https://substack.com/@aliahd66/note/p-152834647

Buckle up for the ride to Viksit Bharat

A seasoned commentator has it that a future scenario could be “a 100-year long simmering civil war.” Another senior journalist admits to being troubled by the “very dangerous situation” created by the manner “(M)inorities are ghettoized and Hindus (are) seemingly almost triumphal at times.” He laments that people laugh off cautions such as, “Democracy khatre mein hai.”

Given this apprehension of what the future holds, there is a need to articulate possible scenarios ahead. In my last substack post, I reasoned: “(A)rticulating that scenario might goad the silent majority to heed Niemöller better.”

Currently, in the battle of narratives, the dominant scenario is that of Viksit Bharat. Scenarios conjured by the unpersuaded are not only marginalized, but are deliberately throttled. This suggests that the Viksit Bharat scenario’s dominance is not quite organic, but potentially delusionary.

Clearly, contending scenarios need foregrounding. Doing so here, I first engage with the Viksit Bharat scenario, and then present the alternative(s).

The Viksit Bharat scenario

Bharat goes on to rival superpower China. Bharat’s benefactor along the route, United States, fell by the way side after the American Civil War II in wake of Trump II. Bharat has managed to tame its largest minority, its Muslims. In a sometimes-enforced gharwapsi, those with ‘Babar’s DNA’ were offered a choice: fall in line or be administered Israel’s Gaza potion. At the centenary of Independence the official declaration of Viksit Bharat, included in its observance the release of Umar Khalid et al and the surviving members of the Bhima Koregaon case from anda cells.

Akhand Bharat now notionally straddles the subcontinent. Client states, Pakistan and Bangladesh, imploded in their bid to keep up with Bharat. The economic model of national champions succeeding, governance has been outsourced to corporates. India’s military, though decolonized and politicised, has the Indian Police Service occupy some posts at the army’s apex, since it is ‘not an era of war.’ The defence budget was given to start-ups and big corporates that make up the new military-industrial complex under Atmanirbharta. The demographic balance in Kashmir stands redressed by settling non-Kashmiris in the satellite towns along the new ring road. Adivasis have been suitably Sanskritised for sacrificing their forests and way of life for national (read A-A) economic benefit. The non-savarnas forewent the reservation policy, buying into ‘ek hai toh safe hai’. Ashoka’s Simha was replaced with a saffron-coloured bull-dozer. Tourist guides at Ajmer Sharif and Taj Mahal go on about temples beneath. The wrongs of history were finally corrected with Bollywood blockbusters covering up the tracks and finger prints of Hindutva lugging Bharat to Viksit status.

The originator of the vision had a set of sants anoint himself President-for-Life. During yoga sessions atop Raisina Hill, he takes in the Vedic-reminiscent view of a redone Central Vista. Ongoing is construction at Godhra of the statue of the Hindu Hriday Samrat, to be taller than the Statue of Unity. His successor, Amit Shah, on demitting office, joined the rejuvenated marg darshak mandal. To prevent succession wars, Messrs Bisht and Sarma alternate between heading the government and heading the home ministry. Jaishankar stepped down, his work done with Bharat taking its rightful place in the ‘P’ club of the Security Council, after has-been United Kingdom was given the sack. India’s 50-million strong diaspora – resulting from plentiful illegal outmigration – helped with arguing Hindi’s case for inclusion as official language of the United Nations. Rattled by Rahul Gandhi’s pet project upsetting caste and power equations, judicial acrobatics in the ‘dual nationality case’ led to the judgment from a master-of-roster favoured regime-friendly judge of disqualification from politics for life. Parties peddling soft Hindutva merged into the Parivar, allowing for a Congress-mukt Bharat.

Viksit Bharat under threat

The alternative(s) comprise the many ways, individually and in combination, by which Bharat can potentially be derailed. Alternative scenarios are disruptive of the Viksit Bharat journey. Such threats, either stand-alone and in combination, emanate from multiple fronts - political, social and geopolitical.

The Viksit Bharat scenario formulation is cognizant of the threats and Bharat’s security minders seek already to preempt and overcome these. This explains Bharat’s grand strategy, unwritten for most part but for the new bestsellers: Jaishankar’s speech compilations.

Hindutva’s endeavor will be to mitigate risk by appropriate projection of the advanced guard, covering of the flanks and bringing up of the rear. Old tricks in the Hindutva book – deception, distancing, denial, tactical reverse gear, sucking-up, use of proxies, propaganda, lies and black operations - will be much in evidence.

Clearly, it’s not going to be a pleasant, linear quarter century.

A popular alternative scenario has prompted the mentioned early warnings from the progressive elite. It has Muslims - subject for a decade to micro-terror as lynchings and statist intimidation in the form of demolitions, torture, over-zealous application of illegitimate laws - fighting with their backs to the wall.

The assumption has it that precedence of some Muslims participating in terror acts will prompt imitation. The assumption fails to explain how the terror incidents miraculously stopped with the advent of the Modi era - whereas logically the number ought to have heightened. In effect, the latter part of the Vajpayee – a ‘moderate’ – belief is untrue: “Some Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.”

If this scenario holds water, then the evidence should have been visible in renewed domestic terrorism. That it is not so is not quite testimony of Doval’s effectiveness, but that Muslim terror was a canard to begin with, bringing to fore alternative scenarios.

Alternative scenarios

Scenarios anchored on political factors include the collapse of the Hindutva enterprise with the inevitable, if not imminent, departure of its protagonist - claims to divine origin notwithstanding. All national institutions hollowed out, including the judiciary, makes for a brittle State. History of Hindutva’s favourite period, the medieval era, provides a clue. Though at its territorial zenith, the departure of authoritarian Aurangzeb led to the Mughals biting the dust. The mother ship, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), may be unable to run India through proxies less charismatic than Modi. The denouement will be more a fusion than fission.

Secularism and socialism already junked – never mind judicial rear-guard action – federalism is another political frontier to be tackled. The strategy to escape this is to have the RSS make inroads where it is less prevalent, as in South India and Bengal. The book-long denigration of the Lion of Mysore, Tipu, and exaggerating Bangladesh’s troubles to polarize Bengalis on this side, are respective strands of strategy. The idea is that Hindutva’s advance will pave the way for the ruling party, thereby easing Muslim-bashing, spreading Hindi, enabling inroads of A-A etc, but more importantly, the South’s acceptance of a 800-seater Lok Sabha. As Chandrachud put it, a saffron flag on every house keeps India together.

The social threat is not only from the national fabric tearing apart along religious lines; that’s only the visible part. Other fissures are papered over for now with slogans as ‘batenge toh kitenge.’ That socio-economic threats are elided is clear from Rahul Gandhi’s idea of a social audit through a caste census given short shrift. Debate shied away in parliament on growing inequality and India’s would-be Chaebol being caught out, a social tsunami - an Indian Arab Spring – is a constant threat. That a Spring is swirling close at hand is possible to infer from events in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The potential is clear from abject revelations on the reservation status in the elite institutions and withholding of the jobs data from central government positions. Further divestment and corporatization will ensure the breathing space reservations have reservations provided thus far is given up. Absent an Equal Opportunities policy, the failure on demographic dividend will only be compounded if Bhagwat’s advice - ‘more Hindus, the merrier’ - is taken. The regime’s appropriation of Ambedkar can only serve to defer.

The regime has sensibly stepped most gingerly in the strategic sphere. It is aware of the outcome of Nehru punching above his weight. Its avid deployment of spin doctors and a lap-dog media imply there is much to hide – such as effects of surgical strikes and Chinese incursions. It avoided a similar moment by lying over the latter and has not revealed what’s being given up for accommodating Chinese interests. This tender-footing around the most significant strategic challenge it has faced shows it prioritises Hindutva consolidation within over national self-regard, reputational risk and, indeed, the age-old national sovereignty marker: territorial integrity. This is made further clear from the regime’s most serious take on the Urban Naxal threat. It knows where the cookie will start its crumble.

Viksit Bharat as threat

This look at possible futures shows that both the success of Viksit Bharat and its running aground are fraught. Taken together – its success and the backlash this prompts – will make for instability. Indian history is replete with upheavals – Nadir Shah’s invasion, the Mutiny, Partition. The quakes we’ve had since – 1984, 1992, 2002 – shall prove mere forerunners. The scenario of rebellion-suppression increases with the State’s policy propensity for instigating the former and its capacity for the latter. At present, we are witness to both, a tendency towards policy over-reach incentivized by militarization. With Modi seemingly losing charisma, Hindutva might be hastened by panic. People may yet prefer the stick to the carrot of deferred gratification of a Viksit Bharat.

The ride will not be a quarter century long.