BJP activists denting Modi’s image

For the first time since he swept to power in a landslide in 2014, some commentators are beginning to openly debate whether Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi can win a second term.

While Modi himself remains popular, it is the antics of some members of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its more fanatical grassroots activists that are beginning to turn off many educated, cosmopolitan Indians.

This was reflected in some recent parliamentary by-election results in which the Indian National Congress and other Opposition parties took seats off the BJP, hailed by Congress as a “shift in the people’s mood” ahead of the General Election next year.

While Opposition celebrations would be premature, cracks are appearing in the BJP’s edifice of invincibility — something that is certain to be exploited in the months ahead.

Some BJP supporters are doing their party no favours with incidents such as threats made against journalists in the volatile border region of Jammu and Kashmir after reports on a former BJP Minister’s support of the accused in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl.

More recently, Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj came under a virulent storm of Twitter abuse after she ordered the transfer of a passport officer for allegedly harassing a Hindu woman and her Muslim husband.

The officer is denying the allegations against him, which include telling the husband to convert to Hinduism.

However, it is the beliefs of Uttar Pradesh’s Deputy Chief Minister that made headlines around the country, leaving many Indians, including members of the BJP, squirming with embarrassment.

In a live television appearance, Dinesh Sharma referred to episodes in the epics of ancient India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, saying he believed that as Sita, the wife of the Hindu god Ram, was born in an earthen pot, she was actually the world’s first test tube baby.

Sharma is not alone in these strange views. The Chief Minister of the remote north-eastern State of Tripura, Biplab Deb claimed the internet and satellite technology existed at the time of the Mahabharata, responding to social media ridicule by saying his critics "lacked nationalism".

Deb is also on record as saying only civil engineers should join the Civil Service; that the 1997 Miss World, Diana Hayden “was not Indian enough” and that the youth of Tripura should “open shops and milk cows” rather than looking for Government jobs. 

Modi has repeatedly said that a second term is needed to firmly establish his nation on the road to becoming a 21^st century superpower. To be sure of this he needs to reign in some of the BJP’s loose cannons with their thinking still firmly rooted in the India of myth and magic.