VHP leader Praveen Togadia is not exactly a quiet and unobtrusive model citizen. But there is nothing in the rulebook that says all citizens have to, on pain of punishment, be quiet and unobtrusive. In which case, firebreathing and loud as he is, Mr Togadia is also a citizen of India, with the fundamental right to go to any part of the country so long as he does not violate rules and regulations.
If he does disturb the peace anywhere, laws exist under which he may be hauled over the coals. But he can hardly be stopped from crisscrossing the country if he so wishes, on the mere suspicion he is going to set the place on fire. Put simply, there is a difference between a pest and a law-breaker. On this, the law of the land clearly says no one can be hanged even before he slips up. If Mr Togadia seems to be scoring over his opponents, it is only because they refuse to see this. What Togadia-baiters have done is to martyrise their own quarry, giving him a lot of publicity in the bargain-the way Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot did by slapping the sedition charge on a man who wears patriotism on his sleeve. RJD supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav-doubtless charged up by Pakistani applause for his buffoonery-was the first to have the brainwave of shutting Patna's door on Mr Togadia's face: He was refused permission to hoist the tricolour on Indepen-dence Day on the 'suspicion' he would do trishul diksha and create unseemly storms (a difficult feat, by all accounts, in the chaos that is Bihar). Ever since, treating Mr Togadia as a criminal even before he commits a crime has become the hottest fad of 'secular' politicos. Recently, he was barred entry into UP by the Ghaziabad district authorities, and detained at Gajraula before being sent back to Delhi. Now, Opposition leaders in Jharkhand have caught the bug: The CPI(M-L) and the JMM want his September 5 programme disallowed, again on 'suspicion' he will play serpent in their garden of Eden.
The judiciary has other ideas, since
Mr Togadia would have to be viewed as innocent till he proved himself guilty.
The Allahabad High Court directed the UP authorities to allow him to hold
meetings in Hapur, Ghaziabad and Noida. At the same time, it put the onus
of orderly conduct on the VHP leader, a fair imposition given his past
record of unruliness. The Patna High Court too has issued a notice to the
Bihar dispensation to explain why Mr Togadia and Acharya Giriraj Kishore
were stopped from going about their business in Bihar. Indeed, the courts
need to take a consistent stand on what is clearly a disturbing trend.
That the infection is spreading is evident from the fact the Hyderabad
Police Commiss-ioner threatened last month to bolt the door against Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accused of plotting to destroy "communal
peace". If the British Home Office recently silen-ced protesters in London
by saying it had found "no grounds" to deny Mr Modi a visa, it is absurd
that a democratically elected leader should be immobilised in his own country.
The question is, should citizens require internal visas to move about within
India and be subject to arbitrary travel bans? Are they to be denied a
fundamental right just because their rivals do not like their politics,
their ideology, their style or their face? Mr Togadia's or Mr Modi's opponents
should fight them in the political and ideological battle-ring rather than
seek undemocratic shortcuts to victory. Also, since their charge of communalism
only sticks on one particular social group, they should at least appear
to be more even-handed lest the majority community gets the wrong-right?-idea.