For the people’s sake, it needs to unequivocally abandon a politics that deepens divides, instead of mimicking it and contributing to its ill effects. Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was a politically imaginative project.
The flip flop in Shimla on the issue of eateries and food stalls displaying owners’ names shows an attempt at quick damage control by the high command of the Congress. At the same time, it also makes public the dissonance within, which must surely be embarrassing for the party and its government. On Thursday, when the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government moved to distance itself from a statement made by its own PWD and Urban Development minister Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday, it was already too late to dispel the impression that, on a divisive issue, the Congress, or a section of it, wanted to take the BJP’s cue. Minister Singh had said that a decision had been taken that every business establishment selling food must display the ID card of the owner in Himachal Pradesh — his statement came on the heels of the Yogi Adityanath government’s announcement making such a display mandatory in Uttar Pradesh. Though the UP government sought to package its directive as a broader concern for food safety and as an intervention to guard against food contamination and adulteration, it raised apprehensions that its underlying motive, and almost certainly its effect, would be to encourage discrimination and segregation on religious lines in the state.
In the backdrop of the BJP government’s decision in UP, and of the Congress minister’s announcement in Himachal, were incidents that had stoked minority anxieties and insecurities recently. In UP, a police order in July, subsequently stayed by the Supreme Court, asking eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of their owners, ostensibly to promote transparency and informed choice of Kanwariyas regarding the food they eat, was seen to be targeting Muslim-owned businesses. And Minister Singh’s statement in Himachal came only days after the eruption of communal tensions earlier this month in the so-far tranquil hill state. Protests and threats of economic boycotts by Hindu groups after a local squabble over an allegedly unauthorised portion of a mosque in Sanjauli district had billowed and spread. In this context, the questions raised by the Congress bid to take a leaf from the BJP’s playbook, linger on.
They point to a long-playing Congress dilemma. It has often seemed that, for all its loud accusations of playing divisive politics against the BJP, the Congress has not hesitated to pander to majoritarian sentiment in the pursuit of electoral gain. The party has also seemed internally divided on the larger issue – in times of BJP dominance, should it play me-too and borrow the BJP’s idiom, or challenge it? Now, in the wake of the general election result, when it seems to be more sure-footed and confident than before, the Himachal drama is a reminder of a persisting irresolution. For its own sake, the Congress needs to work towards clarity. For the people’s sake, it needs to unequivocally abandon a politics that deepens divides, instead of mimicking it and contributing to its ill effects. Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was a politically imaginative project. But for its message of inclusiveness to travel beyond an Insta reel, Gandhi needs to translate it for his colleagues like Vikramaditya Singh who, clearly, haven’t understood it.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 28-09-2024 at 01:13 IST
