[dropcap]B[/dropcap]JP governments in states and Centre is now busy in renaming cities, towns, railway stations etc. Gurgaon is renamed as Gurugram, supposed to be dedicated to Dronacharya, a cruel Acharya who insisted that Ekalavya must cut his thumb and offer as guru dakshina, thus exposing his pro-Khshatriya anti-tribal mentality. Anyway, that is another story. Mughal Sarai Railway Station has been renamed Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction. Allahabad is being renamed Prayag Raj. Faizabad district is renamed Ayodhya. Faizabad and Ayodhya are two separate towns, within 10 kms distance. Yogi Adityanath announced that an airport will be constructed at Ayodhya in the name of Lord Rama and a hospital will be built in the name of King Dasharatha. Many more names are now in discussion. Why all this new drama, why RSS and BJP are in hurry? Why BJP is trying to take India back to thousands of years, to the imagined glory of fictional Ramraj?
They claim that name change is not new. Yes, big cities like Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were changed as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai respectively. There were no protests rather people of these cities welcomed the change as they were popular names earlier also. But the changes BJP brought are being done with a vendetta to rename Muslim names of towns, cities, railway stations etc. They are trying to create an impression that Muslim names are symbols of Islamic rule and slavery of Hindus and changes reflect the imagined Hindu victory gained today. They are injecting inferiority complex among Hindus and trying to make them accept the changes in the names. They are “manufacturing the consent” of the people by captive media —both print and electronic. They have renamed Aurangazeb Road etc in New Delhi. There are proposals to rename Delhi as Indraprastha or Hastinapur. Ultimately, they may try to rename our country too.
On the other hand, after four and half years of BJP led NDA rule under Narendra Modi, they are in a hurry to build Ram temple on the ruins of Babari Masjid in Ayodhya. Why they kept silent for such long time and why hurry now? RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, BJP president Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and India’s biggest political litigant Subramanya Swamy, all are busy in issuing statements on the urgency of constructing Ram temple. They want an ordinance to build Ram temple as Supreme Court is not in a hurry on Ayodhya case.
There is a hidden agenda behind the reassertion of communal issues since the development slogan failed to take off. 2019 elections are only months away. RSS and BJP are afraid of the defeat in 2019 elections to Parliament. The results of the recent by-elections in different states including Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh which is vacated by Yogi Adityanath are making them to spend sleepless nights. They lost 12 by-elections and most of them are sitting seats. It is clear that Modi magic will not work.
The miserable failure of the Modi government to fulfil its promises of 10 crore jobs, bringing back the black money from foreign banks equivalent to 15 lakhs to each family and “Achhe Din” for people are all gone flop. People are realizing that these are empty promises. Modi demagogy will not bring the result now.
Prices of petrol, diesel are increasing day after day. Prices of food grains, essential commodities, drugs, education and medical expenses have increased intolerably. The value of rupee has fallen to its bottom. The gap between rich and poor is widening. Working class is up in arms against the anti-labour policies. Peasants are restless and fighting for their demands. Teachers are angry and fighting in the streets.
Demonetisation did not bring back black money, did not stop terrorism but black money has become white money. More than 120 people died in queues near banks, over 35 lakh people lost jobs, having bad effect on small and petty businessmen, and unorganised sector employment.
GST slabs are done unscientifically and implemented in a hurry causing big inconvenience to businessmen and people. GST is changed at least a dozen times till now. Prices are going up due to GST.
Government is trying to destroy established institutes in the country which may cause serious damage to the nation. Medical Council of India which was an autonomous body with democratic elections was abolished and a medical commission is being replaced with nominated body, and private medical managements are given freedom to sell seats upto 50 per cent or so. That will destroy medical education. This is huge commercialization of professional education. Doctors in the whole country went on strike against this undemocratic move.
Institutions like ONGC and LIC are forced to invest huge amount of money in loss making private financial institutes like Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS).
The blatant interference of prime minister’s office in the midnight coup against CBI throwing out the director Alok Verma to save special director Asthana, who is a nominee of Amit Shah has boomeranged. The government is trying to control the Reserve Bank of India, cutting its powers. Reserve Bank is fighting against the move. This is causing concern in the country.
Public sector banks are getting targetted by the government. Amalgamations and mergers were fought by bank employees. More than three lakh crore rupees in public sector banks are written off as bad loans. The cheats like Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya safely ran out of country enjoying a luxurious life in Europe. Prime minister Modi could not do anything.
Rafale deal has been exposed and Narendra Modi cannot escape the responsibility of abnormal high price paid for Rafale, and throwing out prestigious public sector unit HAL and nominating Anil Ambani as Indian partner of Rafale war planes. Corruption of BJP is exposed. The whole nation is discussing it. Crony capitalism is encouraged.
It is in this background that the BJP has changed its tactics for 2019 elections. Communalism will be unleashed before elections. Ram temple will be central point. Name change is to divert the attention of the people from the grand failures of Modi government. People should be vigilant and fight back against these dangerous and dirty games of the BJP to save the nation. (IPA)
[Editor’s note: The writer is General Secretary, CPI.]
