Former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the explanation was unacceptable and minced no words in doing so. “ICHR Member-Secretary’s explanation for the omission of Jawaharlal Nehru from the first digital poster to celebrate 75 years of independence is ludicrous…After bowing down to prejudice and hate, it is best the Member-Secretary shuts his mouth,” said Chidambaram.
Though ludicrous, the very fact that ICHR’s had to come out with an explanation is the existential crisis BJP and more particularly Modi suffers from. They cannot afford to remove Nehru’s legacy from India’s history even if they have the power and inclination to do so. On the one hand Modi wants to fulfil Golwalkar’s dreams by turning the idea of India we got from Nehru-Gandhi on its head and take India on a 180 degree reverse direction, unwilling to go down in history books as someone who simply carried forward the previous government’s work. On the other hand, in the attempt to establish RSS’s Hindutva project, he runs the risk of destroying democracy and turn India into a fascist nation ruled by a tinpot dictator, too big a risk in geopolitics.
Yet another manifestation of this existential crisis was when the Union government announced that India will help Hindus and Sikh refugees from Afghanistan (owing to the ongoing crisis after Taliban takeover). It was soon assumed that Muslim refugees would not be helped owing to the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA) which excludes Muslims. Minister Hardeep Singh Puri even went ahead and claimed that CAA was necessary for such situations. But in reality, CAA is not helping anybody. It is a defunct law since its Rules have not been framed yet. Moreover, it only applies to those who entered India before 31 December 2014. India’s existing laws which does not have any religious conditions are being used to give shelter to Afghan refugees of all religions.
Modi’s existential crisis is that he made CAA to establish himself as the Virat Hindu Hriday Samrat who changed the secular nature of India’s citizenship laws and established Hindu Rashtra. But in the larger scheme of things, he cannot afford to do blatant religious discrimination in accepting refugees.
Caught in this dilemma Modi’s breakthrough solution is to dismantle everything only to rebuild them in his own image. So, the Planning Commission is replaced by Niti Ayog, Prime Minister’s Relief Fund is replaced by PMCARES, the old parliament building will be replaced by a new one, previous government’s policies and programs are renamed, Nehru Memorial would have to make space for other Prime Ministers, all the assets Nehru built would be sold to cronies…the list goes on.