Surprise of surprises: there is evidence that the Congress is learning from experiences, howsoever tardily and reluctantly. Those who fail to see this, criticize the grand old party for not being at the forefront of the struggle against the Citizenship Amendment Act. It is very likely that the party realizes in retrospect that it committed a tactical blunder in configuring resistance to demonetization, of which the people of India were victims, into a party agenda. In doing so, the Congress played into the BJP script. It reinforced the BJP version that it was a body-blow to the corrupt in politics. Opposition parties resisted demonetization, that is, because they had black money. What was clearly a searing grievance of the people got distorted into a hobby-horse of a political rump. Resistance to demonetization got discredited because Rahul tried, as the public was made to believe, to reap a harvest of optics from it. It couldn’t have played out better for Modi.

There is a good reason why it took such a turn. Modi had already succeeded flatteringly in demolishing the credibility especially of the Congress to represent the interests of the people. He was aided and abetted in this by the Congress itself with its alienation from the people and the aura of arrogance that several of its public faces flaunted under UPA-2. Ironically, its better track-record under UPA-1 only served to sharpen popular hostility; for it provided a point of reference. It is like AAP being more vulnerable to public ridicule for lapses that would be readily overlooked in other parties because it proposed for itself an idealistic identity and code of governance.

By the time demonetization hit India, opposition parties had lost, or were robbed of, the credibility to resist it on behalf of the people. It did not take, therefore, extraordinary skills to sell demonetization as a blow struck on behalf of the aggrieved people of India against corrupt politicians who were the reason for their miserable plight. This version was lapped up by the people, especially the lower segments of the society simmering with a sense of under-privilege and betrayal. They welcomed the prospect of having to suffer – short term pain – for the compensatory reward of seeing the people of privilege pulverized with demonetization. So, even when 119 people perished in queues, and no king of corruption was ever seen standing and suffering anywhere, popular endorsement of demonetization continued unabated. BJP swept the UP assembly polls on the momentum, besides that of the surgical strike, of demonetization! Any other party would have been trounced for this ‘monumental blunder’ as Manmohan Singh termed it.

This is helped to a vast extent by the outcome of the Assam NRC enumeration, in which a majority of the affected were non-Muslims. The Assam fiasco sent out a message to the country at large that anyone and everyone – recall what happened to the relatives of a former President of India in Assam – can be its victim and that it could turn out to be a messy, costly trauma.

In the meanwhile, Amit Shah got carried away by the extent of his success which paled even the iconic status of Modi. It is no exaggeration to suggest that CAA marks a point of momentum-shift from Narendra Modi to Amit Shah.

The emergence of spontaneous people’s resistance is the healthiest thing that has happened in Indian democracy in a long while, even if it betokens the disabilities of opposition parties. It is like the Freedom Struggle without a Gandhi to catalyze and direct it in person. The people are themselves the populace and the Mahatma. The presence of the Mahatma corresponds to the peaceful nature of the resistance offered and sustained. This should be a school of learning for opposition parties. The spirit of true resistance –in which truth expresses itself as non-violence – is incompatible with vested interests. The opposition parties earn for themselves the sobriquet of tukde-tukde gang because of their inability to rise above their petty, divisive interests and electoral calculations even when the country is on fire. The people see through this with growing indignation. The traditional, and hypocritical, excuse for not putting up a united front of resistance to anti-people measures is that, in the calculus of regional politics, this could favour BJP. Frankly, the common man is not convinced! Nobody is. The emergence of spontaneous popular resistance is, in that sense, a popular vote of no-confidence against opposition parties. It is a sign of mounting pan-Indian desperation. And it is significant that the youth are the nucleus of this unrest.

One thing is certain. The spirit of resistance is basic to democracy. This raises a fundamental question: Is democracy incompatible with Christianity? Can Christians be participating citizens of a democratic country? To be a citizen is to be part of a political community, sharing common ideals and responsibilities. Do Christians have to be – as individuals and as churches – parasites in a democratic society, benefiting from its advantages and shirking its duties? If Christians choose to be parasitical citizens, do we merit the rights and privileges of citizenship? “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus said, “If the salt loses its saltiness, it is good only to be cast out and trampled underfoot by men.” It reflects poorly on Christianity that we understand its spiritual discipline in relation to citizenship in such a way that we are, de facto, salt without its saltiness in the national context.