Presence of a political party is not necessarily measured in a democracy by the number of years it has occupied the seat of power but its ability to influence the public opinion. BJP’s tallest leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee is recalled majorly for his contributions from the Opposition benches of Parliament than as Leader of the House in Lok Sabha.

When a political party in democracy makes into its agenda to win polls at whatever cost, people like Kuldeep Singh Sengar become important. The Unnao MLA, who has finally been arrested by the CBI for using tools of rape and murder to establish his power, doesn’t belong to the BJP culture which a Vajpayee or for that matter even his compatriot Lal Krishna Advani practiced.

Sengar was part of the so-called “Goonda Raj” of the previous Akhilesh Yadav regime in Uttar Pradesh and changed sides only ahead of the 2016 Vidhan Sabha polls. With the BJP leadership under Amit Shah following a “Green Channel” policy of allowing anybody entry into the party, the traditional leaders schooled in the Shakhas of the RSS at the feet of Goddess Saraswati are at loss of words to justify why makes Sengar so important.

The importance of Sengar can be judged from the fact that Director General of Uttar Pradesh Police, Om Prakash Singh, otherwise a cop of some eminence, had to cut a sorry figure saying that he did not arrest the Unnao MLA because there was a “mere charge of rape” against him but no proof. An helpless OP Singh could not throw Sengar into the dungeon, howsoever grave was the charge against him, because just the last fortnight the MLA had facilitated those extra votes of legislators to ensure victory of Anil Aggarwal, the BJP-backed money bag, in the Rajya Sabha polls.

Why only Sengar, BJP’s politics in Uttar Pradesh today is chaperoned by ‘Bahubalis’ like Raja Bhaiyya, Atiq Ahmed, Mukhtar Ansari and Amarmani Tripathi. It was in fact time for Akhilesh Yadav to let go the sobriquet that Samajwadi Party was a goonda party. His party’s ‘masculine’ image stands emaciated today in comparison to the BJP.

And when such masculinity becomes culture of a party, cases of rape fail to immediately raise the alarm which otherwise it warrants;how unfortunate it takesno less than the Prime Minister to tell his party’s governments in Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir to act against those perpetuating the crime.

At a function in the national Capital on Friday, Modi said, “Incidents being discussed since past two days cannot be part of a civilised society. As a country and as a society, we all are ashamed of it. I want to assure the country that no culprit will be spared, complete justice will be done. Our daughters will definitely get justice. …Such incidents, be it in any state of the country, shatter human emotions. I want to assure the nation that no culprit will be spared. Justice will be done. We all need to come together in fight against such evil of the society.”

But then what took the Prime Minister so long to speak? Probably the large turnout at the candle vigil at India Gate called the night earlier by Congress president Rahul Gandhi pushed him, realizing that the price of not speaking could be very high. If it was so, it is unfortunate. Reaction of nation’s leadership on acts of such depravity as committed against Asifa in Jammu cannot be held hostage to calculations of political losses and gains.

The only person from the BJP to speak ahead of the Prime Minister from the establishment against the heinous crimes was General VK Singh. A former Chief of Army Staff, though a junior Minister in Modi government, Singh probably is yet to sell his soul completely to the Lucifer of politics. His concern however largely went unheard and unnoticed in his party which has such outspoken women politicians as Smriti Irani, Kiran Thakur Singh Kher and Meenakshi Lekhi, who curiously suffered an impairment of their vocal chordswhen it came to defend the dignity of gender so inhumanly violated by the members of their party.

A society where dignity of women becomes tool of politics, it’s definitely a sign of it being in decline. If the votaries of Hindu sentiments needed a citation, they could turn to epic Mahabharata; the making of the Kurukshetra had its roots in such politics which led to the game of dice where the dignity of a woman was pawned without much remorse.

The agenda of Narendra Modi should have been a poverty and depravity ‘mukht’ Bharat.Overcome with the cost which a project like completely decimating the opposition levies, the BJP is set to reap a harvest which would not place it on any respectable pedestal in the annals of history. 

As claimants of the legacy of Hindu culture, the politicsof BJP has to be founded in the Upanishadic ideas of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (world is one family) and Sahishnuta (tolerance) and not rooted in law of jungle where might is right.

(First published in DB Post, Bhopal)