HVK Archives: Let harma be your anchor, Mr PM
Let harma be your anchor, Mr PM - The Pioneer
Sandhya Jain
()
December 7, 1998
Title: Let 'dharma' be your anchor, Mr PM
Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: December 7, 1998
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has not acted a day too soon
to assert the majesty of his office vis-a-vis his party and
associated groups, and assure citizens' particularly minorities,
that his Government will be responsive to their legitimate
concerns. In a masterly statement, he has called for national
reconciliation on Ayodhya and dissociated his party and regime
from recent unsavoury incidents involving Christians. For a
regime hitherto remarkable for its inability to set and pursue
its own goals, this affirmation, coupled with the resonance
emanating from the simultaneous Cabinet expansion, should mark
the end of the creeping paralysis that held the administration in
a vice-like grip over the past few months.
In his affable and unassuming manner, the Prime Minister has
evolved a new idiom of politics, which writers like myself
believe is imperative if he is to be true to the moral
underpinnings of this troubled nation, and not de-legitimise the
mandate that put him in office. Thus, shunning abrasive rhetoric,
he has asserted his Government's commitment to dharma (symbolised
by restoration of the sanctity of the Ram Janmabhoomi), and
despite painful reversals in the recent Assembly polls'
reiterated the BJP's commitment to the country's civilisational
ethos. For a man maligned as both indecisive and ill at case with
his party's most celebrated agenda, this is no small act of
innovation and courage.
In this vein, Mr Vajpayee has condemned recent acts of violence
on Christians, promised action against the guilty, and clarified
that his Government and party have no hand in them. The Prime
Minister has wisely said that ours is a land in which all faiths
enjoy respect, "Sarva panth sambhav", not merely because of legal
rights enshrined in a modern-day Constitution, but because of our
millennia-old national culture. It is a distinction our minority
brethren, nourished as they are nowadays on a diet of separate
identity and reverse apartheid, would do well to appreciate.
The Prime Minister has said, nothing new. Yet his statement
displays remarkable sagacity as, for the first time, a leader of
his status has politely though publicly maintained that "every
citizen has the fullest freedom to practice his beliefs so long
as they do not interfere with another person's right to do the
same. Strengthening communal harmony and the secular fabric of
India is the responsibility of all" (italics mine, The Pioneer,
December 6, 1998). Mr Vajpayee has thus stated that minorities
too, must conduct themselves with restraint.
He has also, for the first time since Independence, averred that
citizens' right to practice their beliefs is limited by the
similar rights of other citizens, and is not absolute. Writers
like myself have consistently held that the depressed, backward
sections that are frequently targeted by monotheistic faiths are
victims of an assault on their dignity and self-respect. Their
very identity is abused and denied under the protection
mistakenly provided by the secular state.
The founding fathers provided freedom to practice and propagate
one's faith in the historic context of Partition, in which a
sizeable Muslim community remained in India and feared for its
safety, culture, and religious freedom. Unfortunately, on account
of the electoral compulsions of our early rulers and their
dependence on minority votes, we have since been put through a
double bind. First, Jawaharlal Nehru floated the bogey of
majority communalism to keep the naturally dominant community
disempowered. Then, freedom of religion-the right to make an
informed choice about one's personal religion and the right of a
community to propagate the tenets of its faith among the
believers-became perversely equated with the right to
proselytise.
Today, anyone who dares to call conversions a human rights
violation and an infringement of the freedom of religion of
another person(s), runs the risk of abuse. Yet, in the
international arena, following stout resistance by the Russian
Orthodox Church to the raiding of its flock by rival Christian
churches, a realisation is dawning that there may be some merit
in this argument. Indeed, as the world community introspects on
the merits and shortcomings of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights on its 50th anniversary, scholars and religious leaders
are debating if there should also be a "right not to be
propagated to by another faith". India's secular intelligentsia,
that loves to ape the west, should note this development.
My point is that while all religions derive from a universal
Truth, they are not equal, as is claimed by secular
intellectuals. Paramhansa Yogananda observed that all religions
do not derive equally from the same level of divine insight. The
argument that all religions are equal (that is, virtually the
same) is a ruse to weaken Hindu pride in the Sanatan dharma and
enfeeble their resistance to mass conversions. It is also very
one-sided, applicable only to Hindus, as neither Muslims nor
Christians extend the courtesy of equality to pagan, idolatrous
Hinduism.
This should bring home to all concerned about the nation's future
exactly what India stands to lose in terms of its civilisational
heritage if we can with equanimity countenance the notion of
Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister. It is not just that this will
give missionaries, middlemen and corrupt Congressmen a free rein.
India's moral fibre and ethos will be completely sapped; its very
essence lost to secularism, scientific temper; globalisation, and
the vulgar compulsions of the ballot box. A pointer of things to
come can be seen in the proposal to reserve 10 per cent of party
posts or minorities, for despite their reservation, Congressmen
have reacted with silence.
Having manfully asserted himself for dharma, the Prime Minister
needs to pay attention to artha (the health of the economy). He
should remember that Hindus place artha prior to dharma. It was
the sustained denial of the legitimacy of both dharma and artha
under socialism that caused a reaction under the banner of
dharma. But this does not mean a negation of artha in the Hindu
view, as seen by the powerful reaction to the prices of
vegetables in the recent polls.
In this connection, the Prime Minister has done well to reiterate
his Government's commitment to the Insurance Regulatory Bill,
disregarding objections from his party's associate groups.
Although the RSS and its final bodies have a right to their
opinions, their intemperate statements damage the regime, as
rightly pointed out by Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde.
Cabinet decisions cannot be overturned by a diktat from the
Swadeshi Jagran Manch.
Mr Vajpayee can spare himself great embarrassment if he improves
coordination between his Government, party, and associates, as
well as allies. it is a sad spectacle to see. one or other ally
publicly claiming ignorance over decisions like a Cabinet
expansion. Whatever the initial problems with some allies, today
the Government has survived the adverse impact of the Assembly
polls because its allies stood as firm. They deserve respect.
They must also have a voice in the establishment of bodies like
the National Security Council among others, where appointments
made by the Prime Minister's Office have alarmed the Government's
well-wishers. There is also a need to know why men like Rahul
Bajaj, who gave the BJP legitimacy when it was seeking corporate
sector endorsement, was ignored when the Economic Advisory
Committees were set up. I will conclude on the note that BJP
leaders are consoling themselves over the Assembly reverses with
the sop that the voting pattern shows a trend towards two-party
rule. They would do well to bear in mind that a single
percentage swing can turn this mythical bipolarity into one-party
dominance.
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