HVK Archives: Power at any cost
Power at any cost - The Hindustan Times
Kuldip Nayar
()
10 April 1997
Title : Power at any cost
Author : Kuldip Nayar
Publication : The Hindustan Times
Date : April 10, 1997
That the Bharatiya Janata Party should find it necessary to contradict
the news about its support to the United Front or to the Congress during
the forthcoming no-confidence motion is a sad commentary on the party's
credibility. People have come to believe that it can go to any extent
for power or politics. Their suspicion is not misplaced because of the
manner in which the party changed its stance in UP.
Till a few weeks ago, the BJP attacked the Bahujan Samaj Party for
depraved politics. Mr L. K. Advani and Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee did not
like even the abuses which Mr Kanshi Ram and Ms Mayawati hurled at
Mahatma Gandhi, whose role has been condescendingly accepted by the RSS,
the BJP's mentor. And there was horror over the contempt the BSP showed
against Brahmins.
But the same BJP leadership, comprising Brahmins, has pocketed insults
in a matter of days. The party was simply keen on tasting power. And it
was as opportunist as any other Party in offering the main share to the
BSP to be in the Government. The same Kanshi Ram and Mayawati became
angels. They now join the BJP's confabulations on how to stall an
understanding between the United Front and the Congress or how to woo
some regional parties to capture power at the Centre.
The BJP has covered the same ground in Punjab. During the militancy in
the State, the Akalis were villains. The Anandpur Sahib resolution
asking for more powers for the States was the biggest danger to India's
unity. Now the some Akalis are its closest ally. The BJP has preferred
to look the other way when the Akali Dal-led Government reiterated its
demand for the Anandpur Sahib resolution. The BJP's satisfaction is
that it represents Hindus in the State and the Akali Sikhs, little
realising the dangerous fallout of such a dictum.
But then dividing the country into religious groups is what the BJP's
philosophy is all about. It assails Muslims because without depicting
them as an enemy, the party cannot play the card of security. Why
Mohammed Ali Jinnah was able to catch the imagination of Muslims before
partition was the fear on which he played. The community came to believe
that it would be safer in a smaller Muslim country than in a
Hindu-majority secular India. At that time the Hindu was depicted as an
enemy. The BJP is a carbon copy of the pre-partition Muslim League.
Hindutva is another version of Pakistan, that of Hindus. The argument
runs like this: The Muslims are their own masters there, the Hindus
should be masters here.
Just as most Muslim intellectuals were swept off their feet when the
demand for Pakistan was put forward, most Hindu intellectuals have also
caved in before the pressure of Hindutva. One's own community, one's
own religion, one's own people - this is such a heady wine that the best
of people get drunk. Unfortunately, when Muslim intellectuals are
coming out the state of intoxication, although the hangover is still
there, Hindu intellectuals are beginning to stagger. The ones in
Pakistan want to interact with their counterparts in India. Obey feel
gratified over the travel concessions made by New Delhi. But so closed
is the mind of the BJP and its ideologues that they have protested
against the steps towards people-to-people contacts. Little do they
remember that Mr Vajpayee had suggested soft borders when he was India's
foreign minister (1977-79).
Through all the diversity of religions in this country runs an
underlying unity, a conception of Indianness, which battle cries like
"Bharat me rahno ho to Vandemataram Kahana hoga" (if anybody wants to
live in India, he has to say Vandemataram) are trying to destroy. What
India represents was once beautifully described by Yehudi Menuhin, the
violinist, in a letter to Nehru. He wrote: "When I myself think of
India, I think of a quality specifically Indian which in my imagination
holds something of the innocence of the fabled and symbolic Garden of
Eden. To me India means the villages, the noble bearing of their
people, the aesthetic harmony of their life."
He said: "I think of Gandhi, of Buddha, of the temples, of gentleness
combined with power, of patience matched by persistence, of innocence
allied to wisdom, of the luxuriance of life from the oxen and the
mangoes; I think of the innate dignity and tolerance of the Hindu and
his tradition. The capacity of experiencing the full depth and breadth
of life's pleasures and pains without losing a nobler resignation, of
knowing intimately the exalted satisfaction of creation while remaining
deeply humble, are characteristics peculiar to these villages."
Revivalism of Hinduism does not mean more temples or talk of Hinduism
being in danger but the reassertion of its ideas and philosophy, its
spiritual values and moral standards, and of a yearning towards a higher
realisation. A comment of Alberuni, a traveller who recorded the
history of ancient India, is significant. After visiting Mathura and
other places he wrote that the Hindus did "not desire that a thing which
has once been polluted should be purified and thus recovered." But
communalising Hindu society is no way to strengthen Hinduism. It can
lead to the disintegration of India. Without secularism, there is no way
to sustain democracy and without democracy the country will not stay
one.
My feeling is that the Government is most to blame for communalism which
is developing in the country. What is good for national purpose should
be applied uniformally. There should be one policy towards all
communities and there should be no distinction made on account of any
being in minority or the majority when it comes to implementing it.
For example, the oath of loyalty taken on joining the defence services
is parochial. Sikh recruits are administered the oath on the Guru Granth
Sahib, the Sikhs' holy book. The Geeta is used for the Hindus, the
Quran for the Muslims and the Bible for the Christians. This is a
strange practice. When the President of India, the supreme commander of.
the defence forces of the Union, swears by the Constitution,
irrespective of the religion he professes, why do the recruits not do
likewise? By appealing to different religious sentiments, the government
cannot but expect a feeling of separateness.
The BJP has got into a groove, a groove of communalism. It has already
contaminated the North and it is trying to spread the same venom in the
South. But it must realise, if it has not done so far, that it cannot
come to power at the Centre by Hinduising the society. It is a
dangerous game that the BJP leaders are playing. What kind of India
will it be where the minorities have the feeling of mere subjects, not
equal citizens; as the Shiv Sena-BJP combination is doing in
Maharashtra. The BJP has a role if it sheds communalism and adopts the
national movement's ethos: not mixing religion with politics.
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