Author: Neena Vyas
Publication: The Hindu
Date: December 25, 2002
URL: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/12/25/stories/2002122504470100.htm
The Bharatiya Janata Party today
adopted a political resolution hitting the Congress hard, alleging that
it was "going soft on terrorism,'' while it patted itself on the back for
its "commitment against terror'' and "demolishing the myth that alliances
in India cannot run stable governments.''
On the closing day of its two-day
national executive committee meeting here, the party said that its ideology
of "cultural nationalism'' (or Hindutva) had been "endorsed by the people
of Gujarat'' and it was confident that it would now "find wide-scale acceptability
all over the country.'' The Gujarat election was a "trial for cultural
nationalism'' which was very much on the future roadmap of the party, along
with economic liberalisation and development, the resolution said.
At the same time, the BJP declared
that it stood for the "protection of each and every Indian and his right
to religious freedom.'' It seems that the party had noted that the declaration
by its president, Venkaiah Naidu, on Monday that the Gujarat experience
would be replicated everywhere had been "misunderstood and misinterpreted.''
Therefore, it felt the need to state what was the constitutional duty of
every government - protection of every Indian.
Applauding the performance of the
National Democratic Alliance at the Centre, the resolution said that several
important bills had been passed, including significant economic legislation
and the Freedom of Information Bill, which would bring "unprecedented transparency
in government functioning.''
Human rights activists came in for
some sharp criticism, especially in the context of the trial of December
13 Parliament attack case. While traditionally, the human rights movement
was aimed at protecting citizens' rights against an oppressive State power,
the party said that the State under Atal Behari Vajpayee was now "benign."
The threat to human rights was from "private terror groups'' but "regrettably''
human rights groups had "decided to side with these terror groups,'' the
resolution said. The Congress was criticised sharply - the Jammu and Kashmir
Government (in which it is a coalition partner) "had decided to go soft
on terror,'' the Rajasthan Government had been unable to prevent hunger
deaths, Madhya Pradesh was an example of non-development, in Karnataka,
the Government had been unable to arrest the forest brigand, Veerappan,
and the Chhattisgarh and Punjab Chief Ministers had "demeaned the dignity
of their office'' by courting arrest in Delhi.
The important signal was the criticism
that the Congress was soft on terrorism, for the party had juxtaposed this
against its own self-declared commitment to eliminate terrorism despite
evidence on the ground that terrorist acts were in fact increasing. When
talking about Gujarat, the party resolution stated that "our opponents
considered terrorism as a virtual non-issue'' and thus indirectly justified
the BJP's high-pitched campaign against `Mian Musharraf' as if it were
a war against Pakistan that was the main issue in Gujarat.