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Gujarat: the awful price of a skewed politics
It is very easy to talk of communal harmony from Delhi and express anger about the failure of the BJP government in Gujarat and the rise of Hindu fundamentalist forces. Marches by Opposition leaders with Parliament and Rashtrapati Bhawan as backdrop, is comfortable politics. Our usual band of intellectuals take the easy route by occupying, as usual, the ‘Letters to the Editor’ columns to condemn and issue appeals. This only makes them look good in the eyes of the converted. It has no effect on inflamed mobs - only the police and the army can have that. There is a whole mass of feelings out there that all these people are missing, and will continue to miss if they remain comfortably secluded in their make-believe worlds.
Before this writer is accused of having become saffron, let it be understood that the vast majority of people in India are secular, liberal, tolerant, in other words, normal. What binds all of them is their below-the- surface love for and pride in their country. Since it is so fundamental, it has hardly needed expression.
The coming of the BJP to power in many states, and the NDA led by the BJP at the Centre, changed all this. Not because of the BJP and the ‘saffron forces’, but by the self-appointed secularists who politically opposed this combine. Herein lies the root of many pent up antagonisms of normal liberal Hindus who find that it is not the BJP that is encouraging extremist Hindus or terrorising the minorities but the out-of-power forces who must keep alive the fears lurking inside the hearts of the minorities.
In this context, two incidents stand out vividly. In early 1998, there was a totally unnecessary furore about singing Vande Mataram in schools. Patriots who are ‘normal’ rather than ‘secular’ questioned: if freedom fighters of all religions sang this in the struggle for Independence, why do the secularists oppose singing it in schools now? Did any MP object when Parliament unanimously decided to sing it at the beginning of every session as suggested by the then Speaker and now Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Shivraj Patil? It was a shame that the BJP retreated while the popular musician A.R. Rahman, a Muslim, popularised it amongst the youth.
The second incident was when Graham Staines and his sons were burnt alive. Headlines screamed and saffron bogies were desperately sought. George Fernandes was criticised for saying that the widespread publicity given to this incident all over the world only suited the conspirators abroad. The Justice Wadhwa Commission was set up. When it found no complicity of any saffron forces, there was less than muted disappointment expressed by the Opposition. Various Christian platforms were set up from where many worthy gentlemen issued statements every time an unverified incident was reported. The Staines murder became a symbol of the ‘communal’ nature of the NDA and reinforced the idea internationally that it was a ‘Hindu nationalist government’, as if those adjectives were dirty words in themselves. Since no further incidents happened and the NDA engaged itself with security, fiscal management and infrastructural development, the ‘Hindu’ label faded away.
Then came the Godhra incident. The leader of the Opposition - who made sure she was seen going to Tirupati, Kumbh and recently to visit a Hindu seer - and her party were inexplicably reticent in their condemnation of the barbaric and obviously pre-planned burning of 58 people in a railway bogey, including women and children. Considering it was Sonia Gandhi who had taken it upon herself to write to the prime minister to call an all-party meeting on Ayodhya and brought about a totally unnecessary adjournment of Parliament, on Godhra there was stubborn silence when the treasury benches begged the Opposition to join in an unanimous condemnation of the event. The frustration and anger felt by many gave rise to the intemperate actions of VHP members as also the eminently sensible and courageous sentiments voiced by Vir Sanghvi in the Hindustan Times. If the foreign-born leader of the Opposition does not sense such feelings but merely tries to be ‘politically correct’, she does not understand what is going on in Gujarat. It is this kind of skewed politics that irks the liberal Indian and activates the fundamentalist Hindus, giving rise to attacks that, for the first time, were not limited to cities and towns but spread to rural areas.
Gujarat, from Delhi’s drawing rooms, is seen as a modern, developed state with a fairly efficient administration. This is still true but local perceptions have changed. It borders Pakistan, and like the states of Bihar, UP and West Bengal, has seen the rapid rise of unregistered madrasas, plush Muslim owned hotels and a new fiercely manifested Muslim identity. People are now wary of each other and are quietly moving to different locations. If this sudden and recent prosperity was indigenously generated, why should the Muslims fear BJP rule when they were prospering under it? The fact is that in many cases this prosperity has been brought about by large sums of money coming from across the border.
This remains unnoticed to all but the normally peace-loving Hindus of all castes in Gujarat. People like the municipal councilor of Godhra, and other Muslim office bearers of the Congress party who are anti-social or foreign-funded elements taking refuge under the party banner, have spread across the state. The Hindus feel increasingly annoyed that nothing is done by the BJP government to stop their jehadi activities for fear of the secularist media, and the secularist Opposition turns a blind eye anyway. If anyone from the NDA mentions unregistered madrasas or the ISI, the Opposition response matches that of Pakistan’s President Musharraf or that of Alimuddin street in Kolkata when the hapless chief minister of West Bengal was forced by his own party to retract his factual statements.
It is a combination of this simmering discontent over perceived inaction in dealing with ISI activities along with the traditional loot and arson that takes place during riots because of animosities between rootless anti- socials and the less than adequate response of the Opposition to the barbaric and premeditated events of Godhra that kept the violence fuelled in Gujarat. The government was unable to contain it; even the Congress is unable to provide a healing touch. We are left with ridiculous demands for the state to be handed over to the army, and celebrity activists who conduct self-serving press conferences. The end result will be further polarisation and the rise of fundamentalists on both sides.
If Godhra had been adequately condemned, perhaps the retaliation would have been more easily contained. If the intellectuals and the so-called secular Opposition leave it to the fundamentalists, violence is what we will get. Whether we like it or not, they were the only ones who reflected the anger against Godhra, when both the secular media and politicians had failed.
(The writer is a Samata Party leader)
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