HVK Archives: The tragedy of the secular debate
The tragedy of the secular debate - Hindustan Times
Jaya Jaitly
()
22 June 1996
Title : The tragedy of the secular debate
Author : Jaya Jaitly
Publication : Hindustan Times
Date : June 22, 1996
HAS the landscape changed so much from 1989 when the
BJP
and the Left parties combined with the National Front
(the real National Front comprising the JD, the TDP, the
DMK, the AGP and the Akalis) that we should come to a
situation when most of these groups prefer to cohabit
with the Congress and isolate the BJP Has the BJP become
irretrievably communal? During the 1989 seat adjustments
talks, the BJP had assured some leaders of the National
Front that no contentious issues would be raised during
the campaign and that Ayodhya was not on the agenda.
rln fact, the communal space in political parlance was
given to the Congress(I) in that election, what with the
shilanyas being allowed in Ayodhya, Ram Rajya being
promised and the Bhagalpur riots still fresh in
everyone's minds. There was also Bofors to highlight
corruption. The result of the 1989 election was similar
to that of 1996 as it gave no party a mandate on its own.
Mr. V. P. Singh - who likes not only to be the
conscience-keeper and agenda maker for the nation but
also its ideologue and soothsayer - announced lately that
the Indian democracy had matured and that the era of
coalitions had come about. It was the same Mr. V. P.
Singh who steadfastly refused to accept a coalition of
the Left, the NF and the BJP in 1989 despite the people's
mandate for a coalition being manifested even then.
India was ready for- a coalition but Mr. V. P. Singh was
not, despite the late Madhu Limaye and Mr. George
Femandes, at that time a closeally, pleading with him
that if a stable government was required he should take
the BJP and the Left into a coalition based on a common
programme. The BJP was more than willing to join a
coalition while the Left asked for three months to
decide. One of the many inconvenient questions Mr. V. P.
Singh does not address is why he refused to do so, but
preferred instead to dine and consult with his two
supporting partners once a wee..
Mr. L. K. Advani has said that the then Prime Minister
never raised the issue of implementing the Mandal
Commission recommendations at the dinner that week in
August 1990. In fact, the members of the Ciibinet did not
know it was to be announced either although it had been
written into the 100-point programme of the party before
the polls and was part of every party's manifesto. The
socialists had insisted upon it. It was never Mr. V. P.
Singh's personal agenda, and it cannot therefore be
claimed as his personal achievement. If he had allowed
the entire party as well as his coalition partners to
share the glory of such a momentous act of social
engineering, the ensuing caste wars, casteism,
immolations, splits, messianic posturing, arrogant
aberrations and mandir madness would have been
avoided.
Maybe this is too utopian a wish and realpolitik calls
for crafty moves but somewhere in between lies
statesmanship which is not too much for citizens to
expect of their leaders.
If the Mandal Commission implementation had been
brought
about by the coalition, it would have brought responsible
action and responses. there could have been Mandal
without Mandir, and the Babri Masjid may well have been
standing today without the Congress interregnum of scams
and bulldozed reforms being foisted on the hapless people
of India. despite it being a minority government at the
outset.
Now all this is past. Mandal forced the Mandir agenda and
December 6, 1992 became the watershed after which the
secular-communal debate, quite rightly, raged across the
country. The act of destruction and the gloating amongst
the lumpen was an ugly and unnecessary part of
contemporary history. The horror among the non-
politicised secular Hindus was justified. The Muslim
psyche was deeply hurt and people died in subsequent
riots. But is Muslim pain the only measure of
communalism? What about those other ghastly dates, June
6, 1984 when the Golden Temple was blasted by an order of
the Government, and not by the act of lumpen kar
sevaks? And what about the selective, concerted attacks
on Sikhs on October 30. 31 and November 1, 1984 when
police and political workers of all levels of the
Congress blatantly encouraged the killing of Sikhs? What
could have been more ugly and communal than these
attacks on the psyche and the body?
The Congress(l) election campaign advertisements a month
later sought to instil fear of the Sikh "neighbour" or
the "taxi driver" in our midst and was as nasty as the
"garv se kako hum Hindu ham" slogans that came up on the
walls in Bombay after 1990. Rajiv Gandhi even justified
the carnage and government-sponsored fascism. Yet the
Communist Party of India supported the Congress(l) in
1984 and scuttled many a citizen's probe into the
identity of the perpetrators. it was clear that
realpolitik rather than secularism was the motivating
factor at that tinic, and that there exist some strange
undiscernible measures to gauge levels of communalism.
Maybe, it is the percentage of voters of the minority
community that really matters. What could be more
cynical and more tragic?
Over the past six months one important change in the
structural functioning of the BJP has gone almost
unnoticed. Instead of being united and disciplined in a
manner that brings words like "fascist conformity" to
mind, where rows of khaki shorts are conjured up before
one's eyes, a healthy dissent is visible Aithin the BJP
ranks. We see fisticuffs very similar to what happens all
the time in the janata Dal or the Congress. Any party
which has a bunch of dissidents who can get themselves
heard bodes well for the democratic functioning of the
party. In most parties the fights take place in the
absence of organisational discipline, inner-party demo
acy or ideology. The BJP has all three and yet a Gujarat-
type of dissidence could take place. Should not one be
reassured by this normal face of a political party?
We seem to ignore the very important fact that the 1996
elections were the least corn munalised. In 1984, we had
the Sikh killing and Indira Gandhi's assassination
hanging in the air. In 1989, apart from Bofors, we had
Rajiv's Ram Rajya, the Congress promising Mizorani a
Christian state, the Shilanyas at Ayodhya, the Shah Bano
episode and the Bhagalpur riots to polarise Hindus from
others. In the 1991 elections the mandir movement was at
its peak after Mr. L. K. Advani rath yatra. But in 1996,
for once after 12 long years we had an election with no
communal tensions or overtones at all. All the issues
were totally secular, namely the cit of economic reforms,
stability versus chang and good governance versus scams
and corruption. The only violence and tension that took
place were the "traditional" forms of murder and mayhem
that accompany elections In Bihar and clashes between
party workers in West Bengal. Even the Kashmiris were
peacefully coerced into voting by the security forces.
The Shiv Sena chief, Mr. Bal Thackeray, had become a
friend of TADA detenus, Mn Advani's yatra this time wad
about Suraj while Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao listlessly
pontificated about stability being needed for
prosperity. Mr. V. P. Singh and his colleagues kept
retorting that stability did not mean the opportunity to
carry on with corruption (except of course by Mr. Laloo
Prasad Yadav)
With the campaign free of communal passions, the voters
actually concentrated on the good and bad of economic
reform, the ugly face of hawala and other forms of
corruption. Apart from these issues, the people of Rajas-
than voted 50:50 to express their wish for better local
governance. Haryana voted for the Jats who they felt
could provide a peaceful and efficient administration.
Maharashtra voted for the continuance of what they had
Bihar voted to warn Mr. Laloo Yadav that they would not
tolerate his casteism and arrogance, U.P. reflected
social groupings, Karnataka was satisfied with the janata
Dal. Orissa was not impressed with Mr. Biju Patnaik
anymore and Tamil Nadu said "enough, is enough" to Ms.
Jayalalitha. So it went from State to State, the voters
delivering a secular mandate with not a communal virus in
sight, until all hell broke loose when the Congress and
its "secular" partners, along with their business tycoons
and mafia dons, discovered that they could soon all be
keeping company with Chandraswami, et al, if their
various deals saw the light of day.
Good governance instead of contentious issues was what
the "communal" party and its "secular" allies offered,
but good governance needed the elimination of corruption
as the sine qua non for it to succeed. Therein lay the
rub. So now we are back to normal, read secular, where
the CBI can file a petition against the High Court's
order to be more effective in prosecuting the guilty in
the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha payoff. The PM-designate Mr.
Devi Gowda could fly to and fro on work in Mr. Ambani's
private aircraft, accompanied by the liquor baron Mr.
Mallya. Mr. Deve Gowda's son. a first time MLA, can be
made a Cabinet Minister in Karnataka and occupy an office
without prior allotment, and Ms. Sonia Gandhi is Sister
Munificent again. Everyone looked the other way in Bihar
in the name of "social justice" while politicians and
bureaucrats looted its treasuries and now the country is
expected to look the other way while the Scamsters United
carry on, all in the name of secularism. Therein lies the
tragedy.
(The writer is general secretary of the Samata Party.)
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