What can the opposition do to defeat Modi and gang?

 The latest defeat of the Uddhav Thackeray lead Shiv Sena, NCP lead by Sharad Pawar, NCP led by Ajit Pawar (even though he is in coalition with BJP in the state government, so far) goes on to show that the BJP juggernaut has become a smooth running election winning machine. The opposition is just not able to stand in the path and challenge their charge forward. They are being steamrolled to the ground.

Whatever the opposition does, they go one step ahead. Now that they have the financial clout to pay for the numerous advertisements (although one can question their efficacy), to spend on the campaigning for even the municipal elections, declaring freebies, or revdis as they called it derogatorily when it was done by the opposition, and even stooping to the level of bribing the voters by giving them money to vote for them, they seem unstoppable.

If this continues, one wonders where it will take India. Yes, in the eyes of the world it may look like it is progressing, yes and it is progressing in some sense, but the strategies adopted by this government will soon lead India into a downward spiral.

The agenda of alienating religions other than Hinduism is a huge risk that this government is taking. The agenda of trying to eliminate everything that they consider "foreign" and replacing them with what they consider "bharathiya" is another risky agenda that is being pursued by this government.

There is nothing wrong in taking pride in real achievements of India in the past and there are enough to be proud of. But resting on those laurels will be a mistake and trying to twist everything of the past through the prism of the current era is wrong. Stating that India had invented airplanes by virtue of the Pushpaka Vimana being mentioned in Ramayana, that India had invented nuclear weapons based on interpretation of slokas in Mahabharata and Ramayana etc. are stretching things beyond where they should be. Renaming of every British name, every Mughal name is not going to make Indian feel less slavish.

Revamping of education is absolutely required, but trying to rewrite history to portray Mughal kings are villains and Hindu kings are heroes is again taking things too far. Indians will forget their subjugation, their humiliation of being ruled over by "foreign" powers and will repeat the same mistake of fighting among each other. What is required is redo education to instill pride in being Indian and at the same time accepting that people are grey, not black and white and one needs to accept them with their warts and all.

Coming back to the key point how does the opposition halt this juggernaut. Here are few things they can do. All of them will be difficult paths to take, but then they have to do that if they have to win the hearts of the people.

Go to grassroots, as they like to say and establish a connect with the people, not based on their  religion, caste, gender, or language, but by understanding their difficulty and providing them solutions for the problems they face. E.g. if they are failing to secure a loan because of a corrupt official, help them raise their voice, make the corruption visible, help them take the proper legal route to get justice is what will win their hearts.

Helping and encouraging the people to maintain hygienic surroundings. Coaching them on the ills of lack of hygiene and lack of civic sense.

Educating them on the real history of the land, the real achievements of our ancestors.

Helping them break addiction to ghutka, tambaku, alcohol and helping them stay clean.

Ensuring that the people of different castes, religions and languages give up their differences and teaching them live harmoniously with each other.

Taking steps to prevent corruption in the government and highlighting every incident of corruption.

These are some of the steps that need to be done by the opposition to win the elections to come. If they do this, they need not even campaign during the elections. They can just simply register and expect to win.

The question is, will the opposing parties take these steps? Do they have the right people to adopt these steps? It is a big question and the resounding answer as of now seems to be NO.

Indians will have to live with this government for many years to come unless they blunder or the opposition wakes up and starts doing the right things.