AndolanJeevi

Around 1997-98, I developed my political awakeness. And have seen two Brilliant PMs since then – Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh.

While one brought in a president whose popularity cut across the various divisions of India, the other ensured that the country grew at an unprecedented rate for 10 years. Both also had their own share of mistakes too. While one could not keep its allies together, the other had his team embroiled in the biggest scams of its times.

Then came in a leader promising clean governance and growth showcasing his development model he built in his state. Soon after he got into the second term, his attitude showed a drastic difference from his first term. While in the first term, the agenda was taking the development work forward, the second term seems to be more focused on festering an irreversible social divide in the society.

A Prime Minister of this country, gets on the stage and tells his audience that “It is easy to identify people inciting violence by their CLOTHES” pointing to a specific minority. (At 3min to 3:15min in the video here)

In countering Congress, he is making veiled attacks continuously on a minority and his own party men including veteran and intelligent leaders like Piyush Goel, Law minister, Shri ravi Shankar Prasad and even Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur are indulging in speeches which are violent. All this is happening with the Judiciary just watching it as a spectator and sending notices to people like Prashant Bhushan for a simple tweet questioning the conduct of the Court.

The divisive nature of the Prime Minister crossed all lines when talking in the Parliament a few days back, he coined a new name for all social activists – “Andolanjeevi”. He ensured that anyone and everyone who dares to speak against him or his government is identified and demeaned by using this word. This is being done when his government is facing the biggest protest in his regime from the Farmers.

He clearly forgot that his own political journey started as an activist, Mahatma Gandhi, Khudi Ram Bose, Deen dayal Upadhyay, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose and even Jai Prakash Narain laid the foundation of this country through continuous activism. It’s their ideology that we teach our kids to speak up when you see a wrong happening around.

Even our scriptures talk about Dharma which purely means that “A mighty must protect the weak”. Activism is in the veins of this country and by demeaning activists and activism, the Prime Minister has lost not only faith but respect across a large section of the society.

My father always taught me that Britishers had devised a successful policy to rule this country. But I had never seen it in action. This is the first time I am, in my adulthood witnessing a National Leader using “Divide and Rule” as an official policy.