Broken polities.

Byline: A.G. Noorani

AT a meeting of the BJP's Parliamentary Party on Dec 11, 2019, Prime Minister NareAnAAdra Modi accused opposition leaders in the Rajya Sabha of 'speaking Pakistan's language' on the bill to amend the CitizenAship Amendment Act. Two days earlier, the Lok Sabha had passed the CAA; the Rajya Sabha followed suit that day. Just hours later, his confidante and hatchet man, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, made a similar accusation about the Congress leaders.

A government is perfectly entitled to accuse the opposition of partisanship, indifference to the public interest or sheer wrong-handedness; in short, of error. But when it accuses the opposition of treachery or of obeisance to a foreign power, it challenges its legitimacy, its very right to exist. But this has been the burden of the song sung by Modi and Co ever since they came to office in 2014. Power did not mellow them. After re-election in May 2019, the cry of treason became shriller still.

Modi explained that his government had been fulfilling the dreams of the BJP's founding fathers and that the legislative measures it had taken, including scrapping Article 370 and passing the CAA, would be 'written in golden letters'. 'The last five-and-a-half year period has created history... This period... will be written in golden letters in history. It is a remarkable achievement and you all are stakeholders in it.'

The RSS is frantically at work on a heinous project.

Two months later, the dreams were shattered by the massive protests against the CAA all over the country. By common consent, the gruesome riots in Delhi were triggered off by the BJP's sustained hate campaign; especially during the recent Delhi election in which it suffered a shattering defeat.

It would be sheer folly to ignore all this as an expression of political fervour. The BJP is the political arm of the RSS, which seeks to establish a de facto Hindu state. The constitution need not be amended. AdminisAtrative actions will suffice. The opposition is fragmented; the bulk of the electronic media is supinely supportive; and the supreme court shows no sign of judicial assertion even when sorely needed, eg the crackdown in Kashmir.

With regard to the illegal imprisonment of political leaders Farooq and Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba Mufti, all three served as chief minister. All were unionists; none had any time for separatists. All were opposed to the Hurriyat, which reciprocated the feelings. If all this is a bid...