Author: Tarun Vijay
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: March 27, 2009
URL: http://news.rediff.com/column/2009/mar/27/guest-column-tarun-vijay-on-dynasty-and-the-varun-effect.htm
Those who opposed the Ayodhya temple movement,
wore silence over the plight of Kashmiri Hindus, damaged the Ram Sethu and
denied Lord Rama ever existed, denied the violence at the Godhra railway station,
and embraced the butchers of 1984, are collectively gunning at Varun Gandhi's
political life.
Column after column by Padma Shris in the
media have created an atmosphere where supporting Varun has become a sin.
Why? The simple reason is that the farmhouse of Gandhi-Nehru politics has
been broken and a scion of the family chose to speak out as his conscience
directed.
More than what Varun said or didn't say, it
is the hurt and bewilderment over the loss of a Gandhi to the saffron brigade
that has made the media and anti-Hindutva politicos react with such venom
and acid. He was not heard, not given a chance to present his case, nor did
forensic experts examine the so-called proof in the form of a CD containing
his speech.
Varun has suddenly dwarfed the media-supported
Rahul.
Nobody has ever heard a dynasty member to
say with understandable assertion that he or she is a Hindu. Rather, they
have always tried to look differently at things. They banned Hindu organisations,
imposed the Emergency, removed basic human rights, never willingly facilitated
the Sikh massacre probe, rewarded hardened criminals, made alliance with those
who were convicted for murder or were facing scandalous charges, had the Muslim
League join the government after Partition. Yet, they are nice, decent, peace-loving,
patriotic democrats who love to tell others: 'Go read the Gita.'
When Indian soldiers were fighting Pakistani
marauders in 1947, we didn't have enough jeeps. So orders were placed with
the British company and supply demanded immediately. Our high commissioner
in London V K Krishna Menon, Pandit Nehru's blue-eyed boy, messed it up. The
jeeps reached a year late.
That was the first scandal in independent
India.
We lost Gilgit, Baltistan and Skardu. We lost
Aksai Chin because the government in New Delhi didn't know the exact boundaries
and so no patrolling was being done there.
In all we have lost 125,000 square km to the
Pakistanis and Chinese during Congress rule.
Plus we had a bad dream called 1962.
At that time our ordnance factories were making
coffee machines as Pandit Nehru openly argued against having a well-equipped
large army for defence. 'Who is going to attack us?' he would ask.
And people still remember the mysterious death
of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who simply wanted Kashmir to be a part of India
like Bihar or Bengal and the permit system to enter the valley be abolished.
Kashmir had two rulers then, its ruler was called Sadr e Riyasat or 'head
of state', and it had a prime minister. Mookerjee's martyrdom compelled the
Nehru government to remove the permit system and the two heads of state.
Then we had the Mundhra scandal, the Nagarwala
case, the L N Mishra murder. The Jana Sangh's fast-emerging leader Deendayal
Upadhyaya was murdered. A Congress leader canvassed openly against the official
Presidential candidate and supported her own choice as independent nominee.
The original Congress symbol was a pair of oxen. After the official Congress
broke up, they got the hand as a temporary symbol till the case is finally
settled. It would never be.
Opposing Sonia Gandhi's sudden rise in politics
only on the grounds of her foreign origin were leaders like Sharad Pawar and
P A Sangma. Old Congressmen still feel sad that they lost dynamic and promising
leaders of substance like Rajesh Pilot, Madhavrao Scindia and Jitendra Prasada,
who could have steered the Congress on an entirely different and strong nationalist
course. And a veteran like Sitaram Kesri was humiliated no end.
The only non-dynasty prime minister to run
a Congress government for full five years successfully was insulted even in
his death and his body-in-state was not allowed to enter the Congress headquarters
in New Delhi. An airport in his home state to be named after him was opposed
to by Congressmen although the proposal was put forth by an Opposition leader.
This is how they treat their party leaders
not belonging to the family. They amended, abused and twisted the Constitution,
put the entire Opposition behind bars for an undisclosed period and were harsh
on the unyielding masses.
Yet, they are the democrats and secular lighthouse
of freedom of expression and liberty.
They kept India backward in such a planned
manner that even after 62 years of independence we are yet to have a spacious
functional airport in the national capital, 70,000 farmers committed suicide
in one year, decorated soldiers returned their medals in protest and a movie
on our poverty-stricken 'slum dogs' fetches the Oscar. And they loved illegal
infiltrators for the sake of their votes -- and still they say they are the
inheritors of a freedom struggle that demanded the ouster of aliens.
No electoral reforms, no police reforms or
strengthening their morale and weapons, the administration is still run the
way it functioned during the Sahebs; and despite having won a well-fought
war in 1971 we couldn't settle the Kashmir issue or control the jihadi tail-wagger
in the neighbourhood.
Minorities were so well supported in Congress
regimes that in the sixth decade after independence they felt a need to provide
special crutches for them. Show the 'M' card and get the privilege, became
the new secular psalm, further shrinking the space and opportunities for the
condemned majority.
More than anything else they tried to wreck
the morale of the assertive Hindus who faced the onslaught of invaders for
12 centuries with unparalleled bravery and with invincible spirit to protect
their culture and the fragrance of the land. They deserved to be comforted
most after a fractured independence and a massacre that was thrust upon them
by a weak Congress leadership. Yet, a large section of Hindus today feel cheated
and anguished.
They form governments in 12 states, prove
they can run the country beautifully with a coalition of 25 parties with diametrically
opposed ideologies. And one of their Swayamsewaks unfurled the tricolour six
times from the ramparts of the Red Fort as the prime minister, impressed world
leaders and the international media with a record of infrastructure-building,
communication revolution and women's empowerment, chose a Muslim to be the
President and conducted Pokhran II by fooling the CIA's 'eyes', and resisted
extraordinary world pressure and sanctions.
Yet, they are called anti-development, anti-women,
even anti-social. In not a single so-called mainstream media outlet are their
views published, but every news item is scanned to hurl stones on them through
editorialising on the front-page.
Still, they are the very objective face of
our independent media.
The choicest abuses used by 'decent guarantors
of the freedom of expression' columnists and editorial-writers can be collected
as a bouquet of India's uncivilised lexicon, yet their films against the very
spirit of Hindu nature get widely supported by a regime that survives on Hindu
money and votes.
Their love for development and secularism
is so deep that they can send dredgers to destroy a million years of faith
and marine life because that was Ram Sethu, but won't dare to touch a six
feet by six feet dargah in the middle of the road blocking the highway and
causing accidents, for fear of annoying a vote-bank.
And then they say, they are the future of
India.
- Tarun Vijay is Director, Dr Syama Prasad
Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi