Nayar's red flag in a sea of saffron
We, the people
Mr. Vajpayee, the swayamsevak
By Kuldip Nayar
The outcry by the intelligentsia is not because the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's mask has come off but because his liberalism has turned out to be phoney. Many feel cheated when they find him as much a torchbearer of Hindutva as anyone else in the Sangh Parivar. An RSS ideologue had repeatedly said that Mr. Vajpayee was only a `mukut' (mask). Still very few believed him because Mr. Vajpayee spoke and even sometimes acted differently from the saffron leaders. In fact, one sympathised with him, believing that his was a lone voice, lost in the cacophony of fundamentalists. It was hoped — a mere wishful thinking — that some day his voice would be loud enough to silence those who were arguing in favour of converting the democratic secular India into a theocratic state.
Doubts about Mr. Vajpayee were always there. But never before was he found out, as happened at the BJP's Goa conclave. His behaviour and contradictory statements after the Gujarat carnage have made people see him in his true colours. The question is not whether the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi should be removed or not. The question is whether Mr. Vajpayee should defend him and echo his words. The burning of Ram sevaks at
Godhra is unpardonable and the Centre is doing well to find out the killers. They deserve no mercy. But when Mr. Vajpayee says that the happenings in the rest of Gujarat were a consequence of Godhra, he repeats what Mr. Modi said to cover up his mistakes and complicity: ``Action would have reaction.'' Incidents in Ahmedabad and Vadodra were part of a well-planned and well-executed scheme of exterminating a particular community.
This scheme had been prepared long before Godhra and it would have been carried out, even without the gruesome Godhra incident. Taking Mr. Vajpayee's explanation to its logical end will mean that if some Muslim fundamentalists were to kill some Hindus at a certain place, it would be natural for Hindus to kill innocent
Muslims elsewhere. What norms the Prime Minister is trying to lay down?
And what an irresponsible statement he has made at the BJP's meeting at Goa: ``We allow them (Muslims and Christians) to offer prayers and follow their religion''. This is an excerpt which a Delhi paper published on the front page in its Sunday edition. Who are `we'? Is he justified to say so? Just because he is the Prime Minister with the help of some self-serving members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), or just because he belongs to the majority community, can he arrogate to himself the power which no one has got, since power belongs to the people living in the country?
And even if the country comes to be ruled by Mr. Vajpayee's party, it does not mean that he has the authority to dictate to the minorities. They draw their right from the Constitution as Mr. Vajpayee does. India is as much their country as his. The Constitution used the word, ``We, the People of India''.
No individual, government or party is above the people. Both the majority and the minority constitute the people.
Mr. Vajpayee has done a service by owning Hindutva openly. At least those who have had illusions about him know who he is. He is only a swayamsewak who stands to attention at RSS parades to prove that he is as obedient as any other in the Parivar and all of them believe that religion and the state are synonymous. What a
fall!
I won't be surprised if Mr. Vajpayee does not get even a footnote in history.
JPR's note:
We, the people of India, solemnly swear to uphold the constituition of pakistan and demand the constitutional rights and privileges afforded by such doctrine in the Indian constituiton, assiduously work against the interests of India and the democratic principles it stands for. Besides, our rights transcend the rights of Hindus, the subjugated race; we have the God-given right to kill, maim and burn the infidels at will for God (PBUH) has guaranteed us heaven and umpteen virgins upon our entry into His Kingdom. There is no greater service to God than to vaporize the infidels, which include Ahamadias, Kurds, wayward women, children and other assorted pretenders.
I suspect that Vajpayee has some benign thoughts on his mind for the protection of muslims, beleive it or not. The saffron brigade is too strong in North India and every action from muslims elecits equal reaction (more than equal is the norm). That being said and proven right, it is his duty to assuage the Hindu rage and thus cools things down. If one is familiar with Hindu scriptures, one would know the dynamics and the intricacies of action, reaction, counteraction, counter-counter actions. |
