HVK Archives: Re: BJP unequivocally committed to secularism (Part two of two)
Re: BJP unequivocally committed to secularism (Part two of two) - Indian Express
Posted By ashok (ashokvc@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in)
27 Dec 1992.
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Title : BJP unequivocally committed to secularism
(Part Two of Two)
Publication : Indian Express
Date :Dec 27, 1992.
IT is sad that over 1,000 prisons have lost their lives
in the aftermath of Ayodhya. It is certainly a matter of
anguish. But when one compares this time's fallout with
what has been happening in earlier years over incidents
which can be considered trifling, this time's has been a
contained one. And in most cases the deaths that have
occurred have been the consequence not of an clash
between communities but of security forces trying to the
violence and vandalism of frenzied mobs.
I wonder how many in Government, in politics and -in the
media realise that their stubborn insistence on cawing
this old structure (which was abandoned by Muslims 56
years back, and which for 43 years has been a de farm
temple, a 'mosque', has made no mean contribution towards
building up this frenzy. Even so, there is little doubt
that the December 6 happenings have given our opponents a
handle to malign the Ayodhya movement as fundamentalist
and fanatic.
Amidst the hysterical breast-beating that has been going
on for over a fortnight now there have been in the media
voices of reason, a few distinguished journalists who
have tried to put the events in proper perspective, and
to emphasise that the happenings are unfortunate, but
that it is no occasion either for gloating or for self-
condemnation. In an excellent article written for the
Free Press Journal, Bombay, (December 17, 1992), Mr M.V,
Kamath, for me, editor of the Illustrated Weekly of
India, has written: "Let it be said even if it hurts many
secularists: in the last five year several temples have
been demolished in Kashmir without our hearing one word
of protest from them. There has been no hue and cry made
about such wanton destruction.... We are lectured to by
Iran and some other Muslim countries on our duties. Has
Iran ever been ruled by Hindu monarchs, and had its
masjids pulled down to make place for temples to Shiva or
Vishnu?... We should not bear the burden of history. But
neither should we be constantly pilloried. There has to
be some way to heal past wounds, but reviving the BJP or
the VHP is not the best way. The anger of the kar sevaks
has to be understood in this context. They have not gone
around demolishing every mosque in sight. It might even
be said that they were led down the garden path by Mr
P.V. Narasimha Rao who kept promising that a solution was
near, even while he was trying to pass the buck onto the
judiciary.
For tour decades, the pseudo secularists have commanded
undisputed supremacy in Indian politics. Jana Sangh's and
BJP's was, at best, a feeble voice of dissent, Ayodhya
has enabled our viewpoint to become a formidable
challenge.
Unable to meet this challenge at the ideological and
political level through discussion and debate, the
Government has pulled out of its Armour all the
usual weapons used in such situations by repressive
regimes - arrests, ban on associations, ban on
meetings etc. Demolition of the Babri structure is only
an excuse to carry out what they have been itching to do
for quite some time. After-all, all this talk about the
need to have BJP derecognised or deregistered has not
started now. Mr Arjun Singh had formally petitioned the
Election Commission in this regard more than a year
back. The Election Commission rejected his plea. Ever
since, the ruling party has been toying with the idea of
amending the Representation of the Peoples Act to achieve
this objective. Without naming either the BJP or the
RSS, Mr Narasimba Rao himself, in his Presidential
address to the Congress session at Tirupati had endorsed
the idea. When I met him and registered my protest. he
tried to backtrack, and maintained that he had in mind
only organisations like the Majlis (of Owaisi)!
Elementary political prudence should have restrained the
Prime Minister from taking the series of unwise steps he
has taken after December 6: banning the RSS and VHP,
dismissing BJP Governments or Rajasthan, HP and MP,
and
promising to rebuild the demolished 'mosque'. But then,
history keeps repeating itself in a quaint fashion.
Left to himself Shri V.P. Singh may not have obstructed
the Rath Yatra of 199(). But the internal politics of
Janata Dal forced his hand. To prove himself a greater
patron of the minorities than Mulayam Singh, VP asked
Laloo Prasad to take action before the UP Chief
Minister did so. Laloo did as he was told, and became
instrumental for terminating VP's tenure. This time it
has been Mr Arjun Singh who had played Mulayam Singh to
Narasimha Rao. The denouncement may well be the same.
In Parliament, as well as outside, a prime target of
attack for our critics has been Mr Kalyan Singh. He is
being accused of betrayal, of 'deceit', of 'conspiracy'
and what not. The general refrain is: Kalyan Singh
promised to the courts, to the National Integration
Council. to the Central Government, that he would protect
the structures New Delhi trusted his word: he has
betrayed the trust. None of these Kalyan-baitors ever
mentions that along with every assurance, there was an
invariable addendum: that he would not use force against
the kar sevaks, because he would not like to see any
repetition of the traumatic happenings which took place
in 1990 during Mulayam Singh's tenure. This has been
Stated even in the affidavit given to the Supreme Court
by the UP Government.
On December 6, Mr Kalyan Singh stuck to his stand. When
informed that all efforts at persuading the kar sevaks to
desist from demolishing the structure had failed, and
that protection of the structure had become impossible
except by resort to filing, he forthwith resigned.
When political leaders have been driven into such
difficult corners, they have been generally inclined to
issue oral orders. Bureaucrats have often had to pay the
price for such deviousness. In contrast, Mr Kalyan Singh
acted in an example@ manner. He put down his orders
about
not using force in writing so that the officers are not
punished for what was on that score. I am only trying to
point out how outraged he would have felt if, say, in
1984 he had been accused not just of a failure to
protect, but of actual complicity in the perpetration of
those horrendous crimes!
Political observers who have been feeling baffled by the
abrupt change of mood of the BJP-RSS-VHP combine from
one
of regret on December 6 to one of "determined
belligerence" from December 8 onward, must appreciate
that it is a similar sense of outrage over all that the
Government and our other opponents have been saying and
doing that fully accounts for it.
Let i also be realised that once you start circulating
conspiracy charges with irresponsible levity, the
distrust generated will ultimately boomerang, and get
back to its source. 1 was really amused to read a column
by Tavleen Singh in which she summed up the attitude of
Congressmen towards Mr Narasimha Rao in these
words:
"Those who are still with him charge him only with being
indecisive and weak. Those who are against him are
saying much more. Even ministers are admitting, albeit
privately, that the Prime Minister had adequate
information, before December 6, to be prepared for what
eventually happened. Some go so far as to charge him with
collusion with the BJP on the grounds that he is not
interested in a Congress revival in North India by this
would make it hariler for a Prime Minister from the
South. " (The Observer, Dec. 18)
Some of our critics have been comparing the demolition of
the Babri structure with the assassination of Mahatma
Gandhi. The comparison is ludicrous. But front a purely
personal angle, I can establish a nexus. I was 20 years
old at that time, and an RSS pracharak in Rajasthan.
Mahatmaji's murder also was followed by a ban on the RSS.
I was among the tens of thousands of RSS activists jailed
at that lime. I recall that the accusations and calumny
heaped on us then were far more vile and vicious than we
are having to face today. Ale tra of Godse and the
Commission of Inquiry set up later nailed all the lies
circulated, and completely ex-onerated the RSS from the
libelous charges hurled at it. The RSS emerged from that
first major crisis in its life purer and stronger.
It is not without significance that one of those who was
spearheading the anti-RSS campaign in 1948, Mr
Jayaprakash Narayan, later became one of its most ardent
admirers and protagonists. When the RSS was banned the
second time in 1975, JP and RSS became
comrades-in-arms
waging an unrelenting battle for the defence of
democracy.
In one of his speeches in 1977, the Loknayak observed:
"RSS is a revolutionary organisation. No other
organisation in the country comes anywhere near it. It
alone has the capacity to transform society, end
casteism, and wipe the tears from the eyes of the poor.
May God give you strength and may you live up to such
expectations.
Self-preservation is a basic instinct of all living
beings. Only a human being can think of and commit,
suicide. There is, however, a rodent found in
Scandinavian countries, called Lemming, which in this
context is supposed to he unique among animals, and
behaves upnaturally. The Concise Oxford Dictionary
describes Lemming as a "small arctic rodent of the genus
Lernmus... which as reputed to rush headlong into the
sea and drown during migration." To me, it seems the
Congress Party these days is in the grip of a terrible
lemming-complex!
Let the Congress do with itself what it wishes. For the
BJP, the situation poses a challenge which, if tackled
wisely, with determination. and a readiness, if need be,
to wage a protracted struggle, can become a watershed in
the history of independent India. Let us also realise
that intolerance and fanaticism are traits which may
appear to give a cutting edge to a movement but which
actually cause great damage to the movement. They have to
be consciously eschewed. Once that happens, even our
Mulsim brethren would appreciate that in India there can
be no firmer foundation for communal harmony than
cultural nationalism.
The present situation presents to the country a unique
opportunity. Let us grab it by the forelock. December 6
did not turn out to be as we expected, we did not want it
to happen that way. But then, as the famous essayist Sir
Arthur Helps has said: "fortune does not stoop often to
take any one up. Favourable opportunities will not happen
precisely in the way that you imagined. Nothing does."
Or, as Goswiami Tuisidas has put it in a somewhat
different vein: "Hoi hai soi jo Rama rachi rakha"!
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