The #AwardWapsi campaign and the memorandum on intolerance that was presented yesterday to the president are both of a piece. The campaign has rapidly sprouted contributors from home, abroad, and from different walks of life. But with the politically crucial Bihar Legislative Assembly election coming to an end on November 5, will it begin to peter out? Was the campaign really all about Bihar in the first place? Because if it was, it might have been barking up the wrong tree.
In mofussil Bihar, quite taken up by Modi’s promise of vikas and money from the centre, a clamour in Delhi may not be of interest to any nonplussed man, woman or beast.
It is, after all, a noise about the freedom of expression, beef, milk, the undoing of the Nehruvian narrative, isolated Dalit and Muslim killings, the lies told by Nehru about Subhash Chandra Bose, Robert Vadra being investigated, RSS men supplanting faithful Congress nominees, the FTII, Shiv Sena with its black paint, etc.