India: The Saffron Surge?

A Frontier Editorial | Vol. 49, No.37, Mar 19 – 25, 2017

By demolishing the predictions of all pre-poll surveys, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls by a thumping majority. It tried hard to win the polls and had a robust organisation. Their efforts have paid ample dividends.

The BJP supporters and ideologues have taken this opportunity to go on claiming that the poll results are a reflection of the endorsement of Modi’s ‘demonetaisation’ and ‘pro-poor’ measures. They called it a referendum on demonetisation which it was not. Those who witnessed the harassments of common money-using people in the wake of demonetisation can easily understand the falsity of this claim. And there is no evidence that Narendra Modi, after becoming the Prime Minister, has formulated a single policy that is directly in favour of the poor. His promise of creating 20 million jobs a year has also turned out to be a damp squib. His professed sympathy for Muslim women is dictated more by hatred of the Muslim community by the concern for his ‘Muslim sisters’. Remember the Israt Jahan case. Also remember that no Muslim woman was fielded as a BJP candidate. By not including any Muslim, man or woman, in its list of candidates, the BJP made it clear that it was not eager to reach out to the Muslim community. The tears about Muslim women were meant only to intensify communal polarisation.

India: Behind The Saffron Surge – Some Black & White facts

by Sandeep Banerjee

Frontier | 26 March, 2017

Sir,
Apropos to your Editorial “The Saffron Surge?” in Frontier, Vol. 49, No. 37, Mar 19 – 25, 2017, I would like to place some supplementary points for perusal of the Editors and readers of this esteemed magazine.

14.05 crores of voters, 22.3 crores population… well, one may assume number of available workforce of able bodied population (excluding those above 60 or 65 years) above the age of 18 years or more, to be 12-13 crores. Those are all 2017 figures for Uttar Pradesh. And now the number of unemployed is more than 1 crore! Every 1 out of every 8 would like to work and earn but there is no job opening.  It was reported in more than one national daily in perhaps January 2017. While doing caste, religious and other arithmetic, many poll wizards did not give the unemployment issue due importance. A connected issue, somehow connected ‘from above’ by the media, is – development is the mantra of the age and it will eradicate unemployment, poverty etc problems. So, unemployment created a ‘demand’ of development. Added up, these two, i.e. unemployment and development took up the ‘main attention’ of more than a third of the population; 36% voted one of these two (in CSDS survey [1]) as no: 1 problem. And who doesn’t know that Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra stand for good employment prospect to migrant population of India, including those from Uttar Pradesh; and hence, for the migrant and would-be migrant populace, BJP with its development slogan and actualities of some states, albeit some ‘scars and bloodstains’, may mean ‘business’… this idea might as well worked for BJP in UP.