HVK Archives: Agonising over BJP's stylised exit - A letter
Agonising over BJP's stylised exit - A letter - Economic Times
V. V. Manoj Kumar
()
8/6/96
Title : Agonising over BJP's stylised exit - A letter
Author : V. V. Manoj Kumar
Publication : Economic Times
Date : 8/6/96
Sir: Abheek Barman's article `Last Train to Auschwitz'
(The Evonomic Times, 31 May) is a classic example of the
imagery one can conjure up when one is burning within
oneself with impotent rage. Since resorting to labelling
and demonising their ideological opponents is what the
Commies do when all else fail, Barman is, in all
probability, belongs to that tribe. The poor man.
Probably he is unable to stomach the fact that Vajpayee's
stylised exit in the parliament won him and his party
many new admirers in the country. One can understand the
agony of the likes of Barman.
Nevertheless, let us accord his piece some dignity, and
examine it a bit more closely. In the first place, it
lacks sophistication, which is amazing considering the
fact that traditionally, the `secularist' argument relied
more on sophistry than substance. Barman should have
known that the compare-with-the-Nazis idea is an old hat
by now. That it sounds trite and vulgar. Even Mulayam
employs the same technique!
And then Barman contradicts himself. At one point he says
that Vajpayee didn't mention uniform civil code et al to
put up a liberal face, and at another, he mentions that
Vajpayee defended the RSS to discomfit the kichdi.
Surely, a liberal is not supposed to defend the RSS?
And then there are things that Barman wouldn't mention.
For instance, that Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism-Maoism were
the inspirations behind the genocide of millions. Should
the dictators of the proletariat ever grab power - God
forbid it! - they may "enter the parliament only to
destroy it from within" as Namboodripad asserted in the
`50s, or they may gun down unarmed student protesters
with armoured battle tanks at, say, Chandni Chowk. Or
they may recreate good old Siberian camps in distant
Ladakh.
Also, he wouldn't picture the Reds conceding that
`Kashmiris' constitute a separate nation, given the `40s'
precedent of their sympethising with the two-nation
theory. He wouldn't portray the Commies siding with China
in a future border row, despite the fact that they sided
with the British and stabbed the Mahatma in the back
during the second World War.
He wouldn't conjure up devilish images of the Congress
engineering an emergency-after all, hadn't they done it
earlier?-and packing off Advani and Vajpayeee to prison.
(Or, would he rather love it?).
Also, he wouldn't paint gory pictures of burning young
bodies, of rising caste conflagrations, and of Mandal
pyres being lit all over again. Nope, he wouldn't.
It Mr Barman's capacity to visualise is rather limited,
the reasons for that are not far to seek. That sinking
feeling of one who knows one is losing a major
ideological battle goads one to employ below-the-belt
tactics, to make that one last ditch effort of invoking
the demons and to disburse propaganda clothed in
intellectual pretensions.
Hyderabad, 1 June.
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