By Amaresh Misra,
This is the title of my new book, which will be out by March end. More about it later.
For now, I am not going to ask Government of India to show ‘300’ dead bodies of militants etc. This is no political slugfest.
Our air-force has done a good job and the matter rests there.
Questions whether air strikes across LOC reflect India’s new security doctrine, deter Pakistan or end terrorism will be asked eventually–however let us wait; the ruling establishment will launch such debates on its own.
I only have to comment on the hysteria being built about Modi’s ‘impending victory’ in 2019 elections.
Let me tell you, barring a small, right wing element, ordinary Indians are celebrating a sense of pride in their air-force.
They have not given Modi a carte-blanche.
It is ridiculous to assume such; armed action or military victories by the State, have never translated into electoral victories.
Nehru won 1952, 1957, 1962 on non-military issues. Our victory in the 1965 war against under a Congress Govt, was followed by the same party’s poor performance in 1967 General elections.
There is a misconception about 1971 war and Indira Gandhi’s sweeping victory in polls that year. Actually, Indira Gandhi won a decisive mandate in March 1971. The successful war with Pakistan took place in December 1971.
So, Indira Gandhi got no benefit of her ‘Durga Avatar’ in any election.
In fact, by 1974, despite the colossal victory over Pakistan just three years earlier, she was facing student and youth uprisings. Emergency was clamped and in 1977, the first elections to be held after 1971, she was routed.
[also_read url=”https://www.siasat.com/news/tensions-escalate-saynotowar-trends-twitter-1472189/”]As tensions escalate, #SayNoToWar trends on Twitter[/also_read]
The Kargil war was fought between May-July 1999. The Atal Government called for elections in September that very year. BJP got exact–182 seats–that it won in 1998 hustings.
In UP, which BJP should have swept post-Kargil in 1999, BJP won just 29 out of 80, down 29 seats from what it had won (58) in the state in the pre-Kargil, 1998 polls.
The momentum built by BJP’s defeat in three States has not dissipated. Farmers, youths, Brahmins, Dalit, Adivasis remain as disillusioned with Modi as they were in December 2018.
In India, city intellectuals misread people’s mood in the villages. No one believed me when I predicted Congress will sweep Chattisgarh and win Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. But it happened–no?
So trust me; I have spoken to a lot of people all across UP since the Balakot strike. Their anger against Pakistan or jubilation over strikes is NOT translating into votes for Modi.
The image of India’s PM, as a man who has not, and will not, do much for farmers, youths and poor, and who lies, has gone deep. Common people see no relationship between their innate or overt nationalism and Modi.
In 2014, hope, anti-corruption mood and communalism played a major role in Modi’s victory.
It is true that BJP gains in a communal atmosphere.
[also_read url=”https://www.siasat.com/news/heres-what-iaf-wing-commander-pak-custody-says-new-video-1472225/”]Here’s what IAF Wing Commander in Pak custody says in a new video[/also_read]
However, an analysis of people’s choices after a terror strike or a military engagement reveals that Indians tend to unite, rather than divide, at such junctures. We saw this after 93′ Mumbai blasts, Parliament attack (BJP lost 2004 elections), and 26/11 (Congress won 2009 elections).
We will see the same in 2019. When it comes to the vote, Indian people calculate hard and make a choice as per their materialistic and political needs. They can bring in a party to punish another party. But they will not hand power over to someone just because the army did well during his/her tenure.
Modi is playing a psychological game. He wants his opponents, parties and urban liberals, to surrender before the elections. It is a reprisal of the old trick, which I have warned about before, of generating hysteria regarding the invincbility of Modi and RSS through mass media. So that opposition political parties lose morale, leading to election workers, polling and counting agents leaving their posts.
This is not the pre-2014 environment. History repeats itself–first as tragedy, then as farce. Modi winning 2014 was a tragedy.
To say he shall win in 2019 is farcical.
Stay the course…don’t act silly…victory is within sight.
UP has already decided Modi’s fate…
[source_with_link url=”http://www.milligazette.com/news/16581-why-modi-will-still-lose-2019″]Milli Gazette[/source_with_link]