Temple Politics vs. Essential Priorities: Explore the contrast between the extensive publicity surrounding the construction of the Rama temple in Ayodhya and the pressing need for government focus on essential services such as health, education, sanitation, and employment.
Religious Prejudice vs. National Development: Examine the enduring strength of religious prejudice despite scientific evidence against it, and argue for a shift towards holistic development models inspired by successful nations like Finland, Australia, and New Zealand.
BJP's Strategic Voter Entrapment: Critically analyze the BJP's successful exploitation of religious sentiments, identity issues, and divisive tactics to secure votes, overshadowing its claims of elevating India to global prominence.
Media's Role in Perpetuating Inequality: Discuss the role of media in perpetuating inequality, as highlighted by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze in "Uncertain Glory," pointing out the media's failure to address the needs of the majority and its alignment with the interests of the middle and upper classes.
Misleading Economic Narratives: Challenge the BJP's narrative of India's economic success by exposing the disconnect between official statistics, such as per capita income, and the ground reality, shedding light on the inadequacies of the educational system and the unrealistic promise of becoming a developed country by 2047.
Every newspaper, every TV channel, all the social media channels have nowadays one thing in common: they all sing paeans of construction of Rama temple in Ayodhya and without fail they uni voce willingly or unwillingly or by force are crediting the construction of the temple to the unflagging unwavering commitment of the BJP.
This blitzcrieg of publicity will undoutedly bring the BJP to power a third time.
All the efforts of the opposition parties to match the publicity stunts of BJP and call its claims a bluff are coming a cropper.
Love of religion and infatuation of the people with Rama is the fuel that is firing this publicity stunt. There is a Rama temple in every village in the country. If these legion of temples could not improve the condition of the poor, how can a big temple in Ayodhya do that?
Nowadays there is an argument in favour of huge expenditure in development of such pilgrimage centres by justifying that such centres will lead to employment and tourism. But the prejudice of the people are so intense and are so intensified by such non secular spending that they, even those who cannot afford, will be lured to spend their hard earned money in visiting these temples which will fatten the priests and the local hospitality industry. Decentralized village based projects to produce organic vegetables, food and livestock will also create employment at the same time making the country healthier and cleaner.
The prejudice of religion is the strongest one and has survived despite scientific evidence against the dangers of such prejudice in causing divisiveness and hatred among the peoples of the world.
A government in power or one aspiring should actually entice the voters with their record of providing or promise of the essentials for the people like affordable health, free education, sanitation, environmental protection, nutrition, employment, political stability, religious harmony and reduction of social inequality and economic security against the viscisitudes of the nature. These are the conditions that characterise the successful nations like Finland, Australia, New Zealand et al.
But the BJP has successfully found alternatives to entrap the voters of the people of India who have for ages deprived themselves of food in the name of god through fasting. They preferred to suffer horrible poverty but never flinched from visiting the temples and spending their hard earned money in the name of gifts to the God for some good thing to happen which we can see never happened. This ignorance is being strengthened by the governments and encashed by the political parties ad infinitum ad nausium.
This country has witnessed extraordinary bloodshed in the name of religion between Hindus and Buddhists, Shavaites and vaishnavaits, between Christians and Hindus, between Muslim and Hindus, between Muslims and Christians, the identities carefully nurtured and ignited by the upper classes to keep their control over the masses.The upper class characteristic has changed but the system remains the same.
For the sake of votes, the BJP has used love among teens of the different religions, entry of women into Ayyappa temple, the cow protection, the insurgency in the North East through Citizenship Act, the suppression of genuine protest by the tribals in the name of development, the victimization of Kashmiri pundits without actually assuaging their misery, unproven corruption charges of the opposition members through ED, Income tax department, CBI and even Election Commission, sanathan Dharma, yoga, even Covid pandemic, the religious practices of other religions such as use of scarf by Muslim women, through attacks on madrasas, churches.
By exploiting the above, it has continuously won the second term and is on the verge of winning the third time. While the BJP uses the above unssential factors to win the votes, it always tomtoms that it has raised the glory of India to the level of becoming Jagadguru in economic, social and political fields which was exposed factually by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze in their book Uncertain Glory. In this book, the authors have pointed out that the governments in India work for middle and upper middle class people while grabbing power through the votes of the poor. They squarely put the blame on the media for supporting such governance being dependent on their financiers.
The authors wrote in the book that the media in the country have no time and space for the poor comprising 70 percent of the populace whose lives are very very marginally improved by the growth in GDP.
The per capita income of India at constant prices in the last decade has increased by 35% and now it is Rs 98374. Even this figure is unbelievable as any person who visits a village in India can vouch the fact that very few persons have such high per capita income. India's rank on the basis of per capita income is 141 out of 187 countries and is less than that of even our neighbours Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
For all the developed countries, it was education that was considered as the bedrock of development. The recent Annual Status of Education Report by Pradhan foundation exposed how insufficient and inefficient is our educational system. Despite such a dismal situation, the BJP promises to make India into a developed country by 2047 . Strangely even the educated media champions believe or pretend to believe it. The media itself became the victim of the publicity by the BJP.
Howsoever cliched, the axiom that it is unpardonable to teach divinity to empty stomachs needs reiteration.
Dr M H Prasad Rao
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