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Moral in the Gujarat story

Moral in the Gujarat story

Author: M. V. Kamath
Publication: Afternoon Despatch and Courier
Date: December 30, 2002

The moral is: In future - and for all time to come - say no to violence no matter what the provocation!

SO, who, after all, turned out to be right? On December 7th, the Kolkata-based The Telegraph noted that "faint furrows have started creasing the BJP's brow with several opinion polls in Gujarat predicting a close finish and the most rosy forecast scaling down the party's tally".

The India Today-AaJ Tak combine which conducted two rounds of opinion polls brought down the BJP's projected total to 100-110 seats from 120-130 seats projected in November. The same group's survey, carried out by ORG-MARG had predicted the Congress' new tally will be between 70-80, up from the 45-55 forecast after the first round of poll.

Interestingly, the disclosure of the new figure coincided with the survey result of another magazine - The Week, which forecast a neck-and-neck race. That survey was carried out by TN-Sofres Mode. According to The Week poll the BJP should get between 85-95 seats, the same as the Congress.

Positive shift
Earlier, Outlook magazine's poll had suggested that the BJP will win between 80 and 85 seats while the Congress would bag between 95-100 seats. And Zee TV ran its own poll and came to the conclusion that while BJP would get between 91-98 seats, Congress will get between 88-94 seats. Now we know.

Interestingly, according to the India Today-Aaj Tak-ORG-MARG survey (December 16) 51 per cent of voters think Narendra Modi will make the best chief minister of Gujarat. The November poll had said that 48 per cent thought so. Obviously between the November and December polls there has been a positive shift towards Narendra Modi's likely chief ministership.

In the November poll Shankersinh Vaghela polled only 29 per cent while Keshubhai Patel got only five per cent. Now that the elections are over and we know the results, readers can come to their own conclusions as to the reliability of the different polls. If the polls and the final results show variance, the pollsters can draw some consolation from the fact that some 29 per cent of these polled said they could change their minds before the polling date.

As India Today's editor-in-chief puts it: "Perhaps this is exactly as it should be. Opinion polls provide a snapshot of the mood on any given day but ultimately there is no substitute for the real thing. Gujarat may yet present surprises - pleasant for some and unpleasant for many."

Now that everything is over it is nice to know the extent to which one can trust the polls. But the most disturbing part of the entire process has been the hatred spread by some of the journals and dailies, notably Outlook and The Asian Age against the BJP. But credit must go to The Asian Age's editor-in-chief, M.J. Akbar for revealing the true face of Congress. In an article condemnatory of the Congress of which he was at least during Rajiv Gandhi's time a true-blue devotee, Akbar damned the party as the BJP's B-team in Gujarat. "If the Congress," he wrote, "is going to be the B-team of the BJP, why should the voter not stick with the real thing and vote BJP?" Good question.

And Akbar asked: "Why elect the fraud?". As he put it: "There is real identity between Narendra Modi and Sonia Gandhi in one critical perspective: both believe that the Hindu voter is communal and can only be persuaded by a communal dialectic. The Congress under Sonia Gandhi has decided to abandon secular politics in Gujarat and imitate Modi, albeit without Modi's unique extremism. It is a difference of degree and not content. No wonder Jawaharlal Nehru's face is missing from the lineage of Congress leaders on Congress posters. Nehru called dams and steel mills the temple of modern India. Nehru would never have buckled, as his successors have done."

And to that Akbar added something more. He wrote: "The Congress ploy in Gujarat is too clever by half. And the voter is no fool". But having condemned the Congress, Akbar also has some strong words to say about Sonia Gandhi as well. As he put it: "Who advised Sonia Gandhi to begin her campaign from Ambaji, a pilgrimage centre? What signal was she sending? That she was a devout Hindu? That the Congress was a party of only devout Hindus?... The cynicism is evident everywhere. Sonia Gandhi, as president of the party, has permitted her candidates to treat Muslims as lepers. Congress candidates and leaders shy away from being seen with Muslims in localities that are predominantly or totally Hindu. In many places Muslims have been told to keep away from the Congress offices. Why? Why is the Congress also feeding the hatred that has been created against Muslims?" However, let this be said.

In the matter of spreading hatred, Congressmen and secularists are not far behind. One has only to read the columnists in The Asian Age - does one have to mention names? - and in Outlook and in various other English dailies and weeklies to realise that spreading of hatred is no one's monopoly. Indeed the secular columnists - and that includes unfortunately Akbar as well - have not been sparing in their writings. Modi has been compared to Hitler. Columnists speak about 'pogroms', 'genocide' etc. etc. and predict that if Gujarat goes the Modi way, India is finished. As if Gujarat is India. Not one of the secular columnists have a word to say about Godhra. The focus has been entirely on Narendra Modi.

Nobody has dared to ask the question: Would there have been an Ahmedabad if there was a Godhra? Would any Gujarat citizen have raised his arm against a fellow citizen just for the heck of it? And why did Godhra happen?

There is a moral in the Gujarat - and Modi - story. The moral is: In future - and for all time to come - say no to violence no matter what the provocation. And that message is applicable to members of all political parties, castes and religion.

Incidentally, The Economic & Political Weekly (November 30) has devoted over 14 pages - something of a record - to the subject of Gujarat, Hindutva and the saga of increasing vulnerability in Ahmedabad. The approach of all the articles, needless to say, is what may loosely be described as "Leftist" and they have to be read to understand what Leftist poison can do. They are examples of how viciousness can be spread under the guise of scholarship. Sample para: "Corruption, criminalisation and communalisation created a society without values, absence of any modern, secular, socialist movement could not provide an alternative ideal of new values and the fanatical, well-organised Hindutva ideology easily fitted in and controlled the society and polity, proving that Hinduism and fascism can well go together."

Gandhi's land
Obviously in Gandhi's land Gandhi has no followers and no strong men to lead the evil Gujaratis from fascism to Congress secularism. What does that say about the Congress? And what does that say about contemporary Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi? And what does that say about our Leftists who should have been devoting their lives to changing the Gujarati psyche for, as they see it, the better? Or are they also to be tarred by the same brush of corruption, criminalisation and communalisation? What values do our Leftists possess that the fascist Hindu Gujaratis can borrow from?

And has anyone stopped our Leftist secularists from raising their own cadres to save fascist Hindus from going to sheer bell? Answer, answer!
 


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