Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
BJP SPEAKS WITH FORKED TONGUE
Sunday, it is Rajnath Singh with his call for old Hindutva baggage of discarded slogans of 370, common civil code, and the whole litany of their pet planks. Monday, it is L. K. Advani, with his more sugary, but equally transparent slogans of opening up to minorities and the suppressed castes. It is hard for the diehards to understand that they cannot fool all the people all the time.
There is no doubt that Sangh Parivar’s deep commitment to its outdated communal ideological formations have kept the party from disintegration. However, it is equally true that Indian people have shown it again and again that they by instinct and temperament are not as fundamentalists as the Brahminical hate-mongers would like them to be. BJP did win spectacular results through its well-tuned its violence-led campaigns, of Babri and post Godhra Gujarat. However, it got them as many admirers as detractors around the country, if not more. Hindutva’s core appeal is restricted to a core group. It cannot be translated to become the national obsession that could get BJP its cherished majority to rule India, without any coalition partners. India has changed so dramatically over the last 2 decades at least, that no single party can win a majority until unless it possibly organises a full scale war with one of its neighbours and reaps an concocted patriotic vote across all differences of castes, religions, regions and group loyalties. BJP was poised for such a scenario when it allowed terrorists to move into Parliament premises and stage their attack. Vajpayee had full information of that intended attack and he had publicly announced the danger, at Sharad Pawar’s birthday bash at Mumbai’s Race Course grounds, a day earlier to the parliament attack. With such advance knowledge, it is easy to guess, why the terrorists were not stopped at the very gates. However, it would appear that even for waging a war against one’s enemy in these times, for whatever motive one can imagine, countries like India need the support of other powers, unless they are moving in on behalf of such powers. That goes to prove that violence, be that Babri, Gujarat, or full fledge wars, all are temporary devices to win electoral victories. Such nature of violence cannot be perpetrated as a permanent tool to create wave of mass indignation and win votes.
BJP will have to junk its communal baggage, cleanse its warped hate ideology, and win the hearts and minds of people by concentrating on bread and butter issues. All hate propaganda against Muslims should be openly condemned. BJP should concentrate on good governance, corruption free administration, equal opportunity to all, and positive upliftment of those suffering from benign or malign neglect, by the past governments of all hues and restore a sense of respect and dignity to all Indian citizens without any discrimination whatsoever.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com
www.ghulammuhammed.wordpress.com
Labels: Babri Masjid demolition, Bharatiya Jananta Party, BJP, Gujarat genocidal riots, Hate ideology, Lok Sabha elections
