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Kuldip Nayar, the leading light of the anti-BJP media pack, seems
to be quite unhappy at the Delhi High Court's order quashing all
charges against Shri. L.K. Advani (along with the Congress leader
Shri V.C. Shukla) in the so-called Hawala case. So unhappy is Nayar
at Advani's acquittal that he would not mind wearing his malice on
his sleeves. For, it is, difficult to believe that the ace
journalist has not read press reports about intense questioning of
some of the members of the Advani family about their financial
affairs to locate the whereabouts of the alleged 'Hawala' payments
in the early phase of the CBI enquiry. Ignoring all that, he
charges that the CBI has not gone about its investigation work
seriously. (Vide his column in the Indian Express. dated April 14).
Meanwhile, Nayar who generally tailors his columns to the
requirements of the pro-Pakistani lobby, has been very unhappy for
another weighty reason-that the Sangh Parivar has nude 'Secularism'
a dirty word in India. For, in another recent column in The
Hindustan Times (April 10), Nayar has let off steam against "most
Hindu intellectuals" who he says have fallen a prey, to the
'pressure' of the Hindutva lobby. What kind of pressure in the
absence of any state power with the Sangh, he does not specify.
Obviously, it is the power of superior 'Hindutva' ideology and of
pristine truth against the Niagra of black lies that the Nehruvian
brigade has been letting loose for over four decades. However,
always ready to favour the Pakis against the Na-Pak Hindus. Nayar,
for whom now Jinnah is the secular role model, laments that while
the Paki intellectuals are changing their spots, the Hindu ones are
straying from the straight path of Pseudo-secularism. Obviously he
cannot see the difference between chalk and cheese. Let me quote
what Nayar actually says in The Hindustan Times (April 10) :
"Just as most Muslim intellectuals were swept off their feet when
the demand for Pakistan was put forward, most Hindu intellectuals
have also caged in before the pressure of Hindutva. One's own
community, one's own religion, one's own people-this is such a
heady wine that the best of people get drunk. Unfortunately, when
Muslim intellectuals are coming out (of) the state of intoxication,
although the hangover is still there, Hindu intellectuals are
beginning to stagger. The ones in Pakistan want to interact with
their counterpart in India. They feel gratified over the travel
concessions made by New Delhi. But so closed is the mind of the BJP
and its ideologues that they have protested against the steps
towards people-to-people contacts. Little do they remember that Mr.
Vajpayee had suggested soft borders when he was India's foreign
minister (1977-79)."
Though Nayar misinterprets Vajpayee's bold bid for normalisation of
relations with Pakistan as a suggestion for 'soft-borders', he
cannot complain that BJP is anti-Pakistan. And yet he fails to draw
any correct lesson from the aftermath of that generous bid for
normalisation followed by some similar exercises by Indira Gandhi.
What happened after that? While Zia launched a peace offensive
lulling India to sleep, he quietly prepared for a deadly proxy war
against India under cover of profuse friendly professions. The
deadly terrorist war claiming nearly a lakh of lives besides
countless destructive acts in Punjab and Kashmir, still continues
in Kashmir. But Nayar and his gentlemanly friend, the ex-card
holder Inder Kumar Gujral have not the guts to ask Pakistan to stop
it before any kind of talks. For they have accepted the proposition
that this is all normal Pakistani activity and India need not
quibble over it, much less challenge their right to do so.
The bankrupt 'Gujral doctrine'
On the other hand, what we actually find here is a hysterical
propaganda for what is called 'Gujral Doctrine'. Now what is the
anatomy of this new tangled doctrine? In the words of a columnist
in The Pioneer, it means : "Ask not what Pakistan can do for you,
but what you can do for Pakistan." Which means Indo-Pakistan
friendship will always be one way street. We should allow hordes of
Pakis to come in every day to visit hundreds of their holy and
historical places, while they grudge and obstruct even two visits a
year of a handful of Hindu yatris to just two holy Hindu places of
Katas Raj in Pakistani Punjab and Sadhu Bela in Sind. Meanwhile,
forget about the fate of a few lakh Hindus left as museum pieces in
Pakistan.
This is the Pseudo-secularist version of friendship which the
awakened Hindu rejects and is abused for it.
In Gujral's own words, his much-vaunted doctrine means 'unilateral'
friendly gestures, meeting Pakistan 'more than half way'. and, to
cap it all, a 'saintly attitude' towards Pakistan. A
pseudo-secularist writer has elaborated this 'saintly attitude'
very correctly-by citing the story of 'The Hermit and the Scorpion'
(of Hittopadesh) in which a hermit vainly tried to save a scorpion
drowning in a flooded river at dire cost to himself. Every time
the sanyasi lifted the scorpion in his hand, he was bitten and
compelled to drop it. But the hermit did not lose patience like our
own Pseudo secularists. He lifted it up again and again and was
bitten again and again and this went on and on. But one can imagine
this plight-knowing as we do what is happening to Hindu India under
the secularist dispensation.
So one can only mourn at the bankruptcy of these gutless
secularists, abject-models of selfishness. For, they have not to
pay for such Nehruvian follies being committed right since 1947.
Who pays for it? The poor Hindus of the countries of course while
the fat cats of the Muslim votebank manipulate the secular parties
and yet keep screaming against Hindu communalism to extract more
and more like so many Oliver Twists. While the Kashmir valley has
been cleared of all 'Na-Paks', hordes of infiltrators are running
riot all over India. But the moment you open your lips against it,
you are branded communal-Fascist.
But why this sea-change in the situation? And why this
saffronisation of the Hindu intellectual despite at least four
decades of Nehruvian brain-washing? The doomed tribe of
pseudo-secularist dare not pause and ponder. Well, if they ever ask
the common Hindu, he will tell them : If the country does not get
rid of the millstone of Nehruvian secularism soon. the fate that
has befallen Nehru's own 'Pandit' community in Kashmir, will befall
the Hindus of whole of India as well. Put it in your pipe, Mr
Pseudo-secularist and smoke it.
However, to give the Devil and the Devil's Advocate his due, Kuldip
Nayar is correct at least in one respect-his complaint of "most of
the Hindu intellectuals" turning saffron. Some examples may be
given here.
Commenting on BJP's decision to form a coalition with the BSP in
Uttar Pradesh, columnist Narendar Pani (of the Economic Times)
reject the charge of 'opportunism' against the BJP and says the
party seems to have realised that "political morality is a weak
weapon in Indian politics, for as other parties had decided before
it that the Indian electorate does not really reward political
consistency and rarely punishes those whose actions are primarily
decided by political convenience." There was the additional factor
of the immense power of state patronage being appropriated by
Mulayam Singh through the agency of a pliable Governor, says Shri
Pani.
However, unlike some other columnists, Mr Pani does not dismiss the
'Mandir' issue as of no consequence any more. In fact, he hits the
nail on the head by pointing out that while the Mandir issue may
have been "just one manifestation of a larger search among a
section of Indians for an aggressive Pan-Hindu nationalist
perspective, the calming of emotions on the temple issue does not
mean, (that) the search by a section of the population for an
aggressive Hindu nationalist party has ended."
Which in effect means that the emotional Mandir issue might have
receded in the background after for the time being after serving
the purpose of heightening the Hindu nationalist consciousness, it
continues to be potent factor in sustaining the BJP appeal. What is
however more important the particular Hindu search for aggressive
political projection has not vet ended.
Meanwhile, in an editorial entitled 'Ideas and Conduct', The
Statesman (Delhi, April 4) has questioned the legitimacy and
efficacy of the secularist parties' high-handed ways of fighting
the 'communal forces' by simple not allowing the BJP to form a
government anywhere.
So, the BJP cannot be fought by depriving it of its legitimate due
but by convincing its support base of a better ideological
alternative, which, the paper says, secularist parties are unable
to do. In popular opinion secularism has come to mean "ideological
bankruptcy of insincere politician", it says.
Further, the secularists are trying to cover up their impotency at
the mass level by indulging in a game of numbers, without
projecting a coherent secular idea. Their secular actions only
strengthen the BJP, because their conception of secularism only
boils down to "periodic concessions to the minorities, mainly
Muslims". This strategy is rejected and resented by the people,
inter alia, because it has "failed to bring the minorities into the
mainstream". In fact, people take them as "insincere political
gestures made by ideologically bankrupt people. The secularists
can do nothing to define secularism except mouthing "cliches" about
"protecting minority interest", or banning books or protecting
places of worship.
This negative approach only fans Hindu nationalism says the paper.
But 'Hindu nationalism' is not the only attraction of BJP. It is
fortified by "promise of a strong, clean and ideologically
homogeneous government", despite BJP's own problems like in
Gujarat, according to The Statesman.
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