By Justice Markandey Katju

New Delhi, May 19, 2020: I read the article ‘Why the Modi government gets away with lies, and how the opposition could change that’ by columnist Shivam Vij in The Print.

With due respect to Shivam Vij, the article is superficial, and only reveals the fatuity and intellectual vacuity of the so-called Indian intelligentsia. In times of elections in India, it is completely irrelevant whether the leader of a party or a candidate is a liar.

Shivam Vij refers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 20 lakh crore (200 billion) rupee economic package to say it is far from a stimulus and is instead a “grand loan mela.” He calls the Modi government’s statement of paying 85 percent of the migrants’ train fare during the lockdown a lie. He was also critical of Modi’s statements on the National Register of Citizens (NRC), demonetization, and electoral bonds.

Shivam Vij refers to the term ‘doublethink’, coined by author George Orwell in his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and asks: “Why do people accept all this so willingly? Why do people, who are lied to every day, go and vote for the BJP?”

Shivam answers by referring to a paper that Christopher Paul and Miriam Mathews wrote for the RAND Corporation, dealing with the four ‘fire-hosing of falsehood’ propaganda techniques of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vij then suggests five ways to India’s opposition to counter Modi’s lies.
Lacking depth

Shivam Vij’s thinking is totally superficial, inane, and lacking in depth. Here’s why the BJP keeps winning elections despite Modi’s lies.

As I have explained in several articles — ‘India is still India – A Response to Aatish Taseer’ published in indicanews; ‘Is India truly a secular country?’ published in Punjab Today; ‘Dark days are ahead for India’ published in Daily Times — although the Constitution declares India to be a secular country, the ground reality is very different.

India is in fact a highly communal country. That is because secularism is a feature of industrial society, but India is still semi-feudal. In India, most Hindus are communal, as are most Muslims. This I can say from my personal knowledge. When I am sitting with my relatives and Hindu friends, and they are sure no Muslim is present, they often spout venom against Muslims. When a Muslim is lynched, most Hindus are indifferent, some are even happy.

Of late, polarization in Indian society has increased to such an extent that Hindu children in many schools tell their Muslim classmates that Muslims are terrorists and anti-nationals. They sometimes ask Muslim kids if their fathers manufacture bombs.

But it is not that India became communal only after the BJP came to power in 2014. India was a communal country even before that, but communalism was usually latent, erupting only occasionally. This was because the Congress and other secular parties depended on the Muslim vote bank and appeased the community in many ways. After 2014, communalism has become open, virulent and relentless, since the BJP does not depend on Muslim votes to win elections.

When it comes to voting, most (probably 90 percent) people in India vote on the basis of caste and religion. They do not see whether the candidate is good or bad, educated or uneducated, or whether s/he has any criminal antecedents (a large number of MPs and MLAs have criminal backgrounds).

And the voters certainly do not consider whether the candidate, or the leader of the party s/he belongs to, is a liar. All that India’s 90 percent voters see is which caste/religion the party represents.

BJP’s relationship with Hindus

Since about 80 percent of India’s population is Hindu, and the BJP presents itself as a party of Hindus, it started winning elections after successfully galvanizing and arousing Hindus’ religious sentiments based on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and Lal Krishna Advani’s Rath Yatra, and stoked up the communal fire.

From a party with only two seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984, it reached to 182 seats in 1999, and 303 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

As is evident from the 2019 election, the real issues facing India — such as poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, lack of healthcare and good education — were non-issues for the voters. All that mattered for 90 percent of them was religion and caste of the candidates.

Most politicians are liars, and not just Modi. They promise the moon at the time of elections. Indira Gandhi had said ‘Garibi hatao,’ and our gullible masses swallowed this slogan lock, stock and barrel. So why blame Modi alone?

Shivam Vij’s five ways of fighting the ‘fire-hosing of falsehood’ betrays a superficial understanding of a phenomenon. Most Hindus, who constitute 80 percent of India’s population, will keep voting for the BJP. Modi’s lies are irrelevant.

(The writer is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. Views are personal.)