Let’s do a quick multiple-choice questionnaire. Please tick one from the choices given below each question:
1. At the moment the Indian economy is:
a) Robust, soaring, doing fantastically well. The government’s fiscal management has been superb; far better than anything seen previously. Led by our great industrial houses, people across the social spectrum are prospering as never before.
b) On an even keel, with some ups and downs, with some serious challenges ahead. About the same as what it was under the last few months of Manmohan Singh’s premiership.
c) In an abysmal state, perilously on the brink of serious collapse. The government’s mismanagement of everything from the Reserve Bank to demonetisation has seriously damaged many different sectors of the economy; the government’s fudging of figures has eroded the trust of foreign investors, and if the conflicts between the U.S., China and Iran escalate, we are going be part of the collateral damage.
2. What happened in Pulwama and Balakot was:
a) The terrorists got through and killed our jawans despite our eagle-like vigilance; we retaliated without the cowardly constraints shown by the previous government; our Air Force struck with skill and precision and destroyed a terrorist camp inside Pakistani territory, killing hundreds of jihadis; when the Pak Air Force came at us the next day, our most obsolete fighters brought down one or maybe even two of their most advanced fighters; our pilot was also shot down but Pakistan and Imran, quivering in fear at what our lion-like Prime Minister would do, released our pilot forthwith. Uske ghar pe jaa ke mara.
b) Unclear, I don’t really know, but we did kind of okay.
c) There was a bad intelligence botch-up, where, despite warnings, we exposed our troops to a deadly suicide-bombing attack and lost 46 men; the botch-up continued when we launched an ill-advised retaliatory air attack; we shot down one of our own helicopters; our planes bombed a patch of forest next to a camp that had been abandoned ages ago. The next day, when Pakistani planes attacked, our most obsolete fighters were caught on the back foot and one of them was shot down while the Pakistanis sustained no losses; the reason we are still flying MiG-21s goes back to the mistakes of defence ministers in both the Congress and BJP regimes; the triumphant Pakistanis saw a huge advantage in returning our pilot quickly and pulled off a diplomatic coup by doing so; our military and especially our Air Force came out looking ill-equipped and incompetent from the whole affair. Ghar pe koi nahi tha lekin dushman ke kaafi ped jalaa diye.
3. These election results are actually a mandate for:
a) Turning India into a Hindu Rashtra; installing a statue of Nathuram Godse in front of Parliament House; uprooting all false, pseudo-secular, Nehruvian, Ambedkarite, deracinated, libtard ideas from our Constitution and national institutions; removing Tagore and all other weak, namby-pamby poets and thinkers from our textbooks; putting the minorities in their place, which is under the feet of us Hindus.
b) Continuing the work in progress of the NDA government, but with a few course corrections, which will naturally come from the essential fair and humane nature and innate decency of the Prime Minister and his close associates.
c) Huge money power that allows one party to carry out precision mapping of each constituency and then use that to lay down a huge and constant bombardment of an ill-informed, uneducated population with fake news and propaganda via the electronic and print media and social media.
Unflagging resistance
If you’ve ticked ‘A’ in any of the questions above you can look forward to a happy few days in the near future. Congratulations, enjoy. However, if you’ve ticked ‘C’ or even tended towards ticking ‘C’ then your work is cut out for you. As citizens of India we have to resist this takeover of our country and polity. Whatever our religious denomination, we have to remember the essence of the Bhagavad Gita — do your duty without worrying about result or reward — and keep struggling and resisting no matter what the vote share, no matter what the parliamentary majority of a party and political ideology that’s on the wrong side of history and humanity.
Let’s be under no delusions, if 2014-19 was terrible, the next few years are going to be worse; it will get far grimmer before it gets any better. Let’s also not imagine that keeping quiet will lead to a peaceful life; let’s not make the mistake of the frog swimming in water that is slowly heating up to boiling point. If today the open attack is on minorities and Dalits and other marginalised communities — while we stand by and watch — tomorrow it will be our turn. We must strive towards a nation and society where the only thing marginalised is hate and prejudice.
No matter what strategy or tactics we employ, there has to be one basic principle underlying our resistance and that is non-violence. It is far easier to dismiss and hate than it is to find sahanubhuti and connect, and it is our challenge not to play out this struggle according to the opponent’s rules. However, humour, pastiche, photoshopped cartoons, sarcasm, ribaldry and scatology are all okay. Let’s stay constantly vigilant and never far from laughter and love.
The author is a writer, filmmaker and columnist.