By Nalin Verma / The Wire
Patna: Attack on ‘sanatan dharma’, ‘infiltration (of Muslims from Bangladesh)’, cancellation of holidays for Raksha Bandhan and Janmashtami, and ‘appeasement (of minorities)’ constituted the central themes of Union home minister Amit Shah’s speech at Jhanjharpur in Bihar on September 16.
Ever since Nitish Kumar dumped the Bharatiya Janata Party and joined the Mahagathbandhan – now the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) – Shah has visited Bihar four times. He has invariably addressed public meetings in Seemanchal-Purnia and Kishenganj bordering north Bengal and Bangladesh and Mithila regions – both in north-east Bihar with a relatively denser concentration of Muslims.
Jhanjharpur is a part of the Mithila region, known for Madhubani paintings, saint-poet Vidyapati’s songs, the religious discourse between Aadi Shankaracharya and Mandan Mishra, the age-old culture of eating paan-maachh-makhan (betel leaves, fish and lotus seeds) and, most importantly, communal harmony. The regions have never witnessed large-scale communal violence in the past. But Shah showed little interest in what had kept the people strung for centuries.
“The INDIA alliance is humiliating sanatan dharma. The Nitish government has specifically targeted Hindu festivals by cancelling holidays for Raksha Bandhan and Janmashtami [the holidays had been restored when Shah spoke]. The infiltration [of Muslims from Bangladesh] will increase manifold if the Narendra Modi government doesn’t return to power in 2024 and the BJP doesn’t replace the Nitish government in 2025,” Shah said.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi falsely claimed that his government had built the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Darbhanga, inviting severe criticism for what Bihar’s deputy chief minister, Tejaswhi Yadav, termed “white lies”. There is no AIIMS at Darbhanga. Shah shifted the blame on the Bihar chief minister for allotting a “low lying field” for the project.
Shah fervently appealed to the people to bring Modi back to power for a third term in 2024 but escaped from mentioning Modi’s promises to Bihar, including a special package of Rs 125 lakh crore that the prime minister had announced at his election meeting at Arra ahead of the 2015 assembly polls. Among many of his lofty promises specific to Bihar, Modi had also promised to make the fruits- and vegetables-producing Vaishali region the “hub of the food processing industry” ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
This story was originally published in thewire.in Read the full story here
