Mr. Modi’s Biggest Strength lies in India’s Incompetent Opposition

YASIR ALVI

The question, “If not Modi, then who?” has been a prevalent query in political debates, both online as well as offline. The existence of this question shows that the country’s population has continued to deny the presence of a suitable alternative to Mr. Modi and the BJP. When this is combined with the popular hatred that has come to emerge against dynastic politics, the Nehru-Gandhi family dominated, Indian National Congress does not seem like quite the fan-favorite. After their loss in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, the party was expected to clean up its act and present itself as a strong opposition, which it could never do. Similar is the case of various other political parties sitting on the opposition benches, with the Opposition’s inability to defend its own policies at times, Mr. Modi’s opposition seems to have crashed and burned.

The Indian political system is characterized by the existence of a weak, disunited and more importantly an incompetent opposition, which adds further to the ever growing might of Mr. Modi. But from this it does not follow that there are no alternatives to Mr. Modi and the BJP. It is just that the opposition has failed to put out, to the Indian masses, in an effective manner, any alternatives to BJP’s politics of hate. The opposition parties, especially the main one, the Indian National Congress have failed to fight the ruling party by attacking them on the issues which affect the Indian masses. Although they tried hard but could never succeed because they didn’t choose the basic issues which affect the day to day life of an Indian citizen, rather they chose issues which were confusing for the general public and were difficult to relate to.The worst among them all was the Rafale Aircraft issue, of which many had no idea at all, instead of using the basic issues of misgovernance under the NDA rule like the economic slowdown, attack on democratic institutions, freedom of expression or continued interference with the independence of the Judiciary and mass media .

Often it has been noted that most of the opposition parties have staged a walkout from the parliament in protest over some legislative action or the other, however this is even worse. They prefer walking out and choosing not to cast their votes against tyrannical legislations, on the pretext that their numbers are insignificant owing to NDAs brute majority, but little do they realize that the parliament records will always show to the coming generations that barely did anyone vote against unconstitutional laws.The best example was the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill,2019 , which criminalized a civil issue, against which in the Lok Sabha they staged a walkout, the bill was passed and it reached the Rajya Sabha where it got stuck once because the NDA didn’t have the numbers but when it was again introduced in the Rajya Sabha for passing, the opposition parties were so ignorant that most never attended the house that day, the NDA summoned its members and the bill was passed. Thus, because of this ignorance, an unconstitutional bill became a law demonstrating how dumb our country’s opposition is.

While the BJP played it well by dealing with subjects like the NRC, Indian Citizenship, Reservation to the Economically Weaker Sections, building strong foreign relations, the Swachch Bharat Programme, the illicit and tyrannical practice of Triple Talaq and many more. These issues, along with aggressive Hindu Nationalism were enough for the NDA to mobilize the Indian masses to rally behind Mr. Modi than the confusing Rafale Aircraft deal or any such scandals which the opposition failed to prove.

All this and the differences among opposition parties because of conflicting ideologies have failed to provide a tough competition or alternative to the NDA. However, when the Indian National Congress was in power most of the smaller and rather insignificant parties, who were ideologically similar, entered into alliances with the Congress making the UPA and leaving the NDA as the only dominant opposition alliance in the parliament, therefore the opposition remained strong owing to its unity and with the great inclusive leadership of madam Sushma Swaraj the opposition always kept the government under check thus preventing any excesses. But today, owing to disunity there is no sound opposition in the parliament to keep in check the excesses being done by the government. But this does not mean that there are no good leaders in the opposition, experienced leaders like Dr. Shashi Tharoor or Br.Asaduddin Owaisi or new MP’s like Mrs. Mahua Moitra have provided strong dissent against the ruling party on various issues.

All the failures of the opposition parties and a sold out fourth pillar of Democracy, which should be free to question and criticize the government actions, of course subject to public order, morality and decency. From muckraking early in the century to today’s investigative reporting, an important function of the mass media is to bring to the attention of the people evidence of abuse of power and ineffective policies and programs. But the Indian media on the contrary is functioning to popularize Mr. Modi’s regime and to portray only one side of every story. The media never questions the government actions, always prevents to speak against the government and favors their excesses.

Therefore, I very strongly advocate the case, that today if Mr. Modi and the BJP led NDA is strong to the extent of being indestructible is because of the weaknesses of the opposition, the disunity of the opposition and their failure to realize the significance of a strong opposition to protect a democracy from turning into authoritarian rule.

Editor’s Note: A simple article telling us so much about India’s ruling party, opposition, the weaknesses and strengths of both.

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