|
|
|
So the one-day wonder that was the Gowda government has been voted
out of power. That kichidi government of thirteen disparate
political parties should not have come into existence in the first
place. What is forgotten is that these. parties were fighting each
other in the states like dogs. Do they deny it? They came together
at the Centre on totally false promises: namely, that they were
saving India from communalism. That was a Big Lie, worthy of
Hitler's Propaganda Minister Goebbels. The communalism charge
against the BJP was intended to cover the multitude of sins of the
constituent parties that formed the so-called United Front
government. Verisimilitude to that charge was sought to be given by
the Congress which itself was anything but secular. Is this not
the same party that, under Rajiv Gandhi, sought to appease, Muslim
fundamentalists in the Shah Banoo Case? The law itself was changed
to cater to. Islamic fundamentalism. With what face can the
Congress then say that if favoured secularism?
The biggest champions of the United Front were the Leftists whose
record beggars description. In 1942, the United Communist Party
betrayed the Congress and after the Quit India resolution was
passed. helped the British police to capture and torture Congress
volunteers. Again, it was the same party that in 1946 most
vociferously championed the case of Pakistan and the dismemberment
of the country. Its extreme wing, fathered by Comrade Ranadive for
years went along with the Chinese description of India as "running
dog of imperialism. "The same wing encouraged terrorism in
Telangana while another avatar of it was to introduce terrorism in
Naxalbari.
When the Left came to power in Kerala one of the .first thing it
was to do was to form a Muslim-majority district in Malapuram. If
that is not communalism, what else is? It is. on par with Mulayam
Singh Yaday coming to Mumbai and addressing purely Muslim
audiences. Is currying favour with purely Muslim audiences an
example of secularism? What is most inexcusable was the CPM siding
with China when it invaded India. That treachery remains unrivalled
in history and not even Mir Jafer can claim to have done better..
And which are the. other parties in the United Front that claim a
clean image?
Laloo Prasad Yadav's involvement in scandal after scandal involving
not a few lakhs but crores of rupees, is there for all to see.
There is no law and order in Bihar under the Janata Dal government.
For that matter there is no law and order in West Bengal under the
Leftist government. Year after year cases of public lynchings have
been reported and as one Marxist leader has remarked, nobody has
been booked because the culprits are also CPM cadres. Jyoti Basu
has been governing, if that is the word, by sheer terrorism. Ask
Mamata Bannerjee.
Both Laloo Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav are unabashed caste-iest
bereft of a wider vision. It is this conglomeration of parties and
individuals who formed the United Front government wishing to hide
their own sins by trying to paint the BJP as the real sinner. And
who was giving support to the United Front from outside? None
other than the, discredited Congress. There is a proverb in Kannada
with which Deve Gowda no doubt is familiar: The untrue god is
worshipped by a false priest. There cannot be a truer description
of the United Front government.
No government can be built on hate. But that is what the United
Front government was doing with Its Hate-BJP campaign. And let it
he remembered: the BJP is the single largest party in parliament.
What the non-BJP political parties with any following were doing in
carrying on a smear-campaign against the BJP was to spread hatred
against a substantial section of the public that had voted for the
BJP -- a point that should never be forgotten. What is even more
farcical is the Leftist hatred of the Congress as. well. The "No
truck with Congress" slogan of the Leftists would have been
admirable if, at the same time, they had declined Congress help to
keep them in power. If Congress was so despicable, why accept its
support? But the strong point of the Communist has always been
perverted logic.
Had the United Front government chosen Ramakrishna Hegde as the
prime minister have survived. At the very least Hegde was an
honest man who had suggested cooperation with the Congress. But
Hegde was spurned. Deve Gowda claimed in his final speech on the
vote of confidence motion that he had not stabbed anyone in the
back. No one? What did he do to Hegde? The very first thing on
being named as Prime Minister was for Gowda to demand -- and get
-the expulsion of Hegde, a founding father of the Janata Dal --
from the party. In this his co-conspirators were two of the worst
caste-ists this country has ever known, Mulayam and Laloo. Hegde
was drummed out of the party with bell, book and candle. And it was
Hegde who received the renegade Gowda back into the Janata Dal fold
after Gowda had deserved it once.
The United Front was the worst combination of traitors, caste-ists
and regionalists to come to power and that spelt disaster from the
very start. It is fashionable for our intellectuals to say that
the United Front government is the shape of things to come. If
that is so, god alone can help this country. Such a government
would be the prelude to all sorts of fissiparous tendencies that
could wreck the unity of' the country. It may he that. for the.
time being. we may have to suffer regional parties. But in the end
the country needs not more than two, possibly three, parties on a
national scale. The Congress was once a. national party. Cleansed
of the Narasimha Raos, the Sitaram Kesris and others of their kind,
the Congress can still emerge as a strong national party. The BJP
is fast emerging as another national party. India does not need any
other party to muddy its waters. We don't need a United Front to
rule in Delhi with its constituent parties constantly at each
other's throats.
The foreign policy of Inder Gujral and the economic policy of P
Chidambaram have been paraded as examples of the Front way of
governing. What is forgotten are the fissions within the Front with
the Leftists gunning at the liberalisation introduced by the
finance minister. No matter what happens in the future, let the
truth about the United Front be known for what it is. Meanwhile,
will some one explain why hardly any paper reported BJP, leader
Vajpayee who said in the debate that India was secular, is secular
and will remain secular in future? Can it be that many are afraid
that quoting Vajpayee will expose the smear-campaign of the
Congress and the United Front? Some day when the BJP comes to
power, as inevitably it has to. the truth shall prevail. Satyameva
jayate, is not just a motto. It is the eternal truth.
(The author is a former Editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India).
 |
||
|
||
|
||
