In defence of Sushma Swaraj

I read with great admiration, and gratefulness an article written by BJP General Secretary Ram Madhavji in a recent issue of the Indian Express. It was a powerful and profound reaction to the trolling of Minister for External Affairs Ms.Sushma Swaraj by people who profess themselves as Prime Minister Mody’s supporters,  part of the BJP’s “core” voters, etc. The trolling against Ministry of External Affairs and the Minister gave the impression, perhaps inadvertently, that since Tanvi Seth and Mohammad Anas Siddiqui were an “inter-faith" (read Hindu-Muslim) couple they had to be personae non grata under this government! That is sacrilegious!  The language of obscenity, hate and worse, violence that was employed in our social media, against Sushmaji, a rspectable individual with a long record of service as a political worker, parliamentarian, Chief Minister and Union Minister was crass and condemnable. Some of the comments on social media were cruel and sexist. One last point is that the spurt of spontaneous reactions against her were mostly from women who profess to be from Prime Minister Modi’s support group, and the simultaneous and sudden appearance of some supporters to her from the Opposition camps looked like a multi-pronged campaign to bring her down, eventually making fissures in the BJP camp drawing her to the likes of the disgruntled Sinhas and Shourie!

A pro-Modi news website published an article saying Sushmaji was “played by the Left”, and she probably fell for the support from unexpected quarters! Mybe she was played by the Liberal-Left, in the context of the “secular” politicians and their friends in the media continuing to make the Prime Minister of India someone to hate, vesting him with a bogus and negative political identity as anti-minority, a crazed xenophobic bigot who will eventually drive away Muslims, Sushma Swaraj was under pressure to walk on egg-shells while performing her job! Modiji and his colleagues are damned if they act, and damned if they don't. In this context Sushmaji had taken decisions to dispel this pathological prognostics, even bending over backwards to be nice to the individuals from the minority communities having problems where her Ministry could help. This was considered by “hard-core Hindus” as the hated "secularism" and "appeasement", and opposed tooth and nail in the social media, without knowing that these were essentially self-gaols, which also negate the good intentions behind her deeds! In the case of the Passport of the inter-faith couple, as high an authority in the BJP (and RSS) as Shri.Ram Madavji had made the matters clear in an Indian Express op-Ed piece. Shushmaji was sinned against, not sinning! 

Facts of the case of the “inter-faith couple” show that Sushma Swaraj was deliberately brought under a cloud of largely invented omissions and misdeeds. I think Shushmaji is also a victim of the power paradox that generally affects her party - a situation where political dominance can, paradoxically, reduce the ruling party’s actual power to shape and guide society, among other things. Like the neo-cons in the US opposing Trump policies, a section of “Modi-Bhakts” are opposing the Modi Gvt. They would do well not to fetter Narendra Modi and colleagues by “ideological handcuffs”  in their own interest! Remember, Modiji campaigned and came to power not promising Hindu Raj, while many issues close to the "core" support group was in his agenda. I wish his so-called support group didn't give the forces in the Opposition camp grist for their propaganda mill alleging communal fanaticism against the Modi Government to deprive BJP of political legitimacy, and to undermine the PM’s authority, making even right decision appear devices to trick the minority voters, fiercely opposed by the voters on the other side of the political spectrum.

None of the hysteria and condemnation of Sushma Swaraj that has gone on these past couple of weeks wasn’t necessary. If there was goodwill and respect for the Prime Minister, the "Sushma Swaraj hatao" crowd could have sat down to analyse the situation as Sri.Ram Madhav did. But people deliberately chose to demonize Sushmaji as if denying everything she did for the country in the past, they were doing a service to Narendra Modi! You don’t measure government decisions by hysteria. Their hysteria does not reflect a higher understanding, morality, or sense of responsibility, rather certain ongoing project of malice and low ethics, astonishingly against own side!