The debacle faced by BJP at Ayodhya-Faizabad is a big loss of face for the party and the broader Sangh Parivar.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

– George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.

‘Zor ka Jhataka Dheere Se Lage‘ (roughly translated ‘powerful jolt felt lightly’)

The catch line of a song – or perhaps a famous ad campaign – very well describes the reverses faced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently held Lok Sabha elections.

From a bombastic claim of ‘400 paar’ – not even getting majority within Parliament has proved to be an anti-climax.

This climb-down and now the compulsion of aligning with mercurial allies has led to strange reactions from its own cadre.

Social media is rife with such posts where this nascent frustration with the results mixed with anger is very much visible. Not so unexpectedly, it has suddenly spilled over – not to the ‘usual suspects’ – but fellow Hindus themselves who are being chastised for not showing unity at critical junctures. Names of stalwarts of the project of ‘Hindu Unity’ are being invoked to make this point and underline how ‘disunity’ has always been in their bones and it is natural that they have remained ‘enslaved for hundreds of years.’

What is worth noting is that ordinary residents of Ayodhya – the same city which they yearned to turn into the ‘undeclared capital of Hindu Rashtra – especially its Hindus have become an easy target of their attack. The fact that they voted out a BJP candidate, who had held the post for the earlier two terms, by more than 50,000 votes and elect a candidate of their choice, a veteran leader of the Samajwadi Party, is being construed as their ‘disloyalty’ to the ‘Hindu Unity’ cause. A torrent of hate and vitriol has been unleashed against them, abusing them, humiliating them in very many ways. 

( Read the full text here : https://www.newsclick.in/waterloo-ayodhya-whos-stigmatising-hindus-now)