faithfully performing as ordained by the party high command, it went out of its way to appease Das by denying the ticket to a hard core fellow saffronite Saryu Rai (Roy) and a veteran Sangh/BJP activist. In fact the Prime Minister praised his governance and administration in his public meetings.

Having said that and witnessing the Prime Minister’s mellowing down in his Ramleela Maidan Sunday speech, it would still be too early to interpret this as a sign of any reversal of their CAA-NRC act.

Instead UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is showing how to crush any dissent and that is how they would want it to be. But that does not mean the fight has to end. Public pressure has to increase further to force this government to retrace its steps.