HVK Archives: The agony and ecstasy of saving secularism
The agony and ecstasy of saving secularism - Organiser
Saticarus
()
29 June 1996
Title : The agony and ecstasy of saving secularism
Publication : Organiser
Author: Saticarus
Date : June 29, 1996
IT is an excruciatingly painful experience when you have
to say a good word about someone you love to hate. So
Tavleen Singh has Satiricus's sympathies.
After berating, ridiculing, reviling, abusing and
condemning the BJP fools and the RSS Fascists to her
secular heart's content she now says the BJP Government
at the Centre "could really have worked very %yell", that
"Mr Vajpayee's Government would have done a good job of
governing India". The agony writing this must have
caused the lady is of course unimaginable for a
coarse and callous communalist like Satiricus. The
situation is only slightly saved when she says she is
only reporting the "of-the-reword" opinion of assorted
political leaders with whom she hobnobs on terms of
equality. Even then should she have mentioned such
alarming absurdities? Could there be any thing good
about the BJP-let alone a good Government? A BJP
Government',would have been a Hindu. Government- that
is, a Government that looks upon Indian Muslims as
cultural Hindus. Frenchmen in the West, Chinamen in the
East and Indian Muslims like M.C. Chagia in the middle
may say exactly the same thing, but when the BJP says
so-- it, becomes the most rabid Hindu fundamentalism
-Fascism-cum-foolishness. So how could these BJP
Hindus-
cum-fools: provide a good Government?
Even the Marxist comrades, says Tavleen Singh, "concede
that the BJP would govern well, but quickly add that this
is not important when weighed against their communalism
drawback. In other words, dear readers, secularism takes
precedence over governance "which is
extremely dangerous". Why? Why should anything be
dangerous when there is no danger to secularism? Does
the lady not know that that secular Government is the
best which governs the least? Is that not how we have
preserved our secularism for the past half a century? Was
not secularism the whole porn as Deve Gowda said in a
television interview, of 13 or 14 or 16 Kaurava
warriors' united jehad against a 10-day old Abhimanyu?
So in the considered opinion of 'Satiricus the lady
super-scribe and famous fifth columnist is being
strangely dense when she calls secularism sans
Government a dangerous development.
In fact Tavleen Singh's obtuseness becomes curiouser and
curiouser when she says secularism is not enough (Ya
Allah!), people also need things like drinking-water and
roads and buses and so on and so forth-in short, an
economic programme, a social welfare programme. Now,
does
she mean a United Front Government should have a united
economic programme? The UF Prime Minister and his
Finance
Minister say Rails economic reforming will continue the
UF Prime Minister even said he could grasp the importance
of these reforms in fifteen minutes flat, while all
comrades roundly condemned liberalisation till the other
day Jyoti Basu calls Rao morally corrupt but both these
parties are supporting the UF Government-
including its economic policy-from outside. 'Does
Tavleen Singh not see the fun of it? In Calcutta
Marxists and Congressmen are killing each other, but in
Delhi they shake hands and support 'the UF. In other
words the UF economic policy is able to please all and
sundry simply because it is conspicuous by its absence.
In still other words, my dear lady, a secular
Government does not have to bother with such irrelevant
headaches as a unified, cohesive 'economic policy. It war
different with the BJP. The BJP Government
being by definition a communal Government,
talked of drinking water schemes, roads, electric power
and even a project to identify five crore of the poorest
families for immediate special assistance. See? This
communal Government had all the time for such stuff and
nonsense, when it should have
concentrated all its attention on expiating the sin of
communalism.
Anyway Satiricus satisfied that secularism is all
that matters and with the coming of the UF Government
it has been saved from the jaws of a communal death. But
Satiricus is admittedly a dimwit and he should be
pardoned for being puzzled about one thing. The thing
that has flummoxed him is-how many brands of
secularism are there and which one has been saved?
Satiricus knoivs at least two brands-the secularism of
Prime Minister V.P. Singh standing with folded hands
before the Imam Bukhari of Delhi's Jama Masjid, and
the secularism of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao finding
it a "sensitive" issue when the High Court orders the
demolition of unauthorized with that same mosque. Now
that V.P. Singhs Janata Dal is a 13th (or is it 14th?)
bit of the central power will Deve Gowda opt for that
brand? Or better still, will he opt for that secularism
which could embolden the. Muslim League of Hindusthan
declare in ringing tones in Parliament that day of the
BJP's coming into power tvas a 'rational tragedy? To
niake confusion worse confounded in Safiricus's already
befuddled brain Congress spokesman Gadgil has now
called
upon the Congress to rethink its secularism, which has
been rejected by both Hindus and Muslims. Oh well, when
a certain brand of soap does not sell well what do you
do? You don't improve the product, you give it a new
packing. And you sell it cheaper by the dozen - like the
parties presently in power.
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