370 degrees of seduction

Article 370 is set to dominate the Maharashtra Assembly election campaign Home Minister Amit Shah harped on it at Goregaon a week ago as did Bharatiya Janata Party working president JP Nadda in Pune and as will Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he returns from the United States where the KashmirterrorismPakistan triad swirled around himCall it 370 degrees of seduction a gambit of the BJP to outclass all suitors for the Maharashtrian voters affection The BJPs chatter over the annulling of Art 370 is designed to enhance the partys charm swamp the voters mind with emotions and have her or him press the button with the lotus on the EVM machine in a swoon Seduction games are always about controlling the mind of one who is being wooed to make her or him neglect her or his needsThis is why Maharashtrians should examine Article 370 for the benefits accruing to them They have been victims of terrorism in the past as during the audacious serial bomb blasts of 1993 and the grisly 2611 attacks The KashmirterrorismPakistan triad is bound to resonate with them even though no terror incident has rocked the state since July 13 2011 when Mumbais Opera House and Zaveri Bazaar were bombedEven terror incidents in Kashmir have dipped from the high of the 1990s According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal which monitors fatalities in terror attacks 69 security forces and 34 civilians died in Kashmir in 2010 The United Progressive Alliance was in power at the Centre then The death count thereafter did not cross 100 until 2016 when 14 personnel and 88 security personnel perished It jumped to 181 in 2018 with 95 jawans dying The count is already a hundred for this yearThe rising tide of deaths in Kashmir has to be at least partially ascribed to the Modi government which has been trumpeting the annulling of Art 370 as the final solution to terrorismMaharashtrians should compare the death toll in Kashmir with the figures of farmers suicide in their state to acquire a perspective on nationalism which Art 370 is touted to bolster In a reply to activist Jitendra Ghadges Right to Information application the Maharashtra government said that 14034 farmers or eight a day took their lives between 2014 and 2018 Of them 4500 did after the State announced a mammoth 34000crore loan waiver in June 2017 State largesse doesnt seem to check people from courting death Why will Kashmiri secessionists being offered development behave differently from farmersOnly a virulent form of nationalism prioritises one type of death over another It has made the farmer disappear from the poignant slogan of Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Nationalism is an ideology required to bind a nation to kindle hope among those buffeted by the harshness of their existence Nationalismonsteroid is an opiate which spawns visions of a resplendent future awaiting the nation enabling its proponents to lull the voter into ignoring the possibility that life could turn bleakerBleak the average Maharashtrians life has been for a while Agriculture and allied sectors are estimated to grow by just 04 in 20182019 down from 31 the year before and regressing to the level of 20122013 Maharashtras share in the national industrial output declined from 163 in 201415 to 148 in 201617 The growth rate in the States industrial sector is expected to fall to 69 next year from 76 in 201718 Maharashtrians constituted 129 of all employed Indians down from 136 in 201415 A slowly economy will likely shrink employment opportunities for Maharashtrians more than for those in other States largely because theirs is among Indias most industrialised pocketsDown down economy up up nationalism The opium of nationalism has been distilled from Art 370 by the Central government Does it make sense even for those high on it to credit the State government Or vote against Imran Khan in Maharashtra for hurling indippers to Modi in New York But the seduction game doesnt end there To edge out other suitors vying for the voters affection they must be projected as worthless and obsessed with their own interests Think of the probe ordered against Sharad PawarFear of rejection has the seducer to behave less cockily and focus on the one being wooed Monday Blues suggests to the Maharashtrian to keep the BJP on its toes to not give it a threefourth majority in the Assembly as Shah has predicted his party will win The reader will point to the absence of a credible alternative Press the NOTA None of the Above button then Maharashtra ought to resist 370 degree of seduction which by definition is ephemeral The state as also India needs care not imaginary fears and fantasies of grandeurThe writer is a journalistThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates