What is the reason behind opposing everything? Or is it Ram Mandir that is paining?

I saw a Facebook post a day before yesterday. It was about Agnipath Yojna, and the soul of that post was that the violent opposition to a policy decision by the government that can help the people can be possible in India only. I think that this one-line analysis is very much near to reality because at least I don’t see any other country where people become so violent to oppose a scheme that is beneficiary to them. The way some elements are opposing each and every people-friendly scheme by the Indian government, one would feel that the politics of opposition is at its peak in our country.

The Narendra Modi government took some bold and historical decisions in its second term, and the biggest of them all was to remove Article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir. Later came Triple Talaq, CAA, and NRC, the four Farm bills that were affecting our social structure, our national security matters and to help boost our economy. For a few political analysts in India, the opposition to removing Article 370 and Triple Talaq remained limited between the sacred walls of the Indian parliament was a big surprise.

The surprise was that how can the opposition to such big reforms remain within the parliament only? Or just within the limits of a few dharnas here and there? With this surprise, there was also a worry that the coming months or years won’t be that easy, and that worry became reality when the first time the bill for implementing CAA and NRC was introduced. The provisions of the CAA bill were clear that the minorities living in our neighboring countries, who are repeatedly persecuted can apply for Indian citizenship and later the same can be granted.

But, those who got hurt deeply by the passing of laws like Article 370 and Triple Talaq and couldn’t do much, they decided that they will do the politics of opposition and spread a false narrative that this law will force Muslims of India to leave the country. A person with a simple intellect can understand that this is not possible, this isn’t going to happen. No government can strip off any of its citizen’s citizenship just like that, yet certain aliments gathered big number of people at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh area for months and protested that government can’t ask Muslims to leave the country.

The second chance for those who wanted to play the politics of opposition came when the government declared that it is going to implement four farm bills. Again the intention of the government was clear and pure that the farmers of India should not suffer from the agents who take a big chunk of their income while selling their crops to the various APMCs across India.

With these laws, the government was trying to fulfill its electoral promise to double the income of farmers by the year 2022. But, the champions of politics of opposition mislead the farmers that these laws are against their interests. For the entire year, these people took the national capital under siege. During this one year, the anti-national elements attacked Lal Quila and also burned Delhi for two to three days.

Finally, to avoid anti-national elements getting stronger, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the withdrawal of all four farm bills on the day of Guru Nanak Jayanti. What is more noticeable here is that the opposition towards the farm bills was mainly from Punjab, so that concludes one fact that the rest of the states’ farmers had to pay the price for the problem of only one state’s farmers.

Now it is the turn of Agnipath Yojna, the champions of playing the politics of opposition made Bihar burn within just 12 hours of the announcement as if they know and have understood the scheme pretty well, that it is against the interests of the youths. In simple language Agnipath Yojna will create Agniveers after military training of four years and 25% of the trainees will be then commissioned to the Indian Army directly.

Those who are not going to get the chance to serve in the army will still be heaving good amount of salary, perks, and insurance during these four years and once their training is over they will get a certificate that will be worth a million when they start the next phase of their professional journey. If not more, then with this training the Agniveers will be more focused and will have greater self-discipline which will be more worth than any certificate and that will give them a job with bigger salary package.

But No! We will oppose everything that this government will announce. Within 12 hours of the announcement of Agnipath Yojna, the narrative was created that from now on no one will get a job in the Indian army apart from those who are part of Agnipath Yojna. The second narrative that was floated was that from now on the army will not give the pension. Again a person with simple intellect will not agree with it but surely he will laugh at this thing.

But the horror that has unfolded during the last four days shows that the coming days will certainly not give us any chance to laugh. Agnipath Yojna is not compulsory for each and every youth of India and its time limit is fixed from the beginning. There is no mention of the army is not going to enroll soldiers from normal recruitment procedure, still, the champions of politics of opposition have started burning Bihar already.

Why do these things happen again and again? Is it the government’s fault because it is not able to make the public understand what real intention behind every scheme or law it is launching or passing? Probably not, because such misunderstanding or lack of communication can happen once or twice but not four times, and the actual problem is something else. Maybe the problem is that the Ram Mandir issue that was lingering for not less than three centuries has been solved and now a magnificent Ram Mandir is taking shape at the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

If the Hindu of this country has woken up and he is happy and due to that he is not voting us then we will ensure that he doesn’t breathe easily. Such an intention or the conspiracy can be seen or felt in this politics of opposition. The people who swear by the democracy are enjoying the stone pelting, and burning of the business institutions, buses, and trains. These double standards are hard to understand.

India is a Hindu majority state and whatever schemes the government announces, it will obviously help the majority of the country, and if that happens then those who are involved in the appeasement politics will be at the loss, so by spreading violence and anarchy they can keep Hindus scared and keep them inside their homes. With this, their economic practice will get disturbed and at the end of the day, they will be forced to think that “compared to this the previous governments were much better” and then they will bring these anarchists back to power. This could be the thinking of certain people who are busy in the politics of opposition.

After 2002 when Gujarat remained peaceful for a longer period one argument was popular in Gujarat’s political circles that, “those who were involved in rioting in the state are now in power hence there is peace prevailing for so long”. Today I like to twist this argument a bit and say that “the riots are happening because those who are involved in rioting are out of the power.”

18^th June 2022, Saturday

Ahmedabad

SiddTalks

To read this piece in Gujarati click here.